Public Relations as Practiced by Credit Unions in Ghana

Abstract

Even though the PR literature addresses the need to imbibe public relations into the operations of startups and small businesses, research on public relation has often been limited to an assessment of the practice amongst the ‘giant’ (big organizations). This current study therefore seeks to assess the practice of Public Relations amongst a relatively smaller financial group (credit unions) whose operations require a constant touch with the community within which they operate. The specific objectives of the study were to examine the nature of public relations practiced amongst selected credit unions, to examine stakeholders’ perspectives about the nature of PR practiced amongst credit unions and to ascertain the challenges associated with practicing PR within the selected credit unions. The population for the study were the various credit unions and the Credit Union Association (CUA) within the Greater Accra region. Using convenient sampling 10 credit unions within the Greater Accra were drawn for the study. The sample size for the study was 12 respondents drawn by the use of purposive sampling from the 10 credit unions (10 respondents) and CUA (2 respondents). The study was qualitative in nature and semi structured interviews were used to collect data from the 12 respondents. The study found that the selected credit unions did not have a PR department but mainly assigned PR responsibilities to their marketing personnel with supervision by the respective managers. Again, the credit unions mainly used text messages, WhatsApp groups and Annual General Meetings to maintain relationships with these key stakeholders. The study also found that even though credit unions practice public relations they lacked the requisite resource to fully embrace PR in its totality. the study also found that the challenges faced by the credit unions included ignorance and illiteracy of the members, stakeholder’s unwillingness to attend Annual General Meetings, lack of mobile phone access and poor mobile networks. The study therefor recommends that credit unions should endeavour to establish a department that will be solely dedicated to the activities of PR. Again, credit unions should make their AGMs attractive by inviting resource personnel to speak on topical issues. This will increase patronage of their AGM’s. Credit Unions should also provide PR training to staff member who demonstrate interest and PR capability.