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*building relationships between organizations and publics: examining the

linkage between organization-public relationships, evaluations of
satisfaction, and behavioral intent*

bruning, stephen d

"the emergence of relationship management as a paradigm for public

relations scholarship and practice calls into question the essence of
public relations-what it is and what it does or should do, its function
and value within organizational structure and the greater society"
(ledingham & bruning, 2000a, p. xiii). scholars (bruning, langenhop, &
green, 2004; heath, 2001b; ledingham, 2003) and practitioners
(lindenmann, 1998) have proposed that public relations activities
initiate, build, and maintain mutually beneficial relationships with
internal and external publics. the recent increase in scholarly and
practical application of the relationship management perspective has led
huang (2001b) to suggest that relationship management "has emerged as an
important paradigm for public relations scholarship and practice" (p. 270).

many public relations practitioners have struggled when using a

relational approach because until recently, a theoretical perspective
from which decisions could be made had not been articulated.
historically, public relations practitioners have balanced the "divided
loyalties they encounter as they try to serve the interests of their
client organizations and the interests of the publics to which they have
a social responsibility" (grunig, 2001, pp. 26-27). heath (2001a) has
noted, however, that "a concept that is receiving increased attention in
the literature is the virtue of creating relationships as a part of
public relations practice" (p. 443). additionally, coombs (2001) has
suggested that the relational approach, grounded in interpersonal
communication theory, "holds great promise for future applications to
public relations" (p. 114). recently ledingham (2003) explicated
relationship management as a general theory of public relations, and
suggested that relationship management involves "effectively managing
organization-public relationships around common interests and shared
goals, over time, [which] results in mutual understanding and benefit
for interacting organizations and publics" (p. 190). ledingham's theory
of relationship management was used to guide the current investigation
in order to empirically establish and validate the benefits of building
effective organization-public relationships by (a) exploring the ways in
which organization-public relationships are linked organizational
outcomes such as satisfaction evaluations and behavioral intent, (b)
determining what public members suggest would be common interests and
shared goals, and (c) suggesting ways that interacting organizations and
publics may enhance mutual understanding and benefit.

the evolution of relationship management

the relationship management approach holds appeal for scholars and

practitioners alike because the approach requires that practitioners
develop initiatives centered on the notion of mutual benefit, thus
maintaining equilibrium between organizational and public interests
(bruning 2001; grunig, 1993; ledingham & bruning, 1998). an additional
advantage focuses on the techniques that practitioners use to determine
programmatic effectiveness. historically, determining practitioner
effectiveness revolved around the production and placement of
organizational messages. in the relationship management perspective,
measuring public relations outcomes is based upon the effective
creation, development, and maintenance of mutually beneficial
organization-public relationships (ledingham & bruning, 1998). scholars
and practitioners who use the relationship management perspective
determine programmatic success based upon assessing the attitudinal,
evaluative, and/or behavioral changes that take place because of
effective organization-public relationship management as opposed to the
simple measurement of the amount of communication produced.

the genesis of the relationship management perspective can be traced to

ferguson's (1984) conference paper that suggested that relationships be
at the core of public relations scholarship. around the same time,
cutlip, center, and broom (1985) defined public relations as "the
management function that identifies, establishes, and maintains mutually
beneficial relationships between an organization and the various publics
on whom its success or failure depends" (p. 6). grunig (1992) suggested
that public relations focus on building relationships with publics that
constrain or enhance the ability of the organization to meet its
mission. more recently, kent and taylor (2002) noted that the study and
practice of public relations has developed "a new emphasis on building,
nurturing, and maintaining relationships" (p. 23).

