Old wine in new bottles: Benchmarking for best practice within public relations

There is increasing discussion within the communication industry about benchmarking and best practice. The concepts, derived from manufacturing industry, are now being used to compare and analyse communication functions and practices. To a certain extent this has been driven by organisations involved in total quality management or re‐engineering but a number of people are now seeking to use the concepts to improve public relations practice. This paper explores — through three case studies — the extent to which benchmarking and best practice are relevant to communication; benchmarking methodologies; and, the extent to which current benchmarking practices are genuinely innovative. The case studies explore best practice in environmental reporting through comparisons of international reporting practices and international reporting guidelines and shareholder communications and ethical codes.