Bulletin No. 21 | May – June 2004

Topics in this issue

REMARKS FROM THE EDITOR

People do not pay attention to what You know, unless they know how you care for others, then You can ask them to do something for you. People give responses if someone is sincere. It does not mean that You give something. It really means that You have your personal interests so that you treat them well.

Your people are able to ‘read’ You. If You are not sincere, they do not only think that you don’t care, but you are trying to cheat them. You gain no respect from them.

Positive attitudes, behaviors, and language are the most critical ingredients, supported by consonant application, interpretation, and example provided by organizational leadership. Virtually all studies of employee satisfaction show that influencing employee attitudes is more effectively done by local managers and supervisors than by any other force within a business or organization.

Reading, talking and trying will play a role in your learning process. It’s really a matter of leading with your strength. Make it easy on yourself and go with what works best for you. Enjoy your reading !

Best wishes,

Elizabeth Goenawan Ananto
Editor


TIPS OF THE MONTH

Self Investment – How to Build Your Employment Value

Suppose you are an office employee, in whatever level you are assigned, you will be running the risk of losing your job if you do not follow the trends and do not consider that self investment is necessary to keep up with the tremendous change in office routines.

To be in demand

  • Office support staff need the skills to do graphics for presentations, manage complex communication systems, need strategic thinking and employ all efforts to work more efficiently.
  • If you are a middle manager, you need more knowledge and skills of office management in dealing with unpredictable events in such instability of political and economical situation. Possible strike due to increase demand of employees will have a significant impact on product delay or service distribution, let alone financial risks.
    If you are an entrepreneur – you will lose your money. If you are an employee – your career is at risk.
  • If you are manager, you have to be ready in dealing with unexpected events inside and outside your organization. Be prepared with handling issues and crisis management.

Organization reputation is number one, but your personal integrity is somewhat dominant. You will lose your chance of getting higher position just because you pay no attention to your ‘personal enterprise’ – you employment value.

  • Today’s career is frightening, like a game with the unexpected moves and rules, often random, twists and turns. A mistake can mean that game – your career – is over.

If you are not ready to leave your present job in the next three years, you need to learn the tips from C.D. Peterson in his book Staying in Demand, on how to increase your self-investment

  1. Commit yourself to never ending education and training
  2. Evaluate what you are now and what your employment value to be
  3. Decide your self investment strategy.
    Either become expert in one field or a generalist in several.
  4. Achieve balance between expertise and flexibility
    If you become a generalist, stay flexible. If you choose to be an expert, totally focused.
  5. Always be ready to recycle your skills, adapting them into newly marketable forms.
  6. Develop tour hard and soft skills. 
    Hard skills such as language, science and mathematics, quantitative technique, statistical analysis, computer-based knowledge. Soft skills such as interpersonal skills, leadership, team building, timely decision skills, information gathering, political skills and versatility : board competence and adaptability.

LEADERSHIP

Development and human resource empowerment are the two challenges of today’s leadership. There are some methods on how to assess the success of a leader

  • You can predict a leader’s intelligence by looking at the people around him. This is not a matter of IQ, but he believes that a growing successful leader will improve personally and organizationally by exercising his/her influence towards more people and develop more variety of his team. (Niccolo Machievelli)

A good leader will avoid these seven deadly sins:

  1. Trying best to be popular, rather than to be respected
  2. Ignoring internal advice and assistance of team
  3. Developing personal characteristics by stressing rule and regulations, not competence
  4. Avoiding criticism even if it is constructive
  5. Applying top down management style
  6. Treating each personnel equally
  7. Controlling information as to his people’s interest.
  • A good leader will employ the best staff. The ‘eagles’ do not flock together. He has to find them one by one. He cannot make a strong team with weak personnel.

MARKETING

  • The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous (Peter Drucker)
  • The performance of business activities that direct the flows of goods and services from producer to consumer of user (American Marketing Association)
  • Getting the right goods, to the right people, in the right place, at the rights time, at the right price, with the right level of communication profitability (Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK)
  • Marketing is different from Selling
Selling Marketing
IntrovertedExtroverted
Inward lookingOutward looking
Starts with the productStarts with the customer
Shorter time horizonLonger time horizon
Is about revenue this weekAbout profit this year
Focused on one aspect of your serviceThe ethos of the organization

If one has applied the four elements :
Research – Strategy – Planning – Tactics – then the person is dealing with Marketing.
If not – he is only a sales person.
What are you, anyway?


MANAGEMENT

Those who care will gain the respect

  • People do not pay attention   on what You know, unless they know how You care
    For others. Communication your care to others, then you can ask them to do something for you. People give response if someone is sincere. It does not mean that you give something. It really means that you have your personal interests so that you treat them well.
  • They are not robots. They have feelings , they want to get appreciation, get respect. If You treat them like robots, You may probably get some output, but you never get maximum creativity or something that can change your organization. If you treat your people unfair, their unhappiness will be reflected in the way they do their jobs.
  • Yet, one reminder that sincere is everything. It will be worse if You pretend to be sincere You don’t care, but You are trying to cheat them. You gain no respect from them.

