The public information function in Indiana state government : a coorientation study of agency administrators and public information directors

The successful practice of organizational public relations requires the organization's administrator and public relations practitioner to "coorient" on public relations matters; that is, the two must be oriented toward each other and toward the concept of public relations. Few researchers, however, have used the coorientation method to study public relations situations, and no research has been done on the coorientational relationship between practitioners and administrators.This thesis proposed and executed a strategy for measuring coorientation between practitioners and administrators of Indiana state government agencies. Demographic questions revealed that agency public relations staffs were typically one-person operations.Most practitioners were female; most administrators were male. Nearly 90 percent of all respondents had some college experience, and most practitioners had majored in a journalism-related area. On average, practitioner respondents had served longer in their jobs than administrators. Respondents came from agencies ranging in size from thirteen employees to five thousand employees.The coorientation measures showed that most practitioner-administrator pairs from Indiana government agencies did not significantly agree on their agency's public relations objectives, activities or obstacles. In contrast, most practitioners and administrators did perceive that agreement existed. Practitioners and administrators alike were inaccurate in assessing the public relations views of their respective pair partners.Coorientation findings supported existing theory and previous coorientation research. Increased accuracy, rather than agreement or congruency, was the principal result of increased intra-pair communication.Practitioner accuracy, however, increased over time even when administrator accuracy did not, indicating that Indiana government agency practitioners are not full participants in the process of public relations decision-making.Thesis (M.A.