1. Public Affairs Management
Chapter 2
Public Affairs
Management
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, All Rights Reserved.

2. Ch. 2: Key Learning Objectives
Evaluating public issues and their significance to the modern corporation
Analyzing the ways business utilizes its boundary-spanning departments to interact with their various stakeholders
Knowing the duties of a company’s public affairs manager or department both for domestic and international issues
Applying available tools or techniques to scan an organization’s multiple environments
Investigating how competitive intelligence is gathered and used
Describing the steps in the issue management process and determining how to make the process most effective
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3. Public Issues Public issue
An issue that is of mutual concern to an organization and one or more of the organization’s stakeholders
Stakeholder expectations
A mixture of people’s opinions, attitudes, and beliefs about what constitutes reasonable business behavior

4. Public Issues: Performance-Expectations Gap
Discrepancy between what stakeholders expect and what an organization is actually doing
Important to identify emergent expectations as early as possible
Doing so can gain the company competitive advantage
Failure to understand stakeholder concerns and to respond appropriately will:
Cause the performance–expectations gap to grow
The larger the gap, the greater the risk of stakeholder backlash or missing a major business opportunity

5. The Performance-Expectations Gap
Figure 2.1
The Performance-Expectations Gap

6. Boundary Spanning Departments
Those departments within an organization that reach across the organization’s boundary line to interact with groups and people in society
Building positive and mutually beneficial relationships that span organizational boundaries is a growing part of a manager’s role
Figure 2-2 on following slide shows corporate departments and the market or nonmarket stakeholders they engage with
In today’s modern corporations is a complex set with multiple departments and numerous stakeholder groups

7. Figure 2.2
The Corporation’s Boundary-Spanning Departments

8. Boundary Spanning Departments and Stakeholder Groups
Remainder of this chapter will cover function/activities of Public Affairs Department
Later chapters will cover departments responsible for Corporate Citizenship functions, and those that work with specific stakeholder groups

9. Public Affairs Management
Refers to the management of a company’s external relations, especially its relations with stakeholders such as government and regulatory agencies, customers, investors, and communities
Sometimes called corporate affairs, external affairs, or government relations

10. Public Affairs Management
Growth in Pubic Affairs departments attributed to
External forces such as loss of public trust institutions, globalization of world markets, and rise of the Internet
Internal forces such as better communication within organizations, more experience with significant change and complexity, and growing focus on the interplay between the organization, its environment, and its strategies

11. Corporate Public Affairs Activities
Exhibit 2.A
Corporate Public Affairs Activities

12. Current Public Affairs Management
Theme for common activities shown on Exhibit 2.A is an organization’s need to relate to its stakeholders
Many companies today have a “Public Affairs Plan”
The Head of Public Affairs is most often a Senior Manager/Executive or Vice President who also serves on the Company’s Senior Management Team
Important that management of “sociopolitical” issues be at or near the highest levels in the organization and be linked to strategy

13. Effective Tactics to Manage Sociopolitical Issues
Exhibit 2.B

14. International Public Affairs Management
By necessity, Public Affairs must be global given current business practice is international
U.S.-based businesses have expanded Public Affairs activities globally
Foreign businesses have developed Public Affairs functions
Is important to develop intercultural competencies:
Dealing with local media and other stakeholder groups can depend on mastery of language and native cultural norms

15. Issue Management
A structured and systematic process to aid organizations in identifying, monitoring, and selecting public issues that warrant organizational action
Environmental analysis
Provides managers with the information about external issues and trends that enables an organization to develop a strategy that minimizes threats and takes advantage of new opportunities
Environmental intelligence
The acquisition of information gained from analyzing the multiple environments affecting organizations
Depends on scanning eight “radar” screens shown on next slide

16. Eight Strategic Radar Screens
Figure 2.3

17. Competitive Intelligence
An additional scanning function that is often delegated to the Public Affairs Department
Defined as the systematic and continuous process of gathering, analyzing, and managing external information about the organization’s competitors that can affect the organization’s plans, decisions and operations
Numerous ethical issues arise in acquisition and use of information gathered through competitive intelligence, public affairs managers must be keenly aware of these issues

18. Issues Management Process
Composed of 5 Steps or Stages
Issue Identification
Anticipating emerging concerns, or “horizon” issues
Issue Analysis
Evaluating the issue; coming to an understanding of how it will evolve and how it will affect the organization
Option Generation, Evaluation and Selection
Evaluating action options, involves complex judgments that take in to account “non-quantifiable” factors like the company’s reputation

19. Issues Management Process
Last two of the five stages
Program Implementation
Once option is chosen, must design and implement it
Assessment of Results and Continuous Improvement
Must assess results of the program and made adjustments as needed
The Issues Management Process should be thought of as continuous, a “Loop” like shown on next slide
Also requires creative problem solving, is as much “Art” as “Science”

20. The Issue Management Process
Figure 2.5