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Corporate communication notes:Chapter 1:
-Belief in the management world that in today’s society the future of any company critically
depends on how it is viewed by key stakeholders such as shareholders and investors, customers
and consumers, employees, and members of the community in which the company operates.
-CEOs and senior executives of many large organizations and multinationals nowadays consider
protecting their company’s reputation to be ‘critical’ and as one of their most important strategic
objectives.
-the role and contribution of corporate communication is still far from being fully understood in
many companies.
-There is therefore a lot to gain when communication practitioners and senior managers are able
to recognize and diagnose communication-related management problems and know about the
appropriate strategies and courses of action.
-corporate communication = ‘public relations’?
communication with the press
-whole range of specialized disciplines, including corporate design, corporate advertising,
internal communication to employees, issues and crisis management, media relations, investor
relations, change communication and public affairs
-‘corporate’ in corporate communication. The word, of course, refers to the business setting in
which corporate communication emerged as a separate function
the corporate communication function starts from the perspective of the organization as a single
embodied entity when communicating with internal and external stakeholders.
-can be characterized as a management function that is responsible for overseeing and
coordinating the work done by communication practitioners in different specialist disciplines
such as media relations, public affairs and internal communication.
-a whole range of ‘managerial’ activities such as planning, coordinating and counselling the CEO
and senior managers in the organization, as well as the ‘tactical’ skills involved in producing and
disseminating content and messages to relevant stakeholder groups.
,Corporate communication is a management function that offers a framework for the effective
coordination of all internal and external communication with the overall purpose of establishing
and maintaining favourable reputations with stakeholder groups upon which the organization is
dependent.
complex in nature
-Corporate communication demands an integrated approach to managing communication.
-A variety of concepts and terms is used in relation to corporate communication and reflects
these characteristics.
-A mission is a general expression of the overriding purpose of the organization, which, ideally,
is in line with the values and expectations of major stakeholders and concerned with the scope
and boundaries of the organization
A vision is the desired future state of the organization. It is an aspirational view of the general
direction that the organization wants to go in
Objectives are the more precise (short-term) statements of direction
which are to be achieved by strategic initiatives or strategies. A strategy involves actions and
communications that are linked to objectives and are often specified in terms of specific
organizational functions
-Key to having a corporate communication strategy is the notion of a corporate identity: the
basic profile that an organization wants to project to all its important stakeholder groups and how
it aims to be known by these various groups in terms of its corporate image and reputation.
-corporate image is the public perception of the company, whereas corporate identity is how
the company wants to be perceived by the public.
-organizations need to go to great lengths to integrate all their communication, from brochures
and advertising campaigns to websites, in tone, themes, visuals and logos.
The stakeholder concept
Organizations are increasingly recognizing the need for an ‘inclusive’ and ‘balanced’ stakeholder
management approach that involves actively communicating with all stakeholder groups
-corporate communication is geared towards establishing favourable corporate images and
reputations with all of an organization’s stakeholder groups, so that these groups act in a way
,that is conducive to the success of the organization. In other words, because of favourable
images and reputations, customers and prospects will purchase products and services,
-Corporate communication focuses on the organization as a whole and the important task of how
an organization is presented to all of its key stakeholders, both internal and external. Business
communications and management communications are more technical and applied 6 – focusing
on writing, presentational and other communication skills
-Business communication, for its part, tends to focus almost exclusively on skills, especially
writing, and looks towards the individual manager or professional, whilst corporate
communication focuses on the entire company and the entire function of management
-This does not mean, however, that corporate communication should exclusively rely on business
school knowledge.
1.3 Trends in Corporate Communication
This led many organizations to restructure separate communication disciplines such as media
relations, advertising, sales promotions and product publicity, and bring these together into more
integrated departments or into specific working practices.
Many organizations also recognized that the previous fragmentation of communication in terms
of separate disciplines and the spreading out of communication responsibilities across the
organization had often proved counterproductive.
Fragmentation, it was realized, is likely to lead to a process of sub-optimization where each
department optimizes its own performance ‘instead of working for the organization as a whole’. 9
Many organizations therefore instead developed procedures (e.g. communication guidelines,
house-style manuals) and implemented coordination mechanisms (e.g. council meetings,
networking platforms) to overcome this kind of fragmentation and coordinate their
communication on an organization-wide basis.
-linear model of communication that assumes a relatively uncomplicated process of sending and
receiving messages, where any outcomes are already largely predetermined or given.
-Stakeholders have, in recent years, become much more active in voicing their expectations
towards organizations and, empowered by new media technologies
-Again, new media technologies are the enabling factor in this process.
, when individuals hold an organization in esteem, value its reputation and decide to buy from,
work for, invest in or otherwise decide in favour of that organization, they are more likely to
become genuine advocates and supporters
-the current state of corporate communication is one of gradual change, where there is change in
terms of how organizations communicate with stakeholders, but also continuity in that the old
principles of strategic messaging and reputation management still apply. Where the difference
lies is in the outright dismissal of the view that stakeholders can be managed and controlled in
their views – if there ever was such a thing. Another break with the ‘positioning’ model lies in
the principle that organizations need to ‘engage’ individual stakeholders through different
platforms, in addition to addressing broader audiences, publics or entire stakeholder groups. The
focus with ‘engagement’ is not merely on shaping opinions or perceptions, but on the
organization being ‘transparent’ and acting in character in order to bring across its distinctive
identity and in a way that fosters individuals to become genuine advocates and act in their
favour. The implication for corporate communicators is that they have an important
organizational role to play in having the company consistently ‘think like’ and ‘perform like’
Chapter 4 :
Stakeholder Management and Communication
Contemporary organizations increasingly realize that they need to communicate with their
stakeholders to develop and protect their reputations.
Stakeholder management, more than any other subject in business, has profound implications for
corporate communication. It requires that managers think strategically about their business
overall and about how they can effectively communicate with stakeholders, including customers,
investors, employees and members of the communities in which the organization resides.
Managers of many corporate organizations realize that, now more than ever, they need to listen
to and communicate with a whole range of stakeholder groups to build and maintain the
reputation of their companies.
4.2 Stakeholder Management
Theoretically, the now widespread adoption of the stakeholder perspective in business marks a
move away from a neo-classical economic theory of organizations to a socio-economic theory.
The neo-classical economic theory suggests that the purpose of organizations is to make profits
in their accountability to themselves and to shareholders, and that only by doing so can business
contribute to wealth for itself as well as society at large.
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