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This article is based on a survey of personnel practitioners in Irish organisations, aimed at establishing their role and status within the company for which they worked. The principal findings from the survey suggest that the majority of personnel practitioners are afforded a top management role, and feel that they are heavily involved in strategic planning decisions within their organisations. The major factor which led to differences in the role of personnel was the national origin of the company which owned the site at which these individuals worked.

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to identify the roles and functions that public relations practitioners serve in American hospitals. Design/methodology/approach – An online survey was administered to 208 professionals working in hospital public relations departments to determine what activities public relations practitioners engage in, what powers practitioners perceive to have, and what functions of public relations practice need to be strengthened to prevent encroachment by other professions that could take those voids as opportunities. Findings – Public relations practitioners’ work in US hospitals is mostly in media and community relations and the powers practitioners most strongly perceive themselves to possess are referent, legitimate, and expert/informational, while most estimated they have very little reward power within the hospital. Originality/value – Discovering what roles practitioners serve, what training practitioners have, as well as their perceptions of practice and power can help illuminate the current status of public relations in hospitals.

Considers the various roles that public relations practitioners play and the implications of those roles for the status of public relations within the organisation. Within the context of local authorities in Scotland, considers the organisational constraints within which public relations practitioners operate and the extent to which the practitioner’s role is affected by the expectations of those within the organisation responsible for determining public relations policy. The results indicate that chief executives and politicians have very definite perceptions of public relations and expectations of practitioners and that even practitioners themselves have a limited view of the role that public relations can play in decision making within local authorities. This implies that they are not, nor likely to be, part of the dominant coalition, with consequent implications for the development of excellence in public relations.

This paper explores the nature of managerial work in the public relations context drawing comparisons with the way mainstream management research has defined the main elements and processes of management within organisations. The paper begins with a critical review of the public relations and management literatures relating to managerial work and behaviour, highlighting the distinctively different approaches taken by public relations and management scholars in defining the nature of managerial work and behaviour. The paper goes on to present the findings of a qualitative investigation into the role and work patterns of practitioners occupying senior positions in cross sections of both US and UK organisations. The study identifies a number of common elements in pattern of “managerial” work performed by both UK and US‐based practitioners. The study also reveals the extent to which senior practitioners participate as members of the dominant coalition within their organisations and contribute to strategic decision making. The paper concludes by reflecting on the adequacy of existing definitions and understanding of the managerial dimension of the role played by practitioners within organisations.

The principle focus of the European Communication Professional Skills and Innovation (ECOPSI) Research project reported in this paper is to develop understanding of the competences held by senior communication practitioners and the contributing knowledge, skills and personal attributes that are relevant to their role. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper is based on 24 months of desk and empirical work by the research team in three core phases: the benchmarking report based on literature reviews in each country region; quantitative data collection from communication practitioners in 42 countries across Europe; qualitative data from 53 interviews across four senior practitioner roles in the six regions of the study’s focus.

The findings highlight the competencies needed by senior practitioners through the creation of the Communication Role Matrix with critical evaluation of the current contemporary issues faced by the sector.

The authors acknowledge a limitation of the study regarding the selection of the four studied professional roles. ECOPSI has proven a common understanding of theses four studied roles in Europe, but further research on the competencies of diverse roles performed in the profession would need to be explored for a more comprehensive appreciation of the full spectrum of public relations and strategic communication practice.

The paper draws together findings from across Europe and presents a practical interpretation of the project in the form of an online self-diagnostic tool based on an online portal for practitioners to self-complete.

The programme improves the professionalism of practitioners across Europe and their ability to work across borders in a European and wider international community of communication practitioners.

This study benchmarks the educational and practice landscape in six key regions of Europe to demonstrate that the elements focusing on skills, knowledge and personal attributes of European communication professionals can be synthesised using competences as the foundational element. The originality is also reflected in the self-diagnostic tool for the project based on an online portal.

The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize public relations roles, particularly the organizational conscience role, by examining practitioner involvement in organizational value setting.

Australian communication practitioners were interviewed to ascertain practitioner involvement in organizational value setting. The interview results were subjected to a multiple perspective analysis, which was used to develop a new framework for public relations roles.

The research found that most respondents were involved in organizational value setting, albeit at the implementation stage. The results also showed the potential for practitioners to extend their involvement to a more leadership‐oriented critical inquiry role. Based on this analysis, this paper proposes three agency roles: agency of corporate compliance, agency of concertive control, and an agency of critical conscience.

The small sample of Australian respondents and the novel approach used to analyse public relations roles require further research. The results offer new ways for practitioners to enact the conscience role through dialectical inquiry.

