WHO IS THE HONORARY AMBASSADOR BEST SUITED TO REFLECT YOUR ORGANIZATION'S IDENTITY?

Abstract

We developed a unidimensional evaluation scale to enable managers of organizations to appoint the most suited individuals as honorary ambassadors. We chose the factors on which the scale is based through an extensive literature review, interviews with experts, exploration of their reviews, and online surveys of Korean public relations practitioners. The 8 factors we selected for evaluating an honorary ambassador best suited to reflect an organization's identity were attraction, trustworthiness, charisma, influence, expertise, uniqueness, similarity, and congruence. This measurement scale provides scientific guidelines both for future researchers and for public relations practitioners to enable them to maximize their use of honorary ambassadors for maximum ambassador endorsement success for their client organizations.