Public Relations Strategizing: A Theoretical Framework for Understanding the Doing of Strategy in Public Relations

ABSTRACT

Strategy is considered one of the most central concepts in public relations research and practice. However, public relations strategizing, i.e., the doing of strategy, remains a black-box concept in public relations and would benefit from additional approaches to theorizing strategy. This conceptual article draws upon strategy-as-practice, practice theory, and the existentialist notion of human modes of being and articulates a theoretical framework describing four modes of strategizing in public relations: (1) absorbed strategizing, (2) deliberate strategizing, (3) deliberative strategizing and (4) abstract strategizing. The first three modes are conceptualized as immersed modes of strategizing in everyday activities, while the fourth is conceptualized as a detached mode of strategizing in strategic planning activities. Then, it draws upon Mintzberg and Waters’ (1984) five types of strategy and situates the four modes of public relations strategizing in strategy formation and realization. The article thereby contributes to theorizing strategy and strategizing in public relations by offering researchers a theoretical framework for researching strategizing in public relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Consequentiality
• practice theory
• public relations
• strategizing
• strategy

Public relations should be deliberate and goal-directed. We should not think of public relations without the word strategy (Coombs & Holladay, 2010)

Regarding the use and attributed significance, strategy is considered one of the most central concepts in public relations research and practice. For example, The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defines public relations as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics” (PRSA, 2022), and two of the eleven capabilities in The Global Alliance’s Global Capacity Framework (Global Alliance, 2023), the association’s prescriptive benchmark framework for public relations professionals, explicitly refer to strategy. Furthermore, searching the central public relations research outlets Public Relations Review and Journal of Public Relations Research using “strategy” ¹ as keyword results in 416 (PRR) and 42 (JoPRR) search results, respectively. Lastly, popular textbooks such as Smith’s (2020) Strategic Planning for Public Relations, Gregory’s (2020) Planning and Managing Public Relations Campaigns: A Strategic Approach, and Oliver’s (2010) Public Relations Strategy ensure that students and practitioners become aware of the importance of working strategically with public relations.

Due to its attributed significance to public relations research and practice, strategy and communication professionals’ contributions to strategicdecision making have received significant conceptual and empirical attention from public relations researchers² (e.g., Frandsen & Johansen, 2010, Frandsen & Johansen, 2015, Grunig & Grunig, 2000, Grunig & Repper, 1992, Hallahan et al., 2007, Moss & Warnaby, 2000, Moss et al., 2000, Nothhaft & Schölzel, 2015, Steyn, 2007, 2009, Tam et al., 2022). However, the doing of strategy in public relations, such as the formation of public relations strategies (Kim, 2016), strategic decision-making (Frandsen & Johansen, 2015), and the realization of intended and emergent strategy, is still undertheorized.

The undertheorization can largely be attributed to the dominance of two implicit and taken-for-granted assumptions framing how strategy, predominately, has been understood and approached in public relations. The first assumption, in line with the rational-analytical or rationalist-modernist approach within strategic management (Frandsen & Johansen, 2015, Sandhu, 2009, Wehmeier, 2006), is that strategy, such as a sound strategy for how to communicate with its relevant publics (Sriramesh, 2009, p. xxxiv) or a message strategy (Hallahan, 2000, Werder & Holtzhausen, 2009), is the result of a linear planning process that is then realized as intended. The second assumption is that strategy solely concerns deliberate decision-making activities on different organizational levels (Botan, 2006).

There is no doubt that these two assumptions have contributed to insightful and seminal research and conceptualizations that have deepened our understanding of strategy in public relations. Simultaneously, however, the dominance of these two assumptions in contemporary public relations strategy research and theorizing is problematic as they contribute to reproducing a narrow prescriptive understanding of strategy that takes much of the doing of strategy for granted. As a result, they limit researchers’ possibility of opening up the “black box” of strategic decision-making in public relations (Frandsen & Johansen, 2015).

One promising alternative perspective that enables researchers to pay greater attention to the doing of strategy, or strategizing, as both a deliberate and non-deliberate activity is the emerging strategy-as-practice approach. This perspective has recently gained traction in public relations research (e.g., Aggerholm & Asmuß, 2016, Frandsen & Johansen, 2010, Frandsen & Johansen, 2015, Gulbrandsen & Just, 2016b, Gulbrandsen & Just, 2016a). However, public relations researchers still lack a theoretical framework for understanding and conceptualizing public relations strategizing.

To remedy this lack, this article draws upon strategy-as-practice, practice theory, and the existentialist notion of human modes of being and articulates a theoretical framework that describes four modes of strategizing in public relations: (1) absorbed strategizing, (2) deliberate strategizing, (3) deliberative strategizing, and (4) abstract strategizing. Then, it draws upon Mintzberg and Waters’ (1985) five types of strategy and situates these modes of public relations strategizing in strategy formation and realization. The theoretical framework highlights the importance of understanding and approaching strategy as an ongoing deliberate and non-deliberate activity unobtrusively informed by the social practices people carry and participate in as they carry out their work. The article thereby challenges prevalent assumptions in contemporary public relations research in favor of an analytical lens, enabling researchers to be attentive to the doing of public relations strategy in strategic planning, decision-making, and everyday activities.

Strategy and strategizing in public relations

For over four decades, seminal thinkers in public relations have described public relations as a strategic management activity (e.g., Coombs & Holladay, 2010, Grunig & Grunig, 2000, Grunig & Hunt, 1984, Grunig & Repper, 1992, Tam et al., 2022). In the broader research field of management, strategy has been regarded as a central concept for well over 60 years ever since seminal management thinkers such as Drucker (1955), Chandler (1962/1990, Sloan (1965), and Ansoff (1965/1987 placed it in the limelight in the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, management researchers have approached and shed light on strategy in numerous ways, which becomes evident in overviews such as Whittington’s (2001) overview of four perspectives on strategy and Mintzberg et al.’s (2009) overview of ten different “strategy schools.”

One of the most influential theories on strategy is Mintzberg and colleagues’ conceptualization of strategy formation. They observed that most definitions of strategy at the time (the 1970s and 1980s) were prescriptive and depicted strategy formation in organizations as a deliberate conscious activity in which strategies are developed and then realized as intended (Mintzberg, 1978, Mintzberg & Waters, 1985). In contrast, in their research, Mintzberg and colleagues approached strategy as a “pattern in a stream of decisions” (Mintzberg, 1978, p. 935). This approach to strategy enabled them to be more attentive to the emergent features of strategy formation. Following the seminal studies of Mintzberg and colleagues, there is general agreement that strategy formation and realization, in short, are both deliberate and emergent.

