THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGERS IN PRODUCT AND SERVICE FIRMS IN SIX EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

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THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGERS IN PRODUCT
AND SERVICE FIRMS IN SIX EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

• George G. Panigyrakis, Professor
• Zoi Ventoura, Assistant Professor
• Anastasios Panopoulos, Ph.D Researcher

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Scope of the current study

• ?To compare the profiles of PR managers in
  different European Countries
• ?To investigate PR managers
• demographic characteristics,
• role-played in the firm,
• importance of their activities,
• job related factors
• ?To provide relevant comparisons between PR
  managers in product and service sector

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Framework of the study

• Activities of PRMs (product/service)
• 30 different activities

Intrinsic inputs Demographic individual
characteristics (variable measured) Age,
education, hours worked per week, experience

• Work related factors Role stimuli
• (Variables measured)
• Environmental uncertainty
• Role conflict
• Role ambiguity
• Job satisfaction
• Interfaces
• Propensity to leave
• Performance Level

Extrinsic Inputs Organizational support
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Universities network

• The Athens University of Economics and Business-
  Greece
• Group ESSEC, Audencia - France
• Coventry, Stirling, UCW- G. Britain
• University of Dublin, Smirnoff Business School -
  Ireland
• University of Heideberg - Germany
• University of Piza- Italy

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Methodology

• Research Period - three years (2001-2004)
• Research selected countries - Great Britain,
  Ireland, Germany, France, Italy and Greece
• Method - Self administered questionnaire - mail
  survey, pretested questionnaire
• Sample size - 900 individuals working for product
  and services firms (150 from each country)

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Study Design

• Mailing list of three major international
  advertising agencies
• National executive recruitment agencies
• National trade directories
• Marketing association membership
• 900 individuals (6x150)
• 288 usable questionnaires
• Response rate 32

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Job related Attitudes and accompanying
reliability analysis
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Demographic characteristics of PR managers in
product and service firms
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Activities - Roles

• Mean scores - two samples
• 24 activities out of 30 were rated as most
  important
• A multivariate analysis of variance showed an
  insignificant main effect of the source of rating
• Factor analysis identified four factors
  accounting for 61 of the variance
• Each of 24 items (activities) loaded on only one
  factor

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Tasks - responsibility areas

• Experts prescribers- Factor 1
• Communication technicians - Factor 2
• Communication facilitators- Factor 3
• Problem solving process facilitators Factor 4

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Factors for the Importance scores of
responsibility areas (1)

• Experts prescribers
• 8. Initiate and recommend PR projects
• 11. Develop long term strategic PR plans
• 9. Define PR problems and solutions
• 21. Serve as liaisons, interpreters and mediators
  between the organisation and its publics
• 2. Evaluate public opinion, program results and
  competitive intelligence
• 19. Plan a budget, operating on it, accounting
  for the outcome
• 10. Superve institutional advertising programs

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Factors for the Importance scores of
responsibility areas (2)

• Communication technicians
• 6. Arrange for production of printed matter,
  slides, films (News releases, house publications,
  publicity of products services, competitive
  intelligence, shows, exhibits special events)
• 7. Writing (preparation of speeches, scripts)
• 14. Editing (preparation of graphics or films)
• 25. Preparing speeches for others and giving
  speeches
• 16. Training spokespersons being one

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Factors for the Importance scores of
responsibility areas (3)

• Communication facilitators
• 13. Industrial relations,
• 5. represent employer at various events,
• 18. contact other public officials,
• 22. co-ordinate activities among various
  functional groups to achieve PR objectives
• 17. Prepare reports, position papers, public
  statements
• 23. Submit newsworthy material to appropriate
  outlets

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Factors for the Importance scores of
responsibility areas (4)

• Problem solving process facilitators
• 4. Collaborate with other managers to define and
  solve organisational problems
• 3. Prepare annual PR plans
• 24. Implement approved plans and programs
• 26. Regularly analyse and report PR research data
  to management
• 12. Monitor actual results against planned
  performance
• 20. Monitor environmental developments likely to
  have a significant impact on PR performance

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Mean importance scores for each role
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Satisfaction with the way their co. embrace PR in
general
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Discriminant analysis for PR managers working in
product and service firms

• The three most important discriminators were
• Satisfaction with the job,
• promotion and
• job security

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Conclusions -1

• PR managers perform four major roles
• Experts describers
• Communications technicians
• Communications facilitators
• Problems solvers

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Conclusions- 2

• PR managers working for product and services
  firms
• have similar demographic characteristics and
  working history experience
• obtained their job on the basis of their
  education
• are somewhat job-hoppers on the way to their
  current position
• perceive their activities in a similar way
  despite environmental differences
• No differences were proven among PR managers
  working in the six European countries

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Future research

• More analysis on the PR practices in Europe
• Combine both quantitative and qualitative
  analysis
• The co-ordination of PR and marketing activities

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Mean differences in job satisfaction
Two-tailed t-test for unequal variances
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Mean differences in job satisfaction
Two-tailed t-test for unequal variances
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The Marketing Literature about PR can be divided
into three categories

• background (personal) characteristics of the PR
  managers (Grunig 1984, Habermann et al. 1988,
  Kitchen and White 1992, Panigyrakis and Veloutsou
  1998, Panigyrakis and Veloutsou 1999)
• the public relations development and the
  practices employed by the companies (Aho Ryan
  Lemmond 1989, Kitchen Proctor 1991, Kitchen
  1993, Moss et al. 1996)
• the relationship of PR to the promotional mix
  (Kotler Mindak 1978, Kotler 1986, Kitchen
  Moss 1995, Kitchen 1997, Kitchen Papassolomou
  1997)

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Mean differences in role conflict and ambiguity
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Mean difference in job performance
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Discriminant analysis for PR managers working in
product and service firms
The rank order of importance is based on the
magnitude of the canonical loading.
1Satisfaction. 2Performance 3Ambiguity
4Conflict
Discriminant Analysis