An Examination of the Roles and Work Activities of the Public Relations Officer in Higher Education Using the Five-Factor Dimension Model

• Main Author: Rosalynne Whitaker-Heck
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Insitute for Public Relations 2014-04-01
• Series: Public Relations Journal
• Online Access: https://prjournal.instituteforpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014WhitakerHeck.pdf

This article offers an examination of the technical and managerial public relations roles and respective work activity among higher education public relations officers based on a hypothesized role typology model. It was through this study to address a gap in the literature, which is the degree to which higher education public relations officers are actually practicing public relations work dimensions as defined by the five-factor model developed by DeSanto, Moss and Newman (2005, 2007). This study further examined the extent to which the managerial and technical roles are related to the public relations officers’ access to the president and type of institution in which the public relations officer works. This project used a quantitative survey research design for collecting and analyzing the research data obtained from the Senior Practitioner Survey instrument administered to 74 members of the Counselors to Higher Education section of the Public Relations Society of America. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling, Procrustes rotation, and independent sample t test inferential statistics were used to address the five research questions that guided this study. The study’s findings provided evidence, with caution, that senior public relations officers in higher education environments primarily assume a technician role, with marginal engagement of managerial role enactment, despite holding senior-level job titles. Also, the study reveals that regardless of institution type, a majority of senior public relations officers do not have direct access to the president of their respective higher education institutions.