Journal of Public Relations Research

Coombs, Danielle Sarver; Osborne, Anne

2012 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2012.671985

With his purchase of Aston Villa Football Club (AVFC) in 2006, Randy Lerner joined the growing ranks of foreign—and specifically American—owners in Barclays Premier League. During a year-long investigation spanning the 2008–2009 season, we conducted extensive participant observation among fans, interviews with a variety of sources (including club officials, journalists, and fans), and fan Web-site monitoring to understand the broader implications of Lerner's takeover. A consistently recurring theme during initial data analysis was the role of public relations in creating positive perceptions of Lerner as an owner. This ran contrary to the experiences of his American counterparts at other clubs. The British press, as well as academic researchers of sport globalization, has warned against the loss of localized rituals and institutions in the wake of the “foreign invasion” (Osborne & Coombs, 2009). Critics fear that foreign ownership of culturally rooted institutions such as English football clubs will create schisms between supporters’ fan identities and their national or local identities. This article uses AVFC to examine the real-world context for two public relations theories—relationship management and excellence theory—to demonstrate that well-managed public relations may allow fans to maintain their commitment to their club while embracing globalization.

Gallicano, Tiffany Derville; Curtin, Patricia; Matthews, Kelli

2012 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2012.671986

Millennials, those born in 1982 or later, represent the largest and most racially diverse generation, as well as the fastest-growing segment of the workforce. They have been characterized in the popular press as being entitled and lacking a strong work ethic. Millennial agency practitioners were surveyed to determine how they rate their relationships with their employers. We also explored the role of gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. We asked respondents to identify the stresses they experience in those relationships and to suggest ways in which their employers could improve relations. We find that respondents love what they do, but…

Huang, Yi-Hui Christine

2012 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2012.671987

This article aims to develop an integrated, 2-level, cross-cultural scale for measuring multidimensional public relations value (called PRVA—Public Relations Value Assessment). Three data sets explore the views of a total of 524 public relations professionals from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) and a number of Hong Kong corporations and PR associations, which were incorporated to empirically test the proposed framework. The results show that PRVA, which includes measures of media publicity, organization–public relationship (OPR), organizational reputation, cost reduction, and revenue generation, demonstrated satisfactory construct reliability, structural validity, and cross-cultural applicability. The conceptual Two-level Model of Public Relations Value is also empirically supported across three independent samples. Theoretical, practical and cultural implications derived from the findings for research on public relations value and effects are elaborated.

Jin, Yan; Pang, Augustine; Cameron, Glen T.

2012 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2012.676747

To better understand not only the minds, but also the hearts of key publics, we have developed a more systemic approach to understand the responses of audiences in crisis situations. The Integrated Crisis Mapping (ICM) model is based on a publics-based, emotion-driven perspective where the publics' responses to different crises are mapped on 2 continua, the organization's engagement in the crisis and primary publics' coping strategy. This multistage testing found evidence that anxiety was the default emotion that publics felt in crises. The subsequent emotions felt by the publics varied in different quadrants involving different crisis types. As far as coping strategies were concerned, conative coping was more evident than cognitive coping across the 4 quadrants. Evidence also suggested strong merit that conative coping was the external manifestation of the internal cognitive processing that had taken place. Cognitive coping was thus the antecedent of conative coping. Although both the publics and the organizations agreed that the crises were relevant to the organizations' goals, they differed on who should assume more responsibility. The findings, although still very much exploratory, suggest theoretical rigor in the model, with room for further refinements to generate what Yin (2003) termed “analytic generalization” (p. 33) for the ICM model.