Communication

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ORGANIZATION-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIPS MODEL: A TWO-SIDED STORY
(2009) Shen, Hongmei; Toth, Elizabeth L.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The purpose of this study was to develop a theory of internal relationship management, and to propose a new way of measuring organization-public relationships by simultaneously examining the organizations' as well as their employees' perceptions of the quality of their relationships. It sought to contribute to theory-building on the process of relationship management from its maintenance through its quality to the consequences. An online survey was used to collect data. Usable questionnaires totaled 785 from 30 organizations. Data analytic methods included missing value analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, multivariate regression, polynomial regression, surface response tests, mediation tests, and reliability tests. The proposed measures of symmetrical relationship maintenance strategies, asymmetrical relationship strategies, organization-employee relationship characteristics, turnover intention, and contextual performance were found to be valid and reliable. The major findings included: first, the more organizations used symmetrical relationship maintenance strategies with their employees, the more likely both employees and the organizations reported greater trust, control mutuality, commitment, satisfaction, and less distrust in the relationship; and vice versa for asymmetrical strategies. Second, employees would have higher turnover intention when both employees and their organizations perceived higher distrust and lower trust, control mutuality, commitment, and satisfaction. Also, when employees were more optimistic than their organizations about their relationships, employees were more likely to leave the organization. Third, employees' contextual performance would rise as both these employees and their organizations reported greater level of commitment and satisfaction. However, employees' level of contextual performance would drop when incongruence increased. Lastly, mediation tests showed that the effects of symmetrical and asymmetrical relationship maintenance strategies on turnover intention and contextual performance were partially mediated by congruence of perceived relationship characteristics, excluding the dimension of distrust regarding the effect of relationship maintenance strategies on contextual performance. This study contributed to public relations theory by 1) clarifying and refining the conceptualizations and operationalizations of relationship maintenance strategies, congruence of perceived relationship characteristics, and organizational effectiveness, 2) proposing a new way to evaluate two sides of organization-public relationships, and 3) empirically testing a relationship-building model within organizations to develop a theory of internal relationship management.
INTEGRATING STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT: EVALUATING PUBLIC RELATIONS AS RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT IN INTEGRATED COMMUNICATION
(2009) Smith, Brian G.; Toth, Elizabeth L.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
There is a gap in public relations and marketing communication literature. In spite of increasing professional use of integrated communication--a process by which organizations coordinate the communication functions and activities for stakeholder impact--public relations roles have been under-developed in scholarship. In fact, most insights on public relations and integration appear to be opinion-based and normative. Hallahan (2007) has argued that the literature is "fragmentary and hardly conclusive" (p. 308), and other scholars claim that integrated communication research is still in its pre-paradigmatic stages of development (Kerr, et al., 2008) as research emphasizes definitions and perceptions (Kliatchko, 2008, p. 133). This research--a multi-case study of three organizations that carry out varying levels of integration--addresses the need to outline and evaluate public relations and integrated communication from a theoretical perspective. This study considers public relations a strategic relationship management function, consistent with Grunig (2006a), Ledingham (2006) and other public relations scholars. This perspective is in contrast with that of marketing communication scholars, who consider public relations a marketing support function (Keh, Nguyen, Ng, 2007; Debreceny & Cochrane, 2004; Hendrix, 2004). This study demonstrates that concerns that integrating public relations and marketing may lead to marketing imperialism and "an inferior technical role" for public relations, as Hallahan's (2007) review of the literature discovered (p. 305), may be based in opinion only, and may not represent professional practice. In fact, higher levels of integration yield a greater emphasis on public relations as a strategic relationship management function. This research also demonstrates that integration occurs naturally, regardless of organizational structure. In spite of varying levels of integration evident at each organization (based on the structure outlined by Duncan and Caywood [1996] and Caywood [1997]) integration is a natural process based on internal relationships and connections--a process I refer to as "organic integration." This multi-case study fulfills three challenges facing public relations and integrated communication proposed by Hallahan (2007). It provides a research-based definition of integrated communication, considers the theoretical convergence of public relations and integrated communication, and it conceptualizes organizational communication and department structures (p. 309-313).
