Breaking Down the Stakeholder Environment: Explicating approaches to the segmentation of publics for public relations research

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Volumn 85, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 751-768

  Kim, Jeong Nam ^a   Ni, Lan ^b   Sha, Bey Ling ^c  

^a PURDUE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON   (United States)

^c SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACADEMIC RESEARCH; LITERATURE REVIEW; MASS MEDIA; MEDIA ROLE; STAKEHOLDER; STRATEGIC APPROACH;

EID: 64949154495     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769900808500403     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. Karl E. Weick, The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2d ed. (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979).
2. James E. Grunig and Fred C. Repper, "Strategic Management, Publics, and Issues," in Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management, ed. James E. Grunig (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1992), 31-64.
3. Grunig and Repper, "Strategic Management, Publics, and Issues."
4. For example, see Harold Mendelsohn, "Why Information Campaigns Can Succeed," Public Opinion Quarterly 37 (spring 1973): 50-61.
5. One notable exception is Brad L. Rawlins, Prioritizing Stakeholders for Public Relations (Gainesville, FL: Institute for Public Relations, 2006).
6. Grunig and Repper, "Strategic Management, Publics, and Issues."
7. David M. Dozier, Larissa A. Grunig, and James E. Grunig, Manager's Guide to Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995);
8. James E. Grunig, ed., Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1992);
9. James E. Grunig, Larissa A. Grunig, and David M. Dozier, Excellent Public Relations and Effective Organizations: A Study of Communication Management in Three Countries (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002).
10. John A. Pearce II and Richard B. Robinson, Jr., Strategic Management: Strategy Formulation and Implementation (Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1982), 62.
11. Grunig and Repper, "Strategic Management, Publics, and Issues."
12. Should the issue become unmanageable, then the organization will enter the crisis stage. Much public relations research has been done on the crisis stage; for some examples, see W. Timothy Coombs, "The Development of the Situation Crisis Communication Theory," in Public Relations: From Theory to Practice, ed. Tricia Hanson-Horn and Bonita Dostal Neff (Boston: Allyn-Bacon, 2008), 262-77;
13. or see Kathleen Fearn-Banks, Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach, 3d ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007). This article cannot review all of these studies due to space limitations, so the issue and crisis stages are integrated in this manuscript.
14. See Scott M. Cutlip, Allen H. Center, and Glen M. Broom, Effective Public Relations, 9th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006).
15. Judy Pearsall and Bill Trumble, The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary, 3d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
16. Jeong-Nam Kim, Jeff Hall, Jerry Swerling, and James E. Grunig, "From Strategic Public Relations to Corporate Strategic Management: Research, Empowerment, and Value of Public Relations" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Anaheim, CA, 2008).
17. Grunig, Grunig, and Dozier, Excellent Public Relations and Effective Organizations: A Study of Communication Management in Three Countries.
18. James E. Grunig and Todd Hunt, Managing Public Relations (NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984).
19. Henry Mintzberg, Power In and Around Organizations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983).
20. Kim and Grunig define a problem as a perceptual discrepancy between expected and experienced states in a given situation that produces an uncomfortable feeling of badness-of-fit. They define problem solving as one's effort to decrease this perceived discrepancy. In this vein, a member of a public is a problem solver who is looking for and / or bringing about a solution, not necessarily aware of or connecting with other problem solvers. For details, see Jeong-Nam Kim and James E. Grunig, Situational Theory of Problem Solving: Communicative, Cognitive, and Perceptive Bases (NY: Routledge, forthcoming).
21. Originally, the situational theory of publics also included a fourth independent variable, called referent criterion, which was "a solution carried from previous situations to a new situation"; see James E. Grunig, "A Situational Theory of Publics: Conceptual History, Recent Challenges and New Research," in Public Relations Research: An International Perspective, ed. Danny Moss, Toby MacManus, and Dejan Verčič (London: International Thomson Business, 1997), 11. Although dropped over the years because it seemed to have little impact on communication behavior, reference criterion may be coming back, as some scholarship suggests the presence of another independent or antecedent variable helps to better predict communication activity; for example, see Bey-Ling Sha, "Cultural Identity in the Segmentation of Publics: An Emerging Theory of Intercultural Public Relations," Journal of Public Relations Research 18 (2006): 45-65.
