Organization‐public relationships and consumer satisfaction: The role of relationships in the satisfaction mix

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Abstract
Scholars and practitioners long have debated the influence that public relations activities have on consumers. Recently Ledingham and Bruning (1998) reported that the organization‐public relationship variables of trust, openness, involvement, investment, and commitment can be used to predict consumer behavior. The current investigation examined these organization‐public relationship variables in relation to customer satisfaction and found that customer satisfaction is influenced by the relationship that exists between an organization and its key publics. The authors suggest that the relationship between an organization and its key publics should be considered when developing customer satisfaction initiatives and should be included in future models of satisfaction research. Conclusions and future directions for research also are presented.