The Relationship Between Gender and Behavior in Public Relations Practitioner in Malaysia

Choong, Calvin Jia Hui (2017) The Relationship Between Gender and Behavior in Public Relations Practitioner in Malaysia. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Public relations industry in Malaysia is dominated by the female gender that makes up to 70 percent of the workforce. However, Malaysia being a patriarchal society, gender differences impact the behaviour of Public Relations practitioners. The relationship between of gender and behaviour like in public relations needs to be examined the factors that could make them successful in a professional workplace. In order to have a better understanding how gender affects behaviour of practitioners within public relations, this research was conducted using a structured survey and 5 in-depth interviews with directors, senior consultants, public relations managers, and junior practitioners registered under Public Relations Consultants’ Association of Malaysia (PRCA Malaysia) to identity whether a relationship between gender and behaviour in the work place exists. In this study, role congruity theory claims that the female gender must behave according to their communal attributes and the used of the contingency theory is to explain that there is no best style in behave in a certain behaviour. This paper further explores how gender relates to the behaviour of practitioners —specifically the communicative behaviours, leadership behaviours and task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviour in the discipline of public relations. In addition, the findings reflected male and female public relations practitioners have behave differently, shows that gender played a role in the public relations industry. The major differences in the behaviour of male and female practitioners are the way of communicating, leadership, task oriented and relationship oriented. Female are able to communicate better than males in terms of persuasion and convincing, conduct a good relationship with clients. However, males are more suited for task oriented functions. Throughout the findings, gender and behaviour have influence the career growth in PR practitioners.