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Defining and Refining the Core Elements of Management in Public Relations/ Corporate
Communications Context: What do Communication Managers Do?
Paper Presented at the 11th International Public Relations Research Symposium,
Lake Bled, Slovenia , July 1-4, 2004
Danny Moss
Manchester Metropolitan University
Andrew Newman
Manchester Business School
Barbara DeSanto
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Abstract
The concept of a dual typology of ‘manager and technician roles’ in public relations
(Dozier, 1984) has provided researchers with a useful conceptual framework for examining
and explaining the work performed by public relations practitioners over the past two
decades. In recent years, however, the adequacy of the way in which the manager’s role has
been conceptualised in public relations has been questioned (Moss, Warnaby and Newman,
2000; Moss and Green, 2001), particularly in terms understanding the relative importance in
the public relations context of what management scholars have identified as some of the more
generic elements of management, and in terms of distinguishing between managerial tasks
and responsibilities and managerial behaviours.
This paper reports the findings from the first stage of an international collaborative research
programme which is intended to map and compare what constitutes the main elements of
management performed by public relations/ communication practitioners working in a range
of organisational settings and also in different cultural contexts. In this sense, the study seeks
to identify the commonalities and differences in the way the managerial role in public
relations manifests itself in different organisational settings. This first phase of the study
examines the findings of a survey distributed to more than 1000 UK-based practitioners
designed to identify and explicate the main elements of managerial work performed by public
relations/ communication practitioners- what public relations/ communications managers do.
Here factor analysis revealed a five factor solution, interpretation of which the researchers
believe provides a new and more appropriate conceptualisation of the key dimensions of the
communication manager’s role than is perhaps offered by the traditional manager role
typology first advanced by Dozier (1984) and subsequently adopted by other roles
researchers.
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Moss, Newman & DeSanto
Defining and Refining the Core Elements of Management in Public Relations/ Corporate
Communications Context: What do Communication Managers Do?
Danny Moss
Manchester Metropolitan University
Andrew Newman
Manchester Business School
Barbara DeSanto
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
INTRODUCTION
This paper reports on the first phase of a programme of international collaborative research to
identify and explicate the managerial dimension of the work performed by senior
communication/ public relations practitioners. Here the study builds on the established,
largely US-based literature relating to public relations practitioner role enactment that has
emerged over the past two decades in particular (e.g. Broom, 1982; Broom and Smith , 1979;
Dozier, 1984; Broom and Dozier, 1986; Choi and Hon, 2002; Creedon, 1991; Culbertson,
1991; Dozier and Broom, 1995; Hogg and Doolan, 1999; Lauzen and Dozier, 1992; Toth et
al, 1998). This study also draws heavily on the authors’ own previous research into senior
practitioner role behaviour in particular, which has raised questions about the efficacy of
traditional conceptualisations of the manager’s role in public relations ( Moss, Warnaby and
Newman, 2000; Moss and Green, 2001; DeSanto and Moss, 2003). Here, for example,
Moss, Warnaby and Newman pointed out that relatively few role studies have sought to
differentiate between the roles and responsibilities of practitioners operating at different
‘levels’ within organisations, namely between the work performed by senior and middle or
more junior communication managers/ practitioners. In one of the few studies to focus
specifically on the work of communication directors in organisations, Dolphin (2002)
examined the profile of PR directors in UK companies and identified a number of necessary
characteristics of successful communications executives, which included such attributes as:
good communication and listening skills, judgement, integrity, common sense, and the ability
to get on with people. Although based on a relatively small sample, such studies highlight the
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need for further investigative research that can go beyond conventional role definitions and
uncover the core elements of the work pattern of senior communication managers as well as
their necessary skills and attributes.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Research into practitioner role enactment in public relations undoubtedly represents one of
the dominant themes within the public relations literature. The rapid growth of interest in
roles research over the past two decades, in particular, has built on the pioneering work of
Glen Broom (Broom, 1982; Broom and Smith, 1979) and David Dozier (Dozier, 1984;
Broom & Dozier, 1986). Reviewing the roles literature reveals a number of major themes that
have continued to attract the attention of roles researchers. In addition to the main question of
identifying and classifying the practitioner activities in terms of roles typologies, specialised
interests has centred on key themes such as the issue female gender discrimination in terms of
salary inequalities and the effect on practitioner career advancement (e.g. Cline et al, 1986;
Creedon, 1991; Toth & Cline, 1989; Toth and Grunig, 1993; Toth et al, 1998; Choi and Hon,
2002). Other significant sub-themes to emerge within the literature include: role enactment
and the status and power of public relations units in organisations (Lauzen, 1992; Lauzen and
Dozier, 1992); practitioner involvement in strategic decision-making (Broom & Dozier,
1986; Dozier, 1986); practitioner use and involvement in evaluation research and
environmental scanning (Dozier, 1984; Hon, 1998); and practitioner involvement in issues
management (Lauzen, 1993).
