The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication: A Guide to Internal Communication, Public Relations, Marketing, and Leadership

Public Relations Research and Planning

Public relations research is no different from any other type of corporate research and should strive to meet several ends. First, it should be driven by the same general organizational research assumptions that drive other organizational areas. Second, public relations research must address achievable and measurable goals. Third, research has specific uses that should match those goals. Fourth, public relations research should be programmatic rather than one-shot case-by-case instance driven. Finally, public relations departments need to have the budget and resources to carry out this research.

Research is the controlled, objective, and systematic gathering of data. It seeks to describe, understand, predict, ...