Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 110
Reach up. Trust down.
Communication earns strategic value when it improves the quality of relationships the organization and its publics depend on
Premise
A campaign can meet every output target while a consequential relationship deteriorates. Messages may reach their audience, media visibility may rise, and events may draw participation even as trust weakens or commitments lose credibility. Output metrics show activity; they do not establish what repeated interaction has produced between an organization and a public able to affect, and be affected by, its decisions.
John A. Ledingham and Stephen D. Bruning’s relationship-management perspective changes the unit of analysis in public relations. The executive question becomes which organization-public relationships matter, what condition they are in, and which organizational behaviors are shaping them. Communication is part of initiating, maintaining, repairing, and interpreting those relationships, but words cannot compensate indefinitely for inconsistent conduct.
What the model is: Relationship Management Theory in Knowledge →
Continue in the series
- The essential model
- Why this matters
- Risks and limits
- Executive takeaway
- Key questions
- Selected sources
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainMedia, Publics & Society
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.
- KnowledgeRelationship Management Theory