| Abstract: |
Public relations continues to occupy a peripheral position in many organisations
across Nigeria, frequently reduced to event management, media relations or crisis
response rather than being embraced as a strategic management function. This
tendency is particularly pronounced in Northern Nigeria, where empirical
scholarship on the subject remains scarce despite the region's growing public,
private and non-governmental organisational landscape. This study assesses the
extent to which organisations in Katsina State recognise, accept and adopt public
relations as a strategic management function, and identifies the barriers constraining
fuller institutionalisation. The study is anchored on Excellence Theory (Grunig &
Hunt, 1984) and Institutional Theory (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; DiMaggio & Powell,
1983; Suchman, 1995). A qualitative research design was adopted, drawing on semi
structured interviews with thirty public relations officers, purposively selected in
equal numbers from public sector, private sector and non-governmental
organisations in Katsina State. Interview data were analysed thematically following
the approach of Braun and Clarke (2006, 2021). Findings reveal that public relations
remains inadequately recognised as a strategic management function in a
considerable number of organisations, with practitioners frequently excluded from
management decision making, policy formulation and strategic planning. The study
further finds that concerns regarding the professional qualifications of personnel
performing public relations duties, the absence of dedicated public relations
departments in several organisations, and inadequate welfare and working
conditions for practitioners collectively constrain the institutionalisation of public
relations as a strategic function within the state. The study contributes originally to
public relations scholarship by extending institutional recognition research, hitherto
concentrated in Southern Nigeria and other African contexts, into a Northern
Nigerian setting that has received markedly little empirical attention. Two
recommendations, directly aligned to the study's objectives, are advanced for strengthening the recognition and institutional adoption of public relations within
organisations in the region. |
