Editor’s essay: Reflecting on OPR research

Abstract

Ferguson’s (1984) call for a paradigm shift in public relations research, namely to focus on relationships themselves as the unit of analysis rather than the individuals and entities engaged in those relationships, ranks among the most influential pieces of scholarship in our field – so much so that previous editor-in-chief Bey-Ling Sha requested a 2018 reprint in this journal. Ferguson’s (2018) piece is by far the most cited manuscript published in the Journal of Public Relations Research over the past five years, a testament to her idea’s lasting legacy. Ferguson’s (1984, 2018) work is the foundation stone of the organizational-public relationship paradigm, a bedrock of public relations scholarship for at least the past two decades. Ledingham and colleagues were among the earliest to intensely push this construct forward and the first to codify a general theory of relationship management. Ledingham and Bruning (1998) defined an OPR as “the state which exists between an organization and its key publics in which the actions of either entity impact the economic, social, political and/or cultural well-being of the other entity” (p. 62). Ledingham (2003) would later propose 14 axioms of OPRs, among them that such relationships are transactional; dynamic; goal oriented; governed by expectations of parties involved; driven by those parties needs and wants; and nurtured/fostered by several factors, including communication. The number of published OPR studies in this journal – as well as related outlets like Public Relations Review, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Journal of Communication Management – seems to have grown exponentially. Hon and Grunig’s (1999) widely utilized scale for measuring OPR quality has been particularly impactful here, allowing scholars to assess this key construct and study it across various sectors and in relation to numerous antecedent, dependent, moderating, and mediating variables. In short, OPR has been a game changer for our field . . . but perhaps not to the degree we often perceive. As Fawkes (2015) argues, though OPR was perhaps a revolutionary conception, our approach to studying OPR in many ways represents an evolution of the existing excellence paradigm. We can certainty appreciate that point, especially considering that: