In this article, the authors review three broad paradigms from organizational research—functionalist, interpretive, and critical—and some of the representative theoretical approaches within each of these paradigms. They discuss the implications of these various perspectives for research in public relations and illustrate these implications with examples of research from public relations literature. They conclude with a brief analysis of the public relations efforts of Johnson and Johnson during the Tylenol crisis and illustrate how organizational theory and research can inform our analyses of public relations research and practice.
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