Multinational corporation's public relations in host countries: An interpretive study of public relations culture

My dissertation examines multinational corporations' public relations in host countries. It places the locus of consideration with MNC subsidiary's internal processes in public relations situations. It builds up a theoretical framework called the public relations culture (PRC) perspective, which posits that what an MNC subsidiary ends up doing in face of public relations problems mainly stems from how its public relations culture—perceptions of good public relations, policies and production of public relations products—works.; To show the conceptual efficacy of the PRC perspective, my dissertation develops an empirical investigation on a U.S. multinational corporation's public relations processes and activities in China. To expose the dynamics and consequences of the company's public relations culture, my study explicates local public relations workers' experiences of living local at work in the particular multinational corporate locale. In my research, I found that (1) local public relations workers were located in a place where locally situated and “global localism”-rooted views of good public relations co-existed and competed for the final say about the company's public relations actions; (2) local public relations workers had managed to articulate their own locally shaped perceptions of good practice through forming and enforcing subsidiary level public relations disciplines; (3) regarding the company's end public relations products, local public relations workers' impacts occurred more with project execution, while initial decision-making on project ideas remaining senior managers' realm.; The data my dissertation uses were collected through a four-month participant observation in a U.S. multinational corporation's subsidiary in China.