Research over the past 5-10 years in particular has begun to highlight some of the chief
limitations of the traditional role typologies (e.g. Culberston, 1991; Toth et al, 1998);
emphasising, for example, the need for a more dynamic, process perspective of role
enactment rather than treating roles as static categories into which practitioners are ‘pigeonholed’ (Culbertson, 1991, p. 62). Some scholars have also called for a re-examination of how
the managerial dimension of practitioners’ work, in particular, is understood (Leichty and
Springston, 1996; Moss, Warnaby and Newman, 2000). Leichty and Springston have
challenged the value of the manager-technician typology, suggesting that a lot of meaningful
information may be lost by categorising practitioners as either simply managers or
technicians. Moreover, they suggest that the public relations manager scale “lacks a coherent
theoretical justification” and that the 18 items comprising the management role scale might,
in fact, be labelled “the everything other than technical activities scale” (p. 468). Moss,
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Warnaby and Newman also criticize the appropriateness of the original 24 role item scales as
a basis for identifying the managerial dimension of practitioners’ work, highlighting the
failure of most roles scholars to distinguish between ‘managerial tasks and responsibilities’
and ‘managerial behaviours’. Grunig, Grunig, and Dozier (2002) have acknowledged that
there is no simple answer to which approach to measuring practitioners roles is best, since
roles are essentially abstractions of reality, which makes their measurement inherently
problematic. Moreover, they also acknowledged that the ongoing evolution of the
communication profession suggests that “the original 24 item role set needs constant
reinvention through intensive observation of what communicators do”(p. 323). Here a
comparison with the approach taken by management scholars to defining management and
the essential dimensions of managerial work may be useful.
Managerial Theory Perspectives
As Moss, Warnaby and Newman (2000) have suggested, public relations roles researchers
appear to have largely ignored the extensive body of management literature in identifying
suitable inventories to measure elements of managerial work. Moreover, the relative ease
with which researchers have accepted and utilised the ‘manager role’ label in public relations
can be contrasted with the on-going and often strongly contested debate about the nature and
practice of management found with the management literature (e.g. Hales,1986; Kotter, 1982;
Mintzberg, 1973; Pettigrew, 1973; Stewart, 1976, 1982, 1983; Watson, 1994).
From the management theory perspective, two main contrasting schools of thought about the
nature of managerial work have emerged. On one hand, the classical view of management,
which is normally associated with the seminal work of Henri Fayol (1949), is of a rational
profession in which managers perform a set of activities designed to enable them to ‘forecast
and plan, to organise, to command, to co-ordinate and to control. For Fayol and other
classical thinkers, management is a rational activity in the sense that it is possible to provide
clear grounds for its existence, tasks, and necessity, and to suggest definite principles
connecting management behaviour to outcomes. This technocratic model of management as a
rational profession has, however, been challenged by a series of studies conducted during the
past 40 years that have sought to identify what managers actually do (e.g. Horne and Lupton,
1965; Mintzberg, 1973; Kotter 1982; Pettigrew, 1973; Stewart, 1967, 1976, 1982). Here the
general picture to emerge is one that suggests that the image of managers as rational
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analytical planners, decision-makers, and issuers of commands do not stand up to scrutiny.
