The Impact of Public Relations in enhancing Competitive Capabilities in the Iraqi banking Sector

The study aimed to identify the impact of public relations on enhancing competitive capabilities in banking institutions in Iraq, and for this purpose, the researcher used the questionnaire as a main tool for collecting data and information, and a random sample of (338) individuals was adopted. The researcher relied on the analytical descriptive approach to achieve the objectives of the study, and the data was processed by the statistical software package for the social sciences (SPSS), using appropriate statistical methods such as the arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Pearson's correlation and Cronbach's alpha coefficient of reliability. The study included a main hypothesis to determine the effect of public relations as an independent variable in enhancing competitive capabilities as a dependent variable, and sub-hypotheses branched out from it that determine the impact of research and information gathering, planning, communication, and evaluation in enhancing competitive capabilities. The study reached several results, including; The existence of a statistically significant relationship between public relations and the enhancement of competitive capabilities, which resulted in the impact of public relations in improving competitive capabilities, as it was found that public relations affect the enhancement of competitive capabilities by an amount of (54.4%), and the study also concluded that the level of public relations in The banking sector and the enhancement of competitiveness was medium level. This study concluded with a set of recommendations, including; Involving employees in training courses in the field of public relations, the need to adopt a marketing mix policy to ensure cost reduction in order to achieve savings in banks, and keenness to improve the bank’s reputation, given that reputation is one of the basic pillars on which the entity of any organization is based.