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whereby organizations should be focusing on
the management of corporate reputation and
not of corporate image: when, for example,
Scott Cutlip says ‘We in PR must be concerned
with that good, old fashioned word reputation
– not image’, he fails to consider key
monitoring and control factors such as critical
path analysis and integrated programme evaluation.
Generally, it is accepted that the concepts
of reputation and image are interrelated and
that there is a dynamic relationship between
the two, even if measurement is difficult as,
for example, in Gotsi and Wilson’s (2001)
statement . . . ‘A corporate reputation is a
stakeholder’s overall evaluation of a company
over time. The evaluation is based on the
stakeholder’s direct experience with the company,
any other forms of communication and
symbolism that provides information about
the company’s actions.’
Towards excellence
Grunig et al. call their theory of best practice
the Excellence Model. But like perceptions of
identity, image and reputation, how is excellence
defined, particularly in relation to an
organization Before Grunig et al.’s study there
were various attempts at defining excellence
depending on the context. Hobbs (1987)
identified excellent companies by measuring
return on sales and return on owner’s investment.
However, Carroll (1983) criticized the
use of financial measures for identifying excellence
in management by pointing out that
factors such as proprietary technology, market
dominance, control of critical raw material,
and national culture and policy also affect
financial performance regardless of the excellence
of management. Kanter (1989) on the
other hand defines excellence as innovation,
whilst Hickman and Silva (1984) suggest
that each organization creates its own unique
criteria for excellence and then suggest how
leadership can help the organization meet
those criteria. However, no one set of criteria
can be used to identify every effective organization
(Grunig and Hunt, 1984). As a result,
excellence in management may produce
different results, for each organization defines
its own criteria for success. In Grunig’s excellence
model (1984) he went much further,
suggesting twelve factors that contribute to
the excellence of an organization to include:
human resources (HR); organic structure;
intrapreneurship; symmetrical communication
systems; leadership; strong, participative
cultures; strategic planning; social responsibility;
support for women and minorities; quality
as a priority; effective operational systems; a
collaborative societal culture. These factors
were standard practice in UK-based multinational
organizations in the 1960s and
1970s. No strategic PR plan would have got
through the board had any factor been missing.
The importance of the excellence model
lies in its aid as an industry focus, if not a universal
standard.
In this study of the BBC, Grunig’s factors
of excellence are interrelated with definitions
of image, identity and reputation through the
context of three specific issues namely, the
licence fee; the use of commercial trails by
the BBC and the impact of the memoirs of the
former director general of the BBC to see how,
or if at all, the BBC could be said to be functioning
as an ‘excellent’ organization.
The importance of building relationships
through their various stakeholders has increasingly
exercised the hearts and minds of the
BBC as the arrival of digital technology offers
yet more opportunity and threat for fragmentation
of audiences. Furthermore, changes to
the United Kingdom’s regulatory framework
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors