Mutually Beneficial Relationship

A mutually beneficial relationship (MBR) occurs when the stakeholders of each organization believe that it and they benefit appropriately, fairly, and proportionately on some matter of mutual interest. For this reason, MBR is conceptualized as a highly [Page 588]desirable, normative outcome of effective and ethical public relations.

Mutually beneficial relationship increasingly became a popular theme in public relations practice and academic literature as discussants reasoned that if the quality of relationships define successful public relations, there needs to be a rubric for determining how and why that is the case. One answer to that Gordian Knot was that the quality of each relationship depends on how well all parties benefit from the outcomes it produces. Such conceptualization can mask the darker intent and ability of the focal organization to persuasively promote the conclusion that each relationship is more mutually beneficial than it truly is.

Mutually beneficial relationship, a key theme in resource management theory, argues that organizations craft missions and visions that call for operations to gains resources they need to succeed. The logic of MBR reasons that when people believe that organizations operate with their interests in mind, those people support rather than oppose the organizations. Thus, they buy from businesses they believe give them full value for goods and services purchased. They support activist or other nonprofit groups that share values and hold similar goal-oriented commitments like ending specific childhood diseases. They believe in and support governmental agencies that act in their interest, in what can be seen as the public interest, where they are the “public.”

Critics of this line of thinking doubt that businesses, for instance, ever hold stakeholder interests equal to their own. By this logic, executive managements create policies and engage in marketing that justifies their salaries and makes the business prosper, even though the relationship is tipped to favor the interest of the business and may even harm the health, safety, sense of fairness, or other aspects of well-being on the part of customers or other stakeholders. Thus the logic of MBR challenges public relations practitioners to truly understand and be in a management position to help the organization to know the expectations of its stakeholders that define their best interests.

Mutually beneficial relationships assume that stakeholders hold varying standards of how each organization should operate. These standards are forged through societal dialogue voiced by many points of influence: industry, activist, government, media reporter, and such. Mutually beneficial relationship is a normative goal that cannot be totally satisfied for all parties in any relationship. Each organization, regardless of its type, has a wide array of stakeholders. Each is likely to hold different expectations for the quality of the relationship and whether it is satisfied by what the organization does and says.

Relational theory discusses process variables that can foster or impede the creation of MBRs, but it does not address the difficult question of shared interests or co-created meaning. Beyond the process, MBR is not meaningful if it is not a normative goal that challenges each organization to foster—through dialogue, collaborative decision making, strategic commitments, and corporate responsibility—a positive balance between its interests and those of its stakeholders. As it builds relationships with stakeholders, the organization advances the public interest and helps to elevate the quality community.

...