22. See Grunig, "A Situational Theory of Publics: Conceptual History, Recent Challenges and New Research."
23. Cutlip, Center, and Broom, Effective Public Relations; Dejan Verčič and James E. Grunig, "The Origins of Public Relations Theory in Economics and Strategic Management," in Perspectives on Public Relations Research, ed. Danny Moss, Dejan Verčič, and Gary Warnaby (London: Routledge, 2000), 7-58. Markets can be created, whereas publics cannot be created. A public arises as its members find a problem. According to marketing scholars, a good market segmentation should meet three required conditions: measurability - the degree to which quantified information exists or is obtainable on a particular buyer characteristic, accessibility - the degree to which the firm can focus its marketing efforts on selected segments, and substantiality - the degree to which the segments are large enough to be worth considering for separate marketing.
24. For details, see Philip Kotler and Kevin L. Keller, Marketing Management, 13th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2008). This is another distinguishing feature between public relations and marketing. Although public segmentation should share the first two conditions in a good segmentation practice, unlike market segmentation, it cannot meet the third condition because marketing problems are qualitatively different from public relations problems.
25. For details, see James E. Grunig and Larissa A. Grunig, "The Relationship Between Public Relations and Marketing in Excellent Organizations: Evidence from the IABC study," Journal of Marketing Communications 4 (1998): 141-62. Whereas marketing problems aim to create a market and increase sales through exploration of potential market - a group of individuals that market researchers create for the purpose of sales of their idea or products - public relations problems are most often created by a group of individuals who encounter a problematic state and who perceive the problems should or could be better dealt with organization(s) attentions and resources. Regardless of the size or substantiality of the group, thus, public relations should identify and interact with a public;
26. see, for example, Mancur L. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, 2d ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971). However, segmentation in public relations and marketing share the same feature, systematic approach, that grants communication planners power to identify and interact with most important segments in the given communication problem. They can then design better strategies and tactics and matching goals and objectives for the given communication problem.
27. James E. Grunig, "The Role of Public Relations in Strategic Management and its Contribution to Organizational and Societal Effectiveness" (speech presented to the Taiwanese Public Relations Society, Taipei, Taiwan, May 12, 2001).
28. For example, see Betty Attaway-Fink, "Market-driven Journalism: Creating Special Sections to Meet Reader Interests," Journal of Communication Management 9 (spring 2004): 145-55;
29. Cutlip, Center, and Broom, Effective Public Relations; Dennis L. Wilcox and Glen T. Cameron, Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics, 8th ed. (Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2005).
30. See Cutlip, Center, and Broom, Effective Public Relations.
31. Richard Fletcher and T. C. Melewar, "The Complexities of Communicating to Customers in Emerging Markets," Journal of Communication Management 6 (winter 2001): 9-23;
32. David W. Guth and Charles Marsh, Adventures in Public Relations: Case Studies and Critical Thinking (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2005).
33. R. Edward Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Boston: Pitman, 1984), 46.
34. Ronald K. Mitchell, Bradley R. Agle, and Donna J. Wood, "Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of Who or What Really Counts," Academy of Management Review 22 (autumn 1997): 853-86.
35. James E. Post, Lee E. Preston, and Sybille Sachs, Redefining the Corporation: Stakeholder Management and Organizational Wealth (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 54.
36. Post, Preston, and Sachs' typology of stakeholders are elaborated with each stakeholder's contribution to the organizational wealth. For a more detailed description and the list of stakeholders, see Post, Preston, and Sachs, Redefining the Corporation: Stakeholder Management and Organizational Wealth, 47.
37. Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power in Organizations (Marshfield, MA: Pitman, 1981).
38. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald Salancik, The External Control of Organizations (NY: Harper & Row, 1978).
39. M. J. Esman, "The Elements of Institution Building," in Institution Building and Development, ed. J. W. Eaton (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1972), 19-40.
40. Grunig and Hunt, Managing Public Relations.
41. Grunig and Hunt, Managing Public Relations.
42. This concept of linkages was also used in Ronald D. Smith, Strategic Planning for Public Relations (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004).
