Thought Leaders Interview: James E. Grunig
One week ago communicationcontrolling.de announced the interview series “Thought Leaders in PR Measurement”. Today the series starts with a talk to James E. Grunig – in the mid-1970s, he was one of the first academics dealing with the issue.
communicationcontrolling.de: When did you start to deal with questions of PR measurement and evaluation, and why are you especially interested in this topic?
James E. Grunig: In 1975, the AT&T Corporation contacted me for help in setting up a measurement system that could be used by each of the regional telephone companies that made up what was then called the Bell System. Now the corporation has been deregulated into a number of smaller companies. Jim Tirone of AT&T and I developed a different set of objectives and measures for evaluating five communication programs in place at each of the companies: media relations, community relations, employee relations, educational relations, and advertising. In 1977, Tirone and I organized a National Conference on Measuring the Effectiveness of Public Relations at the University of Maryland. The details on the AT&T measurement program and the papers presented at the conference can be found in a special issue of Public Relations Review. For those who are interested, it is volume 3, number 4, published in 1977. I also incorporated my experience with AT&T into two chapters of the textbook “Managing Public Relations”, published in 1984: “Goals and Objectives” and “Evaluation Research.” In 1985, I moved up a level of analysis from public relations programs to the level of organizational effectiveness when I headed the IABC Excellence project. I am interested in research and measurement because I think it is a necessary condition for the strategic management of public relations and the contribution of public relations to the strategic management of organizations.
This interview is part of the series „Thought Leaders in PR measurement” – we’ve talked to 12 people who shaped the international debate on communication measurement in various periods.
cc.de: Why do you think communication measurement is essential for organizations today?
Grunig: I prefer to use the term research and evaluation rather than measurement, because research involves conceptualization as well as measurement and formative research as well as evaluative research. Both the Excellence project and research I have conducted since with Jeong-Nam Kim of Purdue University show that the amount of research done by a public relations department is strongly correlated with the respect and value that senior managers have for the communication function — more than any other variable that explains that value. I believe that research is an integral component of strategic public relations. Without it, the public relations function will continue to serve only in a messenger role and not a strategic role. To participate in strategic management, public relations executives must have unique information to provide to management. Research provides them this information.
cc.de: What have been the most important insights and turning points in your research on the topic?
Grunig: The first insight came during my work with AT&T when Jim Tirone and I decided that no one measure could show the value of public relations and that we would have to evaluate communication programs separately. At that time, I also realized that communication managers could choose objectives for programs from a single taxonomy of objectives derived from communication research — communicating with a public, retention of messages, acceptance of cognitions, formation or change of an attitude (an evaluation), and behavior. In addition, these effects could be on members of an organization for information coming into the organization from publics, on members of a public for information going out of the organization, or on both. The next important insight came during the Excellence project when we realized that we could move beyond evaluation at the program level and also conceptualize and measure the value of a public relations function, for both an organization and society, by measuring the quality of organization-public relationships.
cc.de: International research constantly shows large gaps between the importance and implementation of measurement practices. Many complain about this, but nothing seems to change. Do you think there are any ways out of this dilemma?
Grunig: I have done a lot of research over the years trying to explain why public relations practitioners behave as they do. Many of the variables we tested had little explanatory power. However, the one variable that consistently explains why public relations people do what they do is their level of knowledge. Put simply, people do what they know how to do. Most public relations practitioners don’t know how to do research, even though they know they should do it. It’s also difficult to hire outside researchers and use them effectively if you don’t know how to do research yourself. And, it’s difficult to explain the value of research to senior managers or clients if you don’t understand it well yourself. The way out of this dilemma, therefore, is education. Communication professionals must learn how to do research in undergraduate or postgraduate programs or through continuing education programs if they are not able to enroll in university programs.
cc.de: Do you think it is possible to develop international standards for linking communication to organizational goals and for evaluating communication activities? What will be advantages and disadvantages, who might profit from such initiatives?
Grunig: I think it is possible to develop international standards. In fact, I think I did that in “Managing Public Relations” in 1984 — for conceptualizing goals and objectives and describing techniques for conducting quantitative and qualitative research to measure these goals and objectives. The Excellence project subsequently led to research that defined and measured relationships and demonstrated that relationships essentially explain the nature of an organization’s reputation. These concepts and measures are conceptually well-developed, and they can be applied internationally. Other scholars and professionals, however, have developed and prefer other concepts and measures, which also can be applied internationally. I don’t think it ever would be wise to impose one conceptual or measurement schema on everyone. However, I do believe we can work together so that we define and measure key concepts in the same way and are talking about the same thing when we use these concepts and measures.
cc.de: From your point of view, what is the most important future challenge for PR measurement and evaluation?
Grunig: The biggest challenge is to reinstitutionalize public relations as a strategic management function rather than as a messaging, symbolic-interpretive function. If public relations scholars and professionals think of public relations as a strategic management function, research and measurement will come naturally. If they think of it as a messaging function alone, they will always be struggling to come up with measures to prove the value of what they have done for generations, rather than using conceptualization and research to innovate and come up with more effective ways to communicate both with management and with publics.
cc.de: Thank you for that conversation!
About James E. Grunig
James E. Grunig is professor emeritus of public relations in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland in College Park, USA. He is the author and coauthor of six books on public relations and has published 242 articles, books, chapters, papers, and reports. In addition to that Grunig was the director of the 15-year research project on “Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management” and has won seven major awards in public relations: The Arthur W. Page Society Distinguished Service Award; The Pathfinder Award for excellence in public relations research of the Institute for Public Relations Research and Education; the Outstanding Educator Award of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA); the Jackson and Wagner Award for behavioral science research of the PRSA Foundation; the Alexander Hamilton Medal for Lifetime Contributions to Professional Public Relations of the Institute for Public Relations; the Lloyd Dennis Award for Distinguished Leadership in Public Affairs and the Dr. Hamid Notghi Prize for Career Achievement in Public Relations from the Kargozar Public Relations Institute, Tehran, Iran. He also won the most prestigious lifetime award of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the Paul J. Deutschmann Award for Excellence in Research. Furthermore James E. Grunig has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Universidad San Martin de Porres in Peru, the University of Bucharest in Romania, and Istanbul University in Turkey.
Interesting publications
Grunig, J. E. (2008). Conceptualizing quantitative research in public relations. In B. Van Ruler, A. Tkalac Verčič, & D. Verčič, (Eds.). Public relations metrics (pp. 88-119). New York and London: Routledge.
The German version of this interview is available here.
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