Creating a global framework for the public relations profession
Dr Gabriel Sadi Huddersfield Business School
While the public relations profession is a global one, for many years there was no recognised framework for benchmarking the capabilities of practitioners worldwide. The Global Alliance (GA), the United Nations-recognised confederation of public relations professional bodies worldwide, sought to remedy this. A changing profession Public relations, as a profession, is going through considerable change. The number of professionals working beyond the Western countries where the practice was historically concentrated is increasing. The sector therefore needed global benchmarking capability to ensure common understanding of the scope of the profession. This would mean professionals could work to, and further develop, their potential. It would also provide common standards for delivering high-quality public relations services to corporate organisations, the public sector, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and nation states. Previous research produced a framework based on ‘competencies’ - lists of knowledge, skills, attributes and behaviours. This proved unwieldly, complex, and difficult to use. With its Westerncentric approach, it also failed to account for the cultural and operational differences in the profession between nations and continents.
The research Professor Anne Gregory and Dr Johanna Fawkes, from Huddersfield Business School, directed a research project at the request of the GA from 2016 to 2019. The project team included 12 academic researchers drawn from nine countries 14 | DISCOVER 2022
on six continents, including Dr Gabriel Sadi, who was responsible for the Latin American region in the project and joined our Business School in 2020. Dr Gabriel Sadi explains:
“The GA sought a global framework that offered practical value to the profession while reflecting cultural diversity and meeting rigorous academic standards. We fully supported those aspirations and the need to develop a tool that would allow benchmarking of capability across countries while accommodating and acknowledging local diversity in practice.” The researchers used a three-stage data gathering process: a Delphi study, an online survey and focus group discussions and interviews. The team produced individual frameworks for each of the
