ABSTRACT
After Ferguson’s (1984) advocacy of emphasizing organization‒public relationships (OPR) as the core value of public relations in terms of organizational effectiveness, OPR has become the focus of public relations scholarship and practice. Studies contributing to relationship management theory have emerged since 1990s. OPR research has examined the following areas: exploring the elements of relationship management models (antecedents, cultivation strategies, and outcomes of OPRs including OPR types; e.g., Hung, 2005; H. Kim, 2007; Bruning & Ledingham, 1999); developing OPR scales (e.g., Bruning & Galloway, 2003; Hon & Grunig, 1999; Huang, 2001a; Jo, 2006; Ledingham & Bruning, 1998); identifying the function of OPR in the specific context such as in crises (e.g., Brown & White, 2011) or in intercultural settings (e.g., Ni & Wang, 2011); linking OPR with organizational outcomes such as organizational reputation (e.g., Hong & Yang, 2009), public engagement (e.g., Kang & Yang, 2010); and perceptions or behavior of the target public (e.g., Ki & Hon, 2007). Even though OPR studies are flourishing, the main attention of the research is being given to the evaluation of OPR, including the development and applications of OPR scales and the linkage between OPR quality and desired organization outcomes. There is little research that aims to boost/further the discovery of cultivation strategies, or to explicate why and how these strategies contribute to quality OPR (Ni & Wang, 2011).
