AN ANALYSIS OF THE USES AND
ABUSES OF PUBLIC RELATION IN MANAGEMENT IN SELECTED NIGERIA BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
ABSTRACT
This research, which is limited to Enugu metropolis,
undertook a credit analysis of the uses and abuses of relation in management in
selected Nigeria
business organization.
The
main objectives were
– To examine the relevance of public
relation in modern business management
to find out if the public relation is practiced as a top management function in the companies under
study.
– To
examine the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the public relations strategies
employed by managers in the companies under study
– To find
out the attitude of other managers and employees in the companies to public
relations.
– To find
out the level of acceptance or un-acceptance of public relation as a management
function in the companies under study.
– To identify and analyse the uses and
abuses of public organization.
– To make appropriate recommendation.
The
research questions were.
– What is
the relevance of public relations to modern business management.
– Is public relations being practiced as a
top management function?
– How do
other managers and employees perceive the job of public relations?
– Do the
management of companies under study recognize the importance of public
relations?
– What are the specific uses of public
relations in these organization
Our
data were sourced from ANAMMCO Ltd and NITEL ltd. All in Eniugu metropolis and subjected to
sophisticated statistical tests.
This
leads tot the following findings among others.
– Public relations are relevance t modern
business management
– Public
relations as practices by management in the organizations as under study are
not abused.
– Other
managers and employees in the organization are favorably disposed to public
relations
– the level
of acceptance of public relations as a management function in the companies
under study is high.
– All these suggests that all business big
or small, should create mutual understanding between her publics and the organization through the activities of he
public relations department to enhance growth and development.
TABLE
OF CONTENT
Cover
page
Title
page
Approval
page
Dedication
Acknowledgment
Abstract
Table
of content
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
BACKGROUND OF PUBLIC RELATION
1.2
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
1.3
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.4
OPBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1.5
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
1.6
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
1.7
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
1.8
IMPORTING OF PUBLIC RELATION
1.9
DEFINITION OF TERMS
1.10
REFERENCE
CHAPTER
TWO
LITERATURE
REVIEW
2.1
ORIGIN OF PUBLIC RELATION
2.2
DEFINITION OF PUBLIC RELATION
2.3
PUBLIC RELATION AND PUBLICITY
2.4
PUBLIC RELATION AND MARKETING
2.5
PUBLIC RELATIONS PUBLICS
2.6
THE PUBLIC RELATION PLANS
2.7
THE MEDIA OR PRESS RELATION
2.8
PUBLIC RELATION AND MANAGEMENT
2.9
PUBLIC RELATION AND BUSINESS
2.10
PUBLIC REALTION AND THE SOCIETY
2.11
PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES ON THE
ETHNICS OF BUSINESS
2.12
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
2.13
SUMMARY OF FINDING
2.14
REFERENCE
CHAPTER
THREE
3.0 METHOD OF COLLECTNG AND ANALYSIS
3.1
PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA
3.2
RECOMMENDATION
3.3
CONCLUSION
3.4
REFERENCE
3.5
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Information has to be presented to the
public about organizational or industrial products and services. As a result the use of public relation in
business management is a necessity. To enhance business growth, a firm or an
industry should ensure proper image and goodwill. An industry or organization
that maintains its reputation before the
public is likely to see its goods and or services workers will also seek to work in such firms, just as investors will
seeks to buy its shares.
Rex
Harlow of San Francesco USA gave one of
the most comprehensive definitions of public relations. According to him public relations is a
distinctive management function which helps to establish and maintain mutual
line of communication, understanding, acceptance and co-operation between an
organization and its publics.
There
fore, for the fact that no business or organization is an Island,
that is, can properly exist without public support, public understanding or
interest should be adequate sought for.
According
to Ewrneth (1984) “A public exists whenever a group of people is draw together
by definite interest in certain areas and has definite opinions upon matters
within those areas “The public should be given proper attention, because their
opinion may make or mar any business organization.
The
public attitude towards on organization is another dimension to understand
public relation.
Public
relation is the management factions that evaluate public attitude, identifies
the policies and procedures of an individual or an organization with the public
interest and plans and executes a programme of action to earn public
understanding and acceptance.
An
attitudinal definition was given by the public relation News of York. Based on
the definition, is obvious that a
business cannot exist without the existence of consumers who patronize it. There fore, need exists for an effective
communication and adequate information on the products or service of a company
to e carefully, precisely and constantly disseminate to the publics, whose
opinion can affect the organization either positively or negatively, depending
on the perception by that public this is to ensure consumer orientation. To
enhance good business management, a good
public relations department should act according to public interest. As a
managerial function public relation practitioner should be vigorously involved
in management decision making.
