Search results

This paper analyzes how public administration may improve the service it offers to citizens through a suitable organizational culture; for this purpose, it starts by studying the specific features of the culture of public administration. In this respect, it analyzes the existing taxonomies in public administration, the role of culture in these agencies and how a diagnosis of such culture is made. Then, it describes the problems of bureaucratic culture, typical of many public agencies, and briefly describes the features of a public service, citizen‐oriented culture. Finally, it proposes a specific methodology for the modification of a bureaucratic culture into a culture based on the notion of serving the citizen, together with an analysis of when modification is necessary.

To provide two possible approaches for enhancing organizational culture awareness and promote cultural change in public sector organization. These approaches include training and leading by example.

Literature outlining fundamental aspects of organizational culture is summarized, serving as a foundation for reviewing the potential value of training as a method for enhancing public managers' awareness of organizational culture. This is followed by an illustrated example of how the culture was changed in major department of a public organization through leading by example.

Training and leading by example can serve as effective methodologies for promoting culture awareness and brining about culture change in organizations.

The article highlights some interesting similarities and differences between cultures in public organizations and cultures in private sector organizations. The differences, in particular, reinforce the importance of training and leading by example to guide public sector employees through the complex dynamics often embodied within culture transformations in organizations.

While there are some important similarities between cultures of private sector and public sector organizations, the differences existing in public sector organization cultures create unique challenges for managers trying to evoke change. The article provides a unique perspective on applying training and leading by example to the context of public sector organizational culture.

This chapter addresses the potential for knowledge, learning, and collaboration (KLC) cultures in public sector organizations. Public sector organizations are among the most complex for introducing or nourishing a KLC approach because there are multiple levels of cultures with varying levels of influence. We describe these complex cultures as tiers. First, we define public sector organizations’ business goals, purpose, and strategies. Then, the authors translate and interpret all five levels of culture for public sector organizations. The chapter also details the nature of cultural complexity, namely the four tiers of public sector cultures: (1) the company culture (Tier 1); (2) the public service culture (Tier 2); (3) the culture of the external environment (Tier 3); and (4) the internal KLC cultures (Tier 4). This chapter establishes a framework for describing an organization’s complex culture and determining the best KLC approach for the context.

This chapter applies recent theoretical developments linked to the concept of culture to the field of public relations research and practice, notably through the prism of creativity as a vector of cultural change.

The chapter is theoretical in nature and draws on relevant scientific literature in the field of public relations research, but also the social sciences more generally, and illustrates the issues being discussed with reference to relevant public relations campaigns.

While the field of public relations has moved beyond simplistic models of cultural values and characteristics, it is argued that more complex visions of culture have been neglected. Specifically, drawing on structuration theory, culture can be seen as a ‘system-generating mechanism’ relying on creativity to uphold and renew cultural references and norms. In this perspective, public relations is both producing/reproducing culture and being produced by culture. It follows that the concept should be apprehended not as an ontological category but as a social construct, as the source of heuristic and discursive categorisations.

A call is issued for public relations to also question the ideological underpinnings of the production of symbols in which practitioners partake on a daily basis.

While the chapter fits into an emerging body of work discussing the cultural dimension of public relations, the link with creativity and the use of structuration theory to conceptualise this link contribute to its originality.

Most scholars in public administration and management research would agree that there is a connection between the culture of a nation or region and the way management in public administration is structured and working (“public management arrangements”). However, to be incorporated into public management research and theory, a more precise notion about the forms, ways, and mechanisms of the interlinkage between societal culture and public management is required. A look into public management literature reveals that wide use and reference is made to the importance and influence of culture on public management arrangements – mostly, though, using the term “culture” as a shortcut for “organizational culture”. Public management treatises stress the influence of past events and contexts for the specific functioning and establishment of organizations, rules, and perceptions which in turn have great influence on the reception and functioning of public management mechanisms (Heady, 1996; Jann, 1983; Schröter, 2000; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). Elsewise, organizational culture – or more precisely change thereof – is claimed to be the result of public management efforts (Ridley, 2000; Schedler & Proeller, 2000). In sum, the interlinkage between culture and public management is there, but is not systematically and explicitly incorporated by referring to adequate theory. Although cultural theory has gained considerable attention (Hood, 1998), there are still other concepts for the analysis of cultural facts that may be of interest to the subject, too.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how practitioner culture is maintained despite legal, technical, and educational issues resulting from the deluge of social media. The authors examined the nexus of practitioner culture, social media usage, and regulatory forces like policies, authority figures, and social norms.

