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Highlights • A supportive organizational culture is critical to enhance PR professionals' overall job satisfaction. • Leadership performance significantly influences PR professionals' engagement, trust in organization and job satisfaction. • PR professionals' work engagement and trust in organization generate a joint mediating effect on their job satisfaction. • Work engagement is a strong predictor of job satisfaction through its direct influence on trust. Abstract The study examines the impact of critical organizational factors (organizational culture and excellent leader performance) on public relations professionals' overall job satisfaction by focusing on testing the joint mediating effects work engagement and trust could generate. A national online survey of 838 public relations professionals working in a variety of organizations was used as the empirical data to test the relationships in a proposed conceptual model. Results confirmed the strong impact organizational culture and leader performance could have on public relations professionals' work engagement, trust, and job satisfaction. More importantly, results revealed the significant joint mediating effects of engagement and trust on professionals' job satisfaction, when supportive organizational culture and excellent leader performance were achieved. The study concludes with research and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synopsis This study uses a model of excellent public relations leadership to examine gender differences in perceptions of professional leadership among Russian public relations practitioners. Analysis of a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews indicate that Russian women place greater importance on leadership than Russian men. However, female practitioners seem hesitant or unable to take a leadership role due to a perfect storm of gender effects: existing societal and professional gender stereotypes, male-dominated societal and organizational culture, and lack of support from educational programs and professional associations, among others. While experiencing this perfect storm, female professionals assumed a traditional gender role rather than a professional leadership role. In addition, those women who were top leaders in organizations did not necessarily desire leadership nor saw themselves as leaders in the communication field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Master and sub frames used by the Sierra Club to communicate with its members and the public were identified in Sierra Club chapter newsletters, regional and national newspapers via content analysis to identify the occurrence of message frames and sources. Frames in three areas – drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), coal-fired power plants (CFPP), and sprawl – were analyzed. Sprawl was the most mentioned subject in all three media. Sierra Club themes were found infrequently, suggesting the need to focus frames. But, Sierra Club frames appeared with greater frequency than competing frames. Environmental sources were the majority in the sampled articles, suggesting the opportunity for powerful framing of public opinion, with focused message frames and trained environmental spokespeople at all levels, i.e., national, regional, local. New theoretical ground for public relations scholarship is opened and findings could influence message strategies of activist and corporate or government organizations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Symmetrical public relations theory acknowledges primacy of the dominant coalition in making organizational decisions and influencing public relations practices but reveals little about this powerful inner circle. Drawing from interviews with 21 public relations executives, this article opens up the dominant coalition and reveals its complex power relationships and a matrix of constraints that undermine and limit the function, rendering it difficult for practitioners to do the"right"thing, even if they want to. If public relations is to better serve society, professionals and academics may need to embrace an activist role and combine advocacy of shared power with activism in the interest of shared power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chief executive officers (CEOs) help define an organization's image with internal and external stakeholders. The importance of the CEO in communications and image making with external stakeholders has long been acknowledged by practitioners and academics. In line with this, a study was conducted to examine the media coverage of CEOs in four leading U.S. newspapers from 1990 to 2000 to assess trends in the salience and valence of CEO coverage, topics of coverage and dimensions of CEO images presented in the press coverage. Newspapers were selected for the study because they are important sources of CEO-related information and public affairs news and information for people in the U.S., despite declining readership. This research documented a steady increase in the number of news stories about CEOs in the four newspapers during the 1990s, perhaps due to increased public attention to business, the personalization of CEOs, and practitioner reputation-building activities. The dominant topic of coverage in all four newspapers was the reporting of changes in the CEO office. Researchers have also suggested that media portrayals of CEOs prior to the 1990s were frequently critical. The study suggests some tactical considerations and strategic role implications for practitioners. Such is the need for practitioners to be less concerned with increasing the volume of coverage and more concerned with what CEO image dimensions are highlighted in interviews, news releases, features and other channels.

Evaluates the use of active learning in the graduate level in Alabama. Benefit of the active learning to the students in public relations; Definition of active learning; Incorporation of applied research and reflection.

This research examines attempts by the Business Roundtable (BRT) to influence federal policy agendas regarding four private issues (i.e., policy issues not salient on media and public agendas). BRT's information subsidies are studied along with media coverage, public opinion, and policy agenda developments. Results suggest that BRT uses information subsidies to control the scope of issue conflict and that these subsidies influenced the policy agenda for study issues. Corporate influence on private issues may alter the traditional agenda-setting process, and an alternative, elitist model is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conceptualizes organizational public relations as attempts to construct ideological world view. Three aspects of ideological world view—distortion, legitimation, and terrain of struggle—are elaborated and then grounded in a case study of the public relations practices of The Upjohn Company, a pharmaceutical manufacturer and researcher, during the Halcion® (sleeping pill) crisis in the 1980s. The case study reveals how such practices helped create a supportive scientific world view for Halcion, which may have contributed to the product' s steady growth in sales and profits during the decade, despite intense media scrutiny and criticism and the restrictive actions of health authorities in some countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study examined how similarly or differently American and Korean public relations practitioners use dissent tactics. The results showed that assertive confrontation was the most frequently adopted tactic among practitioners in both countries. However, Korean practitioners were more likely to work to sabotage implementation of unethical decision, and to leak information to external stakeholders than the US counterparts. This study will shed light on the impact of cultural difference on public relations practitioners’ dissent selection on unethical management decisions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Responses from 869 public relations practitioners were examined to see how female and male practitioners perceive and enact power-influence in public relations, including perceptions of power-influence, resources, preferred influence tactics, constraints on power, persuasive appeals, and what it means to "do the right thing" in public relations. Male and female practitioners shared similar definitions of power-influence in practice and similar beliefs in the value of personal advocacy and ethical appeals to influence decision making. Practitioners illustrated differences in the value of influence resources, choice of influence tactics, perceptions of constraints on practice, and style and vocabulary of dissent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]