Week 1
- 1 Defining corporate communication
- 4 Stakeholder management and communication
- 7 Research and measurement
- 11 Crisis communication
Week 2
- 6 Communication strategy & strategic planning
- 10 Issues management
- Steyn, B. (2004). From strategy to corporate
communication strategy: A conceptualisation.
Journal of Communication Management, 8(2),
168-183
Week 3
- 8 Media relations
Week 4
- 5 Corporate identity, branding, and reputation
- Dutton, J. E., & Dukerich, J. M. (1991). Keep-
ing an eye on the mirror: Image and identity in
organizational adaptation. Academy of manage-
ment journal, 34(3), 517-554
- 9 Employee communication
- 12 Leadership and change communication
Week 6
- 13 CSR and community relations
- Viererbl, B., & Koch, T. (2022). The paradoxi-
cal effects of communicating CSR activities:
Why CSR communication has both positive and negative effects on the perception of a com-
pany’s social responsibility. Public relations re-
view, 48(1), 102134.
- Valentini, C., van Zoonen, W., & Elving, W. J.
(2022). CSR communication in corporate social
media: an empirical investigation of European
companies' use of social media between 2012
and 2020. In Social media for progressive pub-
lic relations (pp. 73-89). Routledge.
- Van Zoonen, W., & Van Der Meer, T. (2015).
The importance of source and credibility per-
ception in times of crisis: Crisis communication
in a socially mediated era. Journal of public re-
lations research, 27(5), 371-388.
- Schaarschmidt, M., & Walsh, G. (2020). Social
media-driven antecedents and consequences of
employees' awareness of their impact on corpo-
rate reputation. Journal of Business Re-
search, 117, 718-726.
,1 Defining corporate communication
- Key stakeholders are: shareholders, investors, customers, consumers, employees and
members of the community in which the company operates
- The core task of corporate communication practitioners is to build, maintain and protest the
company’s reputation
Definitions:
In the 70s, public relations described communication with stakeholders, where its function was to
communicate with press. Then, stakeholders started to demand more and more information from
the company, where the term expanded, including: corporate design, corporate advertising,
internal communication to employees, issues and crisis management, media relations, investor
relations, change communication and public affairs. The term now focusses on the organization as
a whole (corporate comes from corpus (body), which symbolises both internal and external).
Corporate communication = 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 → becomes complex when organizations have a wide geographical range, wide
range of products or services + different from business and management communication, because
these are more technical and applied, focussing on writing and presenting
Mission Overriding purpose of the organization, ideally in line with the values
and expectations of major stakeholders and concerned with
boundaries of the organization
Vision Desired future state: the aspiration of the organization
Corporate objectives Statement of → de precise (short-term) statements of overall aims in
line with the overall purpose, achieved by strategic initiatives
Strategy The ways or means in which the corporate objectives are to be
achieved and put into effect
Corporate identity The basic profile that an organization wants to project to all
stakeholders + values communicated by an organization
Corporate image The immediate set of associations of an individual in response to one
or more signals or messages from or about a particular organization at
a single point in time
Corporate reputation An individual’s collective representation of past images of an
organization (induced through either communication of past
experiences) established over time
Stakeholder Any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the
achievement of the organization’s objectives
Market A defined group for whom a product is or may be in demand (and for
whom an organization creates and maintains products and services)
Communication The tactics and media that are used to communicate with internal
and external groups
Integration The act of coordinating all communication so that the corporate
identity is effectively and consistently communicated to internal and
external groups
,80s: restructuring, where corporate organizations focus on their accountability and contribution,
which led to disciplines as media relations, advertising, sales and product publicity. These disciplines
shouldn’t be spread across different responsible people, which would lead to counterproductive,
sub-optimal fragmentation, but the organization should work on procedures, which makes
employees look after all of it too (communication guidelines, house-style manuals, council
meetings, networking platforms).
90s: positioning, strategically placing the organization in the minds of important stakeholders by
focussing on corporate identity, reputation and branding to foster favourable reputational position
in stakeholders’ decisions and preferences → this causes a linear model of communication, where
it is seen as a joint activity. Social media have also started to expect more interactive and
dialogue-based forms of communication. There is more focus on individual skills and interpersonal
situation within the organization.
, 4 Stakeholder management and communication
Stakeholder management became important due to pressures from governments and the
international community promoting the stakeholder perspective
Past – neo-classical economic theory Now – socio-economic theory
Suggests that the purpose of organizations is Suggests that accountability extends to other
to make profits in accountability to groups as well besides shareholders
themselves and shareholders. Only by this, a
company can contribute wealth for itself and Stakeholder model
the society at large.
Assumes that all people who hold interests in an
Input-output model organization do so to obtain benefits and there
is no priority for one set of interests over another.
Others are only contributing inputs, rewarded The arrows run in both directions, which shows
with a compensation mutual dependencies (interdependence)
Organizations engage with stakeholders for both instrumental (connection between stakeholder
management and corporate performance: reducing costs, increasing profit) and normative
reasons (appeal to underlying concepts as individual or group rights, social contracts and morality)
Stakeholder = any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the
organization’s purpose and objectives
- Primary group: people important for financial transactions and necessary for an
organization to survive, without this people’s participation, the organization can’t survive
- Secondary group: people who influence/affect the organization, but not engaged in
financial transactions (media and other special interest groups that have a moral or
normative interest and the capacity to mobilize public opinion)
- Contractual stakeholders have some form of legal relationship with the organization for the
exchange of goods/services (customers, employees, distributors, suppliers, shareholders,
lenders)
- Community stakeholders have a non-contractual relationship with the organization
(consumers, government, regulatory agencies, trade associations, local communities,
pressure groups, media)
Stake = an interest or share in an undertaking, that can range from simply an interest in an
undertaking to a legal claim of ownership. Special interest groups and NGO’s often demand higher
levels of corporate social responsibility from an organization → three types of stakes
1. Equity stakes: for who has direct ‘ownership’ of the organization → shareholders, directors or
minority interest owners
2. Economic or market stakes: for who has an economic interest, but not an ownership interest
→ employees, customers, suppliers and competitors
3. Influencer stakes: for who doesn’t have either an ownership or economic interest →
consumer advocates, environmental groups, trade organizations, government agencies
