Valuing Diversity to Enhance the Reflective Role of Public Relations

This paper presents the results of a preliminary and exploratory study aimed at understanding the diversity issue through a literature review that includes different fields of study and perspectives on the topic. Diversity could be considered a challenge for companies and an opportunity tailor made for public relations. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the world has been evolving rather rapidly, with relevant political, economic and societal changes. These phenomena are linked up with a rapid technological transformation and a growing globalization that make it possible to come into contact with a great variety of people, values and cultures. Organizations in particular face a varied and dynamic competitive context, which is becoming increasingly multiracial and multicultural concerning the workforce and the stakeholders, both locally and globally. In this changing context, what could be the role of public relations and the effects on the profession? Moreover, how could diversity contribute to the institutionalization of public relations and corporate communication? A major task for scholars remains in institutionalizing strategic public relations as an accepted practice in most organizations and in showing its value as a bridging activity (J. Grunig, 2006). This paper suggests that valuing diversity could contribute to the institutionalization of the profession by enhancing the reflective role of public relations. The review of the literature will cover three broad areas, as diversity is a topic studied by several disciplines: organizational and managerial literature; public relations and intercultural communication literature; marketing and consumer behaviour literature. Each field will be analyzed in a separate paragraph that will illustrate the principal themes of discussion identified. The aim is to distinguish the mainstreams and the most relevant topics debated in these fields with regard to diversity and finally to identify possible points of convergence. The paper will end with some final considerations, for public relations and its reflective role in particular, and with implications for future investigation.