The role of public relations in crisis management at the Palestinian companies

Public relations is a science that is directly related to difficult conditions and extraordinary situations. Problems, crises, instability and others are among the direct causes of the development and prosperity of public relations. Therefore, one of the functions of public relations is to overcome the crisis or prevent its occurrence, and this is called crisis management. The study analyzes the role of public relations in crisis management at the Palestinian companies through the perspective of public relations employees in Palestinian companies. The first chapter of the study includes a literature review of the stages of development of public relations and public relations in Palestine, as well as the aims and characteristics of public relations. The second chapter contains an analytical presentation of the crisis as a whole, an analytical presentation of crisis management, the characteristics of crisis management and crisis management procedures. The third chapter contains the research questions, research objectives, research limitations and population and sampling. This chapter also contains the research results based on the quantitative data analyzed by the SPSS program. The questionnaire was applied to 106 public relations department employees in Palestinian companies, using Google Forms. The questionnaire questions were divided into four sections, which are demographic information, the importance of public relations in the company, the role of public relations in crisis management and finally the extent of satisfaction with the work of the public relations department. Keywords: Public Relations, Crisis, Palestine, Crisis Management, Palestinian Companies