The public relations are an administrative duty, of management and of communication, in permanent matter thanks to which, a private or public organization aims establishing, maintaining or at promoting trust relationships based on the knowledge and the mutuel understanding of this organization and its public, internal and external, the whole in the interest of the public.
The public relations are defined as a set of techniques of communication intended to give an image favorable to a person or a public or deprived organization, to develop a trust relationship, of regard and adhesion between a company, a brand, etc..
This communication is made in a way more personalized and less directly directed towards the sale contract (or of political decision) that publicity, propaganda or the lobbying, while intervening by the means of relay (such as the journalists).
The public relations can intervene in support of the relations presses, or conversely to generate relations presses.
I would like to focus more on lobbying. In France, the political system does not integrate the lobbying practice. It is true that the History separates the French vision from the lobbies of that in the United States. While going back to the modern bases of the two States, one finds, however, the same hostility towards any shape of intermediate bodies. In France, this hostility will involve a series of legislative texts which, during the Revolution, will declare out the law any shape of corporation or intermediate body, whatever their motivations or their objects. It will be necessary to await the law Waldeck-Rousseau in 1883 and, especially, the law of 1901 on associations to cure this prohibition. In the United States, James Madison devotes several pages of the Federalist to these questions, but arrives at the conclusion that the formation of factions belongs to the human condition and that it returns to the “modern government” to limit the possibly harmful effects of them.
Without falling into the historical determinism, these divergent traditions - one founded on the refusal of principle, the other on a more pragmatic vision - undoubtedly make it possible to understand realities always very different on the two sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, in the United States, there exists since 1946 a legislation on the participation of the lobbies in the political life, forcing those to declare their activities and to be registered on a public register. The rules were regularly reinforced since, even if to each presidential election of the calls to new reforms are launched. In France, there does not exist such a regulation, probably not “to regularize” or institutionalize the participation of the lobbies in the political life. Discussions on this subject take place regularly, but they succeeded, for the time being, with no formal regulation.
When I think Government Relations, very often, the legislative or lawful process is the most effective to solve questions of legal order or commercial method. A company needs several years, or a good specialized partner with many years of experiment within the government at all the stages, and/or had already to treat with him outside. It does not matter the stage of government which intervenes in your cause, whether it is on a federal scale, provincial, regional or municipal, the company needs to have someone, a partner or a specialized organization which can help them to develop the best strategy to obtain the desired results.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, this partner has to understand the relation which exists between the public opinion, the support on behalf of the community and the governmental decision-making process. In my opinion, governmental good relationships are based on healthy public relations.
An important part is also the right of the lobbyism, as Nicolas already explained. It is the conclusion of markets in the slides with the government; this is a thing of the past. Today, the citizens want to know who the groups who make lobbyism near the government are and what is the object of their claims. And rightly besides; the new laws have like watchword the transparency and the disclosure.
As I remember in the company I worked for, they had a whole department who took care of these relations, and it was the Strategic communications and planning of the communications department.
The company has also to be aware that it is probable that the courts and the opposing parties are not the only interested parties by its legal stakes. The customers, the employees, the investors, the governments, the media and other groups are likely to follow closely the evolution of those, particularly when the Medias are involved in the questions. The behavior that the company adopts can have a considerable incidence on your relationships to these groups.
Therefore Government Relations are very important, and can be very helpful if you manage them well, but be aware that it is not becoming a threat to your company.
Hereby, the link to a video showing demonstration against the Federal Government of Australia, who proposed a reform in industrial relations reforms. A typical case, where companies could use Government Relations to come to a mutual agreement.
http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/EngageMedia/videos/irdemo05.mpg/view
Government has changed and evolved over many decades. As our country and business eviroment has grown, so has the government's involvement in the private sector. Many of these changes have developed due to a need to protect the general public from price gauging, low quality products, etc. However, government's power of private business has become more of a business then a public service.
ReplyDeleteWhile the public has depended on Government to protect their interests, confidence has deminished as stories of big business buying their personal interests through political donations. For smaller companies, the cost of hiring outside Lobby groups and making large scale political donations are beyond their ability. Some companies want to have a reputation of serving the people. This can not be done when associated with government due to the publics diminished view of the government's business involvement. If a company is forced to have political lobbyists, their may tarnish their reputation as a people company. However, keeping business seperate from government involvement today is not possible.
