Assessing the Practice of Public Relations on Organizational Reputation: The Case of Addis Ababa University Public Relations Office
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Date
2020-06
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
The objective of this study was to assess the practice of Addis Ababa University's public
relations office in maintaining a good organizational reputation. The study predominantly
focuses on answering how public relations practitioners do practice public relations to build an
organizational reputation, what the communications tools the public relations practitioners used
to build a reputation, what the challenges that public relations practitioners have faced to build
a sustainable organizational reputation. To get the answer to these questions, the study
employed a qualitative method. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and also
document review tools. An in-depth interview was employed to collect information from the
practitioners of the AAU public relations office. Document review was also used to get insight
into how the PR materials were designed to send a positive message to build the organization's
reputation. The overall finding of the research revealed that the practice of public relations is
not based on professional standards of public relations and effective communication strategies.
The public relations practitioners are somewhat used to the poor communications tools that may
able to lead to various undesirable effects, such as information gap, public displeasure, and
inefficient use of valuable resources. This is because the public relations practitioners have been
using poor communications tools and using ineffective communications strategies, then after, the
organizational reputation of AAU may an able to convert from favorable to unfavorable. The
study also found that most of the PR practitioners practiced with lack of well-trained
professionals, have negligence attitude towards the profession, absence of adequate capacity
building pieces of training, restricted bureaucratic system that prohibits the flexibility of public
relations practitioners, shortage of budget, which have a directly undesirable effect on their jobs
to build the reputation of Addis Ababa University.
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Keywords
Public Relations, Addis Ababa University, Internal Publics, External Publics, organizational reputation, Strategic communications and professional standards.