A new paper on the Institute website by Shannon A. Bowen, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland offers an overview of current research-based knowledge on ethics and public relations practice. Bowen connects a lot of dots for practitioners and scholars interested in this aspect of the science b ...

Anecdotes and war stories account for much of our learning in public relations. Nothing wrong with that. Yet, a wealth of research-based knowledge exists to validate (or not) tales of “how I won the war” (or didn’t). Take crisis management and communications. Dr. Tim Coombs of Eastern Illinois University has produced a major baseline paper that synthesizes this knowledge, richly linked to the original sources. He reviews best practices from pre-crisis to post-crisis. “While crises begin as ...

The 2007 Jack Felton Golden Ruler Award winner is now available as a research case study on the Institute website. “Research Based Business Transformation: Benchmarking and Tracking the Customer Experience,” was sub ...

“Baseline Study on Diversity Segments: The U.S. Hispanic Latino Market,” a new Institute paper by Rosanna Fiske, associate professor at Florida International University, provides a data-rich look at what research says about these audiences. The U.S. Hispanic/Latino market is now the largest minority segment in the country. Specifically, there are nearly 45 million Hisp ...

Kirk Hallahan, professor at Colorado State University, is the recipient of the 2007 Pathfinder Award for outstanding scholarly contributions to professional knowledge. Hallahan, a former practitioner with 19 years of experience, has focused his recent research on the application of online technologies to public relations practice. Here he summarizes much of what he has learned into four observations. 1. Public relations activities cannot be segregated from an organiz ...

John V. Pavlik’s new paper, “Mapping the Consequences of Technology on Public Relations,” explores what research tells us about the impact of digital, networked technology on our work. Anecdotal learning – from case studies to water-cooler conversations – is important. But sometimes we need to ask about the real research base for things we think we know. Pavlik breaks ...

This article originally appeared in Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ‘Dog. For more information, visit http://www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/. Since the dawn of public relations, PR people have sought to compute the link between PR and return-on-investment, primarily in the form of a PR-to-sales connection. Now, through new technologies and an advanced form of statistical analysis known as marketing mix ...

Think about all the issues that face CEOs at major companies: everything from ethics, safety and diversity in the workplace to environmental sustainability and regulatory compliance … all on a global scale. Failure to successfully manage such issues can cost a company its profitability or even its ability to survive. The challenge is compounded by the fact that the world can change in a minute. With the advent of the internet any single person on a mission among any of a CEO’s const ...

Tom Martin: Professional Support of Events Key to Furthering Education This column appeared in PRWeek, July 2, 2007, and is reproduced with permission. I recently attended two academically focused summits with some of the leading educators in our field. As a new teacher, it was both humbling ...

Many PR people take a pass at the entire concept of measurement for a simple reason. Blind, rank fear. They don’t know how, or they fear their research won’t hold up to leadership scrutiny. We hear “measurement” and immediately are assailed by unhappy memories – math homework, the tyranny of columns of numbers, complicated algebra. Heavens, it’s why a fair number of us wound up in PR – the warm embrace of words, the freedom of expression unbound by arithmetic rules, the lack of one, ...