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The distinction between external communication services and internal consulting services plays an important role in most public relations (PR) theories dealing with PR as an organisational function. In these theories, two perspectives are at the centre of discussion: either PR succeeds in changing the environment or the organisation has to adapt to it. This chapter suggests a descriptive approach. It analyses theoretically and empirically the question of how PR manages the difference between external communication and internal consulting. A theoretical framework based on systems theory is presented. Key aspects of the approach have been tested with a quantitative online survey among communication professionals in Germany.

This chapter explores the extent to which female public relations (PR) practitioners perform professionalism in the workplace by interrogating and examining their professional behaviours. Using an ethnographic approach, where the researcher is immersed in the field, it uncovers the lived experiences and behavioural responses of women working in PR agency environments in the United Kingdom and enables a rich description of professional behaviours to emerge.

Fawkes argues that research into roles in PR ‘has tended to assess roles using management rather than sociological theory’ (2014, p. 2). That is not to say that all PR research adopts the same paradigmatic stance. Several scholars have encouraged the development of a research agenda rooted in social theory. Holtzhausen called for a move away from what she termed the ‘modernist approach to organizations’ (2002, p. 251), which focuses on management discourse, and encouraged instead a focus on the postmodern concept of discourse, where meaning is constructed and conveyed through social and institutional practices.

In seeking to discover the ‘lived experience’ of female practitioners, this chapter locates professionalism in the context of their behaviours and enables individuals to articulate their understandings of the relationship between performance and professionalism. Using Goffman's (1959) work on social encounters as performances in conjunction with Foucauldian discourse and Feminist theory, this chapter explores the three stages of performing professionalism – preparation, performance and reception – through the eyes of women working in PR agencies in the United Kingdom to explore their lived experience and determine how gender affects their performance of professional behaviour.

The time is right for renewed and updated attention to the relationship between public relations (PR) and human resources (HR) departments in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. For too long, conflict between the two practice areas has obscured opportunities for collaboration which benefits organizations and stakeholders. This chapter offers theoretical underpinnings for examining an interdepartmental, cross-unit working relationship between HR and PR – and advances a vision for why it is needed now.

What are the academic experiences of senior professors in the field of public relations (PR) at the Brazilian universities? This chapter proposes the advance of knowledge on the theoretical framework of contemporary liberal feminism by refining the previous theoretical and methodological publications. This theoretical lens prevails in earlier works, with empirical studies grounded in industry and corporate environments – mainly done by researchers from the United Kingdom, North America and Scandinavia, while PR feminist postmodernism appears in European literature – all scarce in Brazil and Global South (Latin America and African nations). Moreover, studies applying female or male PR scholars in university settings are rare in national and international literature. Hence, we gathered data and analysed narratives from seven senior female PR professors from Brazil, using an interpretative qualitative approach. Thus, this chapter about the female PR academic experiences and everyday practices highlights the starting point for an onto-epistemological discussion to understand the liberal feminist educational-based context in a Latin American country. Henceforth, two conceptual-practical dimensions – feminist PR competence and feminist PR performance – along with three methodological recommendations are presented for enhancing the contemporary liberal feminism theme as a robust research domain in PR and Strategic Communication agenda.

In the context of debates about the performance of Higher Education (HE) in which quantitative measures proliferate, this chapter reports the top line observations of an initial exploration of the preparedness for practice of recent graduates of a Public Relations (PR) course at a post-1992 United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education Institution (HEI). Preparedness for practice is chosen as a conceptual lens (as preparedness for the uncertainty of practice) because HEIs frequently promise it. Using a Bourdieusian framework, preparedness is considered in relation to habitus-field match and HE performance as capital-added in habitus transformation. The chapter offers a complementary way of considering the dynamic between educator and recent graduate agency and how that might be applied when studying course and student performance, designing curricula and developing appropriate ‘signature pedagogies’, especially for those HE actors tasked with delivering against the ‘promise’ of graduate preparedness. In considering preparedness for practice as a performative function of HE, the chapter is located in wider societal debates about the ‘worth’ of HE and offers insight for educators of future PR practitioners.

