Corporate Communication: Theory and Practice

Citation

Mills, C. (2012), "Corporate Communication: Theory and Practice", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 420-424. https://doi.org/10.1108/13632541211279049

Corporate communication spans the discipline of communication but is primarily directed toward the integration of public relations and marketing around the strategic management of an organization's reputation. Consequently, it has a strongly managerial and whole‐of‐organization focus, addressing as it does all the communication concerned with the organization as a corporate entity (Christensen et al., 2008; Harrison, 1995; Jackson, 1987). This means corporate communication scholars and practitioners are typically preoccupied with organizing communication rather than understanding how communication organizes (Christensen and Cornelisson, 2011, p. 248). They are fundamentally concerned with the “integration, coordination and orchestration” of all communication (Christensen et al., 2008, p. 387) to do with an organization's reputation, brand, organizational identity, stakeholders, shareholders, publics and markets. This accounts for their concern with the alignment of image, vision and organizational culture and therefore the assumption that an organization can achieve a monological and all‐consuming identity narrative. This is despite the growing recognition that, both at the conceptual and operational level, this is problematic (see Humphreys and Brown, 2002). Joep Cornelissen, while clearly concerned about the limitations of portraying organizations as unitary entities (Christensen and Cornelisson, 2011), sidesteps the question of mono‐ vs heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981) in complex contemporary organizations and largely approaches corporate communication as the management of a single coherent corporate image in this new edition of his widely respected text Corporate Communication: Theory and Practice.

This new text is the embodiment of coherency and unity. It is divided into five parts: Introduction to Corporate Communication, Conceptual Foundations, Corporate Communication in Practice, Specialist Areas of Corporate Communication and New developments in Corporate Communication. Each chapter within these five parts has an overview, introduction, summary, discussion questions, key terms and further reading. Within the body of each chapter, well‐structured subsections address key terms and processes and are elaborated upon using references to the literature and comprehensive corporate cases. It is an effective formula that will ensure students and practitioners alike can navigate their way efficiently around the text and appreciate the practical applications of its content.

The first and second chapters (Part 1) present a refined and particularly lucid and economical account of corporate communication, which skilfully sets the scene for the rest of the book. The chapters in Part 2 then elaborate on the key concepts of stakeholder management (Chapter 3), and corporate identity, corporate branding and reputation (Chapter 4). Part 3 addresses the development of corporate communication strategy (Chapter 5), the specifics of planning and executing corporate communication programmes and campaigns (Chapter 6) and the integration of research and measurement into corporate communication practices (Chapter 7). Part 4 examines media relations (Chapter 8), internal communication (Chapter 9), issues management and public affairs (Chapter 10) and crisis management (Chapter 11). Finally, Part 5 explores leadership and change (Chapter 12) and corporate social responsibility and community relations (Chapter 13). For the tertiary educator, a companion web site provides additional resources such as an instructors’ manual. PowerPoint slides, online reading and web links to support these chapters.

As a whole, the text authoritatively outlines the accepted practice of corporate communication management, using foundational concepts and relevant models. In so doing, it provides a solid introduction to the field. For the more advanced scholar or practitioner, however, the book engenders a sense of déjà vu. The case studies deal with largely the same national and multi‐national organizations we find in other corporate communication and strategy textbooks (e.g., IBM, Shell, Starbucks, British Airways, Barclay's Bank, FedEx, and Body Shop). Missing are “new finds”; those unfamiliar organizations with corporate communication practices that inspire and challenge us to reconsider how we see corporate communication. Most significantly, the reliance on the “usual suspects” perpetrates the view that corporate communication is about the “big guns” in a largely Anglo‐American‐Western European corporate world, despite these organizations representing a small proportion of the corporate world globally. While Cornelissen claims to take an international approach, Asian, Eastern European, Pacific and African cases and vignettes are relatively scarce. This is disappointing as it does not encourage the reader to reflect on the inconsistencies and challenges cultural difference introduces into the global marketplace (e.g. with regard to corporate social responsibility; Husted and Allen, 2006) and the organizations that must operate within it (e.g. with regard to culturally diverse work groups).

All chapters contain valuable insights and sound advice so, for the sake of expediency, I have chosen to focus on those few those chapters that raised issues. The first of these chapters is the one addressing research and measurement (Chapter 7). While this is a persuasive chapter that leaves the reader in no doubt that corporate communication needs to be a reflexive and data‐driven field of practice, particularly with regard to corporate reputation and identity, it does raise an issue about the place of research in this book. Ironically, despite this chapter's emphasis on research and measurement, the text as a whole does not explore in any depth many new empirical findings in the field. Both the conceptual and research literature cited, like the companies in the cases, is generally very familiar. Many of the scholarly works mentioned have been informing the field of corporate communication for more than a decade. Perhaps as a consequence, Chapter 7 pays no attention to how to research and measure the impact of new media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). How does a corporate communication manager monitor and assess the impact of social media activity on corporate reputation and identity? What can be done to protect a company from negative electronic word of mouth (eWOM)?[1]