They
should be involved in coordinating various departments. Marketing, personnel, purchasing,
engineering, accounting and so on to ensure optimum production and service in
the organization. This ensure that the
good image of the firm is maintained among the populace. Dissemination of information and co-ordination
of various department are necessary because every department may not be free to
read and search for information in and outside the organization
environment. Source will elevate the
corporate image and ensure business growth.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The Nigerian telecommunication ltd
(NITEL) is a federal government owned company that provides public
telecommunication service in Nigeria. The company was set-up in 1985 as an
amalgamation of the telecommunication division of the defunct P & T
department and the Nigeria,
external telecommunications limited (NET). NITEL has staff strength of about
twelve thousand (12,000). It operates a three-tier organizational structure,
ie. corporate headquarters, six zonal
and thirty nine territorial administrations, a system that enhances
decentralization.
NITEL
was fully commercialized under the privatization and commercialization policy
of the federal government. The main
objective of the company is to provide an efficient, reliable and cost
effective telecommunication services nation wide and internationally
Other
services provided by the company are INMARSAT service, Network paying service,
audio mail services,
internet services and line billing.
Mercedes-Benz
ANAMCO is a joint venture between the federal government of Nigeria and
Daimler-Benz AG/Mercedes-Benz AG of company.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
As population grows and organization
expands, there is an increasing need to know the uses of public relations in
business management. This will induce
greater productivity and economic growth and development of the nation. In an
attempt to understand fully the uses of public relation in business management,
some companies have been selected and chosen for the study. The industrial challengers will be to realize
the impact of public relations in the industries and business management.
The
problem of the study is to understand how public relation should be made
operational in an industrial setting. It is easy to advocate policies but often
difficult to implement them. How does a
business integrate public relations in its management with all the functions
department that are found in organizations? This is study will address the
issue.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
for a critical analysis of the project to
e done and an up to date result achieve, it is necessary to outline the likely
questions for which answers are expected.
The questions includes:
– what is
the relevance of public relations to modern business management?
– Is public relation being practical as a
top management function.
– Which
strategies are employed by management to ensure good public relation function.
– how do other managers employees perceive
the job of public relations.
– Do the
management of companies under study recognize the importance of public
relations.
– What are the specific uses of public
relation in these organization.
– What are the specific abuses of public
relation in these organization?
1.4 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objective of this study includes:
–
To examine the relevance of public
relation in modern business management
–
To find out if the public relation
is practiced as a top management
function in the companies under study.
– To
examine the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the public relations strategies
employed by managers in the companies under study
– To find
out the attitude of other managers and employees in the companies to public
relations.
– To find
out the level of acceptance or un-acceptance of public relation as a management
function in the companies under study.
– To identify and analyses the uses and
abuses of public relation in the selected management organization.
– To make appropriate recommendation.
1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The
focus of this research work is to establish the use of public relation in
business management.
The
research will focus on the following industries for the purpose of this study.
– Manufacturing
–Anambra motor manufacturing company (ANAMCO) Enugu.
– Services – Nigeria telecommunications limited
(NITEL), Enugu.
With the hope that the result will be useful in judging other
companies at the national level
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Most industrial organization have found
it difficult to accept the hard fact that the consumer is the king whose
interest should be paramount in the desire
to achieve corporate goal and enhance business growth. When the consumers speaks out their mind, the
entire business both internal and external environment will become educated on
the shortfall in the organization relationship with the public.
If
the use of public relation in any industrial set-up is enhanced a good image of
the industry will be fastened.
This
work will alert the public relation practitioners that they are part of
management in the organizational hierarchy, and as such are people who have
enormous responsibility towards so many people )in several public), with public
relations, there is no general public but specific public.
1.7 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
An exploratory research such as this is
bound to meet a lot of constraints. Most of he constraints might result from
natural phenomenon while some are man-made.
The
research was limited by mostly man made constraints such as respondents bias
and the reluctance to company works to divulge useful information to the
researcher. Financial constraint, which is often the major constraint to every
other research also, reared its ugly head. This narrowed the scope of the area covered by the
researcher to only Enugu Urban. These
constraints might have affected the research cover but they surely would not affect the validity
of the result.
1.8 IMPORTANTS OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
– It works to improve
mutual understanding between the organization and its publics.
– It has
the primary role of molding and presenting company image to the public.
– It strives to discover and eliminate
source of misunderstanding.
– it
broadens the sphere of the firm by engaging in appropriate advertising,
publicity, exhibitions and others.
– public
relation do everything aimed at improving the communication between people and
the organization.
1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS
POLICIES–
Plans or guideline for an active Marshall out
by an organization to achieve their objectives.
BUSINESS
All
profit directed economic activities that are organized and directed to provide
product and services.
COMMUNICATION
This
is passing out message from one person or group of person to another person or
group of person. So that the group understands one another.
PUBLIC
Those
group with common interest affected by the acts and policies of an institution.
CORPORATE IMAGE
Existence
in the mind of people as composite of experience knowledge belief and feeling.
NITEL LTD
Nigeria
telecommunications limited.