According to the book Essentials of Corporate Communication by Cees van Riel and Charles Fombrun the term Corporate Communication can be defined as the set of activities involved in managing and orchestrating all internal and external communications aimed at creating favorable starting points with stakeholders on which the company depends. Corporate communication consists of the dissemination of information by a variety of specialists and generalists in an organization, with the common goal of enhancing the organization's ability to retain its license to operate.
Corporate communication serves as the liaison between an organization and its publics.
Organizations can strategically communicate to their
What corporate communication encodes and promotes?
1 Strong corporate culture
There does not seem to be any absolute definition for 'culture'. Generally speaking, we can say that culture is the acquired knowledge, enlightenment, beliefs, values, behaviors and customs of a reasonably large group of people at a particular place and time.
The easiest way to think of corporate culture is that it is an energy field that determines how people think, act, and view the world around them. I often compare culture to electricity. Culture is powerful and invisible and its effects are far reaching. Culture is an energy force that becomes woven through the thinking, behavior, and identity of those within the group.
Corporate culture is created naturally and automatically. Every time people come together with a shared purpose, culture is created. This group of people could be a family, neighborhood, project team, or company. Culture is automatically created out of the combined thoughts, energies, and attitudes of the people in the group. (debra Thomson.)
An organizational culture can be weak or strong. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
A strong organizational culture could be one were the majority of the the participants hold the same basic beliefs and values as applies to the organization. The people in this group may follow the perceived rules and ethical procedures that are basic to the organization, even if those values are not publicly stated by the organization.
This can be extremely valuable for building a team where all the participants have the same goals. Working together to improve efficiency or, possibly, communication with management could be some of the goals.
This could also be detrimental to the company if the rules and regulations become more important to the participants than the actual goals of the company. New people joining the company are consciously of unconsciously indoctrinated into the existing culture, making innovation hard to come by.
Examples of companies benefiting from the positive effects of corporate culture include:
• Wal-Mart. Founder Sam Walton’s concern and respect for staff from the foundation of the company creates an environment of trust that persists to this day. Walton met staff, calling them by their first name and encouraged change to maintain the competitive edge. To this day, staff think about “how Sam would have done it”.
• Southwest Airlines. Its relaxed culture can be traced back to unconventional CEO Herb Kelleher, who encourages informality and wants staff to have fun at their jobs. Employees are valued, with Kelleher acknowledging births, marriages and deaths by notes and cards. Staff are encouraged to pitch in and help out, especially at check-in, giving Southwest turnaround times less than half the industry average.
• Hewlett Packard. Problems several years ago encouraged HP to change its culture; staff are required to formulate three personal and three professional goals each year, and are encouraged to cheer those that meet them, such as getting away early to be with family. Two years into the program, HP reports no loss in productivity despite staff working shorter hours and there is an increased staff retention rate. The program has been marked by the extent to which managers bought in, and modeled it in their personal lives.
Robert Quinn and Kim Cameron researched what makes organizations effective and successful. Based on the Competing Values Framework, they developed the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument that distinguishes four culture types.
See their book: Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture.
Corporate culture and change
There are a number of methodologies specifically dedicated to corporate culture change such as Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline and Arthur F Carmazzi's Directive Communication. These are also a variety of psychological approaches that have been developed into a system for specific outcomes such as the Fifth Discipline’s “learning organization” or Directive Communication’s “corporate culture evolution.” Ideas and strategies, on the other hand, seem to vary according to particular influences that affect culture.
2 Coherent corporate identity:
Corporate identity is often viewed as being composed of three parts:
• Corporate design (logos, uniforms, corporate colours etc.)
• Corporate communication (advertising, public relations, information, etc.)
• Corporate behavior (internal values, norms, etc.)
In this process the corporate actors are of equal importance as those others; corporate identity pertains to the company (the group of corporate actors) as well as to the relevant others;
Corporate actors construct different identities in different contexts.
Corporate visual identity plays a significant role in the way an organization presents itself to both internal and external stakeholders.
The branding of some corporations is very familiar to many consumers, demonstrating how powerful the look and feel of company products can be. Most consumers around the world, for example, recognize the classic script font and red and white color scheme of the Coca-Cola label, or the yellow and red color scheme of McDonald's. Consistency of branding is a large issue, as consumers may reject products with entirely different design schemes.
As technology and mass media have continued to develop at exponential rates, the role of the media in business increases as well.
Finally, corporate behavior and ethics are a crucial component of corporate identity. Since some consumers actually base their buying habits on how companies act, many companies focus on presenting a very specific image. For example, a company may promote its use of green energy, the rejection of sweatshop labor, or products manufactured in a specific country. Publicly scrutinized members of the corporation are also generally expected to behave impeccably, ensuring the consumers think of the company in a good light.
