COMMUNITY

RELATIONS

Wendy Olewe
COMMUNITY RELATIONS, AS
A PUBLIC RELATIONS
FUNCTION, IS AN
INSTITUTION’S PLANNED,
ACTIVE, AND CONTINUING
PARTICIPATION WITH AND
WITHIN A COMMUNITY TO
MAINTAIN AND ENHANCE IT
ENVIRONMENT TO THE
BENEFIT OF BOTH THE
INSTITUTION AND THE
COMMUNICATION THROUGH
ACQUISITION:
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES
TAKES ON AIRTRAN AND
BLENDS EMPLOYEE
CULTURE
 - Southwest Airline acquires AirTran Airways
- May 2010
INTRODUCTION - $1.4 Billion
- Acquire major hubs in US cities
 Airlines must merge the AirTran employees
into the Southwest culture, while also
SITUATION informing current Southwest employees of
the acquisition of AirTran Airways.
 Goal 1
Explain integration
Objectives: Gain acceptance
GOALS AND : Effect the awareness

OBJECTIVES Goal 2
Build Relationships
Objectives: Bridge gap
: Build morale
 COMMUNITY
RELATIONS
A community relationship is
connection or association between an
organization and its local community
publics that results from behavioral
consequences an organization or a
community public has on the other and
that necessitates repeated
communication
TYPICAL TARGET PUBLICS
Include:

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ORGANIZATION-PUBLIC RELATIONSHIP
(OPR)
Significance of quality relationships in effective PR:

• When an issue evolves, a good OPR especially matters. Public opposition to an

organization results in issues and leads further into crises, and it is critical to
develop and maintain relationships with key publics in advance to prevent issues
and crises
• According to J. Grunig and Huang, organization-public relationships are
successful “to the degree that the organization and publics trust one another,
agree on who has rightful power to influence, experience satisfaction with each
other, and commit oneself to one another.”

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ORGANIZATION-PUBLIC RELATIONSHIP
(OPR)
Six dimensions of relationships:

• Trust
• Control mutuality
• Commitment
• Satisfaction
• Communal relationship
• Exchange relationship
*The first four items were combined as relationship quality indicators, while the last two were
categorized as two different types of relationships

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QUALITY INDICATORS:
Trust One party’s level of confidence in and
willingness to open oneself to the other
party

Control Mutuality The degree to which each parties agree on who has
rightful power to influence one another

Commitment The extent to which each party believes and feels that the
relationship is worth spending energy to maintain and promote

Satisfaction
The extent to which each party feels favorably toward the other
because positive expectations about the relationship are reinforced
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COMMUNAL RELATIONSHIP
• Based on the notion of altruism, is defined as one in which both parties primary concern is for the
other interest and welfare
• Altruistic motive embodies a belief in the moral imperative of helping others without regard to
future personal benefit
• It is critical because it separates the public relation function from the cost-benefit-oriented
exchange (e.g., marketing), and thus it enhances the understanding of the value of public relations
• Furthermore, it also help organizations to develop less opposition and more support from publics
over the long term, build a favorable reputation,
• and social responsibility, from general management practices where effectiveness and ethics are
prioritized

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EXCHANGE RELATIONSHIP

Egoistic
• One party gives benefits to
another party while expecting
short term benefits in return
• Self-benefits is prioritized;
however, it does not necessarily
mean taking advantage of the
other or failing to fulfill one’s • A “win-win” situation
obligations in an interaction
(e.g., exploitative)
Provident
• One party gives benefits to
another while expecting long-
term benefits in return
• The interest of both are me,
with equal importance,
simultaneously

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SUMMARY
Relationship Types Egoistic Provident Communal

One party gives

One party gives
benefits to another
One party give benefits benefits to another
party without expecting
to another party while party while expecting
Definition something in return
expecting short-term long-term benefits in
because of concerns for
benefits return; the interest are
the welfare of the other
both met
party

Achievement of interest
Achievement of self- The other party’s
Goals in a relationship both parties (“win-
interest welfare (altruistic)
win”)
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IN GENERAL,
• Those who are in business contexts or those who are strangers are more likely to be
involved in exchange relationships. A mutual exchange relationship occurs when each
party conforms to the same norm. Hence, communal relationship separate the public
relations function from the cost-benefit-oriented exchange relationships and provide a
theoretical framework to understand the role and value of public relations.

