Key success and competitive factors of digital communication strategies analyzed through the lens of strategic choice and determinism


Master's Thesis, 2019

155 Pages, Grade: 1,00


Excerpt


Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary

2. Introduction
2.1. Problem Statement
2.2. Purpose of the Master’s Thesis
2.3. Research Questions
2.4. Delimitation
2.5. Outline of the Thesis

3. Literature Review
3.1. Review Approach and Literature Selection
3.2. Corporate Communication
3.2.1. Corporate Communication Strategy
3.2.2. Types of Corporate Communication Strategies
3.2.3. Framework of Corporate Communication Strategy Typologies
3.3. Strategic Choice versus Determinism
3.3.1. Strategic Choice
3.3.2. Determinism
3.3.3. A Connected and Expanded View of Strategic Choice and Determinism
3.3.4. The Continuum of Strategic Choice and Determinism

4. Research Design & Methodology
4.1. Research Method
4.2. Population and Sample
4.2.1. Overview of selected Corporations
4.3. Data Collection and Analysis
4.3.1. Units of Data Collection and Analysis
4.3.2. Content Analysis Indicators and Evaluation Methodology
4.3.3. Illustrative Example

5. Results
5.1. Distribution of Coding Units
5.2. Corporate Communication Strategy Results
5.2.1. Digital Corporate Communication Strategy Results
5.2.2. Social Media Corporate Communication Strategy Results
5.2.3. Website Corporate Communication Strategy Results
5.3. Assessment of Corporate Communication Strategies regarding Strategic Choice and Determinism
5.3.1. Strategic Choice and Determinism Interpretations of Corporations’ Digital Corporate Communication Strategies
5.3.2. Strategic Choice and Determinism Interpretations per Corporations’ Context Units
5.3.3. Strategic Choice and Determinism Indicator Analysis per Context Unit

6. Discussion
6.1. Generation of Hypotheses
6.1.1. Stakeholder-based Corporate Communication Strategy through the Lens of Strategic Choice and Determinism
6.1.2. Content-based Corporate Communication Strategy through the Lens of Strategic Choice and Determinism
6.1.3. Objective-based Corporate Communication Strategy through the Lens of Strategic Choice and Determinism
6.2. Discussion of Research Questions
6.3. Academic Implications
6.4. Practical Implications
6.5. Limitations and Potential for Further Research

7. Conclusion

8. List of References

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the team of the Institute of Strategic Management at the JKU for not only having given me the opportunity to write this Master’s Thesis, but also for the experience of having been an academic research assistant for a total of two semesters.

I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Regina Gattringer for supervising my thesis. Furthermore, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Sabine Reisinger for the introduction to the topic of this thesis, her continuous support in writing this thesis and our insightful discussions. Moreover, I am beyond thankful for the invaluable support of my parents without whom both my academic degrees would not have been achievable. Last but not least, I want to thank my girlfriend for her tremendous patience and support.

List of Figures

Figure 1: Main assumption and research questions

Figure 2: Corporate communication as an integrated framework for managing communication (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 81)

Figure 3: Corporate communication strategy comes before the communication plan (Steyn, 2004, p. 181)

Figure 4: Stakeholder typology (Mitchell et al., 1997, p. 874)

Figure 5: Models of organization-stakeholder communication (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 112)

Figure 6: “Relation of strategic choices and environmental determinism in organizational adaptation” (Hrebiniak & Joyce, 1985, p. 339)

Figure 7: The strategic choice – determinism continuum based on the reviewed literature

Figure 8: Coding unit example

Figure 9: Analyzed corporations’ positions on the strategic choice-determinism continuum

Figure 10: Positions of corporate communication per context unit on the strategic choice-determinism continuum

List of Tables

Table 1: Overview of corporate communication strategy typologies based on the literature used in the literature review

Table 2: A classification of collectives (reconstruction based on Astley and Fombrun (1983, p. 580))

Table 3: Overview of selected corporations

Table 4: Overview of selected corporations’ websites

Table 5: Overview of selected corporations’ analyzed social media profiles

Table 6: Internal stakeholder group and its respective indicators

Table 7: External stakeholder groups and their respective indicators

Table 8: Expertise corporate communication strategy indicators

Table 9: Image corporate communication strategy indicators

Table 10: Informational corporate communication strategy indicators

Table 11: Persuasive corporate communication strategy indicators

Table 12: Involvement corporate communication strategy indicators

Table 13: Strategic choice indicators

Table 14: Determinism indicators

Table 15: Enumeration of analyzed coding units per corporation

Table 16: Dominant digital communication strategies per corporation

Table 17: Distribution of digital communication strategies per corporation

Table 18: Dominant social media communication strategies per corporation

Table 19: Distribution of social media communication strategies per corporation

Table 20: Distribution of social media communication strategies per corporations’ Facebook context units

Table 21: Facebook context units’ stakeholder-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 22: Facebook context units’ content-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 23: Facebook context units’ objective-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 24: Distribution of social media communication strategies per corporations’ Instagram context units

Table 25: Instagram context units’ stakeholder-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 26: Instagram context units’ content-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 27: Instagram context units’ objective-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 28: Distribution of social media communication strategies per corporations’ Twitter context units

Table 29: Twitter context units’ stakeholder-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 30: Twitter context units’ content-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 31: Twitter context units’ objective-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 32: Distribution of social media communication strategies per corporations’ Linkedin context units

Table 33: LinkedIn context units’ stakeholder-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 34: LinkedIn context units’ content-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 35: LinkedIn context units’ objective-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 36: Dominant website communication strategies per corporation

Table 37: Distribution of website communication strategies per corporation

Table 38: Website context units’ stakeholder-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 39: Website context units’ content-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 40: Website context units’ objective-based communication strategy indicator results

