LITERATURE REVIEW ON PUBLIC RELATIONS STRATEGIES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF ORGANIZATION’S COPORATE IMAGE AN APPRAISAL OF ORLEAN INVESTMENT WEST AFRICA ”.

CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
Public relations implies an indispensable tool which no organization should treat with levity. This is because the survival of any organization to a large extent, depends on their public outdoor which in turn determines not only their public acceptance, but also the economic interest and commercial involvement of the organization. It also demonstrates public accountability.
Furthermore, public relations is a managerial function which entails research, planning , communication, and evaluation geared towards upliftment of the image of the organisation among its internal and external publics. These actions are long term solutions to organizations and managerial problems in totality.
Public relations is all about promoting goodwill, mutual understanding, and a good corporate image between an organization and its publics. These are important activities in public relations, and their relevance to effective public relations strategies will be examined. Also to be reviewed are literatures on the role of public relations in the management of corporate image between the organization and its publics.

2.1 Theoretical Framework
Two theories that can be used in this study are ; Apologia and the Image Restoration Theories.

2.1.1 Apologia Theory
Hearit [2005] underscores the basis of the Apologia theory that ''a corporate apologia is a response to accusations of ethical misconduct which causes the company to offer discourse in self-defense that denies, explains or apologizes for its action''.
Arguing further, he says that apologia theory is not a public apology over an incident that has affected the fortunes of the company, although such actions might imply apologies, rather the apologia is a justification of certain actions presenting ''a competing interpretation of the facts and, in so doing repairs an organization's damaged reputation. This theory finds relevance in the management of Orlean's Invests corporate image and reputation.
2.1.2 Image Restoration Theory
In the opinion of Benoit [2005], image restoration provides an understanding of the communication options available for those, whether organizations or persons, who face threat to their reputation. A person's image or reputation is extremely important. Accusations or suspicious of wrongdoing have a variety of adverse effects. Corporations can loose businesses, politicians can loose friends and attract hostility, and at times legal or other sanctions can be applied. Because credibility is important to persuasion, threats to image can damage one's ability to communicate effectively. People and organizations have important reasons to maintain favourable image.
He further corroborates the view that that image messages are needed whenever an image is threatened. You must determine;
What accusation(s) threaten(s) the image.
Who is or who are the most important audience(s)
You cannot hope to successfully counteract an accusation unless you know the nature of the accusation. Vague rumours may arouse your concern, but you must first know your problem before repairing it.
If there are multiple accusations, you must know them all to deal with them and to avoid ignoring an allegation. Orlean Invest used image restoration theory when they were battered with image crises.

2.2 Conceptual Review
What is Communication?
Communication is a complex and complicated phenomenon and any attempt to define it is usually met with criticism from other scholars. The divergence of opinion does not alter the nature of communication, but rather explains the difficulty in demarcating the bounds of the concept.
Byrant and Thompson [2002] agrees that when two people have a conversation, they are engaging in interpersonal communication. When two people talk to each other on the telephone or by means of electronic mail, media or mediated communication occurs. When a person talks into a camera and his or her image and voice are transmitted to a large number of viewers watching in homes scattered throughout the land, mass communication takes place. Therefore, the act of communicating by way of interpersonal, beyond media, or mass media channels involves a process. They further state that communication involves a sender delivering a message via a channel to a receiver, usually with some kind of effect. In the opinion of Verderber and Verderber [2008], communication is the process of creating or sharing meaning in informal conversation, group interaction or public speaking.
Pierce (1961), as quoted by (Bostrom, 1998) says that communication has been applied to many processes from the chemical interaction of nerve cells to the production of television commercials is a widely accepted definition of communication. Therefore, communication is purposeful interaction between at least two persons, principally through the use of verbal and non verbal symbols.
Rodman (2006), complements this view by asserting that '' communication refers to the process of human beings sharing messages. The message might be entertainment, information or persuasion; it might be verbal or visual, intentional or unintentional''. This is in line with the earlier submission of Verderber and Verderber (2008) that communication is the process of creating and sharing meaning in informal conversation, group interaction or public speaking.
Ikpe (1996) identifies three existing broad categories of definitions with each representing various schools of thought.
Definitions that stress sharing.
Definitions that stress intentional influence.
Definitions that stresses on influence and response.
However, the stress on ''sharing'', intentional influence and ''response'' are relevant to this study even with the implication that '' sharing'' in particular has a bearing with the Latin word ''communicare'' which means to make common. The term ''meaning'' on the other hand suggests the need for people to have an understanding while communicating whether bin a conflict situation or in peace time. This presupposes that communication in its very nature is give and take a transaction. In essence, during the transaction, there is no distinction between the source and the destinations as each of them interchange roles.
Schramm (1954) sees communication as a purposeful effort to establish commonness between a source and the receiver, noting that the word communication comes from the Latin word ''commis'' which means common. The persuasive intent of communication determines whether it is of any fractional or dysfuntional use. Intentional influence is stressed in River et al(1972) that communication means all the ways by which a person influences another and is influenced in return.

