Environmental Scanning

Environmental scanning is a method of gathering information from the external environment for use in issues management and the strategic decisionmaking process. It's an early warning system for changes outside the organization—a type of radar to pick up the new or unexpected in order to help top management plan for the organization's future. In addition to detecting emerging issues, the strategic intelligence provided by environmental scanning can also help quantify existing problems.

Although environmental scanning or monitoring appears to have originated in the business management arena, David M. Dozier referred to it in the context of public relations as “the gathering of information about publics, about reactions of publics toward the organization, and about public opinion toward issues important to the organization” (1986, p. 1).

In addition to detecting threats and opportunities for the organization, environmental scanning also encourages future-oriented thinking in the dominant coalition.

As a research method designed to bring information into the organization, environmental scanning is a function of an open system, which uses either two-way asymmetric or two-way symmetric models of communication.

Environmental scanning is important to public relations practitioners because successful management of dynamic organizations depends upon the ability of the senior leaders to adapt to a rapidly changing external environment. Because it is easy for management to become insulated from key publics, the public relations practitioner can use environmental scanning data to help keep the dominant coalition in touch with the opinions of those critical to the organization's success or failure.

Collecting and processing intelligence about the environment also makes the communication manager a useful and necessary part of the organization's management decision-making team. Those who don't do environmental scanning are often not included in the dominant coalition. Dozier and Larissa A. Grunig wrote, “This is one source of power that practitioners can use to redefine the public relations function and alter its vertical and horizontal structure” (1992, p. 412).

Organization leaders or executive managements often face information overload when they have more information than they can efficiently and effectively process. Having a formal environmental scanning program can help identify the sources of information most important to the organization. Scanning, therefore, is a way of separating the wheat from the chaff.

There are few guidelines on how to do environmental scanning. Scanners should seek signs of [Page 291]change; look for signals of potential events on the horizon; study forecasts of experts and indirect effects; and write abstracts to crystallize thoughts.

To develop the objectives of the scanning program, the public relations practitioner must decide if periodic or continuous scanning is needed. Interviews with key decision makers in the organization and a review of the organization's current master plan will help develop an initial list of trends and issues to monitor.

When considering the environment to be scanned, a variety of levels should be considered: the local environment, which includes the organization's current and potential stakeholders; the industry environment of the organization; and a more global environment, which includes trends and issues in the economy, politics, technology, and society.

Both informal and formal methods can be used to gather information. Samples used in casual research may not be scientifically representative but may still be beneficial. Practitioners scan by studying mass media and specialized media such as scholarly journals, trade magazines, newsletters, newspapers, recent books, the Web, and radio and TV programs. They may confer with a network of contacts, such as colleagues and experts within their industry, advisory boards, community forums, or political and community leaders. Records of phone calls, letters, or e-mails coming into the organization may be useful as well. More formal methods of gathering market research data through surveys and focus groups may be used, along with ongoing communication programs with the organization's priority stakeholders.

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