To explore practitioner culture, a cultural studies approach was used. Specifically, the circuit of culture model framed data analysis. The authors conducted qualitative interviews with 20 US public relations practitioners.

Social media emerged as integral for cultural maintenance at every point in the circuit of culture. Practitioners expressed shared meanings about the regulations of social media as the reinvention of communication amidst growing pains; blurred public-private boundaries; nuanced rules of netiquette; and new systems of measurement and education.

The authors propose a regulation-formality hypothesis and regulation-identification articulations that should be considered in public relations practice, research, and education.

Findings suggest best practices to help practitioners negotiate their personal identities and the identities of their organizations because of the unregulated nature of social media.

This study fills the need for more qualitative, in-depth research that describes the cultural implications of social media in public relations to better address misunderstandings or gaps between its perceived effectiveness and actual use.

The purpose of this paper is to review recent literature on global public relations in order to scrutinize how contemporary transformations are conceptualized in the field, and what this means for the understanding of public.

The authors offer a critical analysis and discussion of recent publications in order to explore the nexus of “public”, “culture” and “global”, questioning whether the increased interest in a specific understanding of culture actually contributes to the field’s ability to deal with complex and transforming publics in a meaningful manner.

The majority of global public relations literature applies redundant understandings of globalization. It attaches prime importance to the concept of culture and contributes little to the understanding of transforming publics. Few scholars acknowledge the limitations of using “culture” for the definition of publics in global contexts. Alternative approaches to understanding “publics” in global public relations research and practice are hardly offered.

The findings imply that global public relations research would benefit from abandoning monolithic social science categories and from working transdisciplinary in order to refine its understanding of contemporary societal and social transformations and their implications for the understanding of public and relationship building.

The discussion indicates that public relations practitioners could benefit from reorienting their understanding of publics in globalizing societies in order to build and nourish mutually beneficial relationships. The authors apply the insight into contemporary business practices to offer public relations practitioners a starting point for reorientation.

The authors contribute to global public relations scholarship with an alternative approach to the understanding of transforming publics which merges the spatial turn and the practice turn known from wider humanities and social science research, and relevant business practices.

This chapter describes public agriculture services’ business goals, purpose, and strategy. It reinforces agriculture organizations’ fundamental bureaucratic administrative culture (Tier 1). The authors describe the influence that political appointees as leaders may play in shaping public sector cultures. The bureaucratic culture of agriculture is deconstructed, and each of the five layers is described in detail. Additionally, the authors explain why behavior is the dominant layer and the most critical starting point for understanding agriculture cultures. The public service culture (Tier 2) brings an essential element of leveling, access, and equity to the larger context. It brings the focus back to service to the people and community rather than performance. It also gives greater emphasis to the role of safety and well-being. The chapter lays out the landscape of external influencing cultures (Tier 3) in agriculture. Finally, the potential value and challenges of developing internal knowledge, learning, and collaboration (KLC) cultures (Tier 4) are explored.

This study combines survey research with case study analysis to explore the implications of culture and gender for governmental public affairs. The data base, developed for the IABC Research Foundation's Excellence project, establishes that participative culture is most conducive to effective public relations. Governmental agencies in the USA, Canada and the UK tend to be less participatory than two of the other three types of organisation studied: corporation and non‐profit. Women in the agency analysed in greater depth, a state lottery, formed the majority of the public affairs staff, yet encountered the ubiquitous glass ceiling in their attempts to ascend front the technical to the managerial role. Public relations in general in governmental agencies exhibits remarkably more similarity than difference across organisational types and among the three countries studied. Any factor, such as authoritarian culture or gender discrimination, that limits the effectiveness of the communication function is particularly significant there, however, given the size and scope of governmental public affairs.