EXCELLENT PUBLIC RELATIONS AND EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS A Study of Communication Management in Three Countries

During the summer of 1984, the IABC Foundation (now the IABC Research
Foundation) issued a request for proposals for a research project that gave us a
chance to conduct what is probably the largest study ever of the public relations
profession. The IABC Foundation wanted to know “how, why, and to what extent communication affects the achievement of organizational objectives.”
Project director James Grunig assembled a research team of both scholars and
practitioners from the United Kingdom as well as the United States. The team
consisted of the three of us, James Grunig and Larissa Grunig of the University
of Maryland and David Dozier of San Diego State University, along with William Ehling, then of Syracuse University and now retired, Jon White, then of
the Cranfield School of Management in the United Kingdom and now with City
University of London, and Fred Repper, the retired vice president of public relations for Gulf States Utilities in Beaumont, Texas.