• Both types of relationships are necessary for organizations, although the intention or
motivation determines the type of relationship that an organization develops with its
publics.

• In addition, compared to employees with poor relationships with an organization,

employees who have good relationships relationship with an organization perceive the
organization’s mistakes to less problematic and are more likely to advocate for the
organization during an organizational crisis by engaging in communicative behaviors in
favor of the organization.
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 THE SITUATIONAL THEORY OF PUBLICS
(STP)
Its extended model
• The situational theory of publics (STP) was developed to help public
relations partitioners identify which groups of people are more likely to
communicate and which publics an organization needs to communicate with.
• The theory posits that the “communication behaviors of publics can be
understood by measuring how members of publics perceive situations in
which they are affected by organizational consequences”
• Specifically, the theory explains whether or not a public will engage in an
active communication behavior with three independent variables: problem
recognition, level of involvement, and constraint recognition.

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TUATIONAL THEORY OF PUBLIC (STP)
Its extended model

Problem Recognition • Refers to the extent to which individuals perceive an

issue or a situation as being a problem

Constraint Recognition • The extent to which individuals perceive that barriers

or obstacles will limit their ability to achieve their
goals.

The Level of Involvement • The extent to which individuals perceive that an issue
or a situation is relevant.

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INTERACTION OF COMMUNITY AND
EMPLOYEES
“employee-customer-profit chain”

• First by using internal branding, the task is to create synergy between the workplace and
marketplace.
• Internal branding can be seen as a part of internal marketing research, which emphasizes
satisfying the employees first in order to provide consistent quality service to customers.
• A corporation must first align its employees with its brand before it can fulfill promises to its
customers
• It is important for organizations to sell their brands internally because it is the best way to help
employees make “emotional connection” to products and services of the organization.

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 1. Investors- a brand forms a relationship
that secures future earnings by retaining
customer loyalty.
2. Customers- a brand is a name that stands
BRAND for something positive in a customers’
INFLUENCE mind.
3. Finally, brand promises live through the
individual efforts of employees; and a
brand must be embraced by employees.
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“Happy employees lead to happy
customers, which create happy
shareholders”

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This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA
COMMUNICATING THROUGH ACQUISITION
1. Research first
2. Integration messaging presented as
united front
3. Culture consistency
4. Outside expert verification
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“Often the hardest part of a
merger or acquisition is
blending the different
cultures so that employees
are able to do their work to
the best of their ability with
the least amount of
frustration and conflict.”
 “WE WERE FORTUNATE THAT
AIRTRAN SHARES A LOT OF THE
SAME CORE BELIEFS IN TERMS
OF THE CULTURE OF
EMPLOYEES FIRST AND
TREATING CUSTOMERS RIGHT”
~TODD PAINTER, SWA COMMUNICATIONS
MANAGER
 BACKGROUND
Southwest goes Southeast.

Since its first grand opening in 1971, Southwest

Airlines has shown steady growth, and now carries
more passengers than any low-cost carrier in the
world. To expand the business operations Southwest
Airlines took over AirTran in 2010 as a strategy to
gain more market share for the southeast region and
international flights. However, the acquisition of
AirTran brought upcoming challenges both internally
and externally for Southwest Airlines.