a number of scholars have attempted to further explicate the term

relationship. ledingham and bruning (1998) grounded their definition in
interpersonal relationship principles when they stated that an
organization-public relationship is "the state which exists between an
organization and its key publics, in which the actions of either can
impact the economic, social, cultural, or political well-being of the
other" (p. 62). hutton (1999) reported that relationship management "has
the power to both define and serve as a paradigm (organizing philosophy
or model) for the field" (p. 208), and suggested that relationships
consist of some combination of trust, commitment, communication, the
costs to exiting the relationship, and shared values. broom, casey, and
ritchey (2000) focused more on the transactional aspect of the
relationship. they suggested that relationships consist of the
transactions that involve the exchange of resources between
organizations and publics and lead to mutual benefit. kent and taylor
(2002) suggest that public relations practitioners should utilize a
dialogic approach when building organization-public relationships
because a dialogic approach builds relationships that serve both
organizational and public interests. moreover, it has been suggested
that dialogue may be replacing the concept of symmetry as an organizing
principle in public relations theory building by placing emphasis on the
relationship (taylor, kent, & white, 2001).

scholarly research examining organization-public relationships typically

has been framed using one of two approaches. in the first approach,
scholars have examined the organization-public relationship as a
phenomenon distinct from the perceptions held by the participants in the
relationship (broom, et al., 2000), which was focused on
organization/public interactions, and that delineated the ways in which
those exchanges defined the relationship. public relations scholars who
have adopted this approach have found it useful in the study of crisis
management (coombs, 2000), issues management (bridges & nelson, 2000),
healthcare (lucarelli-dimmick, 2000), community relations (wilson,
2000), global public relations (kruckeberg, 2000), and education (broom
et al., 2000).

the second approach to relationship management scholarship linked key

public member attitudes about their relationship with an organization to
outcomes such as satisfaction evaluations, intended behaviors, and
actual respondent behavior. the theoretical grounding for the second
stream of research can be found primarily in interpersonal communication
models (coombs, 2001). huang (2001a), for example, developed a
relationship assessment scale that showed that trust, control mutuality,
relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and face and favor
were factors that measured the quality of cross-cultural
organization-public relationships. application of the scale has shown
that effectively managed organization-public relationships mediated
conflict and positively affected issue outcomes (huang, 2001b). hon and
grunig (1999) stated that the value of public relations was in
relationships, then suggested nine strategies for managing
relationships. the authors also developed a scale that examined the
organization-public issues of trust, control mutuality, commitment,
satisfaction, communal relationships, and exchange relationships. other
scholars have reported that respondent perceptions of organizational
investment, commitment, openness, involvement, and trust were related to
key public member evaluations of satisfaction (bruning & ledingham,
1998) and behavioral intent (bruning & ledingham, 2000a; ledingham &
bruning, 1998, 2000b). additionally, research has shown that
organizations and key public members have personal, professional, and
community relationships (bruning & ledingham, 1999), which have been
linked to evaluations of satisfaction (bruning & ledingham, 2000b),
intended behavior (bruning & ralston, 2000, 2001; ledingham, 2001), and
actual behavior (bruning, 2002; bruning & lambe, 2002). finally, bruning
and galloway (2003) reported that organizations and publics have
relationships that revolve around anthropomorphism, personal commitment,
professional benefit/expectation, community improvement, and the
comparison of alternatives. application of that scale has shown a
linkage between organization-public relationships and housing
satisfaction (bruning, langenhop, & green, 2004).

the amount of scholarly research devoted to examining the influence of

organization-public relationships has increased steadily in the past 10
years. much of that research has suggested that key public member
evaluations and behaviors toward an organization were linked to
respondent attitudes about his/her relationship with an organization. a
seemingly simple solution to this dilemma would be wholesale application
of interpersonal communication relationship principles to the
organization-public context. research has shown, however, that
interpersonal communication principles cannot be applied directly to the
organization-public context (bruning, 2000; ledingham, bruning, &
wilson, 1999). as a result of the differences between
organization-public and interpersonal relationships, understanding the
ways in which organization-public relationships operate and affect key
public member evaluations and behaviors is critical, especially for
those who are responsible for the management of these relationships.
although previous public relations research has explored some of the
ways in which relationships are linked to organizational outcomes, no
investigation to date has explored specifically the tenets set forth in
ledingham's (2003) theory of relationship management. thus, the
following hypotheses and research question are posed:

h^sub 1^: respondent perceptions of the organization-public relationship

will differentiate those who say they will remain as a customer of the
organization from those who will leave or are uncertain.

