ABSTRACT
As described in the Introduction, there is very little empirical evidence on the nature of public relations in many regions of the world. We believe that the body of knowledge of international public relations is so young that it is very important to have descriptive accounts of public relations practice from individual countries. But we also believe that it is equally important for this body of knowledge to be able help predict the best way to practice public relations in a particular country or region. This is best done by identifying relationships between public relations and other relevant variables. Therefore, in planning this book, we asked contributing authors to not only describe public relations practice in their countries but to attempt to make informed linkages between environmental variables and the profession. We believe that identifying the impact of environmental variables on public relations practice helps increase our ability to predict which strategies and techniques are better suited to a particular organizational environment.