The prescriptive and emergent approach to strategy in public relations

In their comprehensive reviews of how public relations researchers have approached strategy, Frandsen and Johansen (2010, 2015) show that the prescriptive and emergent approaches are also predominant in public relations research. Prescriptive public relations research often approaches strategy as an object, something the organization has or should have to be successful in its public relations activities, such as a sound strategy for how to communicate with relevant publics (Sriramesh, 2009, p. xxxiv), a message strategy (Hallahan, 2000, Werder & Holtzhausen, 2009), an image restoration strategy (Benoit, 1997), a crisis communication strategy (Coombs, 2021), or a public relations strategy in general (Coombs & Holladay, 2010). However, a closer examination of the extant literature reveals two implicit, taken-for-granted assumptions framing how strategy has mainly been understood and approached in public relations. Namely as (1) the result of a linear planning process consisting of distinct phases (i.e., analysis – planning–implementation – evaluation) and (2) a deliberate decision-making activity.

The understanding of strategy as the result of a rational linear process is due to the adoption of rationalist models from strategic management into public relations (Frandsen & Johansen, 2015, Sandhu, 2009, Wehmeier, 2006). This way of conceptualizing strategy has clear heuristic and pedagogical value, explaining its frequent use in textbooks on public relations strategy (e.g., Gregory, 2014, Smith, 2020). However, researchers have critiqued this understanding of strategy for reproducing the “myth of rationality” (Sandhu, 2009, Wehmeier, 2006), for promoting inflexibility and neglecting the importance of strategy adaption in dynamic contexts (Moss et al., 2000), and for preventing practitioners from identifying alternative solutions to the intended strategy (Christensen & Christensen, 2018). Nevertheless, despite the critique and apparent limitations, strategy as a linear process remains a popular way of conceptualizing and teaching public relations strategy.

The understanding of strategy as a deliberate decision-making activity is also prominent within the prescriptive public relations literature and is another heritage from rational models of strategic management (Christensen, 2022). For example, Botan’s (2006) influential conceptualization of strategy as decision-making at the organizational policy level (grand strategy) and the public relations campaign level (strategy) emphasizes deliberate decision-making. The prescriptive approach’s understanding of strategy as a deliberate, intentional activity further shows in its emphasis on strategic thinking as a critical knowledge of public relations professionals wanting to contribute to policy-level strategic decision-making (e.g., Grunig & Grunig, 2000, Grunig & Repper, 1992, Ni, 2006, Simcic Brønn, 2001, Steyn, 2007, 2009, Steyn & Niemann, 2010, 2014). The prescriptive approach’s emphasis on thinking in strategic activity creates an artificial distinction between thinking and doing (Andersson, 2020, Christensen & Christensen, 2018). This distinction is problematic given that if we are to develop a richer understanding of public relations strategy and open up the “black box,” greater attention must be given to the doing of strategy formation and realization as well as strategic decision-making in public relations.

The early output from the Excellence project significantly contributed to popularizing the prescriptive approach to strategy in public relations (e.g., Dozier et al., 1995, Grunig, 1992a). However, as noted by Frandsen and Johansen (2015), the later output shows that public relations thought leaders, such as Grunig and colleagues, acknowledge the complexity of the strategy concept. In the later output, the prescriptive approach to strategy dominant in earlier outputs is complemented with processual, postmodern, and sensemaking perspectives on strategy. These place greater emphasis on the actual process, managers’ identity work and subjectivity, and the socially constructed nature of the “environment” (Grunig et al., 2002). This broader way of understanding strategy introduced by Grunig and colleagues has paved the way for alternative approaches to strategy, including approaches that problematize the status of the strategy discourse in public relations research and practice (e.g., Andersson, 2020, Holtzhausen, 2002a, Holtzhausen, 2002b).

For a long time, public relations researchers paid little attention to the emergent perspective on strategy. However, for over a decade, a growing number of researchers have begun to approach and theorize public relations strategy as an emergent phenomenon (see Charest et al., 2016, Christensen, 2022, Christensen & Christensen, 2018, Heath & Waymer, 2022, King, 2010, Krishna et al., 2020, Palenchar et al., 2017, Raupp & Hoffjann, 2012, Svensson, 2016, van Ruler, 2018, Winkler & Etter, 2018). Thus, although empirical research investigating emergent strategy is still scarce, the increasing awareness of and openness toward the emergent approach to strategy indicates that only a few public relations scholars writing about strategy would dismiss the idea that strategies also emerge. On the contrary, although their understanding of emergence might differ (Christensen, 2022), most public relations scholars would probably agree, although to a varying degree, that public relations strategies result from both deliberate and emergent processes. For example, while the crisis response strategies proposed by Coombs (2021) in his influential Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) are clear examples of a prescriptive approach to strategy, Coombs is clear about the limitations of the prescriptive approach and even stresses that crisis management, to a large extent, should be understood as the art of emergent strategy.

From strategy to strategizing in public relations

Following the practice turn and the consequent emergence of the strategy-as-practice approach in strategic management research, a growing number of strategy researchers have resumed and expanded Mintzberg’s (1973, 1978) initial ambition to opening up the “black box” of strategy by investigating what actually goes on during strategy formation and realization (Golsorkhi et al., 2015). However, to avoid mere descriptive accounts of what people do (Nicolini, 2012), the strategy-as-practice approach also draws upon the rich vocabulary of practice theory to theorize the social activity of strategizing (Jarzabkowski et al., 2007), thereby deepening our understanding of strategy formation and realization.

Within public relations, researchers have started to take notice of the strategy-as-practice approach. For example, Frandsen and Johansen (2010, 2015) conclude that taking inspiration from the strategy-as-practice perspective can enable researchers to open up the “black box” of strategic decision-making in public relations. Similarly, Gulbrandsen and Just (2016b, 2016a) encourage researchers to draw from strategy-as-practice and embrace the notion of strategy as a verb, i.e., strategizing. Winkler and Etter (2018) propose a narrative framework for studying strategizing, which considers both strategizing and the product, the articulated strategy. Christensen (2022) also highlights the strategy-as-practice approach as a promising avenue for researchers aspiring to develop theory on public relations strategy emergence and strategizing. Specifically, Christensen points out three aspects of strategizing, practitioners, practices, and praxis (see also Jarzabkowski et al., 2007, Whittington, 2006), relevant for public relations researchers to consider.

The number of empirical studies drawing upon strategy-as-practice and studies strategizing is also growing within public relations. For example, Marchiori and Bulgacov (2012, 2015) approach strategy as a communicative practice and investigate strategizing in a technology park. Aggerholm and Asmuß (2016) show how managers, or strategic actors, use various discursive resources to legitimize strategic decisions during organizational change. Lastly, Gulbrandsen (2019) shows that public relations professionals consider themselves to purposively produce and use ambiguity in their strategizing, for example, to enable individuals to be creative in their realization of the articulated strategy and adapt to what the situation demands instead of having to adhere to a very clear and unambiguous strategy rigidly.

However, despite growing attention to strategizing, theories of public relations and strategy would benefit from additional theorizing. As a result, public relations researchers could acquire a broadened theoretical framework that enables an in-depth investigation of what actually goes on during public relations strategy formation and realization and strategic decision-making. Therefore, this article draws upon strategy-as-practice, practice theory, and the existentialist notion of human modes of being to articulate a theoretical framework that describes four modes of public relations strategizing and situates these in strategy formation and realization.

