LAIZER EDWIN N 
BAPRM 42691
The new frontier for public relations

International public relations (ipr) is recognized as one of the most rapidly growing areas of public relations but perhaps one of the least understood. In this chapter the author looks at the issue of international public relations from the perspective of an empirical study conducted by the author in British organizations focusing on the role of inter- national public relations within a coordinated marketing communication strategy. He addresses the management of the relationship between organizations and those audiences overseas who might be considered significant international stakeholders as key variables in ipr.

Pavlik noted some twenty years ago, that international public relations (ipr) was one of the most rapidly growing areas of the pro fession and one of the least understood. The chairman of one of the largest PR firms entitled his introduction to the 1999 ICO summit ‘Public Relations truly a global business (Hehir, 1999). Comor (2001) suggests that a central pillar in this growth is the recent explosion of electronic forms of transnational communications.

Scholars of management are hampered by the lack of an established body of knowledge about the fledgeling domain of ipr and of practice in different parts of the world (Krishnamurthy and Dejan, 2001). But, according to Culbertson and Chen (1996), ipr has spread rapidly throughout the world; and Taylor (2001) suggests that for practitioners the desire for competency in the skills necessary for the successful execution of iPR grows yearly. Taylor and Kent (1999) suggest that further knowledge about iPR is important in order to explore the assumptions underlying differing national practices and to examine differing practices worldwide.

Although Botan reported in 1992 that 130 articles had been published on iPR, the present body of scholarly knowledge makes only cursory reference to the world outside Europe and to the United States in particular (Krishnamurthy and Dejan, 2001). Taylor and Kent (1999) suggest that detailed introspection may persuade PR practitioners that many of the assumptions guiding western public relations are simply not applicable to the growing field of iPR.

It becomes increasingly critical to assess ways in which PR professionals can prepare themselves to meet the growing challenges of communicating with publics of various countries and cultures (Krishnamurthy and Dejan, 2001). Perhaps not surprisingly one of the most interesting trends in recent years has been the growing use of professional PR consultants by national governments (Manheim and Albritton, 1983); Schuybroek noted in 1999 that there were at least fifteen PR networks offering these services worldwide.

Kruckeberg and Starck suggested (1988) that the practice of iPR offers an active attempt to restore and maintain a sense of community in an increasingly global world a world where communities become by the day ever more disparate and fragmented. PR practitioners have a social responsibility to under- stand and respect the concerns of the diverse populations with which they communicate (Guzley, 1995) therefore mutual understanding is needed between organizations and international publics (Taylor, 2001).

Public relations only crossed the ocean and became accepted as a management tool in Europe after the Second World War (Vercic et al., 2000). But third world public relations is largely a communication, information generating function; not a management function (van Leuven and Pratt, 1996). However Kruckeberg (1996) reports that sophisticated public relations is being practised in the Middle East; an emphasis on management function that reflects the original association of iPR with business (Zaharna, 2000). Taylor and Kent (1999) relate that since Independence in 1963 the Malaysian government1 has