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 COMPANY CULTURES
Southwest has cultivated a corporate culture
that focuses on employees and customers
having a good time while flying. The
company’s training program with karaoke
and amusing challenges is designed to
socialize the new recruits into the airlines
fun-loving culture. According to its Website,
its cultural values include “a Warrior Spirit, a
Servant’s
Heart, and a Fun-LUVing Attitude.”
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AirTran was created from several airlines,
including the former ValuJet. It is known
mostly as a low-cost, on time carrier. The
Company Culture page on AirTran’s Web site
prior to the merger claimed that “loyal crew
Members keep AirTran airways customers
soaring” and
who have a “timely and accommodating
demeanor.” AirTran’s values included a total
commitment to safety, technical excellence,
continuous learning, fun and profit.
 GOOD NEWS

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 BAD NEWS

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Objective:
1.Focus on the change process post the merger with AirTran
2.Evaluate alternatives to address the impacts of the merger.

RESEARCH FIRST.
• The first step was to meet with AirTran communications team to figure out how it
communicated to employees and compare that to how SWA was doing it.

• Results indicated: AirTran has a strong communication team, but the department
structure does not line up exactly with SWA’s structure. At SWA, for example, media
relations, employee relations, and social media were all in the same group, which
helped them achieve One Clear Voice. They had also established an Internal
Communicators Exchange (ICE) which enabled them to communicate with all
professional communicators throughout the organization weekly.
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RESULTS INDICATED
• AirTran has a strong communication team, but the department
structure does not line up exactly with SWA’s structure. At SWA, for example, media
relations, employee relations, and social media were all in the same group, which
helped them achieve One Clear Voice. They had also established an Internal
Communicators Exchange (ICE) which enabled them to communicate with all
professional communicators throughout the organization weekly.

• Much of SWA’ s communications program design was based on results from an

ongoing, company-wide employee survey conducted every two years:

“We look at a lot of topics: leadership, direction of the company, morale, etc.
Feedback from the survey is reviewed by different cross-sectional committees
who then take action on the recommendations. The idea of having an employee blog
and the ability to comment on podcasts came from feedback that we needed to
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increase two-way communication.”
INTEGRATED MESSAGING
Presented as a united front:

• To make the transition both companies had “to iron out some system inconsistencies.” said Todd
Painter a SWA communications manager. “For example, all SWA employees had company
issued e-mail accounts, but AirTran employees didn’t so we had to get those lined up.”
• SWA and AirTran decided that all messaging on the integration would be shared and that all
companies would continue using their own communication vehicles for at least six months
during the transition.
• During the six months, SWA established a weekly toll-free messaging system for employees to
receive weekly messages. Furthermore, AirTran employees were granted access to SWALife (a
very interactive blog that is refreshed with three two five stories a day).
* A little over a year after the merger (summer 2011), SWA launched its mobile app and AirTran
employees gained access at the same time.

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CULTURE CONSISTENCY
Maintaining its unique culture:

• SWA does “organized leader visits,” during which three or four

leaders go to a particular location and visit with employees.
Throughout the year, every SWA city is visited.
• SWA has a Companywide Culture Committee (CCC) made up of
employees from all work groups and locations across the
organization
(Interesting observation: More than 30 positions at SWA have the
word “culture” in their titles)
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CULTURE CONSISTENCY
Companywide Culture Committee (CCC)

• Its main goals are to promote and foster a fun and healthy work
environment, to help build morale, and to appreciate and recognize the
hard work of fellow employees
• Includes more than 100 active members and close to 200 alumni members
(after three years, a committee member becomes an alumnus).
• “This is the group that goes out and cooks with our ground operations
employees… typically on the ramp where the planes are. We grill have
fun. We do the same for the mechanics. We also do a hokey day where we
surprise flight crews with goodie bags and let the have five to 10 minutes
of downtime”

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 OUTSIDE EXPERT VERIFICATION:
EXTERNAL MEASURES VERIFY THAT SWA
IS DOING SOMETHING RIGHT WHEN IT
COMES TO BUILDING AND MAINTAINING
EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIPS.
IN 2011, IT WAS RANKED 17TH BY
GLASSDOOR, A JOB AND CAREERS
COMMUNITY IN ITS 4TH ANNUAL
EMPLOYEE CHOICE AWARDS AS
REPORTED BY FORBES MAGAZINE
THANK YOU