Public relations, strategy, and strategizing: a practice approach

Public relations and strategy are in this article understood as integrative social practices. Within public relations, researchers have already drawn from influential practice theorists and praxeologists such as Bourdieu and Giddens (e.g., Edwards, 2006, Edwards, 2008, Edwards, 2009, Falkheimer, 2007). However, to develop the theoretical framework for understanding public relations strategizing, The article draws upon the practice theory of Schatzki (1996) and the ideas about human “modes of being” introduced by Heidegger (1926/2008). Practice theory is not a unified field (Schatzki et al., 2001). However, Schatzki argues that practice theorists share a belief that a wide range of phenomena, such as knowledge, meaning, human activity, power, and language, occur in and make up the field of practices, that is, the entirety of all human practices in the social world.

According to Nicolini (2012), there are primarily two reasons why a practice-based ontology is promising. First, it dissolves dualisms such as actor/system, social/material, body/mind, and theory/action. Second, given its foregrounding of activity, it offers a processual understanding of the world as an “ongoing routinized and recurrent accomplishment” (p.3), meaning that the social practices that enable and constrain action depend on the very same action for their continuation.

Social practices

According to Schatzki (2005), practices are “open-ended spatial-temporal manifolds of actions” (p. 471). This highlights that practices such as strategizing are not mere routine behavior but “open” because the activities carried out by participants are never identical. Thus, practices continuously evolve and change over time as they are carried out.

Furthermore, in its most basic sense, a social practice is a “temporally unfolding and spatially dispersed nexus of doings and sayings” (Schatzki, 1996, p. 89). This basic definition highlights several vital aspects. First, the centrality of “temporally unfolding” highlights the centrality of activity and that “doings” and “sayings” constitute practice only when they are performed either by discursive or bodily action. Second, the definition highlights that language does not have an omnipotent status in practice theory but must be considered together with other bodily and material activities (Reckwitz, 2002). However, “sayings,” i.e., language and discourse, are still central constitutive elements given that they are central to the constitution of meaning, practices, identities, relationships, politics, connections, sign systems, and knowledge (Schatzki, 2017).

Social practices as nexuses of dispersed and integrative practice

Schatzki (1996) distinguishes between two types of practices: dispersed and integrative. Dispersed practices are sets of doings and saying linked together through people’s understanding of performing the dispersed practice. They are dispersed in the sense that they appear in various social contexts. Examples of dispersed practices carried out in public relations are writing, presenting, negotiating, and budgeting.

Participation in dispersed practices requires non-propositional conceptual understanding that cannot be considered separately from the practice itself. Propositional understanding is the knowledge one acquires in a situation, such as when a public relations professional explains to a newly graduated junior colleague with a degree in public relations how the department works with planning. The junior colleague would then acquire propositional knowledge of the department’s specific way of planning, similar to the generic propositional knowledge of planning acquired during his education. However, a propositional conceptual understanding of a practice cannot fully replace the non-propositional conceptual understanding acquired when mastering a practice. The reason is that the intelligibility of a practice cannot be fully explained in words but is embedded in our bodily routines carried out when we, for example, are engaged in planning.

By integrative practices, Schatzki (1996) refers to more complex practices such as public relations, strategic management, human relations, and politics. Integrative practices are also collections of sayings and doings joined by participants’ understanding of the dispersed practices and their practice-specific variations, the explicit rules of the practice, and the end of the practice, or what Heidegger (1926/2008 refers to as the “toward-which” that guides participants’ actions. Necessary to point out, though, is that this end is not something the participants constantly have in mind. Instead, the end is embedded within the practice intelligibility and inscribed into objects integral to the practice. This intelligibility provides participants the possibility to do what makes sense to do, that is, enables practitioners to make sense of what activities are “right” and “wrong” (Schatzki, 1996). In the case of public relations, one example is strategic work that, in comparison to working merely technically, is considered the “right” way of working (Andersson, 2020). Of course, the public relations practitioner can do otherwise. However, when doing so, the practitioner thereby violates the normative order of the practice of public relations.

Social practices and intelligibility: world and action intelligibility

As evident from the above discussion of integrated practices, intelligibility is key to understanding practices and, thus, also to understanding public relations strategizing. Schatzki (1996) distinguishes between two forms of intelligibility: world intelligibility and action intelligibility. According to Schatzki, world intelligibility concerns how things make sense within the practice. Both individuals, objects, and events acquire meaning within practices. For example, suppose a company CEO or chairperson has a slip of the tongue, such as in the case of the infamous British Petroleum scandal in 2010 involving its chair, which caused public outrage against him and the company. How this event makes sense to a public relations professional is most likely very different from how it would make sense for an individual not carrying the public relations practice. The reason for this is that the public relations professional is socialized into and carries the practice of public relations and makes sense of the world through the world intelligibility provided by it.

Action intelligibility is what makes sense for people to do (i.e., what actions to perform), and what makes sense to do is signified by the practice in which one participates (Schatzki, 1996). However, it is important to stress that action intelligibility differs from rationality (Nicolini, 2012). Usually, several things make sense to do, but the nexus of dispersed and integrative practices signifies what is most suitable to do. Most of the time, though, we are not even considering what the most desirable thing to do is. Instead, through our upbringing, education, and previous work experience, we have been socialized into practices that present us with possible actions. While we routinely carry them out, at least to a certain extent, we can do otherwise. Frequently, we carry out practices without being conscious about them since our mastery of them enables us to carry them out without having to direct our awareness to what we do. This non-conscious or non-intentional element of carrying out practices is a central point from a practice philosophical approach. I will return to this later in the article when presenting the different modes of public relations strategizing.

Another central aspect of social practices is socialization since socialization through instructions and corrections are how individuals become part of practices and learn to make sense of the world and what to do in it (Nicolini, 2012). Since socialization involves corrections, sanctions, and peer pressure, practices have a strong normative side provided by the world and action intelligibility provided by the practice. However, since a situated activity is always guided by what makes sense to do in the situation, the normative purpose of the practice of public relations, which specifies what is “righteous” to do from the perspective of the practice, does not govern action, only influence the possibilities for action. What, for example, makes sense for a public relations professional to do in a specific situation, such as a budget meeting with an accountant, depends on a range of situational factors, including the feelings and interconnected practices carried by the participants involved in the practice, as well as material affordances such as the financial resources available. Together with the practice of public relations, these situational factors provide and limit the range of possibilities the participants consider make sense to do.

Outlining a practice theoretical understanding of public relations, public relations strategizing, and public relations practitioners

As stated previously, this article draws upon Schatzki’s (1996) understanding of integrative practices as complex practices “found in and constitutive of particular domains of social life” (p. 98) and understands public relations as an integrative social practice forming the context, or social site (Schatzki, 2002, Schatzki, 2005), in which public relations strategizing occurs.

