The ‘toe bone to the head bone’ logic model to connect public relations and corporate communication to organisation outcomes

Public relations and communication academics have been advocating evaluation for more than 30 years, but studies show that rigorous evaluation is still under-developed and under-utilised. When evaluation is done, it continues to be largely focused on measuring outputs, such as the volume and tone of publicity, impressions, and web page views and downloads, with much less identification of outcomes, according to research studies. Most importantly of all, public relations/communication outcomes are rarely causally linked to overarching organisation outcomes. In the current global discussion of standards for public relations evaluation, fresh attention has been turned to supporting organisation outcomes, but public relations evaluation literature still does not have much to say about how this can be done. This conceptual paper seeks to make a contribution to this problematic gap in measurement and evaluation literature by presenting a customised application of a logic model approach to planning and reporting that has been successful in the case study reported and which potentially can make a useful contribution to bridging the gap between communication outcomes and organisation and business outcomes. The measurement and evaluation debate Much has been written about measurement and evaluation of public relations and corporate communication in the 30 years since Jim Grunig uttered what Watson and Noble (2007) describe as his cri de coeur about lack of evaluation. Grunig famously lamented that, “just as everyone is against sin, so most public relations people I talk to are for evaluation. People keep on sinning, however, and public relations people continue not to do evaluation research” (Grunig, 1983, p. 28). The foundational theories and history of public relations measurement and evaluation are well documented and will not be repeated here. Excellent texts include the groundbreaking, but unfortunately unprophetically titled book Using research in public relations: Applications to program management by Broom and Dozier (1990), Primer of public relations research (Stacks, 2002, 2011), Evaluating public relations: A best practice guide to public relations planning, research and evaluation (Watson & Noble, 2007, 2014), Public relations metrics: Research and evaluation (van Ruler, Vercic & Vercic, 2008) and A practitioner’s guide to public relations research, measurement and evaluation by Stacks and Michaelson (2010). In addition, background and context are provided in numerous book chapters, journal articles and research reports that have been published by scholars and industry leaders such as Jim Grunig, Donald Wright and Michelle Hinson, Ansgar Zerfass, Anne Gregory, Walter Lindenmann, David Geddes, Bruce JeffriesFox, Katie Paine, Angela Jeffrey, Marianne Eisenmann and Mark Weiner, as well as this author and others. Watson (2012a) has provided an insightful, if concerning, historical summary of the long and winding road towards measurement and evaluation of public relations and corporate communication. It is concerning because of the paucity of major progress in measurement and evaluation, particularly in relation to outcomes – with much focus placed on measuring outputs such as media publicity. For example, as