BOUNDARY SPANNING ACTIVITIES IN PUBLIC-RELATIONS

A survey was conducted to investigate the prevalence of boundary spanning activities among public relations practitioners. The survey drew from previous measures of boundary spanning activities in the organizational behavior literature and added new items to index public relations practice. Six factors were derived in a factor analysis. All six boundary spanning factors were positively and significantly correlated with the public relations roles of Expert Prescriber, Communication Facilitator, and Process Facilitator. Comparisons were also made between the actual frequency of various roles and boundary spanning activities and practitioners' estimates of the ideal level of these activities.