Attributional processes in accounting for conflict behaviors
(2009) Yao, Shuo; Cai, Deborah A.; Fink, Edward L.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
One simple way to handle interpersonal conflict is to use accounts to explain one's behaviors. Although accounts play a significant role in managing conflict, relatively little research has explored the processes offenders use to determine the accounts selected in conflict situations. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the attributional processes offenders use that determine their accounts in conflict. Ten hypotheses were proposed about how the severity of the conflict outcome and the closeness between the parties involved in the conflict influence offenders' choice of accounts. A structural equation model was developed and tested based on the proposed hypotheses. An experiment was conducted, with two levels of outcome severity and three levels of relational closeness. Offenders' attributions (i.e., the degree of internal attribution, the degree of external attribution, controllability, and uncontrollability), anticipated consequences (i.e., expected responsibility and expected anger), and offenders' expected choice of accounts (i.e., the likelihood of selecting concessions, justifications, excuses, and refusals) were measured. Two hundred thirty-eight participants were recruited and randomly assigned to one of the six experimental conditions. Participants read a hypothetical conflict scenario, imagined that they were the offender in the scenario, and completed a questionnaire that had the dependent measures. Results indicated that outcome severity influenced offenders' choice of accounts directly and indirectly. Offenders tended to choose a more defensive account when they perceived the outcome to be severe than when the outcome was not severe. The influence of outcome severity on offenders' choice of accounts was also mediated by the attributions offenders made, the responsibility expected to be assigned to offenders, and anger expected to be felt by victims. When offenders perceived the outcome to be severe, offenders made more attributions, expected more responsibility to be assigned to them, and expected that victims felt angrier about offenders' behavior than when the outcome was not severe. Consequently, when offenders expected more anger from victims, they tended to be less defensive. Interpretations and implications of results, the limitations of the study, and future directions were discussed.
A Roles Approach to Conflict Strategies: Modeling the Effects of Self- and Other-Role Enactment on Conflict Strategies Through Goals and Emotion
(2008) Xie, Xiaoying; Cai, Deborah A.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation addresses how, in a conflict situation, individuals enact different roles and how their responses to the other party's role enactment affect the strategies they choose to handle the conflict. A model is proposed to delineate the cognitive and emotional process through which the focal individual and the other party's role enactment affect the focal individual's conflict strategies. The model was first examined using the data based on participants' recall of a past conflict and their answers to questions that assessed behaviors (N = 265). Next, a laboratory experiment was used to test a model in which a conflict was induced and each participant interacted with a confederate to complete a decision making task (N = 261). The focal person's obligation to his or her general role and the other party's expectation violations were manipulated. Participants' embracement of their situated roles, perceived goal importance, emotion, and the use of four types of conflict strategies were measured. Results indicated that obligation predicted the use of relational-protective strategies through the mediating effect of relational goal importance. Embracement of the situated role was found to directly predict the use of a relational-protective confronting strategy but indirectly predict the use of a relational-disruptive confronting strategy through situated goal importance. The other's expectation violation changed the perceived goal importance and the emotion of the focal individual, which predicted the use of relational-disruptive strategies. However, the main reason for the effect of expectation violation on relational-disruptive strategies was individuals' direct reaction to the other's behavior rather than anger. Interpretations and implications of the results, the limitations of the study, theoretical and methodological contributions of the study, and future directions were discussed.
