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“Public relations is the management, through communication, of perceptions and strategic relationships between an organisation and its internal and external stakeholders, for mutual benefit and a greater social order. I would like to emphasize the part of the definition that deals with managing relationships- as I see this as the cornerstone of everything we do in public relation. It is without a doubt the common denominator in our profession and this is true throughout the world. You may not realise it completely, but whether you are working in London, Djakarta or Sao Paulo, you are managing relationships. |
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Valin, J. (2004) Overview of Public relations around the world and principles of modern practice Remarks by Jean Valin, APR, Fellow CPRS Chair of the Global Alliance At a the CONFERP conference Brasilia, October 2004 http://www.globalpr.org |
The Relationship Value Model
The Relationship Value Model is an extension of a paper presented to the Alan Rawel Conference in May 2005 entitled 'Towards Relationship Management'.
Drawn from Pierce, the Relationship Value Model posit that actors hold tokens that are explicit, personal and can be tangible as well as intangible. It is the basis of the concept described here. I offer up that these tokens are to a greater or lesser degree held in common with other actors and that such tokens have implicit and tacit values. The proposition is that these tokens are material in creating relationships when both commonly held and having similar values that are mutually recognised by actors. The condition for commonality to be recognised by actors is through a network that aids actors acquire common knowledge of tokens and the values ascribed to them by the actors.
The ability to create and the sustain relationships is through an exchange of tokens and values using a common network available and used by actors in the exchange. It is the extent to which there are commonly held tokens and common values that provides the nexus of relationships that describe an organisation. The extent to which both tokens and their values are the same between actors is material in identifying and describing a social group such as an organisation. An organisation is identified and can be described as the nexus of relationships between actors bounded by the materiality of tokens mutually held.
I find that this convergence of token-values held by actors does not describe a contract but it is the fertile ground upon which a relationship will flourish. This is a development, in which actors recognise, seek and achieve cognitive consistency and is an organic process to achieve empathy.
In addition, I conceive that organisations become aware of actors with whom they hold tokens in common (including times when the values are different) using networks and they interpret the token-values associated with such actors (including the relationships that they may also have).
A social group or organisation is not a nexus of contracts (Coase). As I will show, it is also not a nexus of conversations (Sonsino) because there is not an imperative for communication for a relationship to exist.
The theoretical framework posits that a nexus of relationships forming a social group is unstable and subject to internal and external influences that add tokens and change the value of tokens among actors in a social group. This means that, to survive, actors in a social group accept, as a group, new tokens and the changing value of tokens. It also identifies that the nexus of material tokens are also subject to change.
This process of convergence, the actor's realisation of cognitive consistency, will change the tokens and values held by actors to a greater or lesser extent as described by Freedman (1964) and Eagly and Telaak (1972).
In the original paper, I described societal observation as being changed by this process as well and called it the 'arora borealis' effect. In observing convergence, society, in the form of other actors using the same networks and channels, will also change (to a degree) the value they attribute to tokens including their view of the actors involved in the exchange.
Comment at the Lever Wealth Blog
Copyright (c) 2005 David Phillips
david.g.h.phillips_at_gmail.com