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Abstract
Although it has been commented that public relations academics should link their work to the needs of the industry, the general views of public relations scholars on various aspects of the academic-industry interface are unknown. To address this, we conducted a survey of 966 public relations academics. Findings showed that the respondents, overall, were in favor of building closer ties with the industry to advance the field, but certain opinions varied by education level and extent of professional experience. In addition, major conceptual dimensions in this academia-industry relationship were identified. Implications, recommendations, and directions for future research are discussed.
Notes
1A reviewer noted that several of the cited examples of the literature are rather dated. Where possible and relevant, we have cited a mix of both older and newer works to reinforce the notion that these issues are not only a recent concern.
2The survey instrument with specific measurements is available upon request from the authors.
Note. Higher scores predominantly indicate stronger agreement with the statements. *Denotes difference significant at .05 level in one-way ANOVA.
3Variables with categorical responses were not included in the factor analysis. A few other questions were also excluded in the final analysis reported because they did not fall under any of the significant factors in the initial analyses and had low face validity to be considered as part of any factor. These questions included: “Practitioners have little/no incentive to build relationships with academics;” “Practitioners participate in academic organizations;” “Practitioners consider ‘gut feelings' as more useful than academic research;” and “Most academics are interested in collaborating with practitioners on research.”
Note. Higher scores predominantly indicate stronger agreement with the statements. *Denotes difference significant at .05 level in one-way ANOVA.