The enactment of public relations functions: insights from the Indonesian mining industry

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the process in which organizational members construct and enact public relations (PR) functions as well as how the organization accommodates local values in the PR enactment. Design/methodology/approach A case study of three large mining companies representing multinational, state-owned, and privately owned mining companies in Indonesia was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 37 key informants (three top executives and 34 members of PR units). Findings The Indonesian private mining company and the multinational corporation actively engaged in their environment during the post-Suharto era. They perceived the local community to be more powerful than ever before as a result of the socio-cultural and political changes in the country. They changed their organization designs to gain organizational legitimacy by establishing independent PR divisions at the mining sites and assigning field officers who had the same cultural background as the community. These companies enacted the role of PR as relationship agents and cultural interpreters. Unlike these two companies, the state-owned mining company did not actively search for information from its environment. It relied on the government support for its organizational legitimacy and ignored the environmental changes. Originality/value This study is one of the first few studies examining the enactment of PR functions in Indonesia, an emerging country that is under-represented in the marketing and PR literature.