Influences on the Power of Public Relations Professionals in Organizations: A Case Study

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Abstract
For many years, public relations practitioners have aspired to and worked to- ward professional status for their work. Public relations scholars, in turn, have examined the literature on professionalism in the social sciences to determine the requisites of that status and to evaluate the extent to which public relations meets them. The literature suggests that power and autonomy in organizations are among the most important characteristics of a profession. This participant observation study of a high-tech firm examined the process by which public relations practitioners sought autonomy in making decisions about the content of an employee newsletter. I found that professionalism did not provide the practitioners with total autonomy. Rather, professionalism provided them with the credibility needed to negotiate for autonomy. As a result, professionalism also helped the practitioners to change the management of the firm slowly from a closed system to a more open and symmetrical system.

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