A fundamental public relations problem lies at the heart of public relations practice.

“We have a reputation problem of our own. People don’t often understand what we do, and we don’t help ourselves,” said Chris Foster, CEO, Omnicom Public Relations.

Foster was speaking at the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) Summit in Vienna.

The public relations function had a good COVID-19 pandemic. Its role was elevated within organisations as it supported crisis response and transformation. It became a trusted part of the senior team within organisations helping manage internal and external stakeholders.

Arun Sudhaman writing in PRovoke urged public relations practitioners not to forget the lessons of the past two years.

“You could describe the industry's double-digit 2021 surge as opportunistic. Even so, it is a long-term opportunity that it cannot afford to squander.”

I started PhD research studies at Leeds Business School in February to explore this issue. I wanted to understand the role that public relations practice played in driving innovation and its contribution to management during the pandemic.

COVID-19 wasn’t an isolated incident for public relations practice. It comes to the fore in a crisis, however there’s a fundamental contradiction. Public relations is just as likely to support an organisation in obfuscating a crisis as it is to help management drive positive organisational change.

Practitioners and theorists both jump to the defence of public relations from a purist perspective recognising only a positive and ethical application of practice as public relations. The public makes no such distinction. It’s one of the reasons that public relations has a poor reputation.

Questioning research and developing a research question

The initial phase of a PhD research project involves a cycle of reading scientific literature to develop a basis for a hypothesis. I’m currently on my third research question. I’ve been assured that this is normal.

There is limited research among the managers and directors that use public relations. Most studies survey practitioners. This obsession with talking to each other rather than a broader stakeholder group is a feature of both theory and practice.

It follows that there is a limited understanding of the contribution or benefit of public relations to strategic planning and decision making in management. There is limited quantifiable analysis of the contribution of public relations to value creation whether that be financial, sustainability, or societal.

There is a well-defined practitioner perspective of what good looks like in public relations practice. It is an area that has been explored by the Excellence Study in the 1980s and 1990s, and the European Communication Monitor over the past two decades.

Those studies that do engage with management stakeholders frequently question the education, training, and skills of public relations practitioners in relation to their ability to operate at a management level.

I keep returning to the issue of how do we improve the reputation of public relations and prove its value to management? It’s the issue that Chris Foster raised at the AMEC Summit.

Public relations practice repeatedly fails to learn. It’s a young discipline which almost certainly explains the lack of definitions. However, it frustrating to discover the same topics from diversity to measurement, and from skills to reputation debated in 10-to-20-year cycles.

The links between theory and practice are weak and must be improved in order to break the cycle.