Mind You – For most people, it is just a work!

  • You seem to hire your people’s behavior, not their soul. You have the right to claim for productive and professional work in  the office. But, do not expect them to do like You do after office hours.
  • Don’t expect your people to have the equal devotion like You do to your work.
    The reason is so simple : You are the boss and You see work from different perspectives. Only few people  want to be in management.  Support them well, yet mind you that only few  people are exceptional. The problem will arise when a boss wishes to work overtime (as he does); goes home and carries work home (as he does), get aside personal interests and families (as he does); as work is the center of his life (most management think that work is everything).
  • Managers and leaders should act as model, yet there is a clear distinction between a role model and a hidden pursuer. Most  people like to do the job, being productive and their work is appreciated personally and financially, but then they leave the office to enjoy their personal lives with families and friends. They do not ‘work  mentally’ in 24 hours a day.
    If this unwritten role violates, there will a greater chance towards dissatisfaction among employees. If you create this kind of gap, You are the one who takes  the risk.
  • How do your employees  perceive your attitude to your work and to your personal life?
  • How do you distinguish between ‘giving an example’ and ‘claiming’?
  • How do you make a balance between your work and your personal life?

(Source : Reflections for Managers, B.N. Hyland & M.J. Yost)


ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Entrepreneur are risk takers. They have a strong desire to be their own boss rather than work for someone else. These hard-working individuals first make a business plan and then form an organization to achieve the objective. Some entrepreneurs set up new companies or business while others revitalizing existing ones.
Just in case you lost your present job, the following questions will add to your confidence for being an entrepreneur. Answer Yes or No. After you finish, look at the scoring key at the bottom of the page. Assign a score to each question and then add up your points to see if you are a real entrepreneurial!

  1. Does money motivate you?
  2. Are you a risk taker?
  3. Do you get disappointed and discouraged easily?
  4. Is status important to you?
  5. Are you attracted by challenges?
  6. Would you like to have your income limited only by your abilities and energies?
  7. Do you mind working extremely long and irregular hours?
  8. Would you like to answer only to yourself?
  9. Are you creative and innovative?
  10. Is the financial security that corporate employment provides is very important to you?
  11. Do you always set goals in your life and strive to accomplish them?
  12. Are corporate benefits, such as paid vacations, sick leave, insurance benefits and regular paycheck very important to you?
  13. Are you considered persuasive and influential in your dealings and relationship with others?
  14. Do you have a strong need to direct or a need to do everything yourself?
  15. Is emotional satisfaction in your work life extremely important to you?
Question NumberAnswer’s Score
YesNo
1.21
2.21
312
412
521
612
712
821
912
1021
1121
1212
1321
1421
15.21

CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Reframing helps you stay flexible

  • Things will go according my plan
    Some parts of my plan won’t work, I don’t know which one
  • I can control the events in my life
    Unexpected events are bound to occur. I will have to be ready
  • The world is logical and predictable
    The world is chaotic and illogical
  • The status quo is comfortable
    The status quo is absolute. I need to confirm my standing
  • I choose my career
    I need to secure my employability

Are you a fresh graduate? Try to do better

  1. Related graduate and professional association
  2. Encourage yourself to travel
  3. Do activities others dislike
  4. Spend more time researching and preparing for interviews
  5. Know latest technology
  6. Bring flexible approach
  7. Show enthusiasm

HUMAN RESOURCES

Using intellectual assets as a success strategy

  • Human resources managers in a global environment requires a fundamental shift from traditional administrative personnel manager to intellectual capital management in the way the organization value work.
  • The forgotten assets are largest intangible and include
  • Human assets – knowledge, skills, creativity and experience
  • Intellectual assets – information, memoranda, illustrations and publications
  • Structural assets – culture, organization models, processes and procedures, distribution channels
  • Brand assets – awareness, reputation and goodwill.

(Source: Davis Kaila, Lynne Hall, Journal of Intellectual Capital, 2000)

Knowledge Mapping

  • The strategic role of human resource management According to Davenport (1999) categorizing and organizing knowledge should be a core competence for future organizations. Therefore human resource departments should contribute to
  • Deciding what knowledge is important
  • Developing a knowledge vocabulary
  • Creating indices and search tools, and
  • Constantly refining knowledge categories

Knowledge management activities should result in

  1. improving productivity, enhancing the business environment and increasing levels of innovation and
  2. assisting organizations to address human resource management problems on local and global levels
  3. Transform human resources managers into knowledge practitioners or facilitators, with responsibility for developing employee competence (Gustafson and Kleiner, 1994).

While effective knowledge management can be expensive, inefficient knowledge management is inevitably far more expensive.

