2. Literature Review
2.1. What is Corporate Communication?
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2. Literature Review
2.1. What is Corporate Communication?
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 favorable reputations with stakeholder groups upon which the organization is dependent (Cornelissen, 2014).
Corporate communication is an approach instead of a technique. It has developed into an essential management discipline. It is an approach that sets out to ensure the consistency of the corporate message and the transparency of the organization. It can be a function that anticipates issues, events, and crises before they occur. Organizations conveys its desired image and identity through message and channels (Dolphin, 1999).
According to Corporate Communication: A Marketing Viewpoint by Klement Podnar in 2014 (Podnar, 2014), he explained in an academic prospect, corporate communication can be seen as a comprehensive framework to every single field in organizational communication and the coordination of knowledge, including:
- Business Communication
Figure 1: Framework of Corporate Communication (Podnar, Corporate Communication: A Marketing Viewpoint, 2014)
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Business communication indicates to all communications whose purpose is to generate profit for the business. It can be communication such as business meetings with strategic partners, interviews with potential employees, presentations to customers, emails to negotiate with suppliers……etc. The form of business communication includes but doesn’t limit to external, internal, verbal, or written. As long as it is a communication that accompany profit-oriented activities.
- Organizational Communication
Organizational communication, different from business communication, focuses on the communication which flows within the organization, whether it is vertical, horizontal, or transversal information. Organizational communication requires interpersonal skills and an overall understanding of the organization and its climate. The communication lies within the organization and holding the organization together like glues.
- Management Communication
Management communication combines both business communication and organizational communication together, then transform it into a management context. It includes communication which facilitates the organization’s profit and also teamwork and interpersonal behavior. For multinational corporations, management communication also includes cross-cultural communication. It includes but not limited to the hierarchical position.
- Public Relations
Public relations is a management function including planning, execution, and evaluation of the environment internally in the organization and externally in the public and establish a mutually beneficial relationship between both. The approach can be in different shapes such as press conferences, announcements, publicity, lobbying, events, crisis communication, speech, presentations, donations……etc.
- Marketing Communication
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Marketing communication is a method focusing on involving consumers in a relationship with an organization. Every marketing communication is aimed at or gradually supporting the organizations business. Marketing communication includes all kinds of communication activities performed by a company to offer its products to the audience in the target market.
Examples are such as advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, personal selling……etc.
This is the communication model combining the concept of corporate communication according to Corporate Communication: A Marketing Viewpoint by Klement Podnar in 2014 (Podnar, 2014). WHO will be the corporate identity or corporate image. Corporate identity or corporate image is a formality which the corporation presents to the public. Some corporate identity or image are put together into a brand logo or trademark. The brand logo conveys the corporation’s characters to the crowds.
After identifying the corporation’s characteristics, SAY WHAT will be the content that corporate would like to convey to the stakeholders, and TO WHOM will be the stakeholders.
How does corporate classify their stakeholders? First of all, they would need corporate branding to facilitate the company’s business. Corporate branding will be the main introduction for a company to introduce itself to why they are different from their competitors and draw consumers’ attention to purchase their service or product.
Secondly, when a corporation is recruiting employees, corporate communication will be a different approach. Potential employees care about the benefits and the welfares the corporation can provide such as better salary packages, better than average welfare, nice office
Figure 2 Classical communication model (Podnar, Corporate Communication: A Marketing Viewpoint, 2014)
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environment……etc. Therefore, employer branding is also included in the SAY WHAT stage.
Thirdly, the audience corporates are branding towards can also be the crowd which is not the corporate target audience or their potential employee pool. there are other branding methods that can communicate to them. It is the ethical branding and corporate social responsibility.
Corporations would give back to the sociality as goodwill as well as branding to convey their positive image to the crowds.
With the above branding, the audience, TO WHOM is obvious. Stakeholders can be the corporation’s consumer, the direct target audience who they would choose to purchase the product or service. Furthermore, the crowd can also be the future employee of the corporation.
