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Excellence theory

The image represents the concept of 'Excellence Theory' in public relations. It features a professional business meeting with people engaged in strategic communication. There are symbols of global connectivity, such as a world map and a globe, indicating the international scope of the theory. The visuals include public relations activities like press releases, social media interaction, and corporate communication. The overall theme emphasizes the importance of building strong relationships between organizations and their publics to enhance organizational effectiveness. Theory
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Yuya-san

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What is “Excellence theory”?

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The Overview of “Excellence theory”

What is Excellence theory?

Excellence Theory is a comprehensive theory proposed by James E. Grunig and his team in 1985, aimed at optimizing the relationship between an organization and its publics to enhance organizational effectiveness.

Funded by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), this theory was validated through surveys and interviews with professionals in the USA, UK, Canada, and South Korea.

Overview of Excellence Theory

According to Excellence Theory, the value of public relations lies in the relationship between the organization and its publics.

Organizations should build long-term relationships with strategic publics and utilize symmetrical two-way communication programs to maximize these relationships.

This approach reduces the costs of negative publicity and increases revenue by providing stakeholders with the products and services they need.

Characteristics of Effective Public Relations

Excellence Theory categorizes the characteristics of effective public relations into four categories:

  1. Empowerment of the Public Relations Function
  2. Roles of Communicators
  3. Organization of the Communication Function
  4. Public Relations Models

Historical Development

Excellence Theory evolved from four approaches: the goal attainment approach, systems approach, strategic constituency approach, and competing values approach.

The competing values approach bridges the gap between strategic constituency and organizational goals, emphasizing the need to integrate the values of strategic constituencies to achieve organizational goals.

Global Public Relations Theory

Excellence Theory has been replicated worldwide and has developed into a global public relations theory.

It suggests that public relations should be practiced differently in various countries, depending on their culture, political-economic systems, media systems, levels of economic development, and the presence of activists.

Personal Influence Model

Developed by Sriramesh, this model explains how public relations practitioners build personal influence with key individuals, such as government regulators, media, and tax authorities, to facilitate organizational needs.

Public Relations Scale

Laskin proposed translating the public relations models of Excellence Theory into five continuous and measurable scales.

Criticism

Excellence Theory has been criticized for being unrealistic in its two-way symmetrical model.

Critics argue that it may perpetuate power imbalances and overlook national traditions and cultural differences.

Application in Marketing

By applying Excellence Theory to marketing, organizations can strengthen relationships with their stakeholders and enhance credibility.

Building long-term relationships with strategic publics can improve brand reputation and increase consumer loyalty.

This approach can also mitigate the risks of negative publicity and increase positive media coverage.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Excellence theory” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 4.0. Additionally, the texts and images were generated using ChatGPT.