Rather, as Stewart (1983) has suggested, a manager appears to be someone who often:
lives in a whirl of activity, in which attention must be switched every few minutes from
one subject, problem, and person to another; of an uncertain world where relevant
information includes gossip and speculation…. It is a picture not of a manager who sits
quietly controlling but who is dependent on many people, other than subordinates, with
whom reciprocating relationships should be created; who need to learn how to trade,
bargain and compromise (p. 96).
On the surface at least, these two contrasting views of management may appear
irreconcilable. However, as Hales (1986) and others have suggested, these contrasting
perspectives of management can be attributed, in part, to the different foci and methodologies
used by management researchers over the past 30 years. While some studies have examined
the substantive ‘elements’ of managerial work [what managers do], others have examined
the distribution of managerial time between work elements [how managers work] ,
managerial interactions with others at work, or the informal elements of managerial work
[what else do managers do]. Here Hales has suggested that the most significant distinction
that emerges across these studies is in terms of how scholars have conceptualised the
constituent features of managerial work in terms of the difference between on one hand the
“observable activities which constitute the performance of the job, and on the other hand, the
implied or reported tasks, which represent expected or intended outcomes” (p. 95). In the
case of public relations roles research, the emphasis has been placed almost exclusively on
identifying the reported tasks that constitute the ‘manager’s role’ rather than investigating
how managers work – in terms of observing or recording what activities they undertake
(Moss, Warnaby and Newman, 2000). Equally, as Culbertson (1991) and other critics have
highlighted, most roles studies offer an essentially ‘snapshot view’ of practitioner role
enactment, rather than attempting to reflect the potentially fluidity and dynamism of role
behaviour, particularly in terms of attempting to capture the fluidity of managerial work in its
different guises.
Finally, two further significant observations that emerge from managerial research into work
of managers may be of particular relevance for our understanding of the manager’s role in the
public relations context. First, management scholars appear to broadly agree that managerial
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work is contingent upon inter alia function, level, organisation [type, structure, size] and
environment (e.g. Burns, 1957; Dubin and Spray, 1964; Mintzberg, 1973; Pheysey, 1972;
Stewart, 1976). Second, managerial jobs appear, in general, to be sufficiently loosely defined
to be highly negotiable and susceptible to choice, both in terms of style and content (Stewart,
1976; Stewart et al, 1980). Thus not only do managers appear to make choices about the job
content [which aspects of a job a manager chooses to emphasise], but also about the methods
[how the work is done]. Often managers attempt to alter the content of their jobs in terms of
making them less reactive and dependent upon the demands of others (Sayles, 1964). Indeed
Dalton (1959) suggested that negotiation over job content is not only part of what managers
do, but is also a motif running through other activities. Significantly, again there appears little
recognition within the public relations practitioner roles literature, at least not explicitly, that
the content of the ‘manager’s role might vary with functional level – i.e. that not all public
relations managers perform the same range of duties. Similarly, there appears to be little
explicit recognition that public relations practitioners may exercise a degree of choice and /or
engage in negotiation over the job content and style of the management associated with
performance of their role. The latter is somewhat surprising as the very process of role
enactment is itself implies an on-going process of interaction and negotiation between
members of any particular ‘role set’. It perhaps is equally ironic that management scholars
such as Hales (1986) and Fondas and Stewart (1994) have advocated that management
researchers should draw on role theory to provide a more effective theoretical framework to
examine not only managerial performance [what managers do], but also to help analyse how
manager role performance may be affected by the role expectations of both managers
themselves and others with whom they interact within organisations.