Rarely acknowledged, particularly in business and communications, is that animals have interests in decisions that affect them. This chapter raises questions about how stakeholding is defined and explains why the circle of ethical consideration has been limited to human beings but should be expanded when so much of what we do impacts animals – animals who often labor for our benefit, not theirs, whose bodies are used as food, whose skins are used for fashion and furniture, and who are experimented upon, all without their consent, nor representation of their interests beyond essential physical needs. Animals as laborers/workers for our interests is an important expansion to business and public relations (PR) ethics. While labor is deeply raced and gendered, it also is species dependent. Many practices allowed with animal workers would never be permitted or certainly regarded with concern, if among human beings. Freeman's (1984) two-tiered sense of stakeholders is applied and the argument made that animals should be included in the array of stakeholders, the argument being they are not only silent but also silenced as have been marginalized human groups. This chapter offers a textual analysis of the cover of the December 09, 2013 issue of Time magazine and a response article which serve as a case study for considering animals as stakeholders integral to PR–corporate social responsibility–diversity, equity, and inclusion intersection. I examine deer in the urban landscape and ask whether their perspectives are included in decisions about population, habitat, and health. If communications are to be ethical, inclusive, and socially responsible, animals must be affirmed as part of DEI commitments. Action steps/recommendations for doing so are included.

Exposing the hidden lives of female public relations (PR) practitioners requires deep connection with those lives. Stories need to be uncovered, interrogated, and ultimately told, to shine a light on the lived experiences of those working in PR. The methods used to collect these stories require deep immersion in the field and the ethnographic method is ideal for this. Ethnographic research methods have long been utilised to gain insights into the lived experiences of individuals and communities. This chapter provides an understanding of the strengths and limitations of ethnographic research methods in capturing the nuances of women's experiences of working in PR.

Organisational ethnography is an established field in business studies and has been used to investigate disciplines cognate to PR, including advertising and media, but, to date, has failed to be fully explored in PR research. This chapter examines the potential for ethnography to open new areas of PR theory and considers its potential as a means of bridging the gap between PR theory and practice.

Ethnography is not without its limitations; key concerns surround objectivity, the role of the researcher, and that of the participant, and ethics. Nonetheless, this method would appear to offer huge potential for the study of PR practices; the diverse nature of the sector makes it a rich area to study.

This chapter explores the potential of this method to offer an opportunity to investigate areas such as working practices, ethics in practice, power, gender, diversity, and culture.

Recognizing the existence of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and more precisely a social impact related to diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI), organizations today are confronted with the question of what is considered as good. How is the good life created and communicatively constructed inside an organization? Who (agent) is responsible to realize, secure, and manage the process of value creation and social change, or moral agency? I offer a new perspective on the ethical duty of public relations (PR) practitioners to be revolutionary, to be communicative rebels. I conceptualize PR from a critical theoretical perspective as process of problematization, as process of cracking open common sense and underlying systems of power and norms in an organization. Then I offer strategies for creating shared (communication) spaces in which to imagine and experience transformation and social change. In these spaces (huddles), good life is courageously problematized to offer a new narrative of sustainability including DEI as communicatively codesigned. The aim is to highlight opportunities and tools for PR practitioners and PR scholars to be revolutionary – more than an organization's conscience, but an agent of change for exciting, innovative, and transformative communication practices at the core of the discipline.

How public relations practitioners in the United Kingdom create and maintain social capital in support of organizational objectives is considered in a research project addressing a research gap identified in its literature review. The project informs the work of a new Working Party on Social Capital established by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. The project’s empirical phase is informed by a conceptual model developed by the authors and presented in the chapter. It draws on research from behavioural economics and evolutionary biology building on theories associated with community organizing and leadership studies. The conceptual framework also features a phronetic planning tool to help practitioners balance organizational requirements against wider social responsibilities. This aspect of the framework serves as an antidote to social capital being viewed as a resource which can be appropriated for narrow organizational ends. The chapter argues that such an instrumental approach to building social capital is both counterproductive and unethical.