3 Reasonable corporate philosophy.
The business mission and values espoused by the management board (or founder).
For example,
The Toyota Way is a set of principles and behaviors that underlie the Toyota Motor Corporation's managerial approach and production system. Toyota first summed up its philosophy, values and manufacturing ideals in 2001, calling it “The Toyota Way 2001.” It consists of principles in two key areas: 1) continuous improvement and 2) respect for people
For reasons as various as its philosophy of comprehensive aesthetic design to its distinctive advertising campaigns, Apple has established a unique reputation in the consumer electronics industry. This includes a customer base that is devoted to the company and its brand, particularly in the United States.[13] Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world in 2008, 2009, and 2010.
4 Genuine sense of
corporate citizenship.• Legal status of a corporation in the jurisdiction in which it was incorporated.
• A firm's sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates, and draws resources and sustenance from. Firms express this citizenship (1) through their waste and pollution reduction processes, (2) by contributing educational and social programs, and (3) by earning adequate returns on the employed resources.
Broadly speaking, the social responsibility of businesses may cover the following principles:
- Maintaining a high standard of business ethics
- Working as part of the community;
- Protecting the environment;
- Providing good corporate governance;
- Engaging in fair trade and business practices, as well as fair workplace relation.
5 An appropriate and professional relationship with the media.:
The media do not represent the only and the media to deal with advertising and publicity. Media is also the normal operations of the business, our daily reading the newspaper, watching TV, reading magazines, Internet, etc. In fact, and the media are dealing with. Directly or indirectly, the media customers. Media is also our internal customers, we have to learn to deal with the media in order to use the media to get more support and support. And the media to deal with our company an indispensable part of the work.
- on a strategic level look at the media.
- the establishment of media channels and relationships, we must operate within the media are familiar with the laws and hidden rules.
- a correct understanding of the importance of the media business.
- Media is a company's products and services in the market an important
- we must know your customer get to know the media
- how to interview with the media?
- attention and cultivate media relations starting from the day to day.
- enterprise planning and implementation of a press conference.
6 Quick, responsible ways of communicating in a crisis.
"A large part of crisis communication is the prevention of situations before they escalate to full-blown crises," said Steve Honig, president of The Honig Company, LLC, a firm that handles crises situations for several high-visibility companies. "The practice of crisis communication is a predictive art, whereby you must make correct assumptions and determine appropriate courses of action within a very short period of time."
Effectively responding to the challenges of a crisis requires more than the typical skills of the public relations professional, requiring instead experience at the highest levels of the field, such as investigative reporting, politics, and the White House.
The most challenging part of crisis communication management is reacting - with the right response - quickly. This is because behavior always precedes communication. Non-behavior or inappropriate behavior leads to spin, not communication. In emergencies, it's the non-action and the resulting spin that cause embarrassment, humiliation, prolonged visibility, and unnecessary litigation.
seven critical dimensions of crisis communication management:
- Operations;
- Victims;
- Trust/credibility;
- Behavior;
- Professional expectations;
- Ethics; and
- Lessons learned.
7 Understanding of communication tools and technologies:
Integrated communication can be achieved in various ways. The main four practices are:
- application of visual identity systems (sometimes referred to as "house style")
- use of integrated marketing communications;
- reliance on coordinating teams;
- adoption of a centralized planning system.
Modern business requires modern technology. Any business that expects to thrive today must have at least a basic understanding of the various innovations, programs and devices as well as the knowledge of how to apply these technologies. The many tools and powers that technology makes available to the business owner and employees can help the business succeed in its goals after understanding how to use them properly.
- Collaboration.
- Telephony
- Online Media
- Social Media.
- Automation.
8 Sophisticated approaches to global communications.:
Global communication is the process of transmitting and receiving information on a world-wide scale.
At present, Global Communication has become incresaingly important as new technologies are evoking fundamental changes in the character of our society. Evolving technology has changed life on social, cultural and political levels. New technologies are changing:
- the way people work and how business' are run
- how people are able to interact and relate
- the way people learn, create and process information; and
- It continues to alter the way a person views their community and their standing in the world
- Global Communications provides a variety of business-critical communications and storage messaging services through its global communications/telephony/messaging network.
How an organization communicates with its employees, its extended audiences, the press and its customers brings its values to life. Corporate communications is all about managing perceptions and ensuring:
• Effective and timely dissemination of information
• Positive corporate image
• Smooth and affirmative relationship with all stakeholders
Be it a corporate body, company, organization, institution, non-governmental organization, governmental body, all of them need to have a respectable image and reputation. In today's day and age of increasing competition, easy access to information and the media explosion, reputation management has gained even more importance. Therefore, corporate communications as a role has become significant and professional in nature.
Gone are the days when corporate communication merely meant 'wining and dining the client' - it has now emerged as a science and art of perception management.
