By definition a Festschrift, as this is, tends to look backwards as it seeks to honour a given scholar. Yet in this case, a celebration of the achievements of James and Larissa Grunig, contributing authors look not only to the major contributions of the past but also to how they might serve to “expand the body of knowledge and make it relevant to the challenges of the future” (Sriramesh et al., p. xxxviii). It is this prospective as well as retrospective viewpoint that makes this volume a welcome addition not only to research based directly on the Excellence study but also to projects seeking to develop new lines of inquiry by drawing to varying extents from the Excellence well. As the editors point out, public relations research is in need of continual broadening of its horizons and can neither be static, ethnocentric or conceived on a one-size-fits-all basis.
It is inarguable that the impact of the Grunigs’ work has influenced public relations studies globally, evidenced not only by chapters such as Maria Ferrari's The Grunig Legacy to Academic Studies and Professional Practice but also by Yi-Hui Christine Huang and Joanne Chen Lyu's The Influence of Excellence: A Citation Analysis of the Excellence Study in PR Scholarship, 1992-2011 and other studies whose focus ranges from social media to measurement and evaluation to institutionalisation. Enriching as those chapters and other companion pieces are, the subjective recollections of key Excellence Study figures David Dozier and Louis C. Williams Jr, add a valuable behind-the-scenes look at the multiplicity of challenges involved in managing such an extensive study – extensive not only in scope but also in duration (The Process of Conducting the Excellence Study: A Personal Reconstruction of Leadership). It may be that in honouring James Grunig's resilient leadership, Dozier and Williams undersell their own significant contributions.
The editors note that much of the research emanating from different regions of the world in the past two decades employs the Excellence Theory. Their choice of contributing authors reflects this international diversity, with chapters from scholars based in Australia, Canada, the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, South Africa and Brazil. This broad spread of contributors aligns with the objective of not only focusing on the Excellence Theory but also motivating “discussions on several topics that, we hope, will lead us to a holistic body of knowledge that eclectically harnesses wisdom from several perspectives” (Sriramesh et al., p. xxxii). Necessarily, this holistic body of knowledge must, outside the pages of this book, include those who like Browning (2010) wish to venture “Beyond Excellence Theory” into a “critical examination of the Grunigian model”. However, researchers who do so must be well equipped. James Grunig calls the comprehensive theoretical structure he and others developed for public relations over the last 40 years an “edifice” – “a structure that can be used positively to explain public relations practice and normatively to guide public relations practice” (Grunig, 2006/2013, p. 3). As this collection shows, even if the edifice is under assault from a variety of critical scholars, its foundations remain robust.
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About the reviewer
Dr Chris James Galloway teaches Public Relations at the Massey University's Albany, Auckland, New Zealand campus. He is Co-Editor of Public Relations Issues and Crisis Management (2005) and has published a range of book chapters and articles in journals such as Journal of Communication Management, Public Relations Review, Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal and PRism. His research interests centre on issues, crisis and risk communication, with a particular emphasis on reputation risk. Dr Christopher James Galloway can be contacted at: c.j.galloway@massey.ac.nz
