ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
“Bismillahhirrahmanirrahim”
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Ever Merciful
First and foremost, Alhamdulillah, thank Allah, I have managed to complete the requirement for the subject Academic Writing (COM 660). This academic writing would not have been possibly completed without the supports that I have been receiving from people around me and I would like to appreciate and acknowledge the people who have helped me throughout this challenging journey.
A gratitude and humble appreciation I give to my understanding advisor, Miss Jalilah Jaafar Sidek who has provided her time, support, instructive comments guidance and endless support. From the beginning of the journey until the end of this research, she always ready to answers my questions and help me to ease my research journey. May Allah, bless you and only Him can repay your kindness towards me.
I also want to thank my family members and closest friends who have tremendously encourage and support me through ups and downs in completing this academic writing. Because of the encouragement and support, I did not stop and keep on finishing my research until the end. Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge the cooperation I received from my respondents who put extra effort and commitment to answer my interview questions.
Thank you to all of you.
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Public Relations (PR) is a persuasion business. It is a form of convincing the audience, inside your organization or town and outside of your common sphere of influence, in order to endorse the idea, buy the product, support the position or sustain a company’s reputation. While according to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), public relations is a strategic communication mechanism that builds commonly beneficial relationships between organizations and their audience.
Public Relations practitioners also are known as narrators. They create storylines to advance their agenda. Public Relations can be used to preserve, enhance or build reputations through any media channel like social media, or self-produced communications. A good Public Relations practitioner will analyse the organization, find the positive messages and transfer those messages into positive stories. When the news is bad, they can compose the best feedback and avoid the damage.
One of the duties of being a Public Relations officer also is offering advice on the management of all levels in the organization in regards to policy decisions, courses of action and communication. These shows how critical a PR officer needs to be in order to be able to make a decision for the organization. Decision making is very important as it will give a big impact internally and externally.
The contrast between sex and gender has been widely discussed. Sex denotes males and females biologically, gender is a social construct that describes masculine and feminine characteristics. Men and women are usually associated with the different way of thinking and impressions. Their point of views is contradicting most of the time because of the biological attributes. There are saying “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” just to show how their unparalleled thinking in making a decision or even to share thoughts. As we can see, both men and women have different characters which influence their decisions making or ways of solving problems.
According to G.N. Powell in Women and Men in Management, a gender study is focussing on how people think and interpret that women and men differ. The profession of public relations has become a gendered profession since a long time ago. Started during the 1980s, the field has been feminized all over the world as more women entered the profession.
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
The 1900s witnessed the increase of women into the Public Relations industry, venturing over the traditional occupational fields which considered as “feminine” such as teaching and nursing. However, in any field that has from male to female domination, problems of salaries, career prospect as well as decision making among practitioners become pervasive (Grunig, Toth, & Hon, 2001). In most organizations or Public Relations agencies, the top management will prefer to have men instead of women to be in the top liner. Observing the industry, clearly, women are seen to be dominating but at the same time, men are ruling in the top hierarchy. Here, this study is conducted to see if it is true gender differences can affect the decision making and career prospect among the Public Relations practitioners in Malaysia from the men point of view.
Women in the United States, Europe, Scandinavia and most other industrialized countries have secured their rights for an equal treatment in recruitment as early as the 1970s (Crompton, 2007). However, there is still exist inequalities in employment between men and women in different sectors of occupations. Women still have to face difference in income and fail to get the appraisal in their organizations or professional hierarchies.
Every government in the world today is more lenient related to bring women to get involved in various types of the workforce. In the case of Malaysia, the Ministry of Women and Social Development is demanding that women are also given the opportunity to have the equal share of work in every sector. Instead of being conservative, the Ministry has made a lot of plans and campaigns to encourage women who want to build up their career and empowering one another. Hence, instead of standing and struggling alone, the Ministry prepare a platform for women to go for reference and support.
Gender issues exist on all sides of businesses, in all countries. However, they are varied because of the social environments and cultures. It is a scientific fact that men and women do think differently and because of this, it brings to a result that in recent years with more women entering Public Relations that more attention is being paid to employee relations and internal communication.
There are a large number of studies on gender inequality in the Public Relations industry were conducted in the United States and other Western countries, while it is only a limited number of studies were conducted in Malaysia. As such, this study intends to examine gender bias towards female Public Relations practitioners in Malaysia from the men perspective in terms of roles, functions, and career prospects. Therefore, this study aims to bridge the gap in the literature, examining the following research questions:
1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The purpose of conducting this study is to find out how genders can affect the career prospects and decision making among the Public Relations practitioners from the men point of views.
RO 1: To determine if gender plays a role in influencing the working environment among colleagues.
RO 2: To analyse how genders affect the decision making among Public Relations practitioners.
RO 3: To investigate whether biology or emotion plays a role in decision making
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTION
RQ 1: Do genders affect decision making among Public Relations practitioners?
RQ 2: Does gender plays a role in influencing the working environment among colleagues?
RQ 3: Does biology or emotions play a role in decision-making?
1.5 SIGNIFICANT OF STUDIES
The end result of this study will firstly benefit both genders, male and female. They can be employed based on their qualification and quality instead of being chosen by gender. This study also may be a benefit to the Public Relations agencies and organizations who requires PR Department who maybe have doubts or confusions about recruiting the best PR Officers to their team. Also at the same time, this study can be a reference to another researcher in the future regarding gender differences in decisions making.
1.6 SCOPE OF STUDY
This study will be conducted based on qualitative data which interview sessions between four male Public Relations practitioners in Malaysia. The 4 practitioners will be from the same genders. From the answers and data collected during the interview sessions, it will help to get the conclusion for this research. The study will focus on Public Relations practitioners from different companies and sectors.
1.7 CONCLUSION
In Malaysia, we rarely see people talk about gender inequality especially in the workplace. Until the recent time, when the female or the minority groups of people starts to fight for equal right among genders mainly for a working environment. The women empowering awareness also have sparked the interest for some organization and agencies to support and take this matter This research will be conducted to find out how genders inequality can affect and make difference in career prospect and decision making from the men point of view specifically in Malaysia.