The Case Study as an Evaluation Tool for Public Relations

According to Dozier and Repper (1992), evaluation is to be understood in the conceptual framework of public relations research. Different from the environmental scanning research, which helps in the problem-definition stage, evaluation research “is designed to determine how well public relations programs work” (Dozier & Repper, 1992: 186). Environmental scanning research would then be exploratory, adequate to allow early detection of emerging problems, and suited for qualitative research techniques. On the other hand, evaluation research would belong to a “highly structured field” with “experimental designs.”