Furthermore, I understand public relations as a broad practice comprising various activities and processes involving a variety of practitioners, which I will return to shortly. Already in 1992, Grunig (1992b) suggested that the concept of public relations describes a wider variety of communication activities than the narrower understanding of it as, for example, promotion, marketing, media relations, and other publicity-generating activities. Thirty years later, this width, for example, shows in Elgueta-Ruiz and Martínez-Ortiz (2022) review of paper topics published in Public Relations Review between 2000–2014. Elgueta-Ruiz and Martínez-Ortiz show that the concept of public relations nowadays denotes a wide variety of communication activities and processes, such as internal communication, crisis communication, social media, reputation management, corporate social responsibility, and political communication, to mention a few considered to have strategic significance to organizations.

Of course, these many variations of public relations have different understandings, rules, and ends. For that reason, it might be more relevant to speak of public relations practices. However, this article refers to the practice of public relations, an abstraction of all the different variations, as considering all variations of public relations in one article would be impossible. Future empirical investigations of public relations practices and strategizing should consider these possible variations and the variations in public relations strategizing to which they might give rise.

Moreover, depending on the researcher’s perspective (e.g., critical sociocultural or functionalist³), the social practice of public relations can be approached either as a promotional industry shaping and being shaped by society (see Edwards, 2018) or as a broad form of strategic management practice comprising of “the overall planning, execution, and evaluation of an organization’s communication with both internal and external publics – groups that affect the ability of an organization to meet its goals” (Grunig, 1992b, p. 4).

Public relations strategizing

In this article, public relations strategizing is understood as a type of strategizing occurring within the context of the practice of public relations. Strategizing is an integrative practice and activity that occurs across several management practices, such as accounting and human relations, and is tied originally to the integrative practice of strategic management. However, as strategic management has extended into public relations, the particularities of public relations contribute to slightly altering the understandings, rules, and ends of strategizing so that doing strategy in public relations becomes something slightly different, although similar, to strategizing in other management practices.

The particularity of public relations strategizing in relation to other forms of strategizing becomes even more apparent when one considers the reciprocal influence the practice of public relations and the activity of strategizing have on each other (cf. Schatzki, 2005). On the one hand, the identity of public relations, i.e., what the practice is, is constituted by the specific activities comprising it, such as strategizing. On the other, the specific activities comprising public relations are constituted by the specific understandings, rules, and ends of the practice as they inform practitioners of what makes sense to do and say as they carry it out.

Drawing upon Jarzabkowski et al. (2021) notion of strategy as consequentiality, this article considers public relations strategizing to encompass both deliberate and non-deliberate public relations activities that, to varying degrees, are consequential to the organization. While some of these activities, for example, a deliberate decision by senior management resulting in an articulated strategy to prioritize and improve the company’s internal communication, have more immediate and significant consequences for the company as a single decision, other non-deliberate public relations activities instead become consequential, and thus strategic, for the company over time as emerging patterns in streams of decisions (Mintzberg, 1978).

A similar argument is made by Zerfass et al. (2018), who, in their taxonomy of strategic issues, distinguish between insignificant (non-strategic) and significant (strategic) issues. Zerfass et al. (2018) propose that only significant operational and tactical issues (e.g., decision-making patterns over time), that is, issues that are consequential to the organization over time and that might or might not be identified by senior management, should be considered strategic issues. I agree with Zerfass et al. (2018) that it is crucial to distinguish between insignificant (non-strategic) and significant (strategic) issues, as not everything should be understood as public relations strategizing. However, it is difficult to draw the line between non-consequential and consequential activities, not the least, since managerial activities occur under complex, uncertain, ambiguous, and perilous conditions (Nothhaft et al., 2018).

Therefore, instead of drawing this distinction a priori, it might be more fruitful to leave it up to researchers investigating public relations strategizing to identify this distinction a posteriori. For example, it might be difficult for the researcher to a priori determine whether the back-office small talk between colleagues in a customer office is an example of non-significant, non-consequential coping, and thus not strategizing, or if the researcher’s immersion in the everyday activities of the staff members reveals that the back-office small talk between colleagues play a significant role in the staff members’ ability to handle and cope with their front-office interactions with customers, and thus should be understood as strategizing.

A broad understanding of strategizing that considers everyday operational and tactical activities enables the researchers to go beyond apparent activities of strategizing in which practitioners realize articulated strategy and identify what everyday activities should be considered consequential and account for why and how (Jarzabkowski et al., 2021). Thus, a broad understanding of strategizing can open up the “black box” of strategic decision-making in public relations (Frandsen & Johansen, 2015). Rather than thinking of strategizing as a dichotomy (i.e., strategizing ⇔ non-strategizing), it might thus be more relevant to speak of degrees of strategizing in the sense that activities can have a varying degree of consequentiality. Additionally, what can be considered consequential public relations activities might vary depending on contextual factors such as culture, region, industry sector, and organization, among other factors.

Public relations practitioners

The term “practitioner” is in this article used to denote a more extensive array of public relations practitioners than public relations professionals. Zerfass et al. (2018) point out that communication departments, professionals, and agencies usually carry out or manage public relations. However, Zerfass and colleagues also point out that other actors participate and engage in public relations activities. Practice theorists often refer to those who participate in a practice and thus carry it out as practitioners (Hui et al., 2017). Public relations professionals are central practitioners in public relations practices and activities as they are the primary carriers of the specific understandings, rules, and ends that constitute the practice. However, several other actors, such as managers, employees, and external publics, also participate in different ways. For example, previous research in public relations has shown that managers play a significant role in public relations activities such as internal communication (e.g., Men, 2014, Men & Stacks, 2014) and that employees have an important informal role as public relations practitioners given their interactions with publics outside the organization (e.g., Kang & Sung, 2017, Kim & Rhee, 2011). Studying public relations strategizing thus necessitates that the researcher also acknowledges and pays attention to the strategizing of other participants.

How skillfully different practitioners carry out and thus participate in the practice of public relations depends on how well the practitioner has learned and acquired the understandings, rules, and ends that provide the practitioner with certain dispositions and habits. Alkemeyer and Buschmann (2017) understand peoples’ learning process as they participate in practices as a form of transformation, what Alkemeyer and Buschmann conceptualize as subjectivization, in which they develop into, more or less, skillful practice participants. For example, just as the skills of participants participating in cooking practices vary depending on whether they are trained professional chefs or advanced or beginner laypersons interested in cooking, the skillful participation in public relations practices also varies depending on the subjectivization of the practitioner. For example, a public relations professional with a university degree in public relations and 20 years of work experience in internal communication is most likely a more skillful practitioner than a manager whose experience in internal communication is limited to the dissemination of information at workplace meetings and via mail, or a newly recruited employee with no training or experience from internal communication.

Naturally, nonprofessional participants such as managers and employees might excel in certain dispersed practices, such as writing or storytelling, that enable them to participate in public relations practices, such as curating the company’s social media accounts, more skillfully than their colleagues. However, complete proficiency and skillful, rather than mere, participation in the practice of public relations and the cultivation of practice-specific habits and dispositions necessitates extensive participation and, thus, exposure to the practice’s specific understandings, rules, and ends.

Strategizing beyond deliberate strategy: the significance of non-deliberate coping

As stated in the review of how previous research has approached strategy, the understanding of strategy as a deliberate decision-making activity is predominant in public relations. The predominance, for example, shows in the extensive focus on how public relations can contribute to strategy formation at the top management level and how they can develop and implement campaign strategies. Moreover, this focus on deliberate strategy entails that strategizing is understood as an intentional activity in which public relations professionals and other practitioners form mental states (e.g., beliefs, desires, intentions) that cause them to engage in an activity they believe will enable them to accomplish what they desire. For example, a senior public relations professional notices a growing dissatisfaction among customers on social media and believes the issue is so severe that it must be considered a strategic issue for the company management. The public relations professional believes that the company is too product-focused and not enough customer-focused and intends to change this by discussing the issue with top management. In this case, intentionality is critical to understanding strategizing. However, assuming that strategizing always supposes intentionality and deliberate activity is contra-productive to a practice-based approach to understanding strategic activity in public relations. It does not consider organizational members’ everyday public relations activities beyond deliberate strategy formation and realization.

To develop an account of different modes of strategizing in public relations, taking the everyday activities of all organizational members into consideration, I draw inspiration from Heidegger’s existentialist notions on the different human modes of being. Heidegger’s thoughts have, to some extent, informed the strategy-as-practice perspective within strategic management (e.g., Chia & Holt, 2006, Chia & MacKay, 2007, Chia & Rasche, 2010, Tsoukas, 2010) but has not informed theorizing on strategy and strategizing in public relations.

Heidegger understands human’s primary mode of being as existence (Dreyfus, 1991). As we exist, we always relate to other beings (Heidegger, 1927/1988). Influential cognitivist perspectives propose that humans always relate to things from a first-person perspective by thinking about objects. However, Heidegger suggests that we, in everyday activities, are often involved with things and deal with them rather than thinking about them as objects with properties (Dreyfus, 1991). According to Heidegger, this non-deliberative coping in which we are involved with and deal with things should be understood as the more basic mode of being during everyday activities. During our non-deliberative coping, we do not think about the properties of things. Instead, they are just available to us as “something-in-order-to,” and we use them without thinking about them (Dreyfus, 1991). For example, when a public relations professional sits in the office to reply to e-mails, the manager does not think about the properties of the computer or the mail client. They are available to the professional as “something-in-order-to.” However, if the computer does not start or the mail client malfunctions, the professional switches to a deliberate mode of being.

The difference in these two modes of being or existing makes possible an account of different modes of strategizing in public relations that consider the everyday activities of all organizational members. Deliberate activity is still central to understanding strategizing in public relations. However, strategizing in mundane everyday public relations activities necessitates acknowledging Heidegger’s point that people, for the most part, are engaged in non-deliberative coping. This coping is made possible by the background of social practices people carry and carry out rather than through deliberate activity.

Lastly, it is important to stress that this non-deliberate activity, although not deliberate, should not be mistaken as mindless mechanical activity. Instead, as stressed by Dreyfus (1991), a person engaged in non-deliberate activities is aware of the situation, can adapt and cope with the situation in a variety of ways, is directed toward a purpose, reacts if something goes wrong and then switch from a non-deliberate to a deliberate mode. Dreyfus has received critique for depicting experts as automata when, in turn, other scholars argue that what often distinguishes expert practitioners from non-experts is the fact that experts always strive to improve in what they do and, because of this, are very mindful of what they are doing while they carry out a significant activity within their area of expertise (e.g., Molander, 2015, Montero, 2013). For example, while writing a press release might involve extensive non-deliberate coping for an expert public relations consultant on one occasion in the sense that the consultant does much of the writing by routine and habit, a press release might on another occasion be one the most significant activities for the consultant’s client, demanding that the expert consultant is in a deliberate mode for most of the time while writing to think through the formulations carefully.

Modes of strategizing in public relations: a theoretical framework

This section articulates a theoretical framework that describes four modes of strategizing in public relations: (1) absorbed strategizing, (2) deliberate strategizing, (3) deliberative strategizing, and (4) abstract strategizing. The first three are conceptualized as immersed modes of strategizing in everyday activities, while the fourth is conceptualized as a detached mode of strategizing in strategic planning activities. The fourth, abstract strategizing, is what traditionally is understood as strategizing in public relations, while the modes of strategizing labeled absorbed strategizing, deliberate strategizing, and deliberative strategizing, to a varying degree, are situated in the everyday activities of practitioners, such as public relations professionals, managers, employees.

While the four modes concern an individual’s mode of being while strategizing, strategizing is a social practice and activity often carried out collectively involving various participants. Furthermore, Schatzki (2005) stresses that “practices are nonindividualist phenomena” (p. 480) as a practice is an organization of understandings, rules, and ends that make people do and say things in similar ways, not a collection of individual understanding, rules and ends that together make up the practice. While Schatzki points out that individuals carry out practices in slightly different ways because of, for example, differences in training and experience, it is the organization of the practice, its understandings, rules, and ends that enable and constrain practitioners’ possibilities for action. All four modes of strategizing occur within the social site of public relations and strategy and innumerable other practices within the nexus of practices making up organizational and social life (c.f. Hui et al., 2017).

Therefore, it is important to stress that practitioners’ mental states in deliberate modes of strategizing should be understood as what Schatzki (2005) refers to as a “normativized array of mental states” (p. 481), that is, mental states significantly influenced by the understandings, rules, and ends of the practice of public relations and strategy. Based on insights from previous research (e.g., Christensen, 2022, Gulbrandsen, 2019), it is reasonable to assume that the detached mode of abstract strategizing in, for example, planning activities or senior management group meetings is more informed by the understandings, rules, and ends of strategic management, while the three immersed modes of absorbed, deliberate, and deliberative strategizing in everyday public relations activities are more informed by the understandings, rules, and ends of public relations. This assumption, however, demands to be further investigated.

Absorbed strategizing

Absorbed strategizing is the primary mode of strategizing when practitioners such as public relations professionals, managers, and employees carry out everyday activities (e.g., writing social media content, talking to the press, or helping a customer) and thereby, directly or indirectly, realize articulated strategy or engage in activities that form an (emergent) pattern of decisions that over time become consequential to the organization. Practitioners absorbed in their activities do not think about what they do or should do; this mode of strategizing is characterized by routine and habitual doings and saying. Instead, practitioners experience the activity as what Dreyfus (1993) describes as “a steady flow of skillful activity in response to one’s sense of the environment” (p. 24).