h^sub 2^: respondent perceptions of the organization-public relationship

will differentiate those who say that the performance of the
organization has fallen short, met, or exceeded expectations.

rq^sub 1^: what are the kinds of community relations activities that an
organizations could sponsor that would positively affect the lives of
key public members?

methods

data collection

a proposal outlining the current research project was created and

presented to the management of a supplier of electrical service located
in a major mid-western city (company a). company a was selected because
it has provided electrical service to its current base of customers for
more than 20 years and has an extensive public relations program for
both residential subscribers (in the form of bill stuffers and public
relations advertising-advertising that focuses on the reputation of the
organization rather than the selling of a product or service) and the
community (by way of event sponsorships and programs).

the sample for the current investigation was selected by drawing names
from the local telephone directory. respondents were recruited for
inclusion by using a systematic sampling strategy with a random start.
because the survey was administered approximately one month prior to
deregulation of the electric industry, the vast majority of individuals
within the service territory of the telephone company also were in the
service territory of company a. it was possible, however, that a phone
customer would not receive electrical service from company a or would
not be responsible for paying for electrical service. therefore, a
screener was developed in which the respondents were asked (a) whether
they received their electrical service from company a, (b) whether the
person responding to the questionnaire was also the individual who paid
the electric bill, (c) whether the respondent was older than 18 years of
age, and (d) if the electrical service provided was residential.

data were collected by conducting a telephone survey of company a

customers. as part of a requirement of an undergraduate public relations
research course, each student enrolled in the course completed five
telephone interviews. the students received training in telephone
interview techniques during a two-hour training session. as a result of
the training session, slight modifications to transition paragraphs were
made to create a more conversational tone during survey administration.
all students (26) enrolled in the course completed the data collection
requirement. additionally, the faculty member teaching the course also
interviewed five respondents. a total of 245 calls were placed in which
a person answered the phone (as opposed to no answer or voice mail);
approximately 55% of those calls resulted in a completed questionnaire.
thus, the total number of surveys included in the analysis was 185. the
telephone calls were completed between 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
weeknights. because many respondents may have been eating dinner between
5:30 and 7:00 p.m., no calls were placed during that time. the average
completed interview lasted about five minutes.

survey instrument

respondent organization-public relationship attitudes were measured

using the bruning and galloway (2003) organization public relationship
scale. the scale is a 24-item, multi-dimension measure of respondent's
relationship with an organization and focuses on (a)
anthropomorphism-the degree to which key public members assign human
qualities to an organization, (b) personal commitment-the level of
individual dedication that key public members exhibit toward the
organization, (c) professional benefit/expectations-the level of
assurance that the organization will engage in responsible actions and
provide benefit to the publics served, (d) community improvement-the
confidence that key public members have that the actions taken by an
organization will improve the communities in which the organization
operates, and (e) comparison of alternatives-the process by which key
public members evaluate the attractiveness of an organization in
comparison to competitor organizations. respondents were asked, using a
7-point likert-type scale that was anchored from strongly disagree to
strongly agree, to indicate their level of agreement with the 24
questions. the results show that coefficient alpha for the
anthropomorphism dimension was .84 (m = 4.55, sd = 1.38), the personal
commitment dimension was .87 (m = 4.37, sd = 1.60), the professional
benefit/expectations dimension was .85 (m = 4.68, sd = 1.36), the
community improvement dimension was .87 (m = 4.51, sd = 1.42), and the
comparison of alternatives dimension was .72 (m = 3.79, sd = 1.29).

the behavioral intent of the respondents was determined by asking the

participants what they would do if a competing provider offered the same
service at a 10% discount. it is important to have a realistic and
appropriate discount rate when determining behavioral intent because
kotler (1994) has noted that customers do not always react to price
discounts from competitor organizations in a straightforward way. for
some, a price decrease may signal for consumers that the item is about
to be replaced by a new model. for others, they may feel that the item
is faulty or that the quality of the item has been reduced. in this
investigation, the 10% discount figure was determined by researching the
offers of competing providers of electrical service. specifically, the
discount was calculated by comparing the "price to compare" figure
provided by company a (5.44 cents-per-kilwatthour) with the competitor
advertised price (4.90 cents-per-kilwatthour)-which, when rounded, is a
10% discount. thus, the discount rate was realistic, and was set at a
level that would not make the respondents feel that the service was
faulty or that the quality of service was reduced.

