EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A valid measurement scale for organization-public relationships can offer practitioners and scholars a way to measure relationship as they develop. This study examines the measurement of organization-public relationship by testing previous measures on one organization and key public in an Eastern culture. This study attempts to replicate and extend Huang’s research by adding relational dimensions that could capture specific features that may characterize the organization-public relationship in South Korea. Specifically, this study assesses the reliability and validity of the proposed measure. Trust, control mutuality, satisfaction, commitment, and face and favor were developed by Huang as the core relational dimensions to measure organization-public relationships in Taiwan. Based on Huang’s study, this study proposed personal network as a culture specific dimension in South Korea to measure retailers relationship with Samsung Electronics.
A survey was administered to managers (n=247) of Samsung Electronics and local retailers (n=214) using internal mail and one-on-one interviews in South Korea. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that trust, satisfaction, commitment, and personal network were better able to capture Samsung Electronics-retailers relationship. Findings indicated that trust, control mutuality, satisfaction, and commitment were closely related to each other whereas personal network is positively associated with other dimensions in the retailer group. In contrast, the managers representing Samsung Electronics’ position perceived more negatively the personal network dimension than did the retailer group. The results also suggested that there exists a structural model with antecedent dimensions and successor dimensions. The acceptable structural models indicated that trust and personal network may play antecedent roles in the development of satisfaction and commitment. The possible structure of relational dimensions may shed light on the sequential flow of relationship development and suggest implications for relationship management strategy. The present study also revealed that trust, satisfaction, and commitment are global relational measures, whereas personal network as conceptualized here may reflect unique aspects of Eastern culture. Furthermore, these four relational measures can be used to evaluate public relations outcomes.
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