A social capital approach: An examination of Putnam’s civic engagement and public relations roles

•Support for a social capital approach to public relations via Putnam’s civic engagement behaviors.•Manager role seeks maintenance of social resources via homophilous interactions.•Technician role seeks to gain social resources via heterophilous interactions.•Manager role: significantly more likely to engage in personal interaction behaviors.•Technician role: significantly more likely to engage in political involvement behaviors.

Social capital approaches to public relations suggest that public relations professionals serve as brokers of social resources on behalf of organizations in that just as other forms of capital (e.g., financial capital) may be exchanged for organizational outcomes, so too can social resources (e.g., relationships, reputation, trust and so on) embedded in the networks of organizational publics. Robert D. Putnam’s widely recognized conceptualization of social capital suggests that civic engagement behaviors serve as surrogate measures of social capital. Results of the current research support such a social capital approach to public relations. Data indicated public relations professionals are more likely to participate in civic engagement behaviors than the general U.S. population, and differences were found between public relations roles (manager/technician) for three researcher-created subcategories of civic engagement behaviors: political involvement, participation in voluntary organizations, and personal interaction. Theoretical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.