Beyond excellence: Extending the generic approach to international public relations

Communicating on Behalf of Global Civil Society: Management and Coordination of Public Relations in International Nongovernmental Organizations

“…They argued that ''culture is far too complex for one set of principles (even 'generic principles') to account for everything in every situation or culture'' (Kent & Taylor, 2007, p. 10 be open for multiple theories to explain public relations in international contexts. Such a generic approach should (a) identify features of the situation=strategies used; (b) identify the intended audience effects; (c) clarify the motivational intent of organizations and publics; (d) examine the symbolic nature of language to understand cultural or historical issues; (e) examine the strategic considerations that communicators take into account when creating messages; and (f) use communication theory to understand the culture and its influence on organizations (Kent & Taylor, 2007).…”

“…Therefore, Kent and Taylor (2007) acknowledged that the contextual variables proposed by Verčič et al (1996) are a useful basis to identify specific characteristics of an international environment that influences the practice of PR in different nations. We followed Kent and Taylor's criticism and applied the excellence generic principles to the study of INGOs without its normative components (two-way symmetrical).…”

“…For these reasons, we limited our analysis of INGOs' public relations practices to those principles expected to be truly relevant for increasing the effectiveness of managing communication with stakeholders in diverse cultural contexts (Kent & Taylor, 2007;Wakefield, 2000). These principles were the involvement of public relations in strategic management, the strategic planning of public relations, the empowerment of public relations, public relations as integrated function and separate from other management functions as well as the diverse organizational role structure.…”

International public relations: A synopsis of German-speaking and Anglo-American research approaches

“…Other researchers criticize the Excellence-in-Global-PR-Theory's strong normative character leaving too little room for cultural differences beyond the Western world which still need to be considered in international communication (Bardhan, 2003;Holtzhausen, Petersen, & Tindall, 2003). Kent and Taylor (2007) point out that the theory's general variables offer good opportunities to describe the general conditions of international PR. However, focusing on the "fulfilment" of these categories does not disclose information about the successful implementation of PR in different countries.…”

Industry perceptions of intercultural competence in Singapore and Perth

“…However, as Sriramesh (2004;2009b) and others (Kent & Taylor, 2007;Pal & Dutta, 2008;Bardhan & Weaver, 2011) have noted, public relations research tends to be ethnocentric and, until recently, failed to address the AngloAmerican contexts in which the 'dominant paradigm' emerged (Pieczka, 2006). For example, studies of public relations in other countries compare the level of 'professionalism' against a U.S. benchmark (Fitch & Surma, 2006) or offer principles for global public relations drawn from a theory of Excellent public relations developed out of studies in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. (Verčič, Grunig & Grunig, 1996).…”