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AN ANAYSIS OF THE USES AND ABUSES OF PUBLIC RELATION IN MANAGEMENT IN SELECTED NIGERIA BUSINESS ORGANIZATION

CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

Information has to be presented to the public about organizational or industrial products and services.  As a result the use of public relation in business management is a necessity. To enhance business growth, a firm or an industry should ensure proper image and goodwill. An industry or organization that maintains its reputation  before the public is likely to see its goods and or services workers will also seek  to work in such firms, just as investors will seeks to buy its shares.

Rex Harlow of San Francesco USA gave one of  the most comprehensive definitions of public relations.  According to him public relations is a distinctive management function which helps to establish and maintain mutual line of communication, understanding, acceptance and co-operation between an organization and its publics. There fore, for the fact that no business or organization is an Island, that is, can properly exist without public support, public understanding or interest should be adequate sought for.

According to Ewrneth (1984) “A public exists whenever a group of people is draw together by definite interest in certain areas and has definite opinions upon matters within those areas “The public should be given proper attention, because their opinion may make or mar any business organization. The public attitude towards on organization is another dimension to understand public relation.

Public relation is the management factions that evaluate public attitude, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or an organization with the public interest and plans and executes a programme of action to earn public understanding and acceptance. An attitudinal definition was given by the public relation News of York. Based on the definition, is obvious that  a business cannot exist without the existence of consumers who patronize it.  There fore, need exists for an effective communication and adequate information on the products or service of a company to e carefully, precisely and constantly disseminate to the publics, whose opinion can affect the organization either positively or negatively, depending on the perception by that public this is to ensure consumer orientation. To enhance good business management, a  good public relations department should act according to public interest. As a managerial function public relation practitioner should be vigorously involved in management decision making.

They should be involved in coordinating various departments.  Marketing, personnel, purchasing, engineering, accounting and so on to ensure optimum production and service in the organization.  This ensure that the good image of the firm is maintained among the populace.  Dissemination of information and co-ordination of various department are necessary because every department may not be free to read and search for information in and outside the organization environment.  Source will elevate the corporate image and ensure business growth.

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The Nigerian telecommunication ltd (NITEL) is a federal government owned company that provides public telecommunication service in Nigeria.  The company was set-up in 1985 as an amalgamation of the telecommunication division of the defunct P & T department and the Nigeria, external telecommunications limited (NET). NITEL has staff strength of about twelve thousand (12,000). It operates a three-tier organizational structure, ie. corporate  headquarters, six zonal and thirty nine territorial administrations, a system that enhances decentralization.

NITEL was fully commercialized under the privatization and commercialization policy of the federal government.  The main objective of the company is to provide an efficient, reliable and cost effective telecommunication services nation wide and internationally. Other services provided by the company are INMARSAT service, Network paying service, audio mail  services, internet services and line billing. Mercedes-Benz ANAMCO is a joint venture between the federal government of Nigeria and Daimler-Benz AG/Mercedes-Benz AG of company.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

As population grows and organization expands, there is an increasing need to know the uses of public relations in business management. This will induce greater productivity and economic growth and development of the nation. In an attempt to understand fully the uses of public relation in business management, some companies have been selected and chosen for the study.  The industrial challengers will be to realize the impact of public relations in the industries and business management.

The problem of the study is to understand how public relation should be made operational in an industrial setting. It is easy to advocate policies but often difficult to implement them.  How does a business integrate public relations in its management with all the functions department that are found in organizations? This is study will address the issue.

1.3     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

For a critical analysis of the project to e done and an up to date result achieve, it is necessary to outline the likely questions for which answers are expected.  The questions includes:

-  What is the relevance of public relations to modern business management?

-  Is public relation being practical as a top management function.

-  Which strategies are employed by management to ensure good public relation function.

-  How do other managers employees perceive the job of public relations.

-  Do the management of companies under study recognize the importance of public relations.

-  What are the specific uses of public relation in these organization.

-  What are the specific abuses of public relation in these organization?

1.4     OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The objective of this study includes:

-  To examine the relevance of public relation in modern business management

-  To find out if the public relation is practiced as a top management function in the companies under study.

-  To examine the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the public relations strategies employed by managers in the companies under study

-  To find out the attitude of other managers and employees in the companies to public relations.

-  To find out the level of acceptance or un-acceptance of public relation as a management function in the companies under study.

-  To identify and analyses the uses and abuses of public relation in the   selected  management organization.

-  To make appropriate recommendation.

1.5     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The focus of this research work is to establish the use of public relation in business management. The research will focus on the following industries for the purpose of this study.

-  Manufacturing –Anambra motor manufacturing company (ANAMCO) Enugu.

-  Services – Nigeria telecommunications limited (NITEL), Enugu.

With the hope that the result will be useful in judging other companies at the national level.

1.6     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Most industrial organization have found it difficult to accept the hard fact that the consumer is the king whose interest should be paramount in the desire  to achieve corporate goal and enhance business growth.  When the consumers speaks out their mind, the entire business both internal and external environment will become educated on the shortfall in the organization relationship with the public. If the use of public relation in any industrial set-up is enhanced a good image of the industry will be fastened.

This work will alert the public relation practitioners that they are part of management in the organizational hierarchy, and as such are people who have enormous responsibility towards so many people )in several public), with public relations, there is no general public but specific public.

1.7     LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

An exploratory research such as this is bound to meet a lot of constraints. Most of he constraints might result from natural phenomenon while some are man-made. The research was limited by mostly man made constraints such as respondents bias and the reluctance to company works to divulge useful information to the researcher. Financial constraint, which is often the major constraint to every other research also, reared its ugly head. This narrowed  the scope of the area covered by the researcher to only Enugu Urban.  These constraints might have affected the research cover  but they surely would not affect the validity of the result.

1.8     IMPORTANTS OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

-  It works to improve mutual understanding between the organization and its publics.

-  It has the primary role of molding and presenting company image to the public.

-  It strives to discover and eliminate source of misunderstanding.

-  It broadens the sphere of the firm by engaging in appropriate advertising, publicity, exhibitions and others.

-  Public relation do everything aimed at improving the communication between people and the organization.

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