Global Public Relations
3
This study explores how public relations professionals at public relations firms, especially those who
are specialized in international public relations, manage their job and work with global clients. It also
examines how these professionals’ practices coincide with the theory of “generic principles and specific
applications” in public relations (Vercic, L. Grunig, & J. Grunig, 1996). Granting the importance of
theories and models as frames of normative directions and standards of the discipline, I examine what
those who practice public relations are doing to conform their practice to these principles and how they
connect them with what is going on in the industry. In addition, since most theoretical principles are
based on public relations practices from organizations’ perspectives, this study attempts to focus more
on the voices of public relations professionals working at firms, or agencies.
1
Despite the importance of
agencies in public relations practice, the role and function of professionals in agencies has been hardly
researched.
This study explores issues surrounding the reality of public relations professionals in international
settings; I examine the way these practitioners create public relations plans and programs for their
clients as well as how they communicate with the clients and what they see as difficulties and problems
for their job, if any, through face-to-face interviews with seven public relations professionals. This study
also explores the professionals’ perspectives on how to communicate with their international clients,
how to manage differences, and what they recommend as the most effective practices of international
public relations based on their experiences.
Conceptualization
International vs. Global Public Relations
Public relations scholars and professionals have said the practice of public relations has been spread
1
Cutlip, Center and Broom (1994) maintained that many public relations agencies switched their titles to public relations firms in the
beginning of the 1980s because of the increased emphasis on counseling and strategic planning services, which were considered more
professional than those of press agents and publicity agencies. Also, by positioning them as “firms,” the public relations industry tried
to identify itself as something different from advertising agencies and other service providers working on commissions. Wilcox, Ault
and Agee (1995) also pointed out that public relations firms had increasingly emphasized the counseling function and services. In this
study, I employ the terms, firm and agency, interchangeably with the same connotation.
Despite the distinctions these scholars
make, I will use the terms “firm” and “agency” interchangeably.
Convention