OPPapers.com

Issues Management: Spin Or Genuine Commitment?

Issues management, of late, seems to be the area of Public Relations that sparks off a lot of debate. Many critics have slammed issues management as allegedly unethical in the view that it is all about spinning and protecting a firm’s reputation in the eyes of its publics. This essay aims to take the stand that issues management is both spin and a genuine long-term commitment to stakeholders by using an illustration of the McDonald’s Animal Welfare Programme.
First and foremost, what can be considered an issue? An issue is when “there is a gap between stakeholder expectations and an organisation’s policies, performance, products or public commitments.” Some traits of an issue are that an issue is usually long-standing, slowly developing, or predictable and it is impactful on an industry or product category, it can be identified, monitored and managed as it emerges and it can be brought into the public arena (or at least fuelled) by protagonists or activists and reported on by the media.
The definition of issues management by The Issue Management Council (IMC) is that it is the process used to align organisational activities and stakeholder expectations. Coates, Jarratt and Heinz in their 1986 publication defined issues management as the “organised activity of identifying emerging trends, concerns or issues likely to affect an organisation in the next few years and developing a wider and more positive range of organisation responses toward the future.” In addition, Galloway and Kwansah-Aidoo defined it as a central concept in both academic and practitioner public relations literature. While Crane and Palese propose that issues management is “something that will enable organisations to perform in a way that will help them achieve their objectives – which in this field, often have to do with protecting the organisation’s image or reputation”. For further understanding, Ogilvy PR (a global public relations agency) defines issues management as an ongoing...