Valérie Carayol – författare

As organisations seek legitimacy in a fast-moving, interconnected and changing world, how do public relations help them to manage their identity, responsibilities and impact on society? In a more interactive society, organisations need to align their actions with social demands and values. If the main role of public relations is to build trust and influence opinionmakers, media, the public and the political agenda, what are the constraints and limitations at play here, and what is the impact on ethical principles?The published research shows the profession is facing crucial changes: the existence of new organisational structures better aligned with social demands; the emergence of new techniques for interacting with organisations in a more trustworthy manner; and growing pressure by social groups acting both for and against particular social values, ideas and identities.

How should we approach cultural diversity in the workplace? Multinational corporations, transnational project teams and glocalised production and distribution processes raise challenging issues for communication and PR professionals. The complex nature of these communication processes often shows that existing models of cross-cultural or intercultural communication are inadequate to allow researchers or professionals get to grips with the complexity of the interactions encountered. This book aims to pinpoint and address the apparent limits of many traditional intercultural communication research methods when they are applied to real situations in today’s hybrid and cosmopolitan global organisations. Written by distinguished scholars from around the world, the chapters challenge traditional ways of thinking and established academic categorisations. The chapters are structured around three main lines of questioning: how can we approach multicultural teambuilding situations where culture is a multi-faceted and multi-level dynamic construct linked to identity and experience, rather than ‘simply’ a question of national habitus; how can we study emerging concepts, categories and practices in such situations using culturally sensitive qualitative research methods; and how can we approach the field of PR from very different cultural standpoints?