Envisioning PR research without taking organizations as collective actors for granted: A rejoinder and extension to Hou

Abstract

In a recent article in Public Relations Inquiry, Jenny Hou has fittingly argued for a stronger focus on agency and actorhood in PR research. We point to two crucial aspects in which we think her arguments need to be extended, namely: (a) embracing the constitutive role of communication for organizational actorhood and agency, and (b) rethinking the role of PR in the constitution of organizational actors. We argue that such extension would allow for an important and radical twist in perspective that highlights a widely neglected question in PR research: What if the collective actorhood status of organizations is not treated as a given but rather arises from communicative attributions of such actorhood status to social entities? Finally, we develop key implications from this shift in perspective for PR scholarship, education, and practice.

Between rules, norms and shared understandings: how institutional pressures shape the implementation of data-driven communications

“…the assumption that organizations operate as collective actors). Additionally, Buhmann and Schoeneborn (2021) extended Hou's article by discussing the consequences of not fully acknowledging organizations as collective actors in institutions. The authors argued that Hou and significant segments of academia and the industry associated agency with organizations operating as single actors, and needed to consider organizations as collective actors created and maintained in and through communication (Buhmann and Schoeneborn, 2021).…”

“…At the time this paper was written, the most recent institutional theory studies in PR and strategic communication had significant implications for research and practice (e.g. Buhmann and Schoeneborn, 2021; Hou, 2021; Marschlich, 2022). For example, Hou (2021) demonstrated how scholars could amplify the theory's explanatory power by examining the concepts of institutional agency (i.e.…”

“…Additionally, Buhmann and Schoeneborn (2021) extended Hou's article by discussing the consequences of not fully acknowledging organizations as collective actors in institutions. The authors argued that Hou and significant segments of academia and the industry associated agency with organizations operating as single actors, and needed to consider organizations as collective actors created and maintained in and through communication (Buhmann and Schoeneborn, 2021). Furthermore, Marschlich (2022) examined the corporate diplomacy of multinational organizations from a communicative and relationship-oriented perspective and revealed that legitimacy was co-created by the media and its audiences.…”