Career Strategies in Public Relations: Constructing an original tapestry paradigm Heather Marie Liddiment Yaxley This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Bournemouth University April 2017. Copyright Statement This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and due acknowledgement must always be made of the use of any material contained in, or derived from, this thesis. 2 Career Strategies in Public Relations: Constructing an original tapestry paradigm Heather Marie Liddiment Yaxley Abstract The thesis constructs a new ‘tapestry paradigm’ to offer an original contribution towards understanding of career strategies in public relations. It addresses a lack of academic research into careers within the occupation and sits at the intersection of critical consideration of professionalisation of public relations and emerging theories in the field of career studies. Narrative inquiry from the viewpoint of a visible insider sheds new light on how public relations careers have developed to date, and may develop in future. Whilst not its primary focus, the thesis considers career implications of increased feminisation of the occupation and responds to calls for greater research into the intersection of work and family lives in that context. An historical perspective underpins the thesis by exploring the origins of public relations careers and researching the career experiences of female practitioners during the 1970s and 1980s. Investigation of contemporary career strategies involves a series of twenty-one in-depth, oral interviews with British-based mid-career practitioners using an innovative visual timeline technique. This is supported by bricolage archival research to situate the participants’ experiences in a wider historical and social context. 3 Examination of career development processes and practices is undertaken using a conceptual framework that connects social cognitive and career construction theories. A constructivist philosophy with an interpretive approach is adopted using qualitative methods to understand research participants’ lived experiences. Analysis of the research findings reveals four original theoretical constructs: knotted patterns of mobility; fluidity in career middleness; multi-layered, polyphonic sense making; and a non-linear, kairotic element of time. Construction of a new tapestry paradigm supports the identification of career strategies within public relations as being opportunistic, agentic and rhizomatic. This paradigm confronts the dominant professionalisation perspective within public relations scholarship and practice of an implicit chronological, hierarchical career system predicated on individualistic characteristics and behaviours. It accommodates jurisdictional and definitional challenges to the occupation and enables understanding of individual and collective career experiences within public relations at the micro (individual), meso (organizational/occupational) and macro (societal) levels. 4 Contents List of tables and illustrations 11 Preface 13 Acknowledgements 14 Author's declaration 15 Conference presentations 15 Journal publications 15 Chapter 1. Introduction 16 1.1. Personal context 16 1.2. Disciplinary home 20 1.3. Statement of ethics 24 1.4. Thesis structure 24 Chapter 2. Analysing the fabric, texture, size and motifs of public relations as an occupation 28 2.1. Introduction 28 2.2. Defining the fabric of public relations 29 2.2.1. Management-oriented perspective 30 2.2.2. Corporate communications remit 33 2.2.3. Craft expertise 35 2.2.4. Activist and civic practice 37 2.3. The textured origins of careers in public relations 39 2.3.1. Press agentry to professionalisation 42 2.3.2. Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays 47 2.3.3. British developments 50 2.4. Measuring the size of the working population 56 2.4.1. Historical tensions 57 2.4.2. Fractured occupation 61 2.4.3. Accelerated expansion – and contraction 63 5 2.5. Identifying motifs in the occupational structure 67 2.5.1. Consultancy volatility 68 2.5.2. Size of public relations functions 71 2.5.3. Sectors and specialisms 72 Chapter 3. Weaving a working canvas for public relations 76 3.1. Introduction 76 3.2. Bureaucratic career form 76 3.2.1. Occupational roles 77 3.2.2. Hierarchical structure 81 3.2.3. Job title inflation 84 3.3. Professional career form 87 3.3.1. Training and education 88 3.3.2. Expertise and reputation 91 3.4. Entrepreneurial career form 94 3.4.1. Risks of autonomy 94 3.4.2. Rewards of independence 96 3.4.3. Personal influence 97 Chapter 4. Gauging demographic tensions within an individualistic career pattern 101 4.1. Introduction 101 4.2. Beyond 'great man' traits 102 4.3. Gendering of public relations 105 4.3.1. A woman’s history 106 4.3.2. Increasing female visibility 