A Cross-Cultural Study of the Effect of Empathy on the Moral Judgment of Distributive Justice Principles: Need Versus Equity
(2008-11-30) Han, Bing; Cai, Deborah A.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation research examined how cultures differ in the use of the distributive justice principles of need and equity. Empathy was proposed as a possible mechanism to explain cultural differences in the conflict between the ethics of care and justice as reflected in the use of the need and equity principles. Four experiments were conducted to investigate the role of empathy in three distinct distribution situations across two cultural groups, Chinese nationals and U.S. Americans. In all four studies, participants were asked to assume the role of a high-status person and make a distribution decision in a questionnaire. The first and second studies examined how empathy affected the equity principle in a bonus distribution situation in a company; the third study explored how empathy influenced the need principle in an assistance-fund distribution situation in a charity organization; and the fourth study investigated how empathy affected the choice between merit and need in a scholarship distribution situation in a university. Data were collected in both China and the U.S. for each of the four studies (total N = 1,022). Results indicated a significant moderating effect of culture such that empathy had different effects on the principles of equity and need in the two cultural groups. Empathy narrowed the money gap between low- and high-competence employees for Chinese, but maintained the gap for U.S. Americans; it also equalized the amount of money given to low- and high-need applicants for Chinese, but preserved the difference for U.S. Americans. Interpretations and implications of the results are provided, and the methodological and theoretical significance of the research along with future directions are discussed.
Traditional Values and Progressive Desires: Tensions of Identity in the Rhetoric of the Granger Movement in Illinois, 1870-1875
(2008-11-21) Chambers, Michael Allen; Klumpp, James F; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In the decade following the Civil War, Illinois Farmers suffered from a variety of economic problems such as deflated currency, increased agricultural production, international competition, high tariffs, expensive farm implements, high transportation rates, high taxes, and the occasional natural disaster. Scattered, powerless, and dependent, Illinois farmers were especially vulnerable to a political and economic system controlled by corporate monopolies, corrupt and unresponsive government, and an endless procession of middlemen waiting to take their share of the farmers' hard-earned profits. Farmers responded by forming the Granger movement, the first large-scale farmers' movement in the United States and the initial episode of a broader farmers' movement in the late nineteenth century. Granger movement rhetoric constituted Illinois farmers as powerful agents of change by transforming them from individual actors into the agricultural class, a powerful collective identity motivated for political and economic action. Movement rhetoric did so by drawing upon the motivational power of three strands of American public discourse--the agrarian myth, the rhetoric of class, and the legacy of the American Revolution--to create a narrative that empowered Midwestern farmers to see the dire consequences of their agrarian individualism and to constitute themselves as a class that could adequately respond to their material conditions in the late nineteenth century.
The National Woman's Party's Militant Campaign for Woman Suffrage: Asserting Citizenship Rights through Political Mimesis
(2008-09-05) Stillion Southard, Belinda Ane; Parry-Giles, Shawn J.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This project attends to ways in which the National Woman's Party's (NWP) militant woman suffrage campaign empowered U.S. women to assert their political agency and help earn women's fully-enfranchised citizenship rights through rhetorical acts of political mimesis. Specifically, this study examines how the NWP mimicked political rituals and rhetorics to simultaneously earn political legitimacy and expand women's citizenship roles in the nation-state. To this end, this project examines the NWP's suffrage discourse between 1913 and 1920 to demonstrate the ways in which the group's mimetic strategies both reified and challenged progressive and wartime notions of U.S. nationalism promoted by President Woodrow Wilson and members of Congress. These chapters trace the trajectory of the NWP's campaign as it mimicked inaugural parades, third-party strategies, and congressional and presidential politicking to empower NWP members with the political authority that rivaled the nation's political leaders. The NWP's mimetic strategies allowed NWP members to constitute their national citizenship identities as they accessed reserved political spaces, demanded the attention of President Wilson and members of Congress, engaged the U.S. citizenry as political actors, and suffered severe backlash against their militant acts. In so doing, the NWP helped normalize women's presence in the political sphere, nationalize the suffrage movement, attract national media attention, and ultimately, earn widespread recognition and political legitimacy. Finally, this study looks at the empowering and disempowering potential of political mimesis as a strategy for social and political change, particularly as the NWP formed alliances and divisions among women in national and international communities. In the process, the project looks at how the NWP's rhetoric of political mimesis shaped and was shaped by the democratizing exigencies of President Wilson's nationalist vision; in turn, the NWP's militant campaign helped re-envision the gendered nation.
