The role of a professional body in professionalisation: The South African public relations case

Professionalisation has been a much-debated topic and frequent goal for public relations since the beginning of the 20th Century, although it has not been successfully accomplished in various instances. The main purpose of this study is to explore and describe the opinions of practitioners in industry, organisations and consultancies about the possible role of a public relations professional body in the process of professionalisation in the context of a developing country such as South Africa. A qualitative research paradigm focusing on exploratory, descriptive and contextual data was selected. A mixed methods approach was adopted. The findings reveal that most public relations practitioners are in favour of professionalising the field. One of the main considerations of practitioners is that more rigorous benchmarks be devised for the purpose of defining professionalism. This refining of benchmarks might well be one of the most pivotal roles that a professional body can play in its efforts to professionalise the field of public relations. What also emerged was that an overwhelming majority of practitioners were strongly in favour of reorganising the current professional body so that it would have sufficient authority, power and legitimacy to legislate rules and regulations on behalf of practitioners and perform the functions necessary to promote and protect the wellbeing and reputation of the profession. The contribution of this study is important, as little empirical evidence exists with regard to professionalisation of public relations, particularly pertaining to the role of a professional body during such a process.