PUBLIC RELATIONS AND CULTURAL BOUNDARIES: A GRADUATE’S PERSPECTIVE


Largely driven by increased economic pressures and an ever globalised marketplace; having a diverse workforce that encompasses a multiplicity of talents is becoming increasingly imperative for businesses to succeed. Additionally, new structures in communication platforms such as the social media phenomenon have resulted in the public relations profession facing a greater need for diversity than ever before. Practitioners now operate across cultures and time zones; within varying political and social systems, as they build relationships and expand market shares in multinational stakeholder publics.


Professor James E. Grunig, a pioneering theorist behind the subject of diversity and the workforce stated, “Organisations become more effective when they have incorporated diverse values and talents into their structure and culture” and furthermore explained in the PR Coalition Summit (2005), how diversity can increase profitability, far beyond that of financial measures. Yet the UK public relations profession still does


not reflect wider society with what is perceived as a ‘mono-cultural’ discipline, and faces increasingly strong arguments that this lack of diversity will be at detriment to the industry and its image. My own preconceptions of the industry were perhaps reinforced as I read the Power Book 2012, published by PRWeek – amongst all the listed powerful individuals in the industry; only three percent were from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds.


These statistics demonstrated that the workforce of a domain I wish to enter is clearly not reflective of the UK’s demographic profile; a view anchored by first-hand experiences throughout my Public Relations BA degree and industry experience in the form of work placements. On every occasion I had witnessed being the only individual of Asian descent amongst my peers even when based in Birmingham – the most ethnically diverse British city after the country’s capital. The underlying cause for this


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