Issues Management and Strategic Planning PRL2001

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Issues Management and Strategic Planning PRL2001

• Course Examiner - Elizabeth Dougall
• Lecture One, Week 1, Semester 2 2002

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Course Organisation

• A one hour lecture a two hour tutorial weekly
• Tutorials start next week
• Consultation Times
• Wed 900 pm 1200 noon
• Thurs 900 am 10 am
• Location Q211
• Telephone [phone]
• Email dougall_at_usq.edu.au

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Text and Reference Materials

• Heath, Robert L., 1997, Strategic Issues
  Management - Organisations and Public Policy
  Challenges, SAGE Publications, California.
• Book of Selected Readings
• Library Resources - Books, Journals, Electronic
  Databases. Some relevant topics include
• issues management, public policy, public opinion,
  reputation management, mass communication
  concepts and theories.

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Course Objectives

• Clarify the purposes of an issues management
  program and understand the importance of proper
  and legitimate planning
• Establish mechanisms and develop standards for
  issues management and crisis control
• Formalise an issues management structure

• Develop offensive activities that enable the
  co-ordination, control, analysis and reporting of
  strategic management procedures
• Know how to develop positive relationships with
  key publics.

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Topics

• Planning and Investigation - Developing Survival
  Strategies
• Concepts of Communication
• How and When to Communicate
• Understanding Public Policy
• Taking Control the Scanning Process
• The Role of Communication and Strategic Planning
• Confronting a Crisis
• The Crisis Response Mechanism
• Elements of the Crisis Management Plan
• Evaluation and Policy Design
• Principles of Effective Crisis Management

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Assessment

• 2 assignments
• 1 exam
• Tutorial presentations and group participation
  will be required for the assignments. Assessment
  details will be provided in tutorials.

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Objectives Week 1

• Understand the basic concept of issues management
• Explain the significance of external environments
  in issues management
• Define an issue
• Understand issues management within the context
  of the development of public relations
• Outline Renfros issue lifecycle

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What is issues management?

• There is no single, widely agreed-upon definition
  of issue/issues management.
• The discipline is still evolving.
• According to Yancey Crane (1995)
• An Issue is a gap between corporate performance
  and stakeholder expectations.
• Issues Management is the process used to close
  that gap.

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Issues management is .

• The management of organisation and community
  resources through public policy process to
  advance organisational interest and rights by
  striking a mutual balance with those of
  stakeholders.
• It supports strategic business planning and
  management by understanding public policy, by
  meeting standards of corporate responsibility
  expected by key stakeholders, and by using
  two-way communication to foster understanding and
  minimise conflict.

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Issues management is .

• It adapts products, services, or operations. It
  is not limited to media relations, customer
  relations, or government relations.
• It is engaged in strategic business planning
  options that may change operations, products, or
  services as well as communicate to establish
  mutual interests and achieve harmony with
  stakeholders.
• It is expected to keep the firm ethically attuned
  to its community and positioned to exploit,
  mitigate, and foster public policy changes as
  they relate to the corporate mission.
• (Heath, 1997)

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What is issues management?

• The issues management process is said to have
  begun in the US with Howard Chase in 1976. His
  model encompasses five (5) steps
• Issue Identification
• Issue Analysis
• Priority Setting
• Issue Action
• Evaluate Results

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The Evolution of Issues Management

• In the 1970s consumer and other advocacy and
  activist groups, government legislators and major
  stakeholders in company concerns began to demand
  more accountability from corporations and from
  government.
• This was a direct result of the information
  revolution
• More than ever publics had access to media and
  information that brought new knowledge

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The Evolution of Issues Management

• Publics became more vigilant of the operations of
  business and government
• The mass media contributed to the exposure
  process.
• Organisations began to attempt to respond to
  these demands in various ways.

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The Evolution of Issues Management

• Originally issues management was about changing
  attitudes - usually of the corporate critics such
  as advocacy and activist groups.
• Largely one way asymmetrical or possibly two way
  asymmetrical (scientific persuasion)
• Advocacy advertising was the tool with which
  issues were addressed (Heath Cousino, 1990)

• Issues management is a product of activism and
  the increasing intra and inter-industry pressures
  by corporations to define and implement corporate
  social responsibility (CSR) - as well as debate
  in public what the standards of CSR should be.
• (Heath Cousino, 1990)

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The Evolution of Issues Management

• ..advocates of issues management were
  communication specialistsmany executives assumed
  that critics of business could be shouted
  down.
• Issues Management started with a communication
  bias which featured issues advertising.
• This type of advertising produced a backlash.
• Some companies shouting loudest deserved
  regulation most.
• (Heath Cousino, 1990)

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The Evolution of Issues Management

• 1978 - Public Affairs Council
• Issues management is a program which a company
  uses to increase its knowledge of the public
  policy process and enhance the sophistication and
  effectiveness of its involvement in that
  process

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The Evolution of Issues Management

• The key functions identified were
• planning
• monitoring
• analyzing
• communicating

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The Evolution of Issues Management

• IM evolved alongside strategic business planning
• The functions are interrelated - environmental
  scanning in particular.

• Issues management is a comprehensive activity
  which consists of specific functions, some of
  which require the expertise of public relations
  practitioners, and the performance of which can
  strengthen the rationale for including public
  relations in the dominant coalition of
  corporations.
• (Heath Cousino, 1990)

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The Evolution of Issues Management

• No uniform view of issues management appears in
  public relations texts, the basis by which a
  discipline codifies itself. Most texts which
  discuss issues management treat it as a
  communication tool. A few emphasize its issue
  monitoring functions. What is largely ignored is
  its role in strategic planning and corporate
  social responsibility.
• (Heath and Cousino, 1990)
• It is becoming more important to assess what is
  good for the corporation in a more holistic
  setting.
• (Yancey Crane, 1995)

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The Evolution of Issues Management

• Heath and Cousino suggest that issues management
  requires four functions
• involvement of public policy experts in strategic
  business planning and management
• issue communication
• issue monitoring and analysis
• efforts to meet changing standards of corporate
  social responsibility

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Issues and areas of concern

• Issues can take many different forms.
• They can range from having an extremely narrow,
  limited focus to being broad general topics that
  can affect virtually every public (stakeholder or
  stakeseeker) an organisation must deal with.
• For example, the environment is not an issue but
  an area of concern.

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Issues and areas of concern

• Logging, wood chipping, waste management and
  ozone depletion are issues the generic term -
  environment - is not the issue, it is simply the
  area of concern.

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The Lifecycle of an Issue . . .

• Renfro (1993) argues that the early stages of the
  issues development process include
• Birth - in changing personal or social values,
  new technologies, new impacts, social change etc.
• Definition - an event that defines and focuses
  the issues in the publics mind.
• Name - the development and acceptance of a single
  word or phrase
• Champion - a person or person who campaign the
  issue
• Group - formal or informal groups who participate
  in the issue process
• Media Recognition - helps moves the issue up the
  public agenda.

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Questions for Tutorials

• Can you identify any current examples of an
  organisation attempting to influence public
  policy, for example,legislation regulation?
• Was it successful?
• What are the implications for the organisations
  relationships?
• Is there any evidence of the organisation using
  managed communication?

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Before next week

• READ Heaths Preface and Chapter one in order to
  develop a grasp of his approach to the discipline
  - in particular, his theoretical assumptions and
  framework.