WHY 'POSITIVITY' MATTERS FOR GOVERNMENTCOMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS

The discipline of public relations is concerned with how relationships between organisations and publics are formed and maintained and, in a relational perspective, proposes several cultivation strategies organisations can apply to build quality relationship outcomes. This study was designed to further test the relationship cultivation strategy of positivity in the context of government-community relationships. Using in-depth interviews, the aim was to compare the opinions of both relational partners with regard to the level of positivity in the mentioned context. Another objective was to explain how positivity contributes to the relational outcomes of trust and satisfaction in building positive government-community relationships. The results show the relational partners disagree on the government's enactment of the relationship cultivation strategy of positivity. Citizens evaluated the government's positivity as poor compared to the government itself, which considered its interactions with citizens were highly positive. The findings reveal that positivity importantly contributes to trust and satisfaction in building constructive government-community relationships.