Institutionalizing public relations in the age of social media: An exploratory multi-case study in Taiwan

Public relations (PR) continue to have a naming or essentially an identity crisis. In response, a growing number of scholars have recently called to institutionalize PR as either an “actual practice” residing in a set of core values, or an “enduring function” within organizational structures. The advent and proliferation of social media have potentially spurred the process of institutionalization by entailing PR as regular “boundary spanners” between organizations and ever-changing environments. While most studies tend to focus on the outcome and structural aspect of institutionalization – whether and what function/position of PR is being legitimized, little has been done on the process and ideational aspect of institutionalization – how and what value(s) of PR is being infused to everyday practice, particularly in the wake of social media.To fill in the above gap, this research draws on Richard Scott’s notion of institutions characterized by in-built duality: the ideational aspect of values that confer meaning and legitimacy upon related practices; and the structural aspect of forms and positions. Built on an integrated framework of multi-stage institutionalization, we aim to explore to what extent and how PR can be institutionalized around a shared set of values spawned by social media. Social media herein broadly refer to technology tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) that are just as they sound – mediated opportunities for bringing people together and encouraging social networking and dialogue. To answer the “how” question, we conducted a multi-case study in Taiwan involving four different organizations: one professional consultancy, one integrated marketing communication company, one multinational corporation and one public university. In each case, a range of data from in-depth interviews, direct observation, documents and artifacts were collected and triangulated for later thematic analysis and pattern matching.It has been found that social media technologies have, by and large, facilitated the institutionalization of PR through precipitating some fundamental values, such as strategic planning, public engagement and outcome-orientation. These values are, in turn, enacted in PR practices that are normalized and legitimized as a relatively fixed organizational function. However, the cross-case analysis indicated different organizations had a varying focus and adopted a diverse approach to institutionalizing PR pertaining to their organizational backgrounds and industrial properties. Our research contributes to refreshing the current knowledge base of institutionalizing PR in the age of social media from a “process” perspective. It also lays a solid ground for future studies that attempt to bridge institutional theories and public relations scholarship to cross-fertilize each other