C. Daymon

Cultivating creativity in public relations consultancies: The management and organisation of creative work

If innovation is to flourish in public relations, then creativity must be encouraged and nurtured because it is out of the process of creativity that innovation springs. In order to understand creativity in public relations consultancies, this paper examines its nature and the dynamics through which it is fostered or hampered. It attempts to answer two main questions: what is the nature of creativity, and how is it accommodated in public relations consultancies? Primary research consists of interviews and a focus group with public relations practitioners in small, medium and large global consultancies in London and the regions. Findings suggest that creativity is characterised by three dimensions: unconventionality, autonomy and risk. The manner in which consultancies organise and manage these determines the extent to which creativity is stimulated or stifled. The styles of management and the forms of organisation which accommodate creativity are primarily influenced by size, client expectations, and the individualistic nature of public relations practitioners. In studying work dynamics and the experiences of members of public relations consultancies, the paper makes a contribution to a field of research that is underdeveloped in both public relations and management literature.

Irresponsible Engagement and the Citizen Investor

The study investigates how shareholders are constructed and engaged with through public relations in the Australian financial sector. The web sites and annual and sustainability reports of major Australian companies and investment funds were examined through qualitative content analysis. Findings indicate that a hierarchical distinction exists within the discrete but amorphous stakeholder group known as shareholders, where privilege and disadvantage exist alongside disparate levels of power and agency. This is perpetuated by and through irresponsible public relations, which constructs a discourse of ownership that excludes citizens as legitimate stakeholders limiting their capacity to influence more ethical corporate decisions and practices. Recommendations are offered for how public relations might engage shareholders more responsibly.

The mutable identities of women in public relations

The notion that contemporary society as a knowledge economy is undergoing profound transformation has implications for the occupation of public relations, as well as the professional and personal identities of public relations practitioners. With the increasing erosion of once clear demarcations between people, time, space and communication technologies, public relations practitioners experience increasing tensions in their encounters between self and other, private and public, economic and cultural factors. We are interested in how women in public relations undertake identity work as a way of responding to these pressures, notably at the point where their home and work lives intersect. In interviews and focus groups conducted in Perth, Western Australia, women of different ages and career backgrounds related their experiences of juggling multiple roles including worker, mother, partner, friend, parent or grandparent. The findings reveal a set of complex identity constructions that indicate that some women are successful in separating professional and personal identities, while others are unable to resist work as an all-encompassing activity and as the marker of a meaningful identity. To develop as a public relations practitioner involves not only the social expectations of what it means to be a professional coupled with an individual’s presentation of themselves in public relations. It also involves a changeable relationship that expands over the whole life situation, including career trajectories and family life stages. A recognition of this set of circumstances prompts further research questions in relation to public relations and its specific influence on gendered, identity and relationship practices, and has significant implications for the profession more broadly.

The Economic Capture of Criticality and the Changing University in Australia and the UK

The implications of neoliberal forms of globalization for national economies, states and individual lives have been the topic of major public debates over a number of years. Their hegemonic influence has been described as ‘an economic capture of the social’ (Banerjee 2007: 146) because of the extent to which free market forces, as spread through globalizing flows, have become normalized and even normative in regulating and evaluating the public sphere and the quality of social lives around the world.

Leadership and emerging cultural patterns in a new television station

This longitudinal case study explores cultural patterns in a new British television company, tracking it from its inception into its third year. Qualitative research methods provide evidence to suggest that despite formal leaders’ intentions to achieve control and consensus, organisation members produce their own, diverse interpretations of leaders’ deliberate (and unintentional) messages. By drawing on inherited expectations and professional associations, members construct their own cultural worlds. Yet, the same professional norms and associations, which the literature suggests are salient in all media organisations, also provide legitimacy for individual leaders’ actions and therefore reinforce their cultural integrating role. Therefore, it is suggested that although organisation members are active in shaping culture, leaders of new media organisations of this nature are significant as sources of cultural cohesion, division and ambiguity, and thus they are influential in encouraging the formation of complex cultural patterns.