additionally, respondents were asked what they would do if a competitor

organization offered the same service at the same price, whether they
felt the current provider has fallen short, met, or exceeded respondent
expectations, and whether respondents felt they had a relationship with
the current provider. demographic questions of age and gender were
included. finally, an open-ended question-"if you could suggest to
(company a) something to sponsor that would have a positive impact on
your life, what would that be"-was asked (for the open-ended question,
respondents were limited to one response).

sample

respondents who were 18-24 years old made up 4% of the sample, 26% were
25-35 years old, 38% were 36-50 years old, 22% were 51-65 years old, and
10% were 66 and older. females made up 58% of the sample; 42% were male.
a total of 14% of the sample indicated that the company had fallen short
of their expectations, 70% reported that the company had met
expectations, and 16% indicated the company had exceeded expectations.
when asked whether they had a relationship with the company, 46% of the
respondents said they did, 39% did not, and 15% were uncertain.
responses to the question "if a competing provider were to offer you the
same service but at a cost savings of 10%, what would you do?" showed
that 22% of the respondents would stay with their current provider of
electrical service, 50% would leave, and 28% were uncertain. the 10%
discount question was followed by asking respondents what they would do
if they were offered the same service at the same price. results showed
that 77% of the respondents would stay with their current provider, 4%
would leave, and 19% were uncertain.

results

the first hypothesis suggested that respondent anthropomorphism,

personal commitment, professional benefit/expectations, community
improvement, and comparison of alternatives attitudes would
differentiate those who said they would remain as a customer of company
a from those who would leave or were uncertain. first, a box's m test
was computed to test for homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices.
significant results indicate heterogeneity of covariance matrices across
groups and suggest that it may be necessary to (a) include covariates in
subsequent models or (b) treat groups separately in further analyses.
the results showed no significant differences across those who would
stay, leave, or were uncertain. next, discriminant analysis was
conducted and one significant discriminant function resulted (function
1: wilks λ = .71, �?^sup 2^ = 41.36, df= 10, p < .001; function 2:
wilks λ = .97, �?^sup 2^ = 3.65, df= 4, p < .46), with an eigenvalue of
.37 and a canonical correlation of .52. the group centroid analysis on
the first discriminant function shows that relationship attitudes
separate those who say they would stay with their current provider
(1.06) from those who would leave (-.46) or were uncertain (-.01). see
table 1 for the mean scores and standard deviation scores, and table 2
for the structure coefficients and classification function coefficients.

as can be seen in the structure matrix presented in table 2, personal

commitment is strongly related, anthropomorphism and comparison of
alternatives are substantially related, and community improvement and
professional benefit/expectation are moderately related to the
discriminant function. correct classification into groups was 65% (prior
probabilities were 83%).

the second hypothesis suggested that respondent anthropomorphism,

personal commitment, professional benefit/expectations, community
improvement, and comparison of alternatives attitudes would
differentiate those who said company a had fallen short, met, or
exceeded their expectations. again, a box's m test was computed to test
for homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices. the results showed no
significant differences across those who felt company a had fallen
short, met, or exceeded their expectations. next, discriminant analysis
was conducted and one significant discriminant function resulted
(function 1: wilks λ = .64, �?^sup 2^ = 53.87, df = 10, p < .001;
function 2: wilks λ = .98, �?^sup 2^ = 2.87, df= 4, p < .58), with an
eigenvalue of .54 and a canonical correlation of .59. the group centroid
analysis on the first discriminant function shows that relationship
attitudes separate those who say the company had fallen short (-1.70)
from those who felt the company had met (.01) or exceeded (.92)
expectations. see table 3 for the mean scores and standard deviation
scores, and table 4 for the structure coefficients and classification
function coefficients.

as can be seen in the table 4, professional benefit/expectation,

anthropomorphism, and personal commitment are substantially related, and
community improvement and comparison of alternatives are moderately
related to the discriminant function. correct classification into groups
was 73% (prior probabilities were 33%).

