Vasquez, Gabriel M. and Maureen Taylor, 1999. “What cultural values influence American public relations practitioners?” Public Relations Review, 25(4), 433-449

The purpose of this article is “to provide a snapshot of American public relations practice and to examine what cultural values influence American practice.” (434) Research is based on Hofstede’s four-dimensional model of culture combined with Grunig’s models of public relations.

There are two main approaches in modern PR theory. Some researchers describe and categorize differences in public relations practice between cultures and nations. Other scholars consider culture as a variable in public relations. The most widespread idea in modern cultural approach to PR is ethnocentrism, or “belief that what is known about public relations in one country is applicable across all countries.” (434-435)

Culture, according to Geert Hofstede, is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another.” (435) He conducted his research in more than 40 countries and described four dimensions, or “building blocks” of culture.

They are: power distance (the extent to which the less powerful members of society accept that power is distributed unequally.); masculinity (clearly defined sex roles with male values of success, money and things dominant in society); uncertainty avoidance (the extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguity and create beliefs and institutions to try to avoid it); individualism (people look out for themselves and their immediate families as opposed to identifying with a larger group that is responsible for taking care of them in exchange for group loyalty) . The United States fell on the high end of the masculinity and individualism, and on the low end in power distance and uncertainty avoidance.

The method used for research was survey, conducted in the Midwestern chapter of PRSA among 94 practitioners. “The final survey instrument reflected the aforementioned cultural variables, questions that identified the models of public relations, and demographic questions.” (440). Then authors built a table of correlations between four variables and models of PR practice.

The quantitative research conducted by authors proved that links between societal and corporative cultures do exist. Two broad findings that provide questions for future research emerged from this study are: strong relationship between power distance and the one-way models of public relations and one between collectivism and femininity with two-way models. (443)

So, American practitioners prefer managers who are flexible, are not afraid of disagreeing with their bosses, and desire and respect supervisors who consult with them before making decisions. Therefore, we cannot say that professionals practice one-way communication being forced to do that by their organizations. The answers could be that “it is easier and requires less skill than two-way models” (443), or “they lack knowledge of the alternatives.” (443)

Collectivism which is correlated with two-way model may mean that collectivistic societies, rather than individualistic, tend to practice two-way communications. What concerns femininity dimension, some scholars argue that Western societies are slowly moving away from a dichotomous notion of masculinity and femininity (444).

The research implies two main answers. Is one-way communication influence of culture or practitioners’ choice? Is femininity and two-way communication in causal connection?

Authors argue that practitioners choose one-way communication because it is easier and need less knowledge to be practiced. Regarding femininity, they believe that “survey may point to highly supportive nature of American public work” (445) and consider blurring of gender roles in PR as a requirement of its further development.

On the other hand, conclusions made by the authors could be reviewed as quite controversial. A criticism of Vasquez and Taylor’s research might be that the survey’s data capacity is too small. That could be additional reason why some results of research didn’t follow those of Hofstede.

Another finding sounds true: American PR practitioners may lack knowledge of two-way communication models. It means that Grunig’s belief that organizations tend to practice two-way models nowadays is far from reality.
A hypothesis that collectivistic societies rather than individualistic ones tend to practice two-way models also could be truth. The authors mentioned some countries where a public relations was “a part of nation-building activities” (435).

Vasquez and Taylor point out: “more research… is necessary to further understand how culture affects the practice of American public relations, and how it influences practitioner’s entry into management position” (445). I think, this topic (cross-cultural differences in PR practice) must use more sources (ones from ethnography, ethnopsychology) to be more effective. In future cross-cultural approach to PR could provide us with new interesting findings. The importance of this article as a pioneer in this field is quite high.