ABSTRACT

One of the cornerstones of James and Larissa Grunig’s Excellence Theory is the role of public relations in helping organizations to deal with an uncertain, and often threatening, environment. Anticipating issues, identifying key publics, building and maintaining relationships that lessen conflict, acquiring the internal power to implement needed changes-all these tasks form the core of public relations that is truly “strategic” (Grunig & Grunig, 2000). Many of these public relations tasks are rooted in the need to establish some stability and control over a world that appears increasingly “heterogeneous, unstable, dispersed, and turbulent” (Grunig, 1984; quoted in Grunig, 1992, p. 475).