A balanced scorecard approach to public relations management assessment

This article describes a new managerial approach to assessing Public Relations/Communications (PR/C) performance using a balanced scorecard. The balanced scorecard requires PR/C executives to develop a set of audience/client/stakeholder, financial, improvement, and operational/process performance measures that reflect progress against a plan. More than just a measurement system, the approach is being used in a number of progressively managed organizations to clarify, communicate and manage PR/C strategy. The article reviews the current state of PR/C management assessment, illustrates the balanced scorecard framework, highlights the framework's strengths and weaknesses, describes the process of applying the scorecard to PR/C units, and provides sample applications for use in assessing, measuring and managing organizational PR/communications.