Towards relationship management: Public relations at the core of organisational development

The purpose of this paper is to outline concepts that explore and extend the significance of public relations as a relationship management discipline.

The paper postulates practice through which value is created to meet organisational objectives from the known or latent potential of tangible and intangible assets. In doing so, a definition and early research findings into the nature of relationships is put forwards and a definition of organisations as the nexus of relationships is proposed. The differentiation between organisational and interpersonal relationships is explored through a concept that organisations' tangible and intangible tokens are limited by a concept of materiality in a cultural setting.

The paper posits that material value is released through a process of relationship change and a public relations practice of relationship management is put forward as a management discipline that can create value when the process of relationship management acting on material tokens is deployed.

The paper explores how public relations is an agent for changing the value of organisations.