How dominant coalition members’ values and perceptions impact their perceptions of public relations participation in organizational decision making

The purpose of this paper is to understand the extent to which dominant coalition members’ values and perceptions influence their perceptions of public relations participation in organization-level decision making. Research in this area has largely focussed on the relationship between practitioner roles and decision-making inclusion.

The population of interest was dominant coalition members of for-profit, government, and nonprofit organizations in the USA. Data were collected through a national survey to a nonrandom sample of 201 dominant coalition members.

Results indicate that dominant coalition members’ values of organizational openness to the environment and perceived substantive autonomy of the organization positively predicted perceptions of public relations participation in organizational decision making. Perceived manager role potential of the public relations department also had significant predictive power.

While research has focussed primarily on the characteristics that public relations practitioners can develop to earn a seat at the management table, little is known about the characteristics of dominant coalition members that influence whether or not a seat is made available or the degree to which public relations is perceived to participate in decision making.