The paper includes implications for embedding dialectical inquiry in public relations roles, and for integrating leadership into the technician‐manager role typology.

The paper examines practitioner involvement in organizational value setting through a multiple perspective lens and introduces a new public relations roles framework.

To investigate how modern or traditional are the current roles of South Australian HRD practitioners in the context of present‐day work organisations. Also, how are their roles related to the organisational context in which they operate?

The study is a replication of two prior qualitative empirical studies conducted in the UK and The Netherlands. Learning‐Network Theory was used to analyse qualitatively 18 in‐depth interviews with South Australian HRD practitioners. Four phases were distinguished in the analysis of interview data, namely exploration, specification, reduction, and integration.

HRD practitioner roles are still rather traditional in nature, focusing, for example, on training needs analysis and delivery. Furthermore, roles of HRD practitioners are related to the work type in their organisation. Those dealing with team‐based work were found to have the least traditional tasks, emphasising the continuation of learning, evaluation and acting as a resource to the organisation.

Qualitative small sample study limits generalisation. Also, interviews may yield respondents' espoused theories rather than those in use. Further research should use larger, more diverse samples and include more direct ways of data collection (e.g. observation).

The question arises whether HRD practice is too conservative or HRD theory and professional ideals are too progressive, if a huge gap between the two continues to come to the fore.

Besides corroborating earlier research conducted elsewhere, this study developed a more fully elaborated and more structured interview guideline based on Learning‐Network Theory.

The purpose of this paper is to lay out how advanced practitioner development occurs in New Zealand primary health care settings. The paper specifically focuses on mechanisms occurring across policy creation and in practice leading to successful role development.

The authors applied a realist approach involving interviews, document review and field log observations to create refined theories explaining how successful development occurs.

Three final mechanisms were found to influence successful advanced practitioner role development: engagement in planning and integrating roles; establishing opportunities as part of a well-defined career pathway; and championing role uptake and work to full scopes of practice.

This research focuses on one snapshot in time only; it illustrates the importance of actively managing health workforce change. Future investigations should involve the continued and systematic evaluation of advanced practitioner development.

The successful development of advanced practitioner roles in a complex system necessitates recognising how to trigger mechanisms occurring at times well beyond their introduction.

Potential candidates for new roles should expect roadblocks in their development journey. Successfully situating these roles into practice through having a sustainable and stable workforce supply provides patients with access to a wider range of services.

This is the first time a realist evaluation has been undertaken, in New Zealand, of similar programmes operating across multiple sites. The paper brings insights into the process of developing new health programmes within an already established system.

Based on the human resources (HR) role framework (Conner and Ulrich, 1996), the purpose of this paper is to empirically explore why HR practitioners differ in their strategic partner role positioning. The present study suggests and tests a descriptive model regarding occupational and organizational characteristics associated with strategic HR role positioning.

In all, 100 questionnaires were collected from Israeli HR practitioners. Hierarchical regressions were used to test the association between occupational and organizational characteristics and the strategic role perception among HR practitioners.

Although the findings only partially supported the suggested model, significant associations between occupational and organizational characteristics and HR strategic positioning were found. HR practitioners in volatile organizational environments adopt a strategic role perception. Moreover, years of experience are also associated with an HR strategic role perception. Specifically, the major predictors of attaining a strategic partner role amongst HR practitioners are location of organizational activities mainly in the metropolitan area, and involvement in major organizational changes.

The sample had a positive bias of respondents. Questionnaires were delivered mainly to highly educated HR practitioners in notably professional HR departments. Data were based on self-reported one-time questionnaires.

The research has implications for the processes of academic education and professional training of HR practitioners and also their recruitment in organizations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, recent studies aimed at exploring sources of variance in the strategic role perception amongst HR practitioners are rather scarce. This research helps to address this gap, while also broadening the literature regarding HR communities in the Middle East.

In recognising the weakness of trade unions and the lack of an institutional framework designed to enforce employee rights in an African context, the purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which human resource (HR) practitioners are perceived to play the role of employee advocate.

The quantitative data set is derived from a sample of 305 respondents (95 HR practitioners, 121 line managers and 89 employees) from Malawi.

Despite the challenges of the context, HR practitioners are perceived by key stakeholders (including line managers and employees) to be playing the role of employee advocate. Standard multiple regression results indicate that the main factor contributing to the perception that HR practitioners are playing this role is their contribution to “motivating employees”.

The study was conducted in Malawi. Further research is necessary to explore the generalisability of the findings to other contexts.

The findings provide an empirical base for future studies which explore perceptions of the employee advocacy role undertaken by HR practitioners in Africa.