What this brief review of the public relations and management literature has highlighted is
the marked contrast between the way in which management and public relations scholars
have each attempted to define and make sense of the concept of management and managerial
work. On one hand, in attempting to conceptualise the public relations manager’s role, public
relations scholars have relied on an essentially deductive methodology, based on the
conceptually derived role inventory measures developed by Broom and his colleagues
(Broom, 1982; Broom and Smith, 1979; Broom and Dozier, 1986), which has emphasised the
tasks and responsibilities of public relations/ communication managers, while ignoring many
of the more subtle dimensions of how managerial work is performed. In contrast, as was
highlighted earlier, management scholars have utilised a range of empirical field measures to
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try to uncover both the main elements of the manager’s job [what managers do] and also how
managerial work is performed. However, despite the broader, empirically-based approach to
identifying what constitutes managerial work and behaviour, management scholars such as
Hales (1986) have acknowledged that roles theory might provide a useful theoretical
framework for examining the influences on managerial behaviour in terms of the set
interactions and expectations that exist between an individual and others within the same
organisational ‘role set’. Indeed, Hales has acknowledged that management researchers have
used the term ‘manager role’ as little more than a convenient label. Thus, in short, in arriving
at a more comprehensive understanding of managerial work [in both the public relations and
broader organisational context] there are lessons that both public relations and management
scholars may be able to learn from one other in terms of identifying useful methodologies and
theoretical frameworks. In the study reported in this paper, we have constructed what we
believe to be a relatively comprehensive and effective research instrument, drawing on both
the public relations and management literatures and the authors’ own prior research, which it
was anticipated would enabled us to identify a more comprehensive set of core dimensions of
the senior public relations/ communications manager’s role.
METHODOLOGY
An examination of the relevant literatures reveals a wide variety of approaches used in the
measurement of constructs such as management roles. These straddle the qualitative and
quantitative divide and take in a variety of different research methods. Whereas the vast
majority of previous public relations roles research has utilised the traditional 24 item role
inventory identified by Broom (Broom, 1982; Broom and Smith, 1979) and Dozier (1984),
this research draws on both the existing roles literature as well as a previous phase of
inductive, qualitative research ( Moss, Warnaby and Newman, 2000; DeSanto and Moss,
2003) that identified a set of elements of managerial work articulated by senior level public
relations managers drawn from a variety of organisations. The survey instrument used for
this study was constructed drawing on these two sources. The survey research design
provided the opportunity to test the applicability of these elements of managerial work on a
broader scale (Malhotra, 1999).
Prior research in this field also guided the choice of data analysis method. Semantic
differential scales can be used to rate specific variables depending on the relative importance
it possesses, and has been used widely (see for example: Newman, 2003; Kelley and
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Stephenson, 1967; Berry, 1969; Marcus, 1972; Marks, 1976; Hirshman, et al, 1977; Hansen
and Deutscher, 1977). The instrument developed for this study was an 11-page selfadministered questionnaire, comprising forty questions in total covering eight broad
operational areas of managerial responsibility/work identified from the prior research and
literature review. These were as follows: counselling and advisory responsibilities; issues
management; policy and strategy making; trouble shooting and problem solving;
administrative; monitoring and evaluation; negotiation and, finally, technical responsibilities.
These eight broad themes or areas of questioning were not identified explicitly to respondents
in the survey instrument itself.
Questions were ranked by respondents using a series of seven point scales, which are
common for studies of this kind (e.g. McDougall and Fry, 1974; Golden, et al, 1987; Cassill,
et al., 1993). Later sections of the instrument contained the classification and personal public
relations attributes segment and was also designed to gather demographic data (i.e. gender,
size and nature of organisation).
To improve reliability, the questionnaire was pilot tested with a small sample of public
relations specialists well accustomed to specifying role definitions. Changes were
subsequently made to reduce repetitiveness and to improve the applicability of the instrument
for the widest possible audience, vis-à-vis a diversity of business sectors.
The characteristics of the sample was determined using a randomised process and drawn
from the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) database. Our sample reflected as many sectors as
possible, and all the respondents held senior practitioner /managerial roles in their respective
organisations. The main postal survey (sample size n=1000) was undertaken in March and
April of 2004. A mailed survey rather than an e-mail plus electronic attachment was chosen
as this was thought to be the best way of improving response rates. The survey achieved a
25% response rate; the collected data were subsequently input to SPSS version 11.5 for data
analysis.
FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
As the study used a large number of variables, a system of data reduction was required to
simplify data and reduce the large set of variables to smaller yet significant number of
factors. Here the data reduction and analysis was conducted using Principal Component
Analysis (PCA) followed by Factor Analysis. This approach has been widely employed
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within roles research and is exemplified in studies such as Kelleher (2001) and Dozier and
Broom (1995). However, it was recognised that unlike these former studies, the use of
confirmatory factor analysis was unsuitable, as this study sought to uncover knowledge
beyond the established two-factor (manager-technician) theoretical dichotomy. The objective
was to reduce and summarise the data with minimum loss of information, so as to identify a
relatively small number of factors that represented relationships among interrelated variables
(Norusis, 1994).
The questionnaires were entered for statistical analysis, and the coefficient alpha was
measured to calculate the internal consistency and assess the quality or efficacy of the
instrument. Here the Cronbach Alpha values, which were all over 0.9 levels, indicate that the
factors were very reliable (Nunnally, 1978).
PCA revealed the presence of eight components all of which achieved eigenvalues greater
than one, which was considered significant. These eight components explained a total of
65.827 per cent of the total variance. These components were ranked in order of their relative
strength and labelled as follows (see Table 1): Policy/strategy-maker; monitor and evaluator;
issues manager; senior management level advisor; negotiator; communication technician;
trouble-shooter and problem-solver; administrator.
Orthogonal extraction, using Varimax rotation was performed to reduce the relatively large
number of variables to a small set of uncorrelated variables (Hair et al, 1995). A factor
loading value of 0.50 and above is considered good and very significant, whereas 0.45 is fair
and 0.32 and below is poor (Child, 1970; Norusis, 1988). Basing our initial judgements on
Hackett and Foxall (1994), we considered a factor loading of + or - 0.30 to be significant, and
a factor loading of + or - 0.50 as very significant. The larger the factor loading, the more
significant it was at interpreting the factor matrix. The factor loadings for this study ranged
from 0.400 to 0.838 and well above the 0.30 levels. Factors less than 0.40 were therefore
suppressed.
A 5-factor solution emerged which explained a total of 52.251 per cent of the variance (see
Table 2). These five key factors represent what this study has identified as the core
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dimensions of the public relations/ communication manager’s role. The first of these
dimension (factor 1), labelled monitor and evaluator, (13.87% of variance) consisted of five
items that dealt with practitioners organizing and keeping track of their work, just as other
managers are required to provide justification for their departments. Here public relations
practitioners acknowledged their managerial responsibility for setting communication goals
and objectives, monitoring the performance on these measures, and for working with senior
managers to determine appropriate targets and benchmarks for the public relations function.
The Trouble-shooting/problem-solver (factor 2) dimension (12.048 % of variance)
encompasses the practitioners’ responses about their involvement in handling a range of
internal and external challenges that face organisations, ranging from minor problems to
major crises, all of which pose some degree of threat to the organisation.
The third dimension (factor 3), key policy and strategy advisor, (11.989 % of variance)
describes the practitioner’s contribution to top management, including contributing regularly
at top management policy meetings, advising top management on a regular basis about both
business and communication issues, and advising management about how media will view
major strategic decisions.
Intelligence gathering and analysis, monitoring external trends, and recommendations on how
the organization should respond to threats from major issues make up the fourth dimension
(factor 4), the Issues management expert (8.323 % of variance). The practitioner here acts
not only as the eyes and ears of the organization, but also the brain that adds meaning to
information.
The fifth dimension (factor 5), the Communication technician, (6.024 % of variance)
acknowledges that practitioners, no matter how senior, still appear to engage to some degree
in what is considered the craft or technical side of public relations/ communications work,
albeit to a limited extent.
