Needed: Conceptual Approach to External Environment
As one of PR NEWS' 1997 PR Professional of the Year nominees points out, public relations executives need to help their organizations address the complexity of the social and political environment.
Insights on the dynamics of external forces, and examples of companies' and industries' responses are found in a new book, "Industry As A Player in the Political and Social Arena" (Greenwood Publishing Group Inc., Westport, Conn.)
Companies are improving their ability to respond effectively to social and political forces, believes Mahon, a professor of management policy at Boston University, who co-authored the book with a University of Scranton (Pa.) professor, Richard McGowan. Mahon says the examples in the book, and its presentation of a model (see sidebar) showing the dynamics of the external environment, will help PR executives better understand the social and political context of their companies' operations--and craft business-based strategies that their management can understand and support.
Profiles Four Industries
To show how companies have interacted with external forces, and how issues of the day shaped them, the authors analyzed the history of four major industries with extensive public interaction: the cigarette, beer, banking and chemical industries. The industries were selected because of their size and the ubiquitous nature of their products, services and operations continually place them in the public eye.
- Over the history of the cigarette industry, three issues have shaped the external environment: antitrust concerns (1911-1964), smoking and health (1964-1985 and non-smokers' rights (1986-present).
- For the beer industry, issues were defined by a period of visible public support for beer production and consumption (colonial times to 1850), an era promoting abstinence and outright prohibition (1850-1933), a period of tolerance (1933-1985), and the anti-drunk-driving era (1985 to today).
- In banking, external issues defined three periods: an early period (colonial times to 1850) when bank safety and state control were dominant issues, an intermediate period (1850-1913) characterized by concerns about limiting bank failures and need for federal regulation and today's era (1913-present), when insuring savings and defining the role of the Federal Reserve system became top issues.
- Issues in the chemical industry started out as concerns about the need for free trade (1770-1850), to questions about merger and acquisition activity (1850-1913), worker safety and government oversight (1913-1962) and the emergence of the environmental movement in 1962--still the source of most industry issues.
"Industry As A Player in the Political and Social Arena" can be ordered for $59.95 from Greenwood Publishing, 800/225-5800. (Mahon, 617/353-2000)