Towards the Integration of Marketing and Public Relations

Seeks to illustrate areas of overreach and commonality between public relations and marketing, more specifically the confusion and ambiguity characterizing the role of both communication functions in modern business organizations. Describes the evolution of marketing and public relations to provide a view of why a closer integration between the two may be desirable. Explores different functional perspectives on their interaction and concludes that these represent “ideal types” rather than organizational realities. Foresees developments in terms of integration between public relations and marketing but dependent on the dynamics of organizational cultures and served markets and on research output from both sides of the academic divide.