When the Organization-Public Relationship is More Than Just Calculation: What We Can Learn from the Case Study of an Exemplar Community-based Intervention
(2008-05-09) Austin, Lucinda; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Working with publics and organizations at the community level has become increasingly important for government and non-governmental organizations, although, little is known about how to foster development of these relationships. Through the case study of an exemplar relationship between a national organization and a community-based organization, organization-public relationship theory is used to explore relationship type, antecedents, cultivation strategies, and relationship outcomes. Methods within the case study include in-depth interviews with organizational members, participant observation, and documentation. Strong support is found for the covenantal relationship type; capacity, readiness, and climate antecedents; cultivation strategies of networking, sharing of tasks, and access; and all relationship outcomes. Admiration, received support as an additional outcome and as a relational antecedent. Additionally, themes of customer service and researching and understanding publics emerged as cultivation strategies. This study has implications for forming relationships with publics and organizations at the community level, especially in health and social contexts.
A Theory of Rhetorical Humor in American Political Discourse
(2007-11-27) Phillips-Anderson, Michael; Gaines, Robert N; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation offers a theory of the strategic use of rhetorical humor in political discourse. This theory accounts for the differences between intentional and unintentional humor while creating a structure for the identification of humorous utterances. The largest gap in the current state of knowledge concerning rhetorical humor is a lack of understanding regarding the connection between humorous attempts and persuasive situations. This area of concern is answered with a classification of the rhetorical strategies of humor. I propose three nested categories for the identification of actions that have amusement or laughter as an expected response. These three categories in order of increasing exclusivity are the risible, humor, and rhetorical humor. The risible includes all stimuli that create amusement, regardless of intention. The risible is not limited to, but includes, those situations in which the speaker did not attempt to use humor but the audience was amused. Humor is a linguistic act on the part of a speaker that carries with it the intended effect of producing a state of amusement or mirth in the audience. Rhetorical humor is a linguistic act on the part of a speaker that carries with it the intended effect of producing a state of amusement or mirth in the auditor for the purpose of bringing about a change in attitude or belief. The theory presented here contends that rhetorical humor can be used to achieve nine strategic objectives for the speaker. The employment of these strategies is demonstrated through an examination of significant speeches by President Bill Clinton, Governor Ann Richards, and rights activist Sojourner Truth. With the development of a theory of rhetorical humor in political discourse and its application as a critical heuristic this project contributes to our understanding of rhetoric, political discourse, and that most human of experiences, humor.
Relationship Management and Member Retention: A Case Study of an Advocacy Organization
(2007-12-05) Derville, Tiffany Lynn; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
A case study of a grassroots advocacy organization was conducted to test and expand relationship theory and to explore perceptions about the relationship between members and the organization. The case study included interviews with 39 staff members at national, state, and affiliate levels; 58 members; and 5 former members, for a total of 102 participants. Additional methods included 49 hours of participant observation and an examination of both internal and external documents. The primary relationship type between the organization and its members was communal, and strategies were presented to cultivate communal relationships. This study empirically justified the critic's perspective for classifying relationship types due to one case in which three relationship types emerged, depending on whether the former member's, affiliate staff member's, or my interpretation was used, which also resulted in a new relationship type. Due to these differences in perceptions, this study used the terms intended and perceived when identifying relationship types, which is a clarification for future studies to use. Cultivation strategies were organized in a new way by classifying them as either organizational management strategies or as interpersonal strategies. This study also discussed cultivation strategies by characterizing some as particularly important to either the early stage of the relationship or to the mature stage of it. Several new cultivation strategies were presented, such as priming, problem parking, and insulation. This study also opened a new area for relationship theory through a conceptualization and exploration of relationship stresses. This category is organized by stresses that are internal to the organization and those that are external to it. Examples of relationship stresses include the emotion tax, relationship speeding, and relationship stalling. Cultivation strategies are suggested for mitigating relationship stresses. In addition, this study produced significant insights outside of the research questions by identifying new relationship outcomes, such as co-production, and by claiming capacity to be a higher goal than survival for systems theory. Furthermore, this study clarified the difference between an advocacy and an activist organization. This study also provided rich insights for public relations practitioners, such as presenting strategies to diversify an organization's membership.

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