43. Grunig and Repper, "Strategic Management, Publics, and Issues," 131.
44. James E. Grunig, "Publics, Audiences, and Market Sgments: Segmentation Pinciples for Campaigns," in Information Campaigns: Balancing Social Values and Social Change, ed. Charles. T. Salmon (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1989), 199-228.
45. Robert L. Heath and W. Timothy Coombs, Today's Public Relations: An Introduction (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005).
46. Grunig, "A Situational Theory of Publics: Conceptual History, Recent Challenges and New Research"; James E. Grunig, "Constructing Public Relations Theory and Practice," in Communication: A Different Kind of Race Horse, ed. Brenda Dervin and Steve Chaffee (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2003), 85-115.
47. John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (Chicago: Swallow, 1927).
48. Grunig and Hunt, Managing Public Relations.
49. Kirk Hallahan, "The Dynamics of Issue Activation and Response: An Issues Processes Model," Journal of Public Relations Research 13 (2001): 27, 43.
50. See Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed. (NY: The Free Press, 1995).
51. Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 5th ed. (NY: The Free Press, 2003).
52. Allen H. Center and Patrick Jackson, Public Relations Practices: Managerial Case Studies and Problems (NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002), 19.
53. Jeong-Nam Kim, "Communicant Activeness, Cognitive Entrepreneurship, and a Situational Theory of Problem Solving" (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, College Park, 2006);
54. Lan Ni, Jeong-Nam Kim, and Eun-Ju Lee, "Classifying Publics: Communication Behaviors and Problem-Solving Characteristics in Controversial Issues" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association, San Diego, CA, 2008).
55. The new publics typology is linked closely to a new concept, communicant activeness of problem solving or CAPS; for details, see Jeong-Nam Kim and James E. Grunig, "Explicating and Validating Communicant Activeness in Problem Solving (CAPS)" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco, CA, 2007). In short, CAPS goes beyond considering only information acquisition (i.e., information seeking and processing), and introduces additional communicant characteristics: information selection (i.e., information forefending and permitting) and information transmission (information forwarding and sharing). Each dimension of problem-solving characteristics is conceptually corresponding to information behavioral characteristics: information acquisition with time or history of the problem solving; information selection with the openness to approaches in problem solving; and information transmission with the extent of activeness in problem solving. For details, see Kim and Grunig, "Explicating and Validating Communicant Activeness in Problem Solving (CAPS)"; Kim and Grunig, Situational Theory of Problem Solving: Communicative, Cognitive, and Perceptive Bases.
56. The combination of eight new types of publics with latent and non-publics gives ten types of publics. Such a combination enhances the theoretical and practical utility of the original four types of publics because the eight new types of publics explain communicative distinctions between active and activist publics and the conditions when communication is ineffective.
57. See Ni, Kim, and Lee, "Classifying Publics: Communication Behaviors and Problem-Solving Characteristics in Controversial Issues."
58. Linda Aldoory and Bey-Ling Sha, "The Situational Theory of Publics: Practical Applications, Methodological Challenges, and Theoretical Horizons," in The Future of Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management: Challenges for the Next Generation, ed. Elizabeth Toth (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007), 339-55; Grunig, "Publics, Audiences, and Market Segments: Segmentation Pinciples for Cmpaigns."
59. For one example, see Linda M. Hagan, "For Reputation's Sake: Managing Crisis Communication," in The Future of Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management: Challenges for the Next Generation, ed. Elizabeth Toth (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007), 413-40.
60. For one exception, see Bey-Ling Sha and Pamela Pine, "Using The Situational Theory of Publics to Develop an Education Campaign Regarding Child Sexual Abuse" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Interdisciplinary Public Relations Research Conference, Miami, Florida, 2004).
61. See, for example, W. Timothy Coombs, "Information and Compassion in Crisis Responses: A Test of their Effects," Journal of Public Relations Research 11 (1999): 125-42;
62. W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay, "An Extended Examination of the Crisis Situations: A Fusion of the Relational Management and Symbolic Approaches," Journal of Public Relations Research 13 (2001): 321-40.
63. Lan Ni, "Exploring Relationship Management as an Integral Part of Strategic Management of Public Relations" (paper presented at the annual meeting of AEJMC, Chicago, IL, 2008).
64. See Grunig and Repper, "Strategic Management, Publics, and Issues."