Systematic Literature Review of the Implications of Globalisation and Public Relations Practice in Sub-Saharan Africa for Professional Development

This study examined the influence of globalisation on public relations practice in Sub-Saharan Africa by probing the implications of globalisation on the professional development of public relations practice within the region. The study was contingent on the Systematic Literature Review design, guided by PRISMA procedures, the study hence synthesised forty-eight peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2025. Three key thematic areas were identified in the review: empirical revolution of professional practice with globalisation and digital growth; hegemony and gradual challenge of Western-based theoretical models and ongoing geographical, methodological and epistemological gaps in the literature. Results revealed that globalisation has led to high rates of professionalisation and strategic repositioning of PR, especially by spreading the norms of managerial and digital communication demands. Nevertheless, all these realities are conditional by socio-cultural customs, institutional abilities and infrastructural inequities, which lead to hybridised instead of perfectly convergent professional systems. The study also showed a high Western centric normative patterns even as there has been demands for an integrative approach. This review, by gathering together diverse aspects of scholarly literature, makes contributions to ongoing research on de-Westernising communication theory and the development of globally aware and yet locally responsive models of public relations. the study therefore concluded that, in other to integrate global components of scholarship to the local, there must be more researches that hinges on comparative, longitudinal and theoretically pluralistic research which is appropriately recommended to enhance empirical soundness and conceptualisation in Sub-Saharan African PR studies.