(Source: Fawzy Soliman, Keri Spooner, Journal of Knowledge Management, 2000)


PUBLIC RELATIONS IN ASIA – AN ANTHOPOLOGY

Description

This is a unique textbook on Public Relations in Asia which uses a unified framework of specific variables (culture, political system, level of economic development, level of activism and nature of media) in discussing the nature of public relations in ten Asian countries. In addition, public relations practice is contextualized through a discussion of the relationship between socio-economic variables and public relations strategies and techniques in each country.

Key Features

  • Comprehensive information on the history, development and role of Public Relations in 10 Asian countries.
  • A highlight of the linkage between public relations and the socio-economic is environment of each country, as well as the critical impact of infra-structural elements on Public Relations.
  • Case Studies describing the problems faced by organizations and how they used   public relations to meet these challenges.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Contributors
Preface

  1. Public Relations Practice and research in Asia: A Conceptual Framework
    Krishnamurthy Sriramesh
  1. Glocalization: Public Relations in China in the Era of Change
    Chun-ju Flora Hung and Yi-Ru Regina Chen
  1. Public Relations in India: A Profession in Transition.
    Nilanjana Bardhan and Krishnamurthy Sriramesh 
  1. Public Relations in Hong Kong: An Evolving Field in a Fast-Changing City
    M. Chen
  1. Public Relations in the Philippines: A Cultural, Historical, Political, and Socio-economical Perspective
    Zcnaida Sarabia-Panol and Caterina Lorenzo-Molo
  1. Public Relations on Taiwan: Evolving eith the Infrastructure
    Bey-Ling Sha and Yi-Hui Huang
  1. Public Relations in Saudi  Arabia
    Hamoud Al-Badr
  1. Public Relations in Malaysia from its Colonial Past to Current Practice
    Syed Arabi Idid
  1. In Search of Professional Public Relations: Hong Bo and Public Relations in South Korea
    Samsup Jo and Jooho Kim
  1. The Development of Public Relations in Indonesia
    Elizabeth Goenawan Ananto
  1. From Propaganda to Strategic Communication: The Continuing Evolution of the Public Relations Profession in Thailand
    Daradirek Ekachai and Rosechongporn Komolsevin
  1. Epilogue: The need for Multiculturalism in Public Relations Education in Asia
    Krishnamurthy Sriramesh

Public Relations in Asia An Anthology
Edited by Krishnamurthy Sriramesh

“Studies on communication and public relations in Asia have been sparse. This book provides original scholarly knowledge from leading international experts that helps serve a significant business market by contributing to our understanding of Asian business practices. The chapters and case studies are highly readable and provide helpful insights for managing business communication.”

DESCRIPTION

This is a unique textbook on Public Relations in Asia which uses a unified framework of specific variables (culture, political system, level of economic development, level of activism and nature of media) in discussing the nature of public relations in ten Asian countries. In addition, public relations practice is contextualized through a discussion of the relationship between socio-economic variables and public relations strategies and techniques in each country.

KEY FEATURES

  • Comprehensive information on the history, development and role of Public Relations in 10 Asian countries.
  • A highlight of the linkage between public relations and the socio-econom ic environment of each country, as well as the critical impact of infra-structural elements on Public Relations.
  • Case Studies describing the problems faced by organizations and how they used   public relations to meet these challenges.

THE AUTHORS

The editor, Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, is Associate Professor at the School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, College Park, U.S.A. in 1992. He was Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Purdue University and tenured Associate Professor at the Department of Public Relations University of Florida. He currently serve as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Communication Management (UK) and as a member of the Advisory Board for the Communication Public Relations Program of Trisakti International Business School in Jakarta. He is also a member of several editorial boards such as the Journal of Public Relations Research (U.S.A.), the Journal of Marketing and Communication Management (South Africa), and the Journal of Information and Knowledge Management (Singapore).

Other contributors are academics and/or practitioners from 10 Asian countries: China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Public Relations Practice and research in Asia: A Conceptual Framework. 

2. Glocalization: Public Relations in China in the Era of Change. 

3. Public Relations in India: A Profession in Transition. 

4. Public Relations in Hong Kong: An Evolving Field in a Fast-Changing City. 

5. Public Relations in the Philippines: A Cultural, Historical, Political, and Socio-economical Perspective. 

6. Public Relations on Taiwan: Evolving with the Infrastructure. 

7. Public Relations in Saudi  Arabia. 

8. A Review of Public Relations in Malaysia from its Colonial Past to Current Practice. 

9. In Search of Professional Public Relations: Hong Bo and Public Relations in South Korea. 

10. The Development of Public Relations in Indonesia. 

11. From Propaganda to Strategic Communication: The Continuing Evolution of the Public Relations Profession in Thailand. 

12. Epilogue: The need for Multiculturalism in Public Relations Education in Asia.

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