PROPOSING A NEW SURVIVALIST PARADIGM OF INTERNAL PUBLIC RELATIONS

Abstract

The field of public relations is rapidly evolving, with many scholars questioning both the direction and nature of public relations. While public relations has primarily been conceptualized as an extension of organizational operations, limited scholarship has considered the parallels between internal communication and public relations, assessing how internal relationships can inform organizational operations. Specifically, how internal communication strategies appear to inform and influence public relations initiatives for employees. With organizational relationships helping to inform the navigation of a larger system, it is important for public relations to not be viewed as merely an extension of organizational operations and rather a core component of organizational function and, correspondingly, survival. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how internal public relations contributes to organizational survival in the context of the United States. A two-wave Delphi study was conducted with public relations practitioners in the United States. The first wave was an online questionnaire (n = 174) where data were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed, and thenfurther informed by the corresponding follow-up virtual interviews with practitioners from the first wave (N = 18). From the Delphi waves, findings indicate that organizational survival is informed by both structural and relational factors, and that employees influence both of these factors. These findings inform the proposed survivalist paradigm of internal public relations, which posits that organizations should value fostering meaningful relationships with internal stakeholders (i.e., employees) because such relationships help organizations survive. From the findings identified, theoretical extensions and practical implications are proposed, as well as future directions for public relations scholarship are discussed.