A study on the public relations practitioner role identity of communication scholars in Hong Kong’s higher education sector

Abstract

This qualitative study investigated whether a primacy of the public relations (PR) practitioner role identity exists among communication scholars in Hong Kong. PR practitioner role identity was measured by examining whether communication scholars in Hong Kong practiced PR while performing their academic duties, and if they did, the PR practice behaviors they had performed. Data on PR practice behaviors were obtained through narratives collected in a series of 10 in-depth interviews of subjects selected using a purposive sampling method to achieve distinct and comparable results and findings. The textual data of the behavior narratives were coded and analyzed using the newly developed communication scholars’ role identity (CSRI) framework. The CSRI model was developed by combining the role identity framework and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) framework. The CSRI framework was used to examine the role identity to determine the differences in the beliefs regarding norms, process elements and the possible behavioral outputs of communication scholars. By understanding their different beliefs, the main research question about there is a primacy of the PR practitioner role identity among communication scholars could be answered. This study found that the PR practitioner role did not have primacy for communication scholars interviewed in Hong Kong. Hong Kong communication scholars interviewed believed that research, rather than PR, was their top priority. The results of the in-depth interviews, i.e., the verbal descriptions of behaviors, were consistent with the results of another data set used to examine the actual behaviors of communication scholars in Hong Kong. The behaviors measured included the scholars’ news media appearances over a 10-year period and scholars’ total academic publications in the same period. No primacy of the PR practitioner role identity was found for communication scholars in Hong Kong. This reinforced the findings of the in-depth interviews. The increasing importance of PR is a result of the rise of neo-liberal universities. To cope with such changes, universities encourage scholars to practice more PR, amongst other service duties. However, this study did not find a primacy of the PR practitioner role identity among communication scholars interviewed, as they do not perform a great deal of PR work.