Public Relations and Whistleblowing

Golden Handcuffs in Corporate Wrongdoing

Cary A. Greenwood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781351866422
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Pubbliche relazioni
• Index: Business

There is a growing interest in corporate whistleblowing, but no comprehensive research has yet focused on public relations practice. Drawing on extensive research on Fortune 1000 and Wilshire 5000 corporations, this book reveals executives' attitudes and relationships toward their organizations and their impact on whistleblowing.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it reveals that wrongdoing in corporations and the privileges of power coexist. Top-ranking public relations executives, who are mostly white and male, are more likely to be aware of wrongdoing but no more likely to blow the whistle, fundamentally due to their positive relationship with their employers. Using the new lens of evolutionary theory, this study explains whistleblowing, retaliation, and relationships, and in the light of the connection between whistleblowing behavior and executives' attitudes, it proposes a new theory of the phenomenon of Golden Handcuffs.

As public attitudes to corporations, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and transparency harden, these findings have serious implications for companies globally. Researchers, scholars, and advanced students in public relations, organizational communication, corporate communication, strategic communication, corporate reputation, and CSR will find this book full of revealing insights.

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Public relations, whistleblowing, and evolution

DOI: 10.4324/9781315231891-2

Evolutionary theory: the missing link for conceptualizing public relations

Although a decade has passed since this article was published,¹ the arguments for the need for a metatheory to unify public relations thought remain strong. A recent study of public relations evaluation and measurement articles over the past 40 years found “no guiding theory” and the “non-existence of a coherent theoretical body of knowledge within evaluation and measurement research” (Volk, 2016, p. 969). Public relations scholars continue to draw from a variety of disciplines and perspectives in their research into the field. However, the inability to agree upon a theoretical perspective for evaluating the field means, in part, that guidance for those most likely to learn about an organization’s failings and most likely to be required to help steer that organization through difficult times may be least likely to have a clear path of action for dealing with that knowledge. Those in the field of public relations need more guidance than they have been given to date on addressing organizational wrongdoing.

This article introduces the concept of using Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory as the metatheory for conceptualizing public relations thought. It examines the state of public relations theory development and explores theories that have been proposed as metatheories for the field, including systems theory, complexity theory, and symmetrical/Excellence theory. It also explores the tenets of evolutionary theory that have relevance for public relations theory, including social intelligence, Machiavellian intelligence, cheater detection, cooperation, reciprocity, and reciprocal altruism.

“For some time, the field of public relations has been in search of a unifying theory” (Leeper, 2001, p. 93). Given the extensive coverage in recent years of Charles Darwin’s life, work, and contribution to science through his theory of evolution, it seems only fitting to introduce Darwin into the discussion of public relations theory-building. In fact, given the current state of disagreement over theory-building among public relations scholars, it seems highly appropriate to consider a widely accepted and widely used metatheory in the life sciences, that is, evolutionary theory, as a metatheory for conceptualizing public relations thought. The theory contends that the complexity of life forms currently on the planet is the result of the evolution of individual species over a long period of time through natural selection, or adaptation, for survival and reproduction (Darwin, 1979/1859; Dennett, 1995).

Public relations theory development is one of the fastest growing areas of public relations scholarship (Sallot, Lyon, Acosta-Alzuru, & Jones, 2008). The number of theory development articles published in the two leading public relations research journals, Public Relations Review and the Journal of Public Relations Research, more than doubled from 2001 to 2003 over the 1984–2000 time frame (Sallot et al., 2008). The increase might be attributed, in part, to a call by leading public relations scholars for increased theory development (Botan, 1989; J. E. Grunig, 1989), to criticism of existing theory (Curtin & Gaither, 2005; Gower, 2006; Holtzhausen, 2000; Holtzhausen & Voto, 2002; Hutton, 2001; Murphy, 1991), to the ongoing search for a satisfying theoretical framework (Cheney & Christensen, 2001), or to the lack of a unifying theory (J. E. Grunig, 1989; Leeper, 2001; Murphy, 1996, 2000). Despite the phenomenal growth in attention paid to theory development, the field of public relations still lacks a universally agreed-upon metatheory (Sallot et al., 2008). The lack of a unifying theory for public relations, and the need for one, is the issue that occupies this chapter.

