Relationship Management Theory

The term relationship management refers to the process of managing the relationships between an organization and its internal and external publics. In this context, John Ledingham (2003) defined an organization-public relationship as “the state which exists between an organization and its key publics in which the actions of either can impact the economic, social, cultural or political well-being of the other” (p. 184). Moreover, the concept recognizes relationships as the core focus of public relations.

The notion of relationship management represents a pivotal change in the nature and function of public relations. That change involves a rethinking of the role of communication message production and dissemination in public relations. Whereas earlier practitioners saw communication as the central function of public relations, today's public relations managers recognize the management of key relationships as the core function of public relations. Within that context, communication is envisioned as a strategic tool of public relations, with program evaluation centered on the impact of program initiatives on key relationships. That is, in today's practice, program success or failure is determined by the quality of organization-public relationships rather than the quantity of messages produced or the number of messages placed in the mass media.

The notion of relationships as the core concern of public relations emerged in the mid-1980s and has been the subject of a great deal of systematic inquiry over the past 20 years. The framework for managing relationships is the traditional management process of situational analysis, planning, program implementation, and impact evaluation. Further, relationships are seen as an exchange designed to support understanding and benefit both for an organization and interacting publics. Experience has shown that mutuality of understanding and benefit engenders long-term relationships, whereas initiatives designed primarily to benefit an organization—with public interest secondary—are not sustainable over time.

It also has been found that managing relationships in such a way as to generate mutual benefit results in positive public perceptions of an organization, perceptions that are manifest in support for an organization's public positions. Moreover, mutually beneficial relationships encourage loyalty [Page 741]toward an organization's product and/or services, providing a marketplace competitive advantage. Also, mutually beneficial relationships have been shown to protect an organization's market share in a competitive environment. Similarly, developing positive relationships with internal publics—such as employees—builds organizational morale, an important element in employee productivity. For the study and teaching of public relations, the so-called relational perspective provides an overarching framework for scholarly inquiry and for developing educational curricula.

It has been said that the emergence of relationship management as a foundation for public relations practice was spurred by four key developments:

• 1.
  Recognition of the central role of relationships in public relations. Recognition of the central role of relationships—rather than the organization, the public, or the communication process—provided a unifying concept for public relations and gave rise to a major shift in the core focus of the discipline.
• 2.
  Reconceptualizing public relations as a management function. The notion of managing organizationpublic relationships introduced managerial concepts and processes to a practice previously driven mainly by message production and dissemination. Reconceptualization focused attention on the need for public relations managers to be proficient in all aspects of the management process and to be accountable for public relations expenditures.
• 3.
  Identification of components and types of organization-public relationships; their linkage to public attitudes, perceptions, knowledge, and behavior; and relationship measurement strategies. Key dimensions of organization-public relationships were identified and linked to public perceptions, attitudes, and choice behavior. An organization-public relationship measurement scale was developed for use in predicting public loyalty, satisfaction, and behavior, providing the tools needed to access public relations value in terms of relationship quality.
• 4.
  Construction of organization-public relationship models. Models of the organization-public relationship were advanced, including a management process model and a multi-step developmental model, to provide greater insight into the “coming together” and the “coming apart” of organizationpublic relationships.

Research indicates that organization-public relationships mimic interpersonal relationships in terms of critical determinators of relationship quality. These include trust, openness, credibility, emotion, intimacy, similarity, immediacy, agreement, issue perception, and shared interests, as well as relational history (see Table 1). Moreover, organization-public relationships have been found to cluster into three relationship types—interpersonal, professional, and community. “In this context, interpersonal relationship refers to the personal interactions of organizational representatives and public members. Professional relationship refers to the delivery of professional services to public members, and community relationship is tied to perceptions that the organization supports the interests of the community. Also, relationships may be seen as communication driven (symbolic), or behavior driven (programmatic), underscoring the importance of both in developing long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.

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