Related and equally important topics, such as the demand organizations now face for greater transparency (Jamali and Mirshak, 2007), and issues raised by the consequences of corporate globalization, particularly the cultural diversity this brings to both the marketplace and internal organizational processes, are dealt with fleetingly or, in some cases, not at all. For example, in Chapter 8 (Section 8.5: The New Media Landscape), Cornelissen discusses the important matter of how new media are democratizing the production and distribution of news about organizations but elsewhere he does not take the opportunity to discuss the important challenges new social media present to the core corporate communication concepts of publics and markets. Similarly, while he does mention the way new media offer new ways to interact with stakeholders, he does not explore the way new media can rapidly escalate crises (Mei et al., 2010). Given the recent demonstrations of the power of social media to mobilize people in the Middle East and England, a chapter dedicated to these topics in the final section of the book (Part 5: New Developments in Corporate Communication) would have been welcome. Instead, the new developments are restricted to considerations of leadership and change communication (Chapter 12) and corporate social responsibility and community relations (Chapter 13).

While there is no doubt the shift from framing organizations as merely economic units, charged with producing profits and paying dividends to shareholders, to being socially responsible citizens in a wider social system is a relatively new development that is redefining aspects of corporate communication, the reader cannot help wondering why a chapter on leadership and change communication is included in a section on new developments. Both leadership and change have always been inevitable parts of corporate life. What is relatively new is the shift toward portraying corporate leadership as a discursive phenomenon and therefore inextricably linked to framing. Framing is discussed in Chapter 12 as well as elsewhere in the book and Gail Fairhurst's (2007) seminal book on discursive leadership is listed as further reading for Chapter 12. However, I would have liked the implications for corporate communication programs and campaigns of a discursive view of leadership and the notion of framing styles, which, coincidently, Fairhurst addresses in her newest book The Power of Framing: Creating the Language of Leadership (Fairhurst, 2011), to have been explored. Just how does a corporate communicator take into account the discursive nature of leadership and the fact that leaders have discursive styles and some styles are better suited to some communication situations and not others styles? How can leaders’ framing styles be matched to the corporate communication objectives? Is a corporate communication manager also a leadership coach? And, given that Cornelissen observes that leadership is something managers at all levels do, does this mean corporate communication involves coaching all levels in the organization? I am not sure how Cornelissen would answer these questions as he does not really resolve the tension between seeing leadership as vested in individuals and being a distributed phenomenon.

In this same chapter (Chapter 12), Cornelissen (pp. 225‐6) proposes that leaders use narratives to communicate a coherent rationale for a particular change but fails to provide guidance on constructing narratives to ensure they function as effective sense‐giving tools during times of change. Similarly, the importance of conversation between change managers or leaders and their employees is stressed but the opportunity to explicate how conversation brings about effective dialogue is not taken. This is unfortunate, particularly given the power dialogue has for creating a sound foundation for collaborative action and ethical workplaces (Deetz, 1995) and, as a consequence, effective organizational change. I would have liked the dialogue strategy that was first mentioned in Chapter 3 (pp. 49‐50) to be revisited and developed in relation to change management in Chapter 12.

These observations suggest the chapters would have benefited by being longer so that more empirical studies and a wider variety of lenses could have been brought to bear and some topics, like the development of an effective foundation for organizational change through the development of dialogic spaces within the organization, developed further. Longer chapters would have implications for the cases as well. Cases are useful as illustrations but without a full discussion of the themes they illustrate, including the examination of conflicting philosophies, new theories and empirical findings, cases can encourage an overly simplified and uncritical view of what is, in this instance, an increasingly complex and dynamic managerial function.

The realities of the contemporary business world are challenging the meaning of many corporate communication concepts, particularly ones like corporate identity, public, market and media relations, which have meanings aligned to perspectives of management rooted in modernity. New communication technologies and globalization are redefining organizations and the stakeholder groups that define them (Aggarwal, 2008), with the result that contemporary organizations and their communities are becoming more fluid and diffuse and stakeholders more business savvy. Stakeholders have both the will and the means to engage with organizations and, increasingly, are choosing to do so on their own terms. We can see this with regard to consumers’ relationships with organizations, which are increasingly becoming a matter of collaboration and co‐provision rather than merely provision (Dholakia and Firat, 2006). I would have liked this text to have finished with a chapter that explored the implications for the future of corporate communication practices in this post‐modern context of redefined stakeholder relationships, increased cultural diversity and rapidly expanding technology options and accessibility.

Overall, despite these few reservations and suggestions, I enjoyed reading Corporate Communication: Theory and Practice. It is a well organized and thoroughly readable text that provides an interesting introduction to the field of corporate communication. While there is undoubtedly scope to enhance the depth with which the text explores relevant new empirical work and captures some of the more compelling and perplexing challenges of corporate life in the twenty‐first century, it is a text richly endowed with well‐developed cases and vignettes that bring to life the concepts covered. It will undoubtedly find a place on many student and corporate bookshelves.

Note

See Chan and Ngai (2011) for a systematic review of the literature on eWOM.