Public relations in public institutions: A research on the effectiveness of communication process

Abstract

Public relations practitioners can assume many different roles in public institutions. The common goal of these different roles is to try to influence the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of the target groups through effective communication strategies. Thus, support from the public is considered. In this study, it is aimed to find out the effective strategies to improve the quality of the relations with the target groups of public institutions. For this purpose, the relationship between the communicative process established by public institutions with their target groups and relational results were examined. The research conducted on 251 people revealed that perceived communicative skills of local public institutions had positive effects on public relations perceptions (trust, commitment, satisfaction). The most important dimension is satisfaction. On the other hand, a weak relationship was found between the communicative process and control mutuality. This finding indicates that public relations department is not effective in the decision making process in public institutions. The results of the research are proposed to improve the relational results between public institutions and target groups.