Articulating a Center: An Analysis of the Strategic Management Paradigm in Public Relations

This research utilizes computational and network analysis methods to examine strategic management scholarship in public relations from 2012 to 2022, revealing how research within this paradigm has evolved with an increased focus over the past decade on non-traditional organizational contexts as well as internal communication and organizational listening. Although criticism of the strategic management paradigm has sought to expose its limitations, this research found a robust, inclusive, and expanding body of knowledge regarding strategic public relations management and a greater understanding of the evolving middle-range theories that constitute its perspective. This research reinforces the centrality and importance of the strategic management paradigm to broader public relations scholarship, and presents an expanded conception of its influence across traditionally disparate epistemologies of public relations research.