Toward the Conceptualization of the Engagement Process in Public Relations: Evidence From Six Nations

• In Event: Relationship, Engagement, and PR Professional Development

Abstract

Engagement is a nascent concept in public relations, but one that offers scholars and practitioners a promising heuristic for further theorization on ethical communication with publics. This paper works to further clarify, conceptualize, and operationalize the concept of engagement in organizational relationships with publics. To that end, the paper explores several factors likely to be antecedents of engagement, including national contexts, institutional contexts, organizational contexts, and functional conditions to create a conceptual model of engagement. The model is tested through a large multinational survey of senior/ management level public relations practitioners (N=788) that measured the internal orientations and external organizational activities that underpin an engagement framework. The final sections discuss how engagement is being enacted across the six countries by public relations professionals and suggests ways forward to further theorizing, operationalizing, and measuring engagement in organizational relationships with publics.

Authors

• Aimei Yang, University of Southern California

• Erich James Sommerfeldt, U of Maryland - College Park

• Maureen Taylor, U of Oklahoma