ABSTRACT
A 2016 survey of senior public relations professionals throughout the world found that good writing remains the most important job skill within public relations, followed by strategic planning abilities, speaking abilities and data analysis expertise. Public relations practitioners strive to develop positive, productive relationships with publics that control essential resources. The relationships are productive when the organization receives the needed resources. Again, the goal of public relations is to build and maintain resource-delivering relationships. Successful organizations, therefore, tend to practice a philosophy known as corporate social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility has many definitions, but most involve the idea that an organization should sustain and improve the societies within which it operates. The actual practice of public relations follows a process that people also find in advertising, business communication and sales and marketing. That process consists of four stages: research, planning, communication and evaluation.