Table 41: Dominant assessment of strategic choice and determinism per corporations’ entire digital communication

Table 42: Breakdown of strategic choice and determinism assessments per corporations’ context units

Table 43: Strategic choice indicators per analyzed context unit

Table 44: Determinism indicators per analyzed context unit

Table 45: Comparison of stakeholder-based indicators with regards to corporations’ positions on the strategic choice – determinism continuum

Table 46: Comparison of content-based communication strategy distributions with regards to corporations’ positions on the strategic choice – determinism continuum

Table 47: Comparison of content-based indicators with regards to corporations’ positions on the strategic choice – determinism continuum

Table 48: Comparison of objective-based communication strategy distributions with regards to corporations’ positions on the strategic choice – determinism continuum

Table 49: Comparison of objective-based indicators with regards to corporations’ positions on the strategic choice – determinism continuum

List of Abbreviations

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1 . Executive Summary

Corporate communication has always been a deciding factor for corporate success as it represents organizations’ central function for interacting with key stakeholders such as customers, shareholders, employees and members of the society (Long & Hazelton, 1987; van Riel & Blackburn, 1995). However, since the beginning of the 21st century and the rise of the internet as well as social media, corporate communication has become one of the key competitive differentiators for corporations worldwide, offering unprecedented potential in terms of exposure to and contact with stakeholders through high-speed, large-scale and high volume information diffusion possibilities (e.g. Adams & Frost, 2006; Capriotti, 2011; Ki & Hon, 2006; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010). The importance of corporate communication as a strategic management function has thus led to the creation and execution of a multitude of corporate communication strategies targeting distinct stakeholders, featuring different types of contents and pursuing various objectives (e.g. Argenti, 1996; Christensen, Morsing, & Cheney, 2008; Grunig, 1992; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010; Morsing & Schultz, 2006; Moss & Warnaby, 1998; Steyn, 2004).

The concepts of strategic choice and determinism have represented a source of academic debate since the beginning of scholarly research within the fields of strategic management and organizational science (e.g. Astley & van de Ven, 1983; Bourgeois, 1984; Child, 1997; Hrebiniak & Joyce, 1985). On the one hand, strategic choice views managerial action as the primary source of power behind organizational decisions and, on the other, determinism regards the environment and internal structures of organizations as limiting human latitude for actions, thus placing events originating from outside management-related spheres of influence at the primary position for influencing any type of organizational behavior (e.g. Aldrich, 1979; Child, 1972; Whittington, 1988).

This Master’s Thesis’ main assumption is that corporate communication strategies vary depending on whether corporations show high levels of strategic choice or determinism. In order to thoroughly evaluate this assumption, both fields of research are initially reviewed individually in order to then establish a mutual empirical framework for conducting research on the matter. As a result of this thesis’ research, hypotheses concerning the above-stated assumption are generated.

The first part of this Master’s Thesis reviews high-quality literature on the concepts of strategic choice versus determinism and the field of corporate communication. Regarding the latter topic, the corporate communication function is regarded as being part of the functional level of strategy within organizations (Steyn, 2004). Furthermore, three different main typologies containing a total of eight sub-typologies of corporate communication strategies are proposed (e.g., Argenti, 1996; Christensen, Morsing, & Cheney, 2008; Grunig, 1992; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010; Morsing & Schultz, 2006; Moss & Warnaby, 1998; Steyn, 2004): Stakeholder-based communication strategy (consisting of internal and external communication strategies); Content-based corporate communication strategy (classified into expertise, image and hybrid communication strategies); Objective-based corporate communication strategy (composed of informational, persuasive and involvement communication strategies). Concerning the concept of strategic choice versus determinism, it is assumed that each organization is placed at a particular location on a continuum between full strategic choice and maximum determinism depending on a variety of relevant organizational and environmental factors (e.g. Astley & van de Ven, 1983; Hrebiniak & Joyce, 1985). In this context, the two contrasting but intertwined concepts are separately taken into account from micro and macro perspectives (e.g. Astley & Fombrun, 1983; Drazin & van Ven, 1985; Jarzabkowski & Fenton, 2006; Miles & Snow, 1984). The literature review concludes with the establishment of two frameworks which are based on both reviewed fields of research, strategic choice versus determinism and corporate communication, respectively. These frameworks firstly constitute summaries of the most important generated insights within the literature review and, secondly, the theoretical structures upon which the research methodology of this thesis’ empirical part is built.

For the purpose of assessing the main assumption of this Master’s Thesis and answering its related research questions, digital communication channels consisting of corporate websites and selected social media profiles of 25 of the 500 highest-grossing Austrian companies were analyzed in the empirical part of this thesis using methods derived from content analysis. In this regard, the employed research methodology is solely based on insights gathered from the literature review of this thesis. Consequently, the research results were firstly categorized according to predefined divisions and indicators of corporate communication strategies and, secondly, these results were further classified based on the selected companies’ positions on the established strategic choice and determinism continuum. In total, the conducted research consisted of a comprehensive analysis of 112 corporate social media profiles and websites containing 813 coding units (i.e., social media posts and corporate website elements), which were further analyzed on the basis of 3324 identified indicators. A correlation analysis of the results did indicate enough significance in order to generate several hypotheses in favor of this Master’s Thesis’ main assumption and consequently answer all stipulated research questions. In short, findings indicate that companies with high levels of strategic choice prefer image-based, informational and multi-stakeholder targeted communication strategies compared to deterministic companies, which are more likely to employ customer-focused, expertise-based and persuasive communication strategies. Notwithstanding the inherent limitations of this Master’s Thesis, implications for both academia and practitioners were discovered and potential for further research was found.

2. Introduction

2.1. Problem Statement

The appearance of the World Wide Web in 1993 did not only signal