Last, to the crowds which is not touched by corporation branding or employee branding, While TO WHOM and SAY WHAT have both been defined as above, the next is to define the channel to deliver the message corporate would like the message to be heard. In order to show their difference among their competitors and show the audience the reasons to pick them instead of others through storytelling. For example, The Honest Company, a brand launched by famous Hollywood actress Jessica Alba, corporate branding through telling the story of her not able to find products in the market which is able to solve her and her kids’ skin issue and is safe to use. On the other hand, when corporate encounter scandals or negative brand information delivered to the crowd, crisis management is also a part of the HOW. Most importantly, corporate communication is the other share of the HOW. Corporate would need to constantly deliver the corporate information to the employees. Therefore, employees will be clear and comfortable working in the corporation. Examples will be as later mentioned in this study.
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During the SAY WHAT, the above paragraphs mentioned that it would be the brandings.
However, the chart defined that the purpose of SAY WHAT in WITH WHAT PURPOSE, the mission of SAY WHAT is actually setting up a reputation and also trust from the audience. As the example of The Honest Company, the brand tries to deliver its product is able to solve skin issues and safe to use for adults and kids. The image they choose to put on their company introduction is a photo of Jessica Alba and her three kids sitting on a couch with her kissing one of her youngest children as an expression of a mother’s love and family joy.
Figure 3 The Honest Company corporate image on official website (The Honest Company, 2020)
Finally, the last segment of the communication model is WITH WHAT EFFECT. After implementing corporate identity with branding through storytelling, the output should mirror back to corporate identity. If not, corporate would need to review the entire communication model and find out if there is any step that has been misconducted.
This chapter defines the concept of corporate communication. In this chapter, the studies have shown some important takeaways. Firstly, according to Joep Cornelissen’s Corporate Communication: A Guide to Theory and Practice in 2014 (Cornelissen, 2014), he mentioned that corporate communication is a management function. Also, Richard R. Dolphin’s The Fundamentals of Corporate Communication in 1999 (Dolphin, 1999) mentioned that corporate communication is an approach instead of a technique and it has developed into an essential management discipline. Both two scholars have pointed out that corporate communication is a management approach. It is most likely that corporate communication will be left out during
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actual practice in corporate communication when it is not a technique that is essential in a corporate function.
Secondly, the study breaks corporate communication down using the Framework of Corporate Communication by Klement Podnar’s Corporate Communication: A Marketing Viewpoint in 2014 (Podnar, 2014) into five parts. It helps readers to better understand what exactly is corporate communication in a day to day corporation operation. Even though it analyzes corporate communication with macro, micro, organizational, unitary, external or internal, in the end it all needs management communication to coordinate all communication which also mirrors back to previously mentioned that corporate communication is a management approach.
In closing, the study explains the steps of conducting corporate communication with the communication model combining the concept of corporate communication according to Corporate Communication: A Marketing Viewpoint by Klement Podnar in 2014 (Podnar, 2014).
It helps readers to understand the steps in conducting corporate communication through a marketing perspective.
2.1.1. The Advantages and Benefits of Corporate Communication
According to The Theory and Practice of Corporate Communication: A Competing Values Perspective by Alan T. Belasen in 2007 (Belasen, 2007), he points out the benefits of corporate communication
1. It can increase the harmony among marketing communication, organizational communication, and management communication. Moreover, it can maximize the output between corporate strategy, organizational identity, and external image.
2. It is able to sustain the effort to institutionalize the corporation through branding and legitimization (Belasen, 2007).
3. It is able to facilitate the coordination of communication activities for the most ideal implementation of policies and decision making (Belasen, 2007).
The chapter listed out the benefit of implementing corporate communication. Corporate communication can help the company run smoother internally as there will be more
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understanding of different departments such as management communication and organizational communication. With the understanding, it is able to maximize the output of corporate strategy.
2.1.2. The Challenges of Corporate Communication
The previous section defined corporate communication and its benefit which brings after implementing, below the study has collected four major shortcomings based on Rudolf Beger’s Present-Day Corporate Communication: A Practice-Oriented, State-of-the-Art Guide in 2018 (Beger, 2018):
Perception and Prejudice: The fact that corporate communication occasionally overlaps its work with marketing communication also it is not a technique, is easily neglected by the top management during the corporation strategic decision-making process.
Qualification: It is common in which corporate communication is led by dilettante because top management doesn’t value corporate communication as a professional field that requires specific professionals to handle.
Internal Competition: Corporate communication would need to cooperate with the marketing team or public relationship teams. However, it can easily be an obstacle cross-department cooperation due to lack of interpersonal.
Accountability: Firstly, the major challenge for corporate communication function to hold accountability during annual reviews. There are some challenges when it comes to setting a measurable contribution to corporate communication since the results are hard to measure.
