Original scientific paper
LINKED FACTORS AS PREDICTORS OF THE PRACTICE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS ON THE INTERNET: A STUDY OF CROATIAN ORGANIZATIONS
Bernard Miočić
; OTP banka Hrvatska d.d.
Abstract
The change from traditional interactions between organizations and the public to interactions via the Internet needs further exploration in order to understand the factors that might influence public relations activities of organizations on the Internet. This study investigates the responses of 111 Croatian PR professionals to a survey about the influence of organization-linked factors on the choice of public relations models on the Internet. The results confirm that social orientation level of top management’s members, availability of resources to operate, previous negative experience with the public and practitioners’ knowledge of research methods and techniques are influential predictors of the choice of the models of public relations on the Internet. The findings also validate the contention that organizations’ selection of the models of public relations depends on practitioners’ formal education in PR and experience in dealing with conflict, PR unit size, its location and role in the formulation of PR strategies. It is also shown that organizational culture, management style, support for and understanding of the PR function by top management, existence of risk and issue management programs or staff, PR unit’s involvement in organization-wide decisions, legal department (counselor) support and number of PR practioners with higher education degree are not able to predict organizations’ decision to use a particular model of public relations.
Keywords
public relations; models; organization-linked factors; Internet
Hrčak ID:
145026
URI
Publication date:
2.12.2014.
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