Encroachment in Public Relations

Encroachment in public relations practice and research takes place when nonpublic relations professionals come to manage the public relations function. When a marketing personnel gets hired, promoted, or moved laterally to serve as the public relations manager role, he or she encroaches the public relations function. It is an especially serious problem when top management assigns the top public relations position to individuals with little or no training or experience in public relations and corporate communication. Because of what public relations can add to the planning and operations of an organization, its full impact can be lost if the person managing this function does not understand and appreciate what it brings to management-level decisions. Encroachment also compromises practitioners’ career opportunities and development.

Three forms of encroachment have been identified: authority, structural, and functional. Authority encroachment has to do with the personnel assignment to manage the public relations department or unit. Structural encroachment subordinates the public relations unit to other units in the organizational hierarchy. Functional encroachment occurs as other departments or units take on activities that expand into the traditional operational realm of public relations or communication management.

Two factors affect the extent to which authority encroachment takes place: (a) other units’ involvement in “traditional” public relations functions and (b) public relations practitioner's ability to serve in a managerial capacity. Units such as marketing, legal, investor relations, and fund raising may have a damaging impact on traditional public relations efforts because they deny some or much of the influence public relations can exert over corporate and communication policy. For example, Martha Lauzen observed that if the marketing department becomes involved in traditional public relations, top management becomes more likely to fill managerial positions of public relations departments with someone other than a senior person in the public relations unit or discipline.

In addition, public relations’ authority in the organization is likely to decline when practitioners less frequently serve in a managerial capacity. To reduce encroachment, it is vital that public relations managers take responsibility and be accountable for the success or failure of the organization's public relations program. They need to be respected by others in management so they truly are the organization's public relations expert. They must make communication policy decisions.

Other variables increase authority encroachment, including gender, length of experience, and managerial competence. The increased number of women in public relations raises concern that the profession will be “feminized” and therefore marginalized by managements that “don't take women seriously.” Practitioners need to know their discipline as well as the type of organization they serve. If they can't bring such knowledge to bear on increasing the organization's effectiveness, they are likely to suffer encroachment. The ability to resist encroachment increases as they become more experienced in the practice of public relations. They advance the influence of their department if they continue their education and training. Public relations can resist encroachment by being unique and generating its own budget resources, rather than expecting to receive a portion of another department's budget.

Once senior management acknowledges that its organization is challenged by a wide array of stakeholders whose goodwill is needed but is not necessarily forthcoming, then public relations is more likely to resist encroachment. Nothing, unfortunately, does as much good for the role of public relations than for an organization to suffer a major crisis. Once an organization learns that it cannot [Page 291]take itself for granted, encroachment seems to become less of a challenge; practitioners receive more access to management during turbulent times. Practitioners are given more decision-making power as their value is recognized, sometimes by the test of the fire of crisis.

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