Here it was significant that all five dimensions were evident in each practitioner’s role
profile, regardless of the sector in which the practitioner worked (e.g. government, corporate,
not-for-profit) or the practitioner’s gender. Moreover, although this five dimensional
interpretation of the public relations/ communications manager’s role in organisations
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displays some similarities to the main elements comprising manager dimension of Dozier’s
(1984) manager-technician role typology, we believe that this five dimensional model of
public relations/communication management offers a more robust and empirically -grounded
representation of the key managerial responsibilities that senior practitioners have identified
as central to their jobs. Further consideration and reflection on these findings of the study are
discussed below
DISCUSSION
In this paper we have outlined the first stage of what is intended eventually to be an
international programme of comparative research to uncover and map the main dimensions of
the ‘managerial role’ played by senior communications practitioners with organisations.
This initial study conducted amongst UK senior public relations/ communications
professionals has revealed a five dimensional model of the senior public relations/
communications manager’s role. Here it is important to note that the practitioner sample in
this study spanned a broad cross-section of industry and public/government sectors, but
nevertheless, the study revealed similar priorities in terms of senior practitioners’ core areas
of responsibility, and broadly similar patterns of day-to-day work activities. A second
revealing feature of the study stemmed from the gender split in our sample, which was 60%
per cent female. Here no deliberate attempt was made to achieve an equal gender split in our
sample, rather respondents were selected on the basis of role within the organisation. Hence, it
might be inferred that the female majority found in the sample could well reflect the progress
made by females in advancement to more senior positions within the communication function
in UK organisations suggested elsewhere (e.g. Moss, Warnaby and Newman , 2000). Here,
PCA supported the view that for the (female) senior public relations practitioners in our
sample the hierarchy of roles/tasks undertaken is largely comprised of activities such as
policy making and strategy formulation. For our sample, the time spent working with, or on
behalf of, company CEOs overshadows the technical and administrative side of their
activities. This finding is particularly significant in that it seems to support the findings of the
earlier qualitative studies (Moss,Warnaby and Newman 2000; DeSanto and Moss, 2003) that
suggested that many female practitioners within UK organisations appear to have overcome
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the so-called ‘glass ceiling’ in organisations and are undertaking work on a par with their
male counterparts.
In identifying a five dimensional representational model of the managerial work performed
by senior public relations/communication professionals, it is important to recognise that we
have only sought at this stage to uncover the main dimensions of public relations/
communication management in terms of the reported tasks that constitute the ‘manager’s
role’ rather than investigating how managers work – in terms of observing or recording the
day-to-day activities practitioners undertake. Uncovering the latter would have required a far
more intensive, essentially qualitative investigation, similar to that undertaken by
management scholars such as Kotter (1982) and later in the public relations area, Moss,
Warnaby and Newman (2000) and DeSanto and Moss (2003).
As discussed earlier, this study has arguably provided some interesting new insights into the
managerial dimension of the work performed by senior public relations/ communication
professionals. In part this was achieved by moving away from reliance on the traditional role
inventory measures (Broom, 1982; Broom and Smith, 1979), and drawing instead on the
observations and findings of previous qualitative investigations into the managerial elements
of practitioners’ work conducted by this paper’s authors ( Moss, Warnaby and Newman,
2000; DeSanto and Moss, 2003), as well as by drawing more widely on studies reported in
the management literature . In this sense, we believe that this research has been able to step
outside the confines imposed by an over- reliance on the more traditional role inventory
measures (Leichty and Springston, 1996). Hence, we believe that the five dimensional model
advanced here provides a more effective representation of the increasing complexity and
sophistication of the work performed by senior public relations /communications professionals
in many of today’s larger organisations.
