The emergence of link management or relational management (or relationship management or organization-public-relationship, in English) as a new paradigm of scientific research in Public Relations is due to the return to the founding concern of the discipline: the links that individuals and/or organizations establish with their stakeholders.

The linking paradigm provides a theoretical framework that explores the “contribution of Public Relations to the construction of the social capital of organizations” (Baro, 2011). Based on different theories, such as stakeholder theory, reticular theory, and linkage theory, among others, linkage management seeks to manage the organization's stakeholders, the links it establishes with them, and the resources it channels through them, to maximize their social capital.

The approach was first developed by Mary Ann Ferguson in 1984. Since then, and with the help of prestigious researchers such as Grunig, Broom, Casey, Ritchey, Ledingham, and Huang, relationship management has emerged as the main area of ​​theoretical development of Public Relations in the world.