The degree of absorption can vary from complete to almost no. During complete absorption, practitioners’ experience a state of “flow” in which there is full convergence between practitioners doings and what the situation dictates, i.e., what “shows up” to practitioners as they get involved in and react to a situation (Dreyfus, 1993). Conversely, in situations with almost no absorption, there is much less convergence between practitioners’ doings and what the situation dictates. These situations frequently result in practitioners adjusting what they are doing without switching to a deliberate mode of strategizing so that the activity converges with what the situation dictates.

This highlights that absorbed strategizing, while non-deliberate, should not be understood as mere mindless repetition. Rather than prior intentions and intentions in action (i.e., the experience of acting) (Dreyfus, 1993, Searle, 1983), the social practices of public relations and strategy signify what makes sense for practitioners to do when they are absorbed in everyday activities. Thus, how practitioners respond to what the situation dictates depends on the nexus of dispersed and integrated practices practitioners have been socialized into through previous work experiences and formal education. This nexus of dispersed and integrated practices provides practitioners with a grid of intelligibility that unobtrusively presents possibilities of action, i.e., bodily saying and doings (Schatzki, 1996). These possibilities of action enable practitioners to routinely carry out the activities without having to think about what they are doing while doing it or stop and think about the activity.

During this absorbed mode of strategizing, both things practitioners use, and their selves are “transparent” to them (Dreyfus, 1991), meaning that practitioners are not aware of the things they use, nor themselves. Instead, things become available to them as “something-in-order-to” (Heidegger, 1926/2008, p. 97), a “something” signified through the practice carried out by them. Consider, for example, when a public relations professional needs to respond to a follower’s comment on the company’s social media account in which the follower (and customer) shows frustration with the company’s slow delivery time. The public relations professional quickly writes a response in which the professional skillfully balances the tone of voice so that the response communicates understanding without admitting company guilt. Given the professional’s vast experience with similar issues and because of the professional’s skillful proficiency in the public relations practice, the practitioner writes this response in a state of flow without having to think about the wording.

This example highlights the relevance of experience and proficiency in the social practice practitioners carry out. A more junior public relations professional without much previous experience might think carefully about the wording and thus switch to a deliberate mode of strategizing. The example highlights that experience and to what degree practitioners have skillfully mastered a practice influence to what extent they dwell in the absorbed, non-deliberate mode of strategizing.

The relationship between absorbed strategizing and realizing an articulated intended strategy compared to an emergent strategy must also be clarified. The relationship between absorbed strategizing and the realization of an articulated intended strategy is relatively apparent since absorbed strategizing is one mode of strategizing when realizing an intended strategy. However, the relationship between absorbed strategizing and emergent strategy is less obvious. The relationship becomes more apparent when considering public relations and strategy background practices and practitioners’ familiarity with them. These practices provide certain “toward-which”, long-range ends (Dreyfus, 1993) that unobtrusively inform practitioners what makes sense to do in the situations they encounter in their work, enabling them to adjust to situations as they carry out these activities.

Usually, the actual intended articulated strategy is not something practitioners have in mind when strategizing. Thus, immersed strategizing in everyday activities should not be understood as necessarily informed by the articulated strategy. However, the background practices of public relations and strategy influence all modes of strategizing (from absorbed to abstract) to some extent. Practitioners learn the social practices of public relations and strategy through socialization to the extent that many activities are carried out routinely and habitually, influencing what practitioners do in everyday activities, either by themselves or with others. Thereby, the practice enables the realization of deliberate and emergent strategies despite practitioners not having the intended articulated strategy in mind when in the absorbed mode of strategizing (or any other immersed mode).

Furthermore, as pointed out above, absorbed strategizing is a dynamic activity involving practitioners’ constant effort to converge its activity with what the situation dictates. When practitioners experience too much divergence between their doings and what the situation dictates, they experience this as a temporary or total breakdown that practitioners might understand as an emergent issue that needs to be addressed. In turn, this breakdown generates anxiety. Since practitioners do not experience this anxiety as desirable, it ensures that they switch to a deliberate mode of strategizing as soon as this divergence becomes intolerable.

In its pure ideal form, absorbed strategizing reveals itself as a pure, non-deliberate mode of strategizing. In this non-deliberate mode, practitioners (e.g., public relations professionals, managers, and employees) carry out everyday activities that, when aggregated, are consequential for something, be it a formal organization, a network, or some other type of constellation.

Deliberate strategizing

Although practitioners spend a significant amount of their time residing, or “dwelling,” in the absorbed mode of strategizing and acting routinely and habitually, they rarely find themselves in a constant state of flow in which they are fully immersed in what they are doing without thinking about the things around them or their comportment. On the contrary, practitioners frequently deal with disturbances, or temporary breakdowns, that emerge during a workday, such as missing information about a product that prevents the public relations professional from finishing the press release or a lack of experience of how to best inform employees about an unavoidable downsizing that makes the CEO postponing the unavoidable information dissemination and subsequent dialogue. Disturbances make practitioners switch from an absorbed mode of strategizing to a deliberate mode. This is the second mode of strategizing and the mode in which strategizing becomes a deliberative activity.

This mode of strategizing is deliberate in that things, objects, and people are no longer available as “something-in-order-to” but have become unavailable, and “force” practitioners to switch to a deliberate mode of strategizing in which they pay attention to what they are doing. In the example with the missing information preventing the public relations professional from writing the press release, the product and possible people, which previously were transparent, are now experienced as unavailable. Now, the professional is conscious of the situation and begins to deliberate what the situation dictates and how it can be resolved.

During this mode of strategizing, practitioners’ (practice constituted) mind becomes directed toward something, for example, a colleague that the public relations professional believes has the information needed to complete the press release. However, this directedness should still be understood as a part of the situated activity. The deliberate mode of strategizing thus always occurs in everyday activities as a response to temporary breakdowns or emerging issues during those activities or when an activity is deemed non-routine and so consequential that it demands that practitioners think about what they are doing while doing it.

Accordingly, when the situation has been resolved, for example, when the professional has gotten hold of the missing information needed to finish the press release, the professional potentially switches back to an absorbed mode of habitual and routine strategizing. However, if the professional is working on a crucial formulation that “demands” deliberate attention until it has been thought out, the professional most likely will remain in the deliberate mode for a while longer.

Deliberative strategizing

At times, however, the breakdown is more severe. For example, a public relations campaign might have exceeded the budget, or a CEO might have written an internal memo to inform about a coming operational change that sparked internal outrage among employees because several important issues were not addressed. More than merely paying attention to the activity and what is unavailable is required in these situations. These situations “force” practitioners to switch to a deliberative mode of engagement and stop their activity altogether.

In this deliberative mode, in contrast to the deliberate strategizing mode, practitioners not only begin to consider things that can resolve the temporary breakdown but also begin to consciously reflect upon past and future activity and the intended strategy they are supposed to realize. For example, an unexpected problem with a digital ad campaign resulting in the campaign going over budget forces the practitioners to stop and reflect on how to resolve the situation to realize the intended strategy.

