The role and the effect of public relations in strategic planning process

Since both private sector organizations, public sector organizations and non-governmental organizations are open systems affected by what is happening in their environment, they need to have strategic management understanding to continue their existence, to reach their institutional targets, to achieve the position desired and to fulfill their mission. In terms of today's modern corporate governance approach as well, institutions also need strategic planning as a guide to direct their long-term future. Strategic plans, which can be described as a road map for the future of institutions, form the basis for corporate decisions and activities. In today's modern management approach, institutions have to build positive relations with the target audiences that they affect and that may have effect on corporations in order to form sustainable management strategies and achieve success by sustaining their existence in a competitive environment. Accordingly, it has become obligatory for institutions to apply to public relations. In recent years, public relations practices that go beyond the traditional scope that can be expressed by media relations have led to the expansion of the mission description and content of the public relations function. With corporate reputation management, internal and external stakeholder relations, communication with the right audience at the right time with the right content has gained importance more than ever. Also it has become a necessity for public relations to position as a function of strategic management and to assume a function that will guide the strategies of the institutions. So the role and impact of public relations in the strategic planning processes of the institutions have become more prominent. In this research that aims to reveal the connection between the concepts of strategic planning and public relations; a research was carried out to determine the role of public relations in strategic planning. In the study consisting of two aspects, interview and content analysis techniques within the scope of qualitative research methods were used. In the first aspects of the research, the evaluations of the Turkish Association of Corporate Communication Directors, an important professional organization in the field of communication, were determined. In the second aspect of the research, an examination was made on the strategic plans of the district municipalities of Istanbul, as municipal administrations obliged to make strategic plans. The obtained findings have revealed that public relations have to an active role in strategic planning as a strategic management function. However, in practice, findings have indicated that the capacity of public relations as a strategic function is not utilized and public relations is evaluated in terms of publicity and media relations.