Exploring Types of Organization–Public Relationships and Their Implications for Relationship Management in Public Relations

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedent of organization–public relationships that affects relationship outcomes. Organizations, realizing the interdependence with their publics, developed different types of relationships, such as communal and exchange relationships. Therefore, there should be other types of relationships influencing the quality of the relationships. In this study, 40 qualitative interviews with 36 multinational companies (from Fortune 500 and Taiwan's Commonwealth 1000) in 9 cities in China and Taiwan were conducted to explore more types of relationships. This study discovered mutual communal, covenantal, contractual, symbiotic, manipulative, and exploitive relationships multinational companies have developed with their Chinese publics. The findings also indicate that covenantal relationships help reach a win–win ground, and mutual communal relationships benefit multinational companies the most in achieving effectiveness. A continuum of types of relationships is provided in this study.