A “paradigm struggle” is now occurring within public relations between the dominant paradigm, as represented by symmetrical/Excellence theory, and more critical worldviews, including the critical-cultural and the postmodern (Botan, 1993; Botan & Hazleton, 2006b, 1989). That struggle is viewed by some as evidence of public relations’ arrival as a more mature discipline (Botan & Hazleton, 2006a; J. E. Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier, 2006), as evidence of the central role played by symmetrical/Excellence theory (J. E. Grunig & Grunig, 2008; J. E. Grunig et al., 2006), as the mechanism by which future theoretical developments will ensue (Botan & Hazleton, 2006b; J. E. Grunig et al., 2006), as a crossroads between the dominant paradigm and a more critical worldview (Gower, 2006), or as a fundamental flaw in the positivist outlook of the dominant paradigm (Curtin & Gaither, 2005).

This struggle, along with the growth of public relations theory development, offers an opportunity to extend the theoretical boundaries of public relations by opening the door to possible pathways for future theory development. One such pathway leads directly from the dominant paradigm (back) to the life sciences and connects the two in ways that could be beneficial to both.

One line of thought that holds great promise for a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary Kuhnian-style (Kuhn, 1970) paradigm for public relations is a research tradition from the life sciences that is being integrated slowly into other social and life science disciplines: evolutionary theory. What evolutionary theory requires is a willingness to accept the scientific paradigm. Those willing to consider the scientific model may find this pathway illuminated and illuminating.

Some might argue that evolutionary theory is a well-trodden path, rather than a newly blazed trail, for public relations theory. An early definition of public relations used the concept of ecology from the life sciences to explain the “interdependence of organizations and others in their environments. Viewed in this perspective, public relations’ essential role is to help organizations adjust and adapt to changes in their environments (Cutlip, 1952)” (Cutlip, Center, & Broom, 1994, p. 199). Central to that research tradition is the idea that organizations and public relations have to evolve (i.e., adapt) to changing circumstances and environments:

We believe future research should be developed to help public relations evolve (L. Grunig, 2007) as a strategic management function and continually reinstitutionalize itself to adjust to changes in organizations, communication technologies and societal expectations. Thus, we believe the future of the excellence theory should be evolutionary change.

(J. E. Grunig & Grunig, 2008, p. 292)

What was lacking in the early use of ecology as an underlying concept for public relations was an acknowledgment of the broader potential for evolutionary theory as a metatheory for the field, as well as the application of specific evolutionary concepts to public relations.

This chapter introduces the concept of using evolutionary theory as the metatheory for conceptualizing public relations thought. It examines the current state of public relations theory development and explores theories that have been proposed as metatheories, including systems theory, complexity theory, and symmetrical/Excellence theory, to make the case for the role that evolutionary theory could play in the further development of public relations theory.

Public relations theory development

Since its beginnings in the publicity efforts of nineteenth-century U.S. industrial expansion, public relations has been closely aligned with various fields, including business, political science, psychology, mass communication, and sociology (Cheney & Christensen, 2001; Cropp & Pincus, 2001; J. E. Grunig, 1989; K. S. Miller, 2000; Murphy, 1991; Prior-Miller, 1989; Verčič & Grunig, 2000). The practice of public relations has developed from a variety of activities involving individuals and organizations, including rhetoric, oratory, publicity, promotion, advertising, marketing, community relations, and government affairs. In part because of its origins in practice, the theoretical basis of public relations has been called into question, and public relations is accused of lacking theory (J. E. Grunig, 1992).

Like other emerging academic fields, such as strategic management (Meyer, 1991), public relations has borrowed or adapted many of its theories from these other disciplines (Coombs, 2001; J. E. Grunig, 1993; Pasadeos, Renfro, & Hanily, 1999). Several historical developments account for why these diverse theories have not been unified as a metatheory for public relations. Theoretical developments in social science have encouraged communication scholars to avoid grand theories and to focus on developing falsifiable middle-range theories (Sallot et al., 2008; Verčič & Grunig, 2000). The impetus for developing middle-range theories lies in sociology’s mid-twentieth-century desire to avoid general theories that could not account for observations (Merton, 1967). As an outgrowth of its origins in practice, public relations has focused on applied, or problem-solving, research, rather than basic, or theoretical, research (Botan, 1989). As a result, “In the past, public relations theory has ignored metatheory” (J. E. Grunig, 1989, p. 17).

Of the many theories used in public relations, only a few have claimed the status of a unifying theory, or metatheory, for public relations. Of those few, systems theory, complexity theory, and symmetrical/Excellence theory have received the most attention from scholars.

Systems theory

Systems theory was introduced into the scientific community in the 1950s (Bertalanffy, 1951; Boulding, 1956) and had become an established theory by the late 1960s (Bertalanffy, 1968). However, it was not until the 1970s that it was introduced into the field of communication, where its popularity grew over the next ten years. Systems theory was used to design speech communication courses (Tucker, 1971), to determine the effectiveness of organizational communication (Hickson, 1973), to underscore the importance of communication as a cohesive element of organizational systems (Almaney, 1974), and to serve as an organizing theory for organizational communication (J. E. Grunig, 1975). By the mid-1980s systems theory had gained such a following that it was identified as a foundational theory for public relations (Cutlip, Center, & Broom, 1985; J. E. Grunig & Grunig, 1986). It provided four of the suppositions J. E. Grunig (1989) used in developing symmetrical communication: holism, interdependence, open system, and moving equilibrium (Grunig, 1989). However, more recently, public relations scholars have criticized systems theory’s goal of organizational survival as “weak” (J. E. Grunig & Grunig, 2000, p. 306). Despite its widespread contribution to public relations theory development, systems theory’s lack of status as a metatheory for public relations is evidenced in part by the lack of scholarly publications dedicated to it in recent journals (Sallot et al., 2008; Verčič & Grunig, 2000).

Complexity theory

Complexity theory is an outgrowth of chaos theory, which was developed from “physics, topology, and systems theory,” and which sees the underlying nature of the universe as made up of “disorder, diversity, instability and non-linearity” (Murphy, 1996, pp. 95–96). It is the “study of many individual actors who interact locally in an effort to adapt to their immediate situation” and whose actions have global effects (Murphy, 2000, p. 450). Both theories share a postmodern focus on “participation and relationships” (Stroh, 2007, p. 206), and both have been proposed as scientific worldviews whose adoption as metatheory would increase the credibility of public relations (McKie, 2001). More recently, complexity theory has been presented as useful in crisis communication (Holtzhausen & Roberts, 2008) and as complementary and equal to symmetrical/Excellence theory as a unifying theory for public relations (Murphy, 2007). However, neither of these theories has shown a significant following as metatheory, based on a recent review of theory development articles published in the leading public relations journals (Sallot et al., 2008).

Symmetrical/Excellence theory

Symmetrical communication was developed specifically to address this lack of a unifying theory for public relations (J. E. Grunig, 1989; J. E. Grunig et al., 2006). Its purpose was to counteract the then-dominant paradigm, or leading theory, of public relations developed by Bernays, which used “theories of attitudes and persuasion” (J. E. Grunig, 1989, p. 19) “to manipulate publics for the benefit of the organization” (p. 18). In response, J. E. Grunig developed symmetrical public relations, “which has a different set of presuppositions and calls for a different kind of theory” (p. 19). Symmetrical theory was developed as a “presupposition,” or metath...