Environment matters!

Chapter 7- Public Relations Management in Organizations

In today's reading there were plenty of things relating to the environment and this was something i found interesting. I am a person that believes that the earth's survival is the responsibility of humans and that is why i thought this chapter was one that i could relate to and understand about. Moreover, the chapter explains about using systems as a way to help resolve public relations problems and of course the environment is one of them. So here goes :D

As more and more people are becoming concerned with the environment, people expect businesses to stand up and commit themselves to tackle the issues that pose a threat to the environment. Communities and stakeholders have high expectations and therefore, businesses need to consider the impact an operation may have on the environment.

A PR professional knows that issues concerning the environment can potentially affect the health of the organization. Experts believe that the time is up for businesses to sit around and do nothing and that action has to be taken now. Therefore, a PR professional has the responsibility to identify and understand the needs and expectations of the organization's environment such as those relating to climate change and by understanding such causes, they need to be able to create appropriate responses or action.

After reading, the introduction of the chapter, i realized that a lot of things mentioned were true. People are becoming more concerned but there was still the lack of action to tackle the effects of global warming. I also think that organizations play an important part because they are one of the factors that greatly impact the environment.

So moving on, how do corporations adjust to problems, such as being environmentally friendly? Apparently, the answer to this is understanding systems. Once we understand systems, we will be able to identify, analyze, and resolve public relations problems. However, after reading what may be a whole bunch of things relating to what is a system and the types of systems, i still found it very hard to grasp the true understanding of it.

The things i did manage to understand was open and closed systems. Closed systems were those that isolated themselves from the environment and other systems. This form of organization may follow the regulations and procedures but they are unlikely to interact with the public. They tend to have a one-way communication perspective as they do not consider the public. When issues or crisis occur, the PR in this firm are more likely to deny anything to happen and cover-up the incident.

The other form is open systems. From what i have read, open systems are view their environment as an important factor to survival. Open systems will continually seek information from their environment and will respond to any pressure or issue that may affect the survival of the organization. The organizations using this system knows that two-way communication is important. Therefore, organizations not only need to listen to public opinion, but also to build relationships with stakeholders and key organizations within their environment.

The chapter also mentions how PR is important to fields of an organization. PRs must have links and communication between other departments of the organization and these include, marketing, legal and human resources. At times, these three main departments compete with the PR department for resources from the organization.