Small Business Study Finds That PR Is CEO’s Role.

The success of a small organization’s public relations often rests in the communication skills and perseverance of the top decision makers, according to Thinking Big, Staying Small, a new report released by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation. The report finds that the chief executive plays a central role in communication in a small organization, whether it is a for-profit, not-for-profit, trade association or government agency.

The report, based on 4-year study, also found that the key component of public relations for small organizations is the role of building relationships with publics rather than getting publicity. Based on the data, there are three distinct perspectives among small organizations about the value of relationship-building in the organization: as an objective in and of itself, as a strategic function or as a purely tactical undertaking.

The new report builds on the landmark Excellence study conducted for IABC by Grunig et al, in 1992. By focusing on a largely ignored sector — the small organization — Thinking Big, Staying Small fills an important knowledge gap in communication research. The research questions examine the point in an organization’s growth at which communication operations start to take on formality, what communication functions are likely to be outsourced at various stages in an organization’s development, and whether communication skill requirements in smaller organizations differ for different types of
organizations.

In addition to providing insights into the communication perceptions and practices in small organizations, the researchers, Dixie Evatt, Crispin Ruiz and Jan Triplett, also offer an Excellence diagnostic tool that converts complex normative theory into an easily understood and administered test that can be used by small and large organizations to benchmark performance.
Some of the other key findings of the study are:

— Small organizations approach public relations holistically from a variety of perspectives and view the function as both proactive and reactive.

— Small organizations practice public relations based more on instinct and personal feeling than on formal training, and tend to focus heavily on the use of personal and direct forms of communications, as opposed to mass media or large gatherings, to communicate messages.

— Based on the diagnostic tool, the relationship of the communication staff size to the overall size of the organization was a new predictor of Excellence (as that term is defined in public relations literature). Excellence was linked not to the size of the organization as much as to the ratio of communication employees to the size of the workforce.

— Small organizations begin to change and formalize their communication processes and procedures when they reach about 20 employees in size. Mid-range size organizations in the study (11 to 20 employees) are most likely to outsource communication functions. Once an organization exceeds 20 employees, it is willing to keep more functions in-house.

For more information at http://www.iabc.com/knowledge