Toward an effective government–public relationship: Organization–public relationship based on a synthetic approach to public segmentation

•This study aims to identify and understand an effective government–public relationship building based on a synthetic approach to public segmentation.•There are different predictors for trust in federal, state, and local government, but standards in citizenship was the strong predictor for trust across all levels of governments.•The summation method integrating situational and cross situational variables for public segmentation leads this study to find the majority active publics, contracting previous research that demonstrated the majority inactive publics.•Applying a synthetic public segmentation approach allows government–public relationship to correspondingly change in keeping with environmental characteristics.

The goal of this study is to identify and understand an effective government–public relationship building based on a synthetic approach to public segmentation. Using a national survey dataset, this study examines how different types of publics have trust differently in federal, state, and local government. By exploring how situational and cross-situational variables predict trust in government, the study finds that there are different predictors for trust in each level of government. Further, the results provide important insight into how public relations practitioners and researchers can build and maintain an effective government–public relationship with the key publics. Thus, the current study aims to fundamentally make contribution to theoretical and practical development in relationship-building research.