Gender-Related Differences Of Public Relations Managers

Abstract

There are various journals that have inspected the differences in men and ladies working experience in public relations field. However, there are only few case studies had discovered the perception of difference gender issues. This paper attempts to provide some current information and insight, discusses gender-related differences in the field of public relations with a focus on gender differences of public relations managers based on a number of specific roles by replicating and extending a number of studies in occupational theory, product management, salesforce and public relations literature. This research was carried out over three countries (Greece, Turkey and Italy). For the results, there are not much big difference between male and their counterparts working as public relation managers. Among the past few years, the ladies’ portrayal had increased rapidly. Ever since the ladies had come into this calling quick and in expansive numbers, their achievement significantly affects an association’s prosperity. Moreover, females are thought to be handled with care, less confidence and are also be thought as lesser opinion. A surge of late research has started to interrogate the earlier discoveries that ladies in sales, item administration and other administrative positions all in all are not the same as men in their expert manner. Besides that, there are also numerous researchers recommend the standard examination of sex comparison to push out the analogy and the differences.

Introduction

In the early years, the influx of female employees in the workforce shows that there are more ladies had dominated in the public relation field than men. This leads to a change that had reformed the public relations field to a women-ruled field. Looking at the numbers, there is no doubt that public relations is a calling that gives ladies proficient occasion that are not found in other ventures. On the other hand, research shows that ladies who had passion in public relation could stay on top and achieve more in the public relations field. There is no much big difference between men and ladies working as a public relation manager in a company. A focal matter for the category of gender job occupation that public relation has moved toward becoming the hot topic; the diversity of the authority among the men and ladies in administration positions in associations. Difference in gender role had been labeled in the world that easily influenced the individuals to look down the ladies as less powerful compared to their male counterparts. There are various studies demonstrated that women public relation professionals are confronting numerous challenges in their workplace, for example, gender segregation, sex imbalance of the activity duties, biased based impediment and so on because of the impact of the “feminization” in the industries. The main objective of the study is to reinforce the hypotheses regarding gender differences of authority in the public relations field. When compared to men, they are thought to be practice order and organization and are more truculent, more independent and more explanatory.

Literature Review

Both articles provide some similar hypotheses regarding the issues of gender difference in the field of public relations through data collected from a cross-cultural study in three different countries, Greece, Italy and Turkey. A mail survey was adopted as the most efficient data gathering technique due to the vast regions spanning the three different countries. Prior to the survey data collection, interviews with PR executives help shaped the basis of the design, selection and modification of the study’s instruments, in this case is the mailed questionnaire. Differences in role perception Information provided from the survey feedback shows that the differences in the role perception between male and female public relations managers are insignificant. Role perception is where an individual perceives his or her role in the company. Role perception can be categorized into two different component factors, which is role conflict and role ambiguity. The data provided suggests that there are no gender related differences in the role conflict, while indicating that female public relations managers experience a higher role ambiguity than the men although they were often treated less harshly and are not as clear as to their role in the task and how they are supposed to complete it. Moreover, female public relations managers often perceive their views on the rules and regulations, policies and procedures are not as clear as the male public relations managers.

Perceived importance of interfacesImportance of interfaces are described as the degree to which interfaces are more essential within a company for example: marketing, advertising agency, sales and distribution. Results shown from the respondents that the differences in the emphasis of interfaces perceived by male and female public relations managers are both non-significant. The data was measured using Spearman’s measure of rank correlation and was computed to measure the degree of association between males and females in the rank order of importance This data supports the hypothesis that gender-related differences does not affect public relations managers on how they rank the level of importance with the many interfaces in their company.

Personal outcomes (job satisfaction, propensity to leave)

Personal outcomes can be defined as on how an individual perceives his or her career path and are measured from two defining factors: job satisfaction and the propensity to leave in a certain field of profession, in this case, public relations. Results obtained from the questionnaire feedback shows that the data supports the hypothesis that the variances between PR managers of different gender in terms of the satisfaction they attach to job satisfaction components is minimal. Yet, the data provided by the respondents doesn’t support the hypothesis regarding the propensity to leave of the public relations managers, which implies that females experience a higher level of propensity to leave than their male counterparts. The results indicate that in the three countries, females showed an advanced level of obligation to their job, as indicated in the propensity to leave index, is an important finding. This contradicts the outcomes of previous study in work attitudes where women usually shows a statistically higher propensity to leave rate than men in male dominated industries such as sales transaction, distribution and production.

Difficulties encountered, and solutions proposed

Previous research has shown that gender related differences affect the difficulties encountered and the solutions proposed by product and sales managers, because of negative effects of sex-role stereotypes and conflicting demands of career and family. More particularly, female and male public relations managers are quite contrasting on the difficulties encountered in their profession. In fact, two of the six contrasts - problems with managing and allocating time and the problems due to the PR manager’s positions within the company were significant when compared to other differences. Following these results, male PR managers appeared to face moredifficulties than their female counterparts in managing and allocating time, and women faced more problems than men due to their position within the company. Thus, the hypothesis on the difference between male and female PR managers’ difficulties faced was rejected, while there is a degree of similarity between females and males in the rank order of solutions reported to resolve the difficulties that they face in their profession, indicated a high degree of similarity between females and males in the rank order.

Methodology

The research methods were carried out by sending questionnaires to 500 individuals of PR managers from across three different countries. Before sending out the questionnaires, there will be a letter briefly explain about the purpose of the research and also the procedures of the research. For the total of 132 males and females responded to the research. Besides that, the research are based on a few variables, demographic characteristic, job related factors and environmental issues with the research explaining a few hypothesis. The hypothesis stated that; To see if female PR managers perceive the quality of relations with the various interfaces in the same way as male PR managers in the way that they perceive the quality in the many interfaces in the company. The research also investigates whether gender-related differences affects the way that PR managers allocate their working time. Another hypothesis stated in the research question the difference in the role perception between female public relations manager and their male counterparts. Researcher found that there are likely men and women at the age of the 32 who enter the public relation field and also the public relation field. The result found that there is no major interplay among the difference of gender in public relation field. Moreover, it represents that female who work in the public relation field had a higher ambiguity than male who work in the same field. As for the female they had been treated differently with the male, females are seen to be not clear with what they need to do with their role of duties. Although the difficulties they face are the same, but for male and female their ability to solve the difficulties are different.

Conclusion

Based on the research result, we can conclude that there are no gender related differences in the role conflict among the three different countries (Greece, Turkey and Italy). Research results found that women who starts works in the public relation field are likely to be treated less strictly compared to males. Besides that, results determine that most of the female who work in the public relation field does not really know what their job duties are. Female get treated differently compared to the male as female knows how to handle their work with responsibilities. Moreover, female are getting to face more criticism in public relation field, therefore female had to conquer the obstacles to stand for themselves. As we can see that, the numbers of female increased year by year in public relation field. Thus, male PR managers appeared to face more difficulties than their female counterparts in managing and allocating time, and women faced more problems than men due to their position within the company.