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THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF CORPORATE ORGANIZATION

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The complex nature of the business world, couple with economic, social and environmental inequalities have raised the issue of public relations and corporate image. From time immemorial, organisations have tried in one way or the other to be identified by the community where they are operating. This need for identity and communication led to the development of public relations which community relations are part and parcel of. Public relations is a major tool in building good relations with the organisations’ various publics  by obtaining favourable publicity, building up a good corporate image, and handling, or heading off unfavourable rumours, stories and events, (Kotler and Armstrong, 2014).

The introduction of Public Relations practice in Nigeria was done through the initiatives of the colonial government and its obedient servants. Being an adjunct of Journalism, Public Relations became an important element in public communication in the colonial days. Public relations is “essentially about positively and systematically using actions and communications to influence people’s attitudes, opinions, belief, interest and behaviour in a given or desired direction (e.g. Adopting good environmental behaviours as well as building lasting credibility and reputation for individuals and corporate entities like profit or non-profit organisations and even nations, states, local government or communities” (Nwosu and Uffoh, 2006).

Public relations is concerned with “the promotion of rapport and goodwill between persons, firms or institutions, and other persons, special publics or the community at large, through the distribution of interpretative materials, the development of neighborly interchange and assessment of public reaction”(Webster, 2002).

A well formulated strategy helps to marshal and allocate an organisation’s resources into a unique and viable posture based on its relative internal competences and shortcomings, anticipated changes in the environment and contingent moves by an intelligent opponent. Thus strategy in the context of public relations entails organisational management’s deliberate and well planned use of communication activities in the direction that would position the organisation as a credible one and by so doing, enhance both the image/reputation of the organisation before its publics on one hand and its market share on the other hand.

Public relations as a profession have been severally defined as deliberate use of communication to achieve convivial relationship between an organisation and its publics. In doing this, practitioners usually map out action plans to achieve set goals. While those action plans sum up to what is now known as strategy, the actual coordinated activities for the realisation of the plans are the tactics.  By implication, strategy is the overriding plan that allows a public relations practitioner to help ensure that organisational goals and objectives are achieved (Hudson, 2014). On the one hand, tactics is the actual steps, or actions taken to

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