the research question was asked in order to explore the types of

community relations activities that might positively affect the lives of
key public members. in order to analyze the responses to the open-ended
question, the lead author created categories that two undergraduate
students (who were not enrolled in the research course) used to "tally"
the number of appearances of a category. in order to conduct the coding,
the two undergraduate students took part of a training session in which
they were given a codebook and the coding instrument was explained.
definitions for each of the seven categories (e.g., providing examples
and illustrations of what responses that focused on arts in the
community, children's activities, helping the disadvantaged, health and
wellness, recreational activities, education, and other would look like)
were provided, and each of the students coded the entire sample (not all
respondents provided an answer to the open-ended question; thus students
coded the responses to 71 surveys). a cohen's kappa coefficient was
computed to assess the reliability of these codings. the analysis
yielded a kappa coefficient of .81. the percentage agreement between the
two independent coders was 88%. the responses to the question "if you
could suggest to (company a) something to sponsor that would have a
positive impact on your life, what would that be" showed that 26% of the
respondents favored sponsorships focusing on arts in the community, 17%
suggested children's activities, 15% recommended helping the
disadvantaged, 12% advocated health and wellness issues, 12% proposed
sponsoring recreational activity, 9% encouraged support of local
education, and 9% advised the organization to engage in some other type
of sponsorship.

discussion

one of the tenets of ledingham's (2003) theory of relationship

management suggests a linkage between organization-public relationships
and outcomes such as enhanced satisfaction and improved levels of
loyalty. the results from the current investigation illustrate that the
organization-public relationship dimensions of personal commitment and
anthropomorphism, and to a lesser degree comparison of alternatives,
community improvement, and professional benefit/expectation
differentiate (a) those who feel company a has fallen short, met, or
exceeded respondent expectations, and (b) those who said they would stay
with company a, would leave, or were undecided. because personal
commitment plays a prominent role in respondent evaluations and intended
behavior, those who manage organization-public relationships would be
well served by developing strategies to "personalize" the organization
for the public. bruning and larnbe (2002) suggest that organizations
should communicate both content and relational messages when interacting
with publics because most organizations focus only on communicating
content messages and often fail to attend to the relational aspects of
organization-public communication. additionally, building the
anthropomorphic relationship dimension should positively affect key
public member evaluations of the overall organization-public
relationship. moreover, in the context of today's marketplace (in which
corporate scandals focusing on public trust violations are occurring
with alarming frequency), the current investigation quantitatively
illustrates one way that public and organizational interests are
advanced when effective relationships are built.

the second tenet of ledingham's (2003) theory of relationship management

suggests that organizations and publics need to determine common
interests and shared goals. in interpersonal relationships, "personally
committed partners monitor their relationship's condition and take the
initiative to correct or improve any aspect of the relationship that
appears to be deficient" (adams & jones, 1999, p. 19). the key to
translating this concept from personal relationship research into
organization-public relationship practice lies in the notion that
organizations must monitor the condition of the organization-public
relationship and be proactive when addressing areas of deficit. kent and
taylor (2002) recently have argued persuasively that organizations
should engage in a dialogic approach when practicing public relations
because a dialogic approach can "change the nature of the
organization-public relationship by placing emphasis on the
relationship" (p. 24). engaging in a dialogic approach requires
organizations to actively solicit information from key public members
and listen to, process, and respond to those messages. as the dialogue
progresses, public relations practitioners should be better able to
determine the common interests and shared goals that exist. moreover,
the authors note that a dialogic approach, when used ethically, can
build relationships that serve both organizational and public interests.
successfully employing a dialogic approach, however, requires that
organizational leaders be comfortable and trained in dialogue. kent and
taylor (2002) suggest that

skills that are necessary include: listening, empathy, being able to

contextualize issues within local, national, and international
frameworks, being able to identify common ground between parties,
thinking about long-term rather than short-term objectives, seeking out
groups/individuals with opposing viewpoints, and soliciting a variety of
internal and external opinions on policy issues, (p. 31)

additionally, it is critical that public relations practitioners

understand the changing nature of key public member expectations when
engaging in dialogue. gronstedt (1997) has noted that public members
seek information and are,

active, interactive, and equal participants of an ongoing communication

process, rather than passive sponges. the role of the communicator is
increasingly to make information available to stakeholders in a
user-friendly way, rather than shoving it down their throats, and to
support an ongoing relationship rather than transferring information.
(p. 89)
failure to adapt to key public member communication expectations will
strain dialogue and often undermine an organization's ability to
determine common interests and goals.