In contrast to deliberate strategizing, the deliberative mode involves practitioners’ retrospectively trying to make sense of the breakdown together with others. As the term deliberative indicates, the deliberative mode of strategizing is inherently a communicative mode of strategizing. This distinguishes the deliberative mode of strategizing from the absorbed and deliberate modes, which are also social in that practitioners relate to others in their activities and carry out social practices but do not necessarily involve practitioners saying things to each other.

It is in this mode of strategizing, when practitioners take a step back and engage in reflection, that they become self-conscious and, as pointed out by Chia and Holt (2006), begin to “intentionally assign identities, meanings, functions, and causes both to him/herself and to phenomena around” (p. 642). During this mode of strategizing, the practitioner can zoom out from the immediate things at hand and instead envisage possible future states to decide on the most suitable course of action.

During the deliberative mode of strategizing, practitioners often, though not necessarily, consider the articulated strategy as they retrospectively try to make sense of the situation. However, unlike the detached, abstract mode of strategizing, the articulated strategy is only referred to, not deliberatively developed or adjusted. However, the deliberating practitioners might, for example, decide to deviate from the articulated strategy or non-deliberatively do so later as they carry out their activities. While practitioners detach from the situated activity in the deliberative mode of strategizing in the sense that they pause what they are doing to reflect retrospectively, it still is a mode immersed in the mundane everyday activities in which practitioners realize deliberate and emergent strategy. It should be understood as an immersed mode of strategizing since the everyday activities and how to resolve the temporary breakdown obstructing them are what the reflection in the deliberative mode of engagement is about.

At the start of the deliberation, the breakdown is still a vague and unnamed event to the deliberating practitioners. However, during retrospective sense-making, the event, which might be understood as a single consequential event or a consequential pattern of events, is made into a more concrete “object” with properties. The event thus becomes what Dreyfus (1991), drawing upon Heidegger, terms “occurrent.” That things become “occurrent” means that they appear as things with properties that can be reflected upon individually or in a group. Ultimately, the “object” under deliberation might be understood as such a consequential issue that it should inform the articulated intended strategy. However, as pointed out by previous research (e.g., Christensen, 2022, Gulbrandsen, 2019), emergent issues informing intended articulated strategy are far from always the case, whether or not practitioners consider the issue consequential to the organization.

Abstract strategizing

This mode of strategizing is the mode that traditionally has been theorized in public relations. It is perhaps best captured in Botan’s (2006) grand-level and strategy-level decision-making. Typical examples are strategy development and adjustment instances, including top management decision-making episodes about various issues of which it is important to consider the public relations dimension, deemed consequential to the organization (i.e., grand-level strategy), public relations strategy development or adjustment, and public relations campaign strategy development or adjustment. Since public relations and communication can play a role in all strategy formation and realization (Zerfass et al., 2018), abstract public relations strategizing is, thus, not limited to public relations strategy-level but also to what Botan refers to as grand-level strategy. Thus, such issues can be everything from a crisis calling for instant action from the senior management board to long-term issues envisaged by the senior management board, potentially affecting the organization, such as slow but steady changes in consumer preferences.

During this mode of strategizing, things are no longer available as “things-in-order-to” practitioners deal with as they carry out their everyday activities. Just as when practitioners engage in deliberative strategizing, things become “occurrent” to practitioners during abstract strategizing. While abstract strategizing still takes place with everyday activities as a background informing this mode of strategizing, its distinctive characteristic, and what distinguishes it from deliberative strategizing, is that it revolves around taking a step back from everyday activities to reflect upon them in order to, for example, discuss, adjust, or formulate the articulated intended strategy which might or might not inform strategy realization during everyday activities. It is important to note, however, that while abstract strategizing concerns strategic planning and is detached from everyday operational activities in which the immersed modes of strategizing occur, it is still very much guided by the social practices carried by the involved practitioners since those practices offer possibilities for action.

Abstract strategizing is distinct from pure contemplation in that it involves reflecting upon the activities carried out “for-the-sake-of-which” (i.e., ends) of the social practices carried out, be it the practice of business, the practice of public relations, or the practice of corporate social responsibility, activism, or philanthropy. These ends in the mode of strategizing described as abstract strategizing are partly the desires and beliefs of the individuals involved. However, the nexus of practices (e.g., sociocultural, professional, and organizational) practitioners are socialized into and carry out always informs action, even during the abstract strategizing mode when practitioners’ desires, beliefs, and emotions play an active part in decision-making.

Situating public relations strategizing in strategic planning and everyday activities

Figure 1 exemplifies how the four modes of strategizing relate to strategy formation and realization and the different types of strategy suggested by Mintzberg and Waters (1985). The figure includes the nexus of shared dispersed and integrated practices making up the background practice of public relations and public relations strategizing that unobtrusively informs practitioners’ strategizing. Although ideal strategy formation and realization can occur, the figure does not represent a linear deliberate strategy formation and realization process. The arrows between the strategic planning activities and the everyday activities that represent “articulated intended strategy” resulting from the strategic planning process and an “emerging issue” within everyday activities have dashed lines to highlight that articulated strategies do not necessarily inform everyday strategizing and that emerging issues do not necessarily inform strategic planning.

Figure 1. Public Relations Strategizing in Strategic Planning and Everyday Activities (Adapted from Mintzberg and Waters (1985)).

Furthermore, the reason that the “emergent strategy” arrow emerges out of immersed strategizing is to represent that as practitioners strategize in everyday activities, patterns of action and decision-making might emerge that are not informed by the articulated intended strategy and might not necessarily inform strategic planning, but are consequential to the organization, nonetheless. Some of these patterns might even emerge from practitioners’ absorbed mode of strategizing as they habitually and routinely carry out their activities. In this case, the emergent pattern of actions and decision-making, or doing and sayings to use a practice vocabulary, is an example of a non-deliberate emergent strategy and non-deliberate strategizing that is consequential to the organization – even though no one, at least yet, is recognizing it as such.

Additionally, the figure is a visual exemplification of how the four modes of strategizing can be understood in relation to strategy formation and realization without claiming that what is visualized is always the case. For example, some phases of the formulation of an articulated strategy, including phases during the research, writing, and dissemination of the articulated strategy in the public relations department and beyond, might be characterized by absorbed, deliberate, and deliberative strategizing since some of these phases can be understood as part of the everyday activities of public relations professionals. Thus, not all activities during strategic planning, for example, research, should necessarily be understood as abstract strategizing. The figure is intended to highlight that abstract strategizing only occurs during strategic planning, even though some activities during strategic planning might be better understood as immersed strategizing.

It should be noted that the detached mode of strategizing (i.e., abstract strategizing) refers to both abstract strategizing (e.g., discussions and decision-making) taking place on the organizational policy level (grand strategy) and the campaign level (strategy) since (1) public relations can contribute to a broader range of managerial issues and since (2) the practice of public relations is carried out by a broader range of practitioners than public relations professionals, such as managers and employees. For example, during a meeting in which the senior management group in a construction company discusses an emerging issue in one of the company’s key markets deemed consequential to the organization, the senior public relations professional present at the meeting immediately identifies at least four publics that the organization must engage in imminent dialogue with to start handling and mitigate the crisis as soon as possible.

