Customer Orientation in Public Relations and Corporate Communication Industry in Malaysia: An Empirical Study Sufyan Rashid Department of Communication, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Paper presented at the International Conference on Social Sciences & Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, 18-20th June, 2008.

Introduction Public relations and corporate communication industry in Malaysia has witnessed tremendous growth over the last few decades. Now, three main professional bodies: the IPRM, (IABC) and Public Relations Consultants’ serve the industry. Membership for IPRM stood at 900 as of 2004, IABC membership stood at 61 and PR agencies stood at 82 as of 2003.

So, what is the problem? These are business entities and to survive need to sustain the growth and profitability. However, some of the practitioners suffer from lack of credibility in managing communication issues and fail to project communication strategies effectively. Some of the reasons are lack of competent and qualified staff and lack of English language proficiency among the communication graduates .

Purpose of the study To find out the level and role of customer orientation in mitigating credibility problems the industry is facing. Specifically, the study examines how customer orientation influences performance in the public relations and corporate communication industry in Malaysia.

Objectives of the study To find out the level of customer orientation in public relations and corporate communication industry To find out the relationship between customer orientation an employee satisfaction in the industry

Customer Orientation Concept Defined as a thorough understanding of customers’ needs and wants, the competitive environment, and the nature of the markets, which are used to formulate all of the firms’ plans and actions to create satisfied customers (Widing et al., (2003:12). The concept reflects a philosophy of doing business that can be considered the central ingredient of a successful organization's culture.

Scope of Customer Orientation New term for instituting the marketing concept. The approach is more likely to be accepted by non-marketing departments. It is removed from the province of the marketing department and makes it the responsibility of all departments in the organization

Market Orientation Perspectives Lafferty and Hult, (2001) identified five perspectives advanced in the literature The decision-making perspective The market intelligence perspective The culturally based behavioral perspective The strategic focus perspective The customer orientation perspective

Integration of the Perspectives Four general areas of agreement : Emphasis on customers Importance of information Interfunctional coordination Taking action

Customer Orientation, PR and Corporate Communication Industry Service oriented industry, where the competition is very stiff. In Malaysia, the industry is relatively big; more than 82 consultancy firms and three professional bodies, with a sizeable number of membership. Therefore customer orientation is important in the PR and corporate communication industry

Advantages of Customer Orientation

Employee Satisfaction An employee’s positive or negative feelings about the job (Weiss, 2002). It is the degree to which employees feel valued by the organization or company (Cook, 2004). The literature suggests that an improvement in employee satisfaction will increase productivity and therefore company profits.

Data collection From firms and departments within the PR and corporate communication industry operating in the Klang Valley. Targeted PR and corporate communication industry practitioners. 26 organizations and departments and 55 respondents participated in the study.

Measures Customer Orientation Employee Satisfaction Ten items adopted from Cook (2004) and Huang & Dastmalchian (2006) were used to measure customer orientation Employee Satisfaction Determined through satisfaction of the work, pay, supervision, co-workers and promotional opportunities. Ten-item scale,measured on a 5-point Likert scale was used to measure satisfaction

Results

Level of Customer Orientation The mean score ranged from one to five and Customer orientation score was; Mean = 3.92 (SD= 0.64). The mean is above the average of three, which is higher customer orientation. But it is not high enough for complacency.

Customer Orientation and Employee Satisfaction This finding is in-line with Huang and Dastmalchian (2006) and Saura et al., (2005) who found significant relationship between customer orientation and job satisfaction.

Conclusion The purpose of this study was to find out the level of customer orientation and relationship between customer orientation and employee satisfaction. The level of customer orientation in the industry is above average. But the level was supposed to be higher. Customer orientation is positively related to employee satisfaction. This means that if employees are not satisfied with their jobs, their performance will go down.

Thank You