110 4.3.3. Female career experiences in the 1970s and 1980s 112 4.3.4. An individualised narrative 117 4.4. Social identity intersectionalities 122 6 Chapter 5. Crafting concepts and patterns into a career framework 126 5.1. Introduction 126 5.2. Interlocking career concepts and evolving issues 127 5.2.1. Matching people to occupations 128 5.2.2. Lifelong process of career decision-making 134 5.2.3. Careers as multi-dimensional and dynamic 137 5.2.4. Addressing opportunity structures 144 5.3. Interpreting contemporary career patterns 147 5.3.1. Organizational career development 148 5.3.2. Boundaryless, protean and multidirectional patterns 154 5.3.3. Portfolio, kaleidoscopic and nomadic patterns 158 5.3.4. Customised careers 164 Chapter 6. Intermezzo – Constructing an original tapestry career paradigm 168 6.1. Introduction 168 6.2. Knots and threads of pastpresentfutureness 170 6.3. Untangling systems thinking 174 6.4. Critical seams and (in)visible career boundaries 178 6.4.1. Critical seams 178 6.4.2. (In)visible career boundaries 180 6.5. Systematic contemporary career design 183 6.5.1. Place, people, progression 184 6.5.2. Accommodating career volatility 186 6.6. Career as a rhizomatic assemblage 188 6.6.1. Rhizomatic career properties 188 6.6.2. Constructing an inclusive conceptual framework 190 6.7. Becoming a weaver of a new career paradigm 195 6.7.1. Micro-meso-macro embeddedness 195 6.7.2. Tapestry as a contemporary career metaphor 196 7 Chapter 7. Research design 199 7.1. Introduction 199 7.2. Research paradigm and methodology 202 7.2.1. Socially constructed reality 203 7.2.2. Constructionist approach to grounded theory 205 7.3. Timeline narrative interviews 207 7.3.1. Life on Mars - a pilot study 207 7.3.2. Main method and research objectives 208 7.3.3. Timeline interview process 210 7.3.4. Research population 214 7.4. Bricolage archival research – an underpinning canvas 216 7.4.1. Role of archival research in the inquiry 216 7.4.2. Bricolage archival research process 217 7.5. Research ethics 221 7.5.1. Ethics review 221 7.5.2. Informed participant consent 221 7.5.3. Interview considerations 222 7.5.4. Digital research considerations 224 7.6. Research design limitations 225 7.6.1. Limitations of the research paradigm 225 7.6.2. Limitations of the research methodology 225 7.6.3. Limitations of research methods 226 7.7. Researcher positionality 228 7.7.1. Insider proximity 230 7.7.2. Participant positionality 231 7.7.3. Online visibility 232 7.7.4. Researcher’s analytical immersion 233 7.8. Analytical approach 233 7.8.1. Tapestry metaphor as an analytical frame 235 7.8.2. Analytical research process 236 7.8.3. Balancing participant visibility/invisibiity 240 8 Chapter 8. Research findings 243 8.1. Introduction 243 8.2. Career design of the research population 244 8.2.1. Participant characteristics 244 8.2.2. Spatial dimensions of participant careers 248 8.2.3. Chronological career development 252 8.3. Career yarns, patterns, pictures and structure 254 8.3.1. Analysing the patterns of timeline drawings 254 8.3.2. Crafting weft yarns in narrative interviews 263 8.3.3. Drawing warp yarns from archival research 267 8.4. Micro-meso-macro career connections 269 8.4.1. Reflexivity and memo writing 269 Chapter 9: Narrative discussion 275 9.1. Introduction 275 9.2. Tales of the field 275 9.2.1. Tales of beginning 276 9.2.2. Tales of becoming 278 9.2.3. Relational tales 281 9.2.4. Recursive tales 284 9.3. Woven career narratives 287 Chapter 10. Theoretical constructs 292 10.1. Introduction 292 10.2. Knotted patterns of mobility 294 10.3. Fluidity in career middleness 296 10.4. Multi-layered, polyphonic sense making 298 10.5. Non-linear, kairotic elements of time 300 10.6 Crafted career strategies 302 10.7 Twined conceptual linkages 303 9 Chapter 11. Conclusions 307 11.1. Introduction 307 11.2. Key findings 308 11.2.1. Body of knowledge 308 11.2.2. Research population 311 11.2.3. Timeline drawings 312 11.2.4. Telling tales of the field 313 11.2.5. Weaving co-constructed narratives 314 11.3. Theorising and inferencing 314 11.3.1. Theoretical constructs’ contribution to knowledge 314 11.3.2. Inferencing broad conclusions 317 11.4. Relevance and limitations 319 Chapter 12. Recommendations 320 12.1. Introduction 320 12.2. Developing a professionalised career design 320 12.3. Recommendations for theory and pedagogy 322 12.3.1. Public relations role theory 322 12.3.2. Collaboration with career studies 323 12.5. Potential for methodology and theoretical concepts 324 Chapter 13. Outro - pastpresentfutureness of the woven career tapestry metaphor 326 13.1. Weaving a coherent tapestry 326 13.2. Crafting theoretical constructs 327 13.3. Untangling tapestry as a woven root metaphor 327 References 329 10 List of tables and illustrations Table 1.