One particular aspect of this model perhaps merits further comment, namely the inclusion of
the “technical communication” dimension within the manager role profile. Of course, in some
senses, this finding simply mirrors the work of other roles scholars such as Dozier and Broom
(1995) who have acknowledged that in practice all practitioners “enact activities of both the
manager and technician roles….. Manager and technician role activities are different but
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neither mutually exclusive nor in opposition to one another” (p. 5-6). Our findings suggest
that although other dimensions of managerial work figure more prominently and assume
greater importance – monitoring and evaluation, issues management, policy and strategy
advice and trouble shooting/problem-solving-nevertheless most respondents acknowledged
that they continued to retain personal responsibility for what they see as the more important
elements of technical craft work. This tendency for senior practitioners to continue to engage
to some degree in elements of technical/ craft work also emerged in findings of the authors’
earlier qualitative phase of research (DeSanto and Moss, 2003). In the latter case, it was
explained that because of the highly critical/sensitive nature of some elements of
communication such as the chairman’s speeches or a final earnings release, responsibility for
preparing such materials would normally be retained by senior practitioners rather than
delegating such tasks to more junior staff.
The retention of at least some technical /craft responsibilities by senior public
relations/communications practitioners might also simply reflect the relatively small size of
the communication departments found in most organisations today. Indeed, Toth et al (1998)
noted the significant downsizing of public relations/communication departments during the
1990s, which seemed to have resulted in many senior practitioners having to spend more time
looking after day-to-day operations at the expense of performing more ‘managerial tasks’
such as advising, counselling and evaluating. Equally, as Dozier and Broom (1995)
acknowledged, for many practitioners, the task of “creating and disseminating
communication, especially mediated communication is core to the public relations function”
(p. 5). Thus for many practitioners an involvement in at least some elements of technical
communication work may be accepted as ‘ de rigueur’ almost irrespective of their seniority.
Reflecting on what we have identified as the other core dimensions of the public
relations/communication manager’s role, two further important observations warrant
consideration. First, one obvious inference to be drawn from this study is that senior
practitioners appear to have a strong external focus in their work, emphasising the importance
of issues management, policy and strategy advice, trouble-shooting/problem solving, and the
evaluatory elements of the manager’s role. Much lesser emphasis was found to be placed on
day-to-day administrative and organising tasks as well as on human resource/team
management responsibilities. Arguably, this finding may reflect Hales (1986) observation
that “managerial work is contingent on inter alia: function, level, organisation [type ,
structure size] and environment” (p.100). Thus, for the public relations function arguably, the
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expectations are that practitioners will focus their efforts on maintaining effective
organisational- stakeholder relationships and handling events and issues that might impinge
on or threaten such relationships. Of course this is not to suggest that day-to-day team
management and administration tasks are or can be ignored, rather it is a matter of priorities
and relative importance assigned to them.
A second important observation relates to the difference between, on one hand, the
significance attached to the core dimensions of senior practitioners’ job identified in this
study and, on the other hand, the allocation of practitioners’ time between or across activities,
which was outlined in previous qualitative studies of practitioners’ work (Moss, Warnaby and
Newman (2000) and DeSanto and Moss (2003). Comparing the core dimensions of the senior
practitioner’s job identified in this study with the ‘typical’ work pattern of senior practitioner
identified in studies conducted by Moss, Warnaby and Newman (2000) and DeSanto and
Moss (2003) reveals an interesting disparity. In the latter case, a picture emerges of senior
practitioners who appeared to spend a disproportionate amount of time engaged in a variety
of internal and external meetings concerned with a whole range of internal and external
issues/events, of work patterns that are often blown off course by a variety of unexpected
internal or external events, and of practitioners who might be forced to spend up to 20 per
cent of their time dealing with a variety of administrative tasks. Clearly, this emphasis on
administrative work and internal interactions with others seems to be at variance with the
findings of this present study in terms of the five core areas of responsibility that senior
practitioners have prioritised. In order to try to reconcile these apparent differences between
senior practitioner work patterns and task responsibilities, it is necessary to distinguish
between the relatively crude measures of the overall allocation of time between activities and
the importance of the ‘quality’ or relative importance of the time spent on some tasks. Thus,
for example, Moss Warnaby and Newman found that a number of senior practitioners
acknowledged that they had limited but regular meetings with their CEOs that were critical to
determining the focus of the work and to enabling proposals to go forward. Similarly,
practitioners seemed to have spend relatively little time on planning and strategy formulation,
but acknowledged that this planning activity tended to be concentrated at particular times of
the year and was nevertheless a critically important responsibility. Focusing on the question
of the criticality of time spent of different tasks/ activities helps to explain the difference
between time-based analysis of practitioners’ work patterns and investigations such as that
reported in this paper that focus more on identifying the core tasks and responsibilities
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performed by senior public relations/ communication managers. This issue of criticality of time
spent on activities is one that has been largely ignored in the public relations and
management literatures, but is one that may prove an important and fruitful future line of
enquiry.