Conclusion

Given that public relations strategy is considered a central concept in public relations research and practice, this article has articulated an additional theoretical framework describing four modes of strategizing, i.e., the doing of strategy, in public relations: (1) absorbed strategizing, (2) deliberate strategizing, (3) deliberative strategizing and (4) abstract strategizing, and situated the modes of strategizing in strategy formation and realization. More specifically, the framework considers what traditionally has been considered strategizing in public relations (e.g., policy- and campaign-level decisions) and the everyday activities of all actors consequential to the organization (Jarzabkowski et al., 2021).

The main contribution of the suggested framework is that it provides a lens that enables researchers to give greater attention to how strategy emerges in everyday activities while offering a nuanced account of different forms of strategizing in public relations. The article thereby contributes to the emerging body of literature on public relations strategizing aiming to shed light on the “black box” of public relations strategy (e.g., Aggerholm & Asmuß, 2016, Christensen, 2022, Frandsen & Johansen, 2015, Gulbrandsen, 2019).

Similar to other scholars (e.g., Grunig, 1992b, Zerfass et al., 2018), I understand public relations broadly. The framework is thus intended to be relevant and applicable to all the activities that fall under this broader understanding of public relations, such as financial communication, marketing communication, corporate communication, internal communication, and counseling to senior management decision-making. However, the articulated framework is an abstraction, and researchers drawing from it should be attentive to the particularities of each activity, as the slight variations in different public relations practices mean that public relations strategizing most likely will vary across them. The articulated framework offers public relations researchers investigating strategizing in public relations a theoretical lens. However, to remedy the lack of knowledge of strategizing in public relations and open up the “black box” of strategic decision-making, researchers must develop rich accounts of public relations strategizing by drawing from the articulated framework when investigating strategizing in different contexts.

Furthermore, as Gulbrandsen (2019) points out, organizational members often strategize without consulting or adhering to the articulated strategy. This means that searching for the apparent realization of an articulated strategy will most likely lead the researcher astray, as the complexity of everyday activities necessitates practitioners responding to unexpected situations in creative ways. As Christensen (2022) points out, the articulated strategy and practitioners handling of emergent issues can even coexist without the two ever informing each other. Thus, researchers drawing from the framework to investigate strategizing should be heedful of these complexities of everyday public relations strategizing and avoid taking-for-granted and thus reproduce traditional notions of strategy as a linear planning process and strategizing as the formation of articulated strategy that is then deliberately realized. The articulated framework suggested in this article should be understood as a lens offering public relations researchers a nuanced account of different forms of strategizing in public relations that enables researchers to provide further attention to how strategy emerges in everyday activities, not as an attempt to provide an exhaustive theory of strategizing in public relations.

While this article suggests that strategizing begins already in everyday activities not traditionally considered strategic work in public relations, extending a concept’s meaning in such a way naturally has its risks. As pointed out already by Frege (1884) and more recently by Alvesson and Blom (2022), doing so increases the likelihood that the concept becomes “empty”. It is essential to stress that the suggested framework does not propose that all activities in everyday activities should be understood as strategizing, not even that all detached planning should be understood as strategizing. Strategizing during mundane everyday activities is complex and might be difficult for researchers to grasp without immersion in an organization over an extended period. Therefore, ethnographic fieldwork and other observation techniques are particularly suited for researchers aiming to use the full potential of the suggested theoretical framework. Lastly, it is important to stress that developing an account of absorbed strategizing should not be equated with accounts merely describing what people do. While observing peoples’ mundane activities is necessary, developing an account of strategizing is a theory-laden endeavor that demands that the researcher zooms out from the activities and views them through a theoretical lens, such as the practice-theoretical lens which enables researchers to be attentive to social practices.

Lastly, these four strategizing modes might be challenging to isolate and identify in practice. This article accentuates their differences. In the messy world of everyday public relations activities, researchers must immerse themselves in the field over an extended period to identify what should count as strategizing. However, the framework presented here is supposed to guide researchers investigating public relations strategizing.

Future research

Finally, I will conclude this article by identifying some directions for future research.

Empirical studies may investigate strategizing in everyday activities to deepen our understanding of public relations strategizing in strategic planning and everyday public relations activities. Here, longitudinal studies observing actors during strategic planning and everyday activities could increase our understanding of public relations strategizing as a collective effort by deepening our understanding of how different strategic actors interact, collaborate with, and delegate to other actors. Such studies might also attempt to deepen our understanding of how the four modes of strategizing articulated in this article “play out” in different empirical settings in which different practitioners strategize alone and with others.

In-depth ethnographic and netnographic work could also investigate how practitioners relate to and use different nonhuman objects, such as strategy tools and other technology, such as communication platforms (e.g., Slack, Microsoft Teams). The use of strategy tools has already attracted attention within the broader area of management studies and strategy-as-practice research (e.g., Jarzabkowski & Kaplan, 2015, Spee & Jarzabkowski, 2009). While public relations research has contributed useful strategy tools to practice, studying how these and more traditional tools, such as the classic SWOT analysis, are used and how they enable and constrain strategizing would deepen our understanding of strategizing in public relations.

Empirical research could also investigate how public relations strategizing unfolds in different contexts. Different contextual circumstances, such as organizational and national sociocultural circumstances, sector, industry, type of organizational phenomena (e.g., formal organization, network, collective, interest group), practitioners’ education and experience, and type of public relations activity, will most likely influence strategizing. A wide variety of in-depth accounts of strategizing in different contexts is necessary to produce a more profound understanding of public relations strategizing. Lastly, studying strategizing in unconventional empirical settings beyond the traditional organizational setting, such as social media and online forums, can offer novel understandings of strategizing in public relations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

1. When searching for research articles containing the keyword “strategy” in either the title, abstract, or keywords in PRR, and title in JoPRR since JoPRR did not have the option to include keywords in the search. The search was conducted in September 2023.

2. For the sake of simplicity, I use public relations interchangeably with “communication management,” “corporate communication,” and “strategic communication,” and variations of public relations practices, such as “crisis communication,” “risk communication,” and “health communication”

3. The term “functionalist” is often used to describe research that departs from an objectivist, realist, and positivist standpoint (c.f. Burrell & Morgan, 1979). However, for example, Grunig (2006), whose research is often labeled functionalist, rejects positivist ideas that “theories are ‘true’ because they reflect an underlying order in the universe” (pp. 151–152). Thus, the term functionalist, as used in this article, refers to public relations research that does not necessarily ascribe to objectivism, realism, or positivism but tends to focus on the strategic management of public relations and shares the pragmatic ambition to develop knowledge that can be of practical use to organizations of various types rather than, for example, sociocultural approaches that tend to focus more on investigating the role of public relations in society.