A Tool for Evaluating Company Community Relations

EXPERIMENTATION over a number of years has shown that it is difficult to evaluate the kind of public relations job a company is doing in a community merely by asking residents what they think of the company's policies. In most cases a survey of this type appears to indicate that the largest firm is favored in every respect, since respondents tend to praise more than to condemn, and they naturally mention most often the company with which they are most familiar. Two devices for eliminating this “aura effect” are suggested: correction by number of employees and correction by public familiarity with the firm. When such corrections are made it not infrequently appears that “the first shall be last and the last shall be first,” as far as good community relations are concerned. Mr. Barlow is Managing Editor of the Public Opinion Index for Industry, and Mr. Payne is Research Director, Opinion Research Corporation.