Thus, in summary, we believe that the five dimensional model of senior public relations/
communication manager responsibilities/work proposed in this paper represents a significant
advance in terms of developing a more comprehensive framework for analysing and
understanding the nature of the managerial function in public relations and the contribution
that public relations/ communication practitioners can make to the overall strategic
management of organisations. Clearly at this stage, this remains an essentially exploratory
model and is based only on data collected from a cross section of UK practitioners. However,
further international comparative studies in collaboration with other researchers are planned,
which should not only enable the robustness and reliability of the dimensions of public
relations management identified here to be tested further, but will also allow the
generalisability of these dimensions of public relations/ communication management to be
tested across different cultural settings.
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Table 1: Results of the Principle Component Analysis (PCA)
Ranking
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Component
Policy/Strategy-maker
Monitor and evaluator
Issue management expert
Senior management advisor
Negotiator
Communication technician
Trouble-shooter/Problem-solver
Administrator
Eigenvalue
4.326
3.654
3.082
2.857
2.791
2.717
2.284
2.05
20
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Table 2: Rotated (Varimax) Component Matrix: Five factors extracted; mean response,
variable loadings and Cronbach Alpha scores.
Factor name
(%of total
variance for each
factor)
Monitor
&Evaluator
Trouble-shooter/
Problem-solver
Key Policy and
Strategy Advisor
Issue
Management
Expert
Communications
Technician
Variables loadings on factor
Mean
Response
Variable
Loadings
Cronbach
Alpha
I am responsible for setting targets for the PR function
1.8706
0.838
0.9194
I am responsible for monitoring performance of the
PR/communication strategies
1.9254
0.822
0.9190
I have to ensure that the PR/Communication function
operates with the agreed budgets.
1.6070
0.702
0.9192
I work with senior management to determine appropriate
targets/benchmarks for the PR/Communication function.
2.2786
0.698
0.9190
I am responsible for commissioning external agencies to
evaluate communication strategies
2.8109
0.594
0.9217
My job often involves fire fighting` a range of
internal/external challenges.
1.7761
0.625
0.9210
Helping to resolve problems caused by others within the
organisation is one of my key responsibilities
2.7015
0.616
0.9213
I am recognised as an expert at dealing with major/minor
crises affecting the organisation
1.7861
0.575
0.9202
My job often involves dealing with day-to-day demands for
PR support from others within the organisation
1.8109
0.541
0.9213
I am responsible for dealing with any unexpected
internal/external events that threaten the organisation
1.7512
0.477
0.9213
I contribute regularly to top management policy-making
meetings
2.3383
0.806
0.9209
I advise management about how best to present their policies
2.4428
0.741
0.9214
I advise top management on a variety of important
stakeholder issues
2.2886
0.738
0.9205
I advise top management on a regular basis about relevant
business/communications issues and challenges.
1.6169
0.615
0.9205
I advise senior management about how major strategic
decisions will be viewed by the media
1.8458
0.511
0.9200
I continually monitor external trends that might affect the
organisation
2.0597
0.759
0.9214
I recommend how the organisation should respond to the
threat from major trends/issues.
2.1244
0.723
0.9209
I collect and analyse external intelligence relevant to my
organisation.
2.2537
0.693
0.9216
I often handle the technical aspects of producing
communications/PR materials
2.7662
0.764
0.9235
I oversee the visual/design material for my organisation
2.5672
0.700
0.9234
I engage regularly in contacts with the media
1.9950
0.494
0.9238
I draft or help draft the chairman’s speeches.
2.9005
0.400
0.9225
21
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22