2.2.1 Communication and Opinion Formation
This study sets out to assess the corporate image of Orlean Invest West Africa. Since public relations is concerned with the creation of favourable image for an organization in the minds of the public, a convenient perspective from which to assess the strategies is to relate it to communication and opinion formation. Wilcox and Cameron (2006) define public opinion as the sum of the individual opinions on an issue affecting those individuals. Supporting this definition, Wilcox, Ault, Agee and Cameron (2000) examine both the origin and crystallization of public opinion. They assert that '' public opinion on an issue may have its root in self interest or events, but the primary catalyst is public discussion. Only in this way does opinion begin to crystallize''. This means that any public opinion campaign which aims to succeed should target certain persons who are capable of influencing public opinion, especially when an issue affects their well being.

2.2.2 Origin and Nature of Public Relations
The study aims at assessing the corporate image of Orlean Invest West Africa,given the above focus, this section of the study(research) traces the origin of public relations in a bid to link it with its nature and possibly link it to the modern strategies and practice.
The traditional belief conceptualized the public of any business endeavour as those situated in the market place and organizations used to worry about them. However, public relations predates modern times in fact, it is as old as man himself (Wilcox & Cameron, 2006). The practice of public relations is probably as old as human communication itself. In many ancient civilizations, such of those of Babylon, Greece, and the Romans citizens are persuaded to accept the authority of government and religion through common public relations techniques. Interpersonal communication, speeches, arts, literature, staged events, publicity and other devices were used. None of those endeavours were called public relations of course, but the purpose and effect were often the same as today's modern practice.
Wilcox and Cameron (2006) state that in ancient times, the Rossette stone which provided the key to modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics, was basically a stunt aimed at disseminating Pharoah's achievements. In line with the Egyptian perspective, the Ancient Olympic Games used promotional techniques to enhance the aura of athletes as heroes in much the same way as modern Olympic Games.
The Roman Catholic Church has been identified as a prime practitioner of public relations throughout the middle ages with pope urban II using public relations, to a more realistic approach towards achieving organizational success. This invariably means that the organization wishing to stay afloat in business must take pains to explain its actions and motive, including being aware of and concerned about public opinions and attitudes. However, literature review in this study aims at assessing the corporate image of Orlean Invest West Africa.

2.2.3 Organizational Public Relations
When we think of organizations, we might think of them as lots of different sections and departments, such as , sales, top management, accounting, production, marketing, human resources, research and development and so on. Whereas these sections interact with one another in varying degrees. However, in order to understand the concept of ''corporate'', Tench and Yeomans (2009) say that, we must adopt a different view, in which we look at an organization as one body, as a whole, as if we were looking at a person. They further say that it is necessary to look at a corporate public relations or (corporate communication) in exactly the same way- the communication activities and public relations of the whole organization and not just one of its sections (for example, the marketing department or the resources section in isolation). Christensen et al (2008) view corporate communication as a mindset, an ambition to encompass all communications within one perspective. Van Reil (1955) defines the term corporate communication as follows;
''corporate communication is an instrument of management by means of which all consciously used forms of internal and external communication are harnessed as effectively and efficiently as possible, so as to create a favourable basis for relationships with groups ,upon which the organization is dependent''.

Fill, (2009) observes that corporate personalities are derived partly from the culture characteristics of the organization; the core values and belief that in turn are part of a corporate philosophy. He says that essential to corporate personality is the strategic process adopted by the organization. The degree to which the strategic process is either formalized and planned or informal and emergent, and whether strategy is well communicated, play major roles in shaping the personality of the organization. Based on this, he sees corporate personality as composed of two main facets; the culture and overall strategic purpose.
Lattimore, Baskin, Neiman and Toth (2007) consider that public relations functions in multinational corporations have three distinct aspects. In one role, public opinion and governmental activities that relate both to specific corporations and to multinational enterprise as a whole. They conclude that corporations often uses public relations agencies to handle the long list of communication responsibilities necessary to compete effectively in domestic and international markets.
Reddi (2009) asserts that ''corporate public relations'' embraces all relationship that affects the corporation as a whole in reaching both the internal and the external publics.
2.2.4 Organizational Image
Image is a reflection. it is the reflection of an organization in the eyes and minds of its publics (Tench & Yeomans, 2009). Siestel, (2011), asserts that most organizations today and the people who manage them are extremely sensitive to the way they are perceived by their critical publics. This represents a dramatic change in corporate attitude from years past, when less than a decade ago, only the most enlightened companies dared to maintain anything but a less profile, what it sttod for. Bernstein, (1984) in Fill, (2009) believes that the perception which different audiences have of an organization and the results from the audience's interpretation of the cues rep[resented by an organization, constitutes organizational image. The image does not exist in the organization but in those that perceive the organization. This means that an organization cannot change its image   in a directly managed way, but it can change its identity. It is through the management of its identity that an organization can influence the image held of it.
For an image to be sustainable, the identity cues around which the image is fashioned must be based on reality and reflect the values and beliefs the organization.
2.2.5 Corporate Reputation
Newson, Turk and Kruckeberg, (2011) say that public relations is about reputation, the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you..
A deeper set of images constitute what is termed corporate reputation. Fill, (2009) related this concept to an individual's reflection of the historical and accumulated impacts of previous identity cues, fashioned in some cases near or within transactional experiences. It is harder and takes a lot longer to change reputation, whereas images may be influenced quite quickly. This shows that the latter is more transient and the former more embedded.
Fill further finds that ''reputation'' itself  is developed through a number of variables. Greyser (1999) in Fill suggests that the key drives are competitive effectiveness, market leadership, customer focus, familiarity /favourability , corporate culture and communication. It is the combination of these elements that drives corporate reputation.
This is one of the most famous advertisements in which McGraw Hill expresses the belief that a company 's reputation is a prerequisite for effective selling of products, In fact, the sales of products must start before the salesman calls on the potential customers. That is possible only when there is excellent reputation for the organisation in the market. According to Reddi, (2009) a good corporate reputation enhances the values of everything, an organisation does and says. He suggests further that a bad reputation devalues products and services ,and it acts as a magnet for further deterioration. He defines reputation as the '' overall quality or character as seen or judged by people in general (good name), the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something''.
Tench and Yeomans (2009) suggest that organizational reputation is when that individual collates all the photographs (or images) taken over a period of time into an album and forms an opinion of the organization by looking at the entire collection of photographs.
So far we have established that image can be quite fickle. In what way is this relevant to an organization​? Organizations pay a great deal of attention to the attention of the image the publics hold of them. This has been stressed by some authors Bernstein (1984) as quoted by Tench and Yeomans (2009) who argue that image should be considered as true reality by organizations.

2.2.6 Corporate Identity
Sengupta, (2002) says that an organization transmits, on a sustained basis messages to publics. It is the perception of the message which goes to create the intended image. We can now see that corporate communication is the process that translates an identity into an image . He also asserts that corporate identity refers to the image a company strives to achieve , in order to build a reputation with its publics.
In the view of Reddi (2009) corporate identity is the distinctive insignia or logo of a corporation, easily recognized and remembered by the public. It encompasses an organization's core values, standards and its goals. He traced the symbols of corporate identity in the early period, where kings would lead their armies and identified themselves with an emblem or a flag. This later became the corporate identities of modern organizations.
Tench and Yeomans (2009), argue that image and reputation are important and a lot depend on them. Thus organizations want to influence the images and reputations that their various stake holders hold of themis used to achieve this organizational identity. They explain that the term identity was firdt used to refer specifically to those visual elements organizations used to portray themselves to their publics. This was a visual emblem designed by the organization with the aim of conveying a number of characteristics it wanted its publics tot think of in relation to the organization. Logos were also intended to help those publics recognize and differentiate the organization from others.

2.2.7 Corporate Communication
Lattimore, Baskin, Heiman and Toth (2007) recognize that different organizations label corporate communication differently. For example, the word communication and corporate communication are now used commonly to label the public relations function in many corporate and nonprofit settings. Government agencies often use the term public information or public affairs to delineate the public relations and communication functions, even though public affairs generally refers to the relationship between organizations and the governments. Other terms commonly used are; corporate relations and, marketing communication.
This is in line with Reddi, (2009) considers corporate communication to be. Corporate communication means any communication emanating from a company or occuring within it, and that the word 'corporate” however, refers to the whole body or corpus and applied to any kind of organization, regardless of whether it is in the private, public or not-for profit sector. All companies including non commercials bodies are interested in corporate communications for building their images and reputations, besides maintaining relationships with stakeholders.
Fill 2009) explains that corporate communication refers to the process that translated corporate identity into corporate image. Organizations are taking an active interest in corporate identity and branding Cowlett (2000) as quoted by Fill (2009) because of the benefits that can be achieved across the organization. By attempting to control the messages that it transmits, an organisation can inform and motivate stakeholders concerning what it is, what it does and how it does it in a credible and consistent way. Traditionally, the bulk of this communication work has been the responsibility of public relations.

2.2.8 Media Relations
Adekunle Salu (1994) and Ikechukwu Nwosu (1997) posit that the media of public relations are the channels or means of communication through which public relations messages are passed to the target publics or target audience, the groups of people regarded as important or critical to the organization. Nkwocha (2009). Wilcox and Cameron (2006) assert that  before examining the print, electronic and film media individually, we need to look at the relationship between the media and public relations practitioners who need to understand this sometimes sensitive interplay. They also agree that editors and reporters and public relations people need each other. The media must have materials and ideas from public relations sources and practitioners must have the media as a place to tell their stories.
Reddi, (2009) opines that media is the life blood of public relations . In fact, media comes first in the scheme of public relations programme because a message cannot reach the target audience without it. The idea here is that no matter how well planned or creative a public relations public programme/campaign is, it will fail if the audience does not see it, hear about it, read about it, write about it, or experience it. Against this backdrop, in order to assure audience reach and to Influence the audience, first order of any organization is to cultivate appropriate media relations, to inform, educate and motivate its public towards its goals.
Corporate public relations and media relations are inter twined, while media is hungry for information, public relations is the source of the information. Any communication gap between the organization and its publics can be filled with the information provided by the media . It can help in every area of corporate public relations, such as employee's relations, shareholders relations, customers' relations, community relations and also in crisis situation.