Public Relations and the Public's: a Critical Assessment of Employee Perceptions on Public Relations at the Commission for University Education

Abstract

Most contemporary corporate organizations are largely concerned with maintaining their public image through effective communication with their public's. This is achieved through establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between the organization and the audiences or public's in which the success of the organization depends on (Cees and Charles 2007). Public relations hence builds rapport with an organizations employees, customers, stakeholders and the general public through use of effective communication which is the heart of organizational performance. The success of an organization's efforts to meet its objectives and to influence the context within which it executes its mandate depends on how well and professional an organization communicates with its employees. The purpose of the study IS, therefore, to critically assess the perception of employees of the Commission for University Education (CUE) towards the practice of public relations in realizing its mandate. The study adopted a qualitative research design and will focus on 40 permanently employed male and female employees out of the total population of 80 employees of the commission. This is a representative sample of 50 % which according to Mugenda and Mugenda (2003) is adequate to make generalized conclusions on the entire population of the total number of employees at the Commission for University Education of eighty (80). The stratified simple random sampling method is ideal method for selection of the respondents. Collection of data will be through the closed and open-ended questionnaire. The data collected will be analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results of the analysis will be presented using tables, charts and figures.