Journal of Public Relations Research

Boyd, Josh; Stahley, Melissa

2008 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/10627260801962707

Sports public relations always serves two masters—both corporatas and communitas. In this article, a close textual analysis of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA's) Stay in Bounds community relations program reveals that the NCAA is both a defender of amateur, communitas values, and a participant in professionalized, corporatas organizational rhetoric. This article offers a typology of the specific competing commitments of communitas and corporatas in sports rhetoric and argues that all sports rhetoric, from little league to big league, must negotiate with publics a balance between these extremes. This article is derived from an M.A. thesis written by Melissa Stahley and advised by Josh Boyd. An earlier version of the article was presented at the National Communication Association convention, Chicago, November 13, 2004.

Bowen, Shannon A.

2008 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/10627260801962749

Ryan and Martinson (1983) and other scholars argued that the corporate conscience role should belong in the public relations function. But, how common is the use of ethics counsel among public relations professionals? This qualitative research found that many public relations practitioners indeed perform the role of ethics counsel or corporate conscience in their organizations. However, a state of neglect of this role exists in terms of education and support—even lacking support among some public relations practitioners! The well-being of both organizations and publics could be enhanced through both academic study and professional attention to public relations managers performing the role of ethics counsel to the dominant coalition. This research was funded by the International Association of Business Communicators, and I would like to thank them for their support and for having the foresight to study communication ethics. The author would like to thank journal editor, Dr. Linda Aldoory, for her insightful feedback and comments on this research.

Huang, Yi-Hui

2008 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/10627260801962830

The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which crisis communicative strategy and form of crisis response affect trust and relational commitment with respect to crisis contexts at the firm level, after controlling the effects of crisis type and organizational association. A survey of communication managers, crisis managers, and public relations and/or public affairs managers from Taiwan's top 500 companies was conducted. The results showed that in crisis managers' assessment, the form of crisis response (timely response, consistent response, and active response) is more powerful than crisis communicative strategies (denial, diversion, excuse, justification and concession) in predicting trust and relational commitment. Moreover, the result, on one hand, supports the robustness of concession as an effective communicative strategy above and beyond the impacts from crisis type and organization association. On the other hand, however, it challenges this traditional wisdom involving concession by emphasizing the intriguing mediating role of form of crisis response by demonstrating that form of crisis response is necessary for more concession communicative response to generate more favorable relational outcomes. I tested my conceptual framework and hypotheses among the examined variables in this study using the data set collected by Shih-Hsin Su (2002) for his master's thesis. I heartedly thank Mr. Su for providing the data set for my independent analyses in this article.

Kim, Yungwook; Cha, Heewon; Kim, Jangyul Robert

2008 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/10627260801962962

The purpose of this study is to develop a crisis management index that can gauge a corporation's integrated crisis management capabilities. Although most crisis management models have been devised in Western countries, no full-scale crisis management index has been developed outside the Western hemisphere. This study deploys multiple research stages that reflect the characteristics of crisis management. First, the study validates index items through an extensive literature review, in-depth interviews, and professional audits. The dimensions of the index items are evaluated through an exploratory factor analysis and verified with construct validity through a confirmatory factor analysis. The final index dimensions—the organizational strategy, the organization system and culture, and the execution and communication—were applied to the case of South Korean corporations, and the implications based on their index scores are discussed.