THE MESSAGE-ATTITUDE-BEHAVIOR RELATIONSHIP

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Abstract
A situational theory of the behavior of organizational publics is expanded conceptually to explain the occurrence of cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral effects of communication behavior as well as the occurrence of communication behavior itself. The expanded theory explains when publics in an organization's environment will become active and interpenetrate the organization. The theory also provides a situational, teleological explanation of the attitude-behavior relationship. In this study, the theory is used to identify publics that arise from corporate “public affairs” issues. Publics are found that are consistent with those found in other studies of publics.