Organizational Structures and Their Relationship with Communication Management Practices: A Public Relations Perspective from the United States

Abstract

This study contributes to current theory-driven research in strategic communication by expanding our understanding of organizational—or meso-level—variables important to public relations practice. Meso-level refers to the organizational level of public relations practice and focuses on the skills and knowledge of public relations practitioners, their role in management, their reporting lines, and the organization of the public relations function (J. E. Grunig, 1990; Holtzhausen, 1996). This study posits that organizational design is related to public relations practice and is affected by management-type behavior. It provides empirical evidence that public relations management behaviors, specifically practitioner role enactment, decision-making behavior, and perceived department leadership style, are interrelated and affect organizational structure.

Notes

This research was funded through a grant from the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations.

¹For an elaboration why public relations theory is relevant to strategic communication see the two articles in this issues as well as Hallahan, Holtzhausen, van Ruler, Verčič and Sriramesh (2007).

²See Dozier & Broom (2006) for a comprehensive analysis of the application of roles theory in public relations.

³Due to space limitations the sampling, data collection, and data analysis procedures are not repeated here. Please see Werder and Holtzhausen (2009) for a comprehensive discussion of the research process followed in this multidirectional research project.

⁴A detailed analysis of the results of the factor analysis and resulting scale reduction procedures for the practitioner role measures is provided in Werder and Holtzhausen (2008).

⁵The analysis of leadership style measures used in this study was reported in previously published research (Werder & Holtzhausen, 2009). Composite measures for transformational and inclusive leadership styles were used in this study for hypothesis testing.