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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
A quarter of the portuguese small and medium-sized enterprises are managed by women and the portuguese agency for competitiveness and innovation has created a network of a hundred enterprises that beyond being leaders in their sectors have a woman as a leader. This was the universe chosen to study the importance and / or need of public relations strategies or at least tactics or actions. How do these enterprises see the PR function and how much importance do they consider PR functions have in constructing trustworthy relationships, were some of the research questions that have been addressed.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are the engine of economy in Portugal and aren’t usually well known especially in the aspects that have to do with PR. Concerns with financial aspects, a certain mistrust in opening their doors to the public scrutinium, the small number of employees, are some of the aspects that tend to turn the PR function not only nonexistent, but so many times misunderstood. In general for many of these organizations ``to communicate” means exclusively “to advertise” a certain product or product line / brand.
In the framework of a pragmatist worldview, a convergent parallel mixed methods approach was developed. To recollect the data an online survey was sent to all the universe (100) and interviews according to a script were conducted with the small and middle-sized enterprises CEO. Content analyses was the method chosen to organise and present the data. Main categories included aspects concerning the relevance of “public relations” strategies, tactics and actions to the overall achievements of the organization both in its institutional, political, and commercial endeavours.
The research focused not only on the description of the existing elements but especially on the lack of strategies, tactics and(or) instruments and how this lack was perceived by the CEOs. Questions concerning the relevance of being seen as a trustworthy enterprise by the stakeholders were also addressed. This is a work in progress as not all the data has been already recollected and analysed. The preliminary results tend to stress the importance of some actions in what concerns PR internal functions as Christmas or team-building events, as well as a great concern in ways to promote a better use of the social, digital, networks. These are also seen as the area where to invest in what concerns the relationship with other stakeholders especially suppliers and clients. The “email” is, however, the only instrument that has been referred by all the respondents as being a useful one in their communicative endeavours.
From a more critical paradigm of PR (L’Etang, 2016) to a a paradigm anchored in a systematic approach or what some have called an adaptive model of PR (Cutlip, Center and Broon, 1950; Grunig and Hunt, 1984) PR has been seen simultaneously as a persuasive managerial function or a more dialogical and co-operative one promoting certain organizational interests, in different contexts and arenas. From its american beginnings, in the first years of the twentieth century, centered in business and industries to new endeavours as those of the public and non for profit sectors in the beginning of our millennium (Wilcox, Cameron and Xifra, 2014), we found in the literature a growing preoccupation with new areas of intervention as those of public diplomacy, military public affairs or PR in healthcare (Broom and Sha, 2013) as well as challenging views that tend to equationate PR with the public interest (Johnston, 2017). Unfortunately, however, it seems that, at least in Portugal, the importance of PR for the achievement of organizational goals is still not only misunderstood, but really unrecognized..
Description
Comunicação Aceite. Congresso cancelado, devido a COVID-19
Keywords
Public Relations Corporate Communication Trust SME IPL/2019/MECC_ESCS
Citation
Eiró-Gomes, M., & Raposo, A. (2020, abr, 23-24). The role of PR in constructing trust in SMEs in Portugal. Comunicação a apresentar na 15ª Edição do Congresso da Associação de Investigadores em Relações Públicas (AIRP), Cádiz, Espanha. (Congresso cancelado).