While the govenment's involvement is necessary in today's world, there need to be sanctions that prevent big business from buying politicians.
Here is a paper that discusses the interference of corporate lobbying in government.
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/1/0/4/2/pages210425/p210425-1.php
One important aspect that I wanted to touch upon is lobbying that everyone has mentioned throughout the blog for this chapter. Lobbying is very important and it reminds of the move, "Thank You for Smoking." This movie is about a lobbyist who works for a big tobacco company. His role is to research the relationship between lung cancer and smoking.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the movie the main character, Aaron Eckhart, who plays Nick Naylor goes around putting a spin on against the people and companies who are out to get his big time tobacco company. Nick does not always enjoy what he does, he's just really good at it.
The meaning of this movie in relation to the chapter is that with lobbying and lobbyists, lobbyism plays a big part with the government. Lobbyists are paid to influence the government whether they are constituents or not. In the case of the movie, Nick was a lobbyist for a tobacco company that basically worked against the government and other companies against smoking.
Here's the trailer to the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBELC_vxqhI
The company I work (Enterprise) uses public relations in the form of sponsorships, environmentally friendly campaigns, and charitable donations. Recently we have developed sponsorships with the PBR, and the NHL to expand our brand. We offer a CO2 offset in all of our vehicles and also have started buying hybrid vehicles. We also make numerous charitable donations to local charities, the United Way, Make A Wish and several others. to learn more visit www.enterprise.com
ReplyDeleteAfter graduate school, I want to pursue a career within television as a programming executive. Any time I think of government relations, the FCC comes to mind. One of the main banes to a programming executive is the FCC. They are in charge of telling television networks what they can and can not show. Which then gets trickled down to the writers of the television shows and so on. They are suppose to be around to make sure nothing bad is ever shown or done on air. However, for the most part, I just see them as going around being giant kill joys sucking away all creative potential for a show. They have become especially rigid since the great "costume malfunction" Janet Jackson had during Superbowl 38.
ReplyDeleteSeth Macfarlane the creator of Family Guy has a special dislike for the FCC due to all the content he has had to take out of his episodes because of them. He even made one episode of Family Guy dedicated to the FCC. In the episode, the FCC comes to the fictional families town and begins to censor everyone as they are living their life. During the episode, they had a song explaining how much they dislike the FCC. Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NDPT0Ph5rA
Especially being from INDIA, I think that the more good government relations one possess the more success he/she may get. After reading the chapter I realized that India is having more similarities with British system than USA. Government policies can affect the competitive positions of individual firms. The organization has to work and compete to influence such policies, thus I think companies should integrate government relation into their strategic planning.
ReplyDeleteMy real life Example:
As I was working on with my dad’s business it was very less probable that one may get a government contract of constructions. Government usually accepts bids from different companies in order to assign the project but the main thing which matters is that how much contacts one have with the higher authorities i.e. ministers of the state. My dad has good relations with one of the high rank minister of the state which we approached in order to get accepted as a contractor, who helped us a lot in getting through with that deal and we finally made it.
Thus I would say it’s only higher authorities which rule the power in their hands, thus one has to get along with authorities and try to make as good relations as we can to be successful.
Today most businessmen’s in INDIA are using their strong government relations and trying to seek as much benefit as they can from the government. Thus some ministers are engaged in misusing their powers and thus they favor private parties when someone tries to bribe them. Here’s an article about an Indian minister for telecommunications who was convicted by court.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/15046155.cms
Government relations play a key role in all companies but especially those that are highly regulated by the government. The agriculture industry is one of these highly regulated sectors. The major benefit that I can identify from maintaining relations with the government is there cooperation during inspections and the development of additional legislation.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in a farming family I saw first hand the impact that the impact that relations with the government plays. By having a good relationship with the local inspectors that insured that our dairy farm was up to standards they were willing to work with us when new regulations were created instead of shutting the dairy down until they were implemented. This process helped to avoid thousands of dollars in lost production time. If there is any lesson to learn from communicating and building relations with outside organizations it is that playing well with others benefits everyone involved.