Information overload: Nowadays, there is too much information coming in every day.
From the cell phone notification to the emails from customers, stakeholders, shareholders, and internal. Corporate communication officers also face information overload as well as its audience. It is one of the challenges corporate communication officers would need to brainstorm in order to solve the problem so the audience internally and externally is able to focus on the message.
In this chapter, there are the challenges that corporate communication faces during implementing, such as the lack of appreciation towards corporate communication and the struggle in which the effort and outcome are not easily measured.
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2.1.3. Implementation of Corporate Communication
According to Rossella Gambetti, Stephen Quigley’s Managing Corporate Communication: A Cross-Cultural Approach in 2012 (Rossella Gambetti, Stephen Quigley, 2012), Corporate Communication Officers are required to act as
- a key informant to the CEO: corporate communication officers would need to be capable in both the social context and the needs of the corporation’s stakeholders. They would need to report it back to Chief Executive Officer which is able to include them in the decision-making process which will then align with the company’s identity and society’s expectation.
- a strategic advisor to the CEO: corporate communication officers are as important as the business directors where communication is important in order to deliver a systematic, synergistic and consistent messages within the corporation and throughout the external environment.
- a specialized manager: corporate communication officers are capable in coordinating communication activities as well as planning in order to obtain the maximum consistency of corporate image and boost corporate reputation.
The chapter discussed the roles of corporate communication officer character in the corporation. It is essential to implement corporate communication with the knowledge mentioned in this chapter as the undesirable outcomes which are stated in 2.1.2.
While above mentioned the role of corporate communication officers should be, below there are some key principles according to Rudolf Beger’s Present-Day Corporate Communication: A Practice-Oriented, State-of-the-Art Guide in 2018 (Beger, 2018):
- Integrated Communication
Corporate communication officers are obliged to research and analyze their target audiences in a rather integrated methods, such as online, mobile or in person, and stimulate harmonized integrated corporate communication among all sorts of communication, including all corporate functions which relate to representing the corporate identity to the audiences, public affairs, media relations, social media communication, marketing communication, trade show activities, government relations, advertising, sales promotion, sponsoring, donations.
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Nevertheless, external communication activities by the company’s top management team is also included in the stimulation of harmonized integrated corporate communication. It is a concept of one message and one voice delivered and conveyed to the crowd so the crowd will not be misled by the discrepancy.
The benefit of integrated communication in corporate communication is that it emphasizes the consistency of the corporate identity which reinforces more credibility. It also would enhance the effectiveness of the information delivered to the audience. Moreover, it is more cost-effective as well considering the same marketing materials can be shared and reused.
However, the obstacles for integrated communication in corporate communication can be the internal power battle. For example, the marketing materials are shared for different usage yet the budget to create the marketing material might not be shared. It can also cause internal competition and other internal inefficiencies.
- New Generation Communication
As the technology is changing rapidly, human behaviors as well. Back in the days, the marketing channels were through newspapers, television commercials while nowadays, people would read news through social media and online media. Corporate communication needs to be on the track of the game change. The evolution of communication also helps the message to be delivered to the audience more analytical and systematic. It is able to aim at the company’s target audience demographic and also the feedback is able to receive and then analyze the return on investment which is not available for traditional media. However, traditional media still plays an important role in delivering messages. For different industries or cases, the role of traditional media and online media vary.
- Two-Way Communication
There are two-way communications such as asymmetrical and symmetrical. In asymmetrical communication, it would depend on the relationship between the communicator and the message receiver. The communicator is delivering the message which message receivers are not equipped. Examples can be press releases, brochures which promote the corporate and the product or service given. Two-way asymmetric Corporate Communication is generally focusing on accomplishing short-term attitude change. It is mainly used in influencing
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the target group’s thinking instead of changing the views. It is more used by competitive, profit-driven companies instead of non-profit organizations or government own companies. On the other hand, a two-way symmetrical communication focuses on mutual understanding instead of one-way persuasion. It emphasizes negotiation and the willingness to adapt and make compromises. Also, it is more used in non-profit organizations or government own companies.
Two-way symmetrical communication is used during crisis management or internal communication.
The chapter has pointed out the implementation of corporate communication where there are some method corporate communication officers is able to reflect on their workload and adjust their communication method towards their audience.