ساختار بخش روابط عمومی / ارتباطات: یافته های کلیدی از یک مطالعه جهانی  Structure of the public relations/communication department: Key findings from a global study

1. Introduction 1.1. Organization and functional structure While the pasttwo to three decades have witnessed remarkable growth in the body ofliterature focused around the role of communication and public relations within and on behalf of organizations, arguably one obvious area where scholarship has remained far from complete is in the development of comprehensive theory to explain management practice and behaviour in the public relations/communication departmental context. Comparatively little research has been conducted to explore the structure of the public relations/communication department.1 From a public relations perspective, where organizational or functional structure has been examined at all, it has been largely in the context of other mainstream debates such as those about functional relationship between public relations and marketing, or in terms of public relations reporting and access to the dominant coalition and leadership influence or power within organizations (e.g. Berger & Reber, 2013; Gregory, 2008, 2013; Grunig, 1990; Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier, 2002; Zerfass & Franke 2012; Zerfass, 2010). The notion of organizational structure (sometimes referred to as organization architecture) can be seen as a multifaceted concept. Typically, structure comprises on one hand the physical roles and relationships between the component elements of an organization but also delineates the lines of command and control,the framework for distribution of resources and, from a communicationperspective,the conduit along whichinformationis bothdisseminatedandcollected withinthe organization. Despite the considerable importance attached to question of structure and structural design amongst management scholars, it is not a topic that has gained much traction within the public relations literature.