This article extends Heath's (2006) concept of fully functioning society theory (FFS) and argues that public relations can be used as a force to enhance collective social capital in communities. To serve this purpose, however, the effectiveness of an organization to serve its external publics is often dependent on the status and relationships the public relations function has developed within the organization. This paper provides a network analysis of a government agency in Jordan that illustrates the relationship between internal organizational social capital and the potential problems for establishing external relationships with publics. Implications for public relations research methods and theory are also discussed.
While research in public relations has traditionally been concerned with the practice as related to business (Holtzhausen, 2000 and Karlberg, 1996), some scholars have advocated for a larger role for public relations in society to recreate community (Kruckeberg & Stark, 1988), allow for a fully functioning society (Heath, 2006) and facilitate and sustain civil society and social capital (Taylor, 2009).
Public relations scholars have approached social capital vis-à-vis internal public relations (Kennan & Hazleton, 2006), as an improvement on relationship management (Ihlen, 2005), and as organizational participation in civil society (Taylor, 2009). Such research has primarily viewed social capital as a collective or group outcome that public relations can help to achieve in a community or society. However, social capital must first be acquired or made accessible to individual actors in the form of personal networks and resources before it can be expended or achieved (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, Halpern, 2005 and Lin, 2001). Social capital is thus a process and an outcome, and is relevant to the success of an individual actor at the micro level, an organization at the meso level, and to an entire community or society at the macro level. Consequently, a public relations department or practitioner must have access to or reserves of social capital before it can be expended in either internal or external communications aimed at building a collective social capital.
The purpose of this paper is two fold. First, we seek to contribute to the emerging body of research that positions public relations in the social capital formation process. To that end, this study pays particular attention to how the internal social capital of an organization – and more specifically the social capital of the public relations unit(s) of the organization – may affect the organization's ability to participate in building collective social capital via external communication efforts. A second goal of this paper is to provide a methodological contribution to public relations research that will allow scholars and practitioners to measure internal relationships. We believe that the method proposed here to study social capital provides conceptual and diagnostic tools that extend our understanding of the concept of relationships (Broom et al., 1997, Ferguson, 1984 and Ledingham and Bruning, 1998).
The first part of the paper provides an overview of social capital theory and public relations. To show how the relationships and processes inherent in organizational social capital may help or hinder actors, the second section of the paper provides a case of a network analysis of a decade-old government agency in Aqaba, Jordan that is charged with the economic, social, and cultural development of the community. After 10 years of operation, the government agency struggles to provide the most basic services to the community. Local residents accuse the decisions of organization's leaders “to be against the local people's interest” (Abu Al-Haija & Al-Faqih, 2009, p. 154).
The government organization–public relationship is characterized by a lack of trust, lack of responsiveness, and an overall weak capacity of the organization to serve public needs. This paper seeks to understand why the organization–public relationship is weak. The case provides a diagnostic example of why internal relationships must be forged first, before the public relations functions can help make the organization capable of participating in a fully functioning society.
In order to successfully build and maintain relationships, practitioners and departments require access to resources and influence within their organizations. The promise of social capital acknowledges that the better the access to embedded organizational resources, the better such resources can and will be utilized in actions by an actor. Social capital requires work and a fully functioning society is not a forgone conclusion in any community. The maintenance of relationships requires investment strategies and the application of resources both within and without organizations. Our attention as public relations scholars should be turned to the relationships within an organization that afford public relations the resources and influence to function effectively. As such, public relations must secure a stable position within an organizational network with access not only to the dominant coalition, but also to influential resource providers within a network. As scholars and practitioners we must see that our own relationships are in order before we can turn to solving the problems in the environment.