the third tenet of ledingham's (2003) theory of relationship management

requires that public relations practitioners suggest ways that
interacting organizations and publics may enhance mutual understanding
and benefit. personal relationship research shows that virtually all
close relationships are formed within the context of mutually beneficial
interactions (adams & jones, 1999). the key to translating this notion
from personal relationship research is determining what organizations
and publics can do to create mutually beneficial interactions. bruning
and hatfield (2002) suggest that sponsoring events that focus on
improving the life satisfaction of key public members positively
influences respondent attitudes about, evaluations of, and behaviors
toward a sponsoring organization. the results from the current
investigation showed that key public members would like to see the
organization sponsor the following events: arts in the community,
children's activities, helping the disadvantaged, health and wellness,
recreational activities, and education. it is important to note that
four of the events-improving the community, recreational activities,
promoting wellness issues, and education-have correlates to issues that
positively affect life satisfaction (michalos, 1985). thus, these
results suggest that company a would be well-served by communicating its
involvement in those activities (a review of the web page showed that
the organization does indeed sponsor community events that revolve
around these issues) to increase understanding among publics and help
them to recognize the benefits provided by the organization. in doing
so, company a will be able to demonstrate that it adds value to the
organization-public relationship, supports activities that improve the
community, and positively affect the lives of the public members that it
serves.

there are a number of limitations to the current investigation. research

shows that relationship building takes time and that different needs are
manifest at different points in the relationship (ledingham, bruning, &
wilson, 1999). therefore, care should be taken when interpreting the
results of this investigation because only one company in one city at
one point in time is examined. although this investigation does provide
a "snapshot" of the ways in which organization-public relationships
influence a number of organizational outcomes, additional research
should be conducted over time to more thoroughly examine the ways in
which relationship expectations and needs may vary. moreover, care
should be taken when generalizing the organization-public relationship
findings from this research investigation. past research has shown that
key public members have different relationship expectations based upon
the type of organization (bruning & ledingham, 2002). therefore,
additional research should be conducted to determine whether key public
member relationship needs varied based upon the type of organization
and/or industry in which the organization operated.

additionally, future research should be undertaken to examine the ways

in which relationship building may be related to perceptions of social
responsibility. the professional benefit/expectation dimension has
questions that specifically examine respondent social responsibility
expectations. moreover, the anthropomorphism dimension likewise focuses
on issues that are at the heart of being a responsible relational
partner. thus, it would be interesting to examine the interplay between
social responsibility, relationship building, respondent behaviors, and
organizational outcomes.

finally, future research also should undertaken examining the ways in

which market share may be protected as a result of relationship building
activity. although these data show that those who have more positive
relationship evaluations are more likely to remain as a customer of
company a, these data do not allow for a determination of the relative
influence that the organization-public relationship has on the
decision-making process. public relations practitioners are under
intense pressure to justify programmatic expenditures and justify
spending outlays (gronstedt, 1997). thus, a research project that was
designed to understand the specific ways in which relationships
contribute to bottom-line functioning is critical, and would be welcomed
by both scholars and practitioners.

the relationship management approach to the study and practice of public

relations has been gaining scholarly and practical interest in the past
10 years. public relations practitioners must recognize that the
relationship attitudes of key public members influence outcomes such as
satisfaction and behavior. the results from this investigation, coupled
with previous relationship management research suggest that
organization-public relationships, when managed effectively, positively
affect the attitudes, evaluations, and behaviors of key public members.
the current investigation is offered as a part of a growing body of
literature that demonstrates the importance of organization-public
relationships, and further demonstrates the benefits accrued when public
relations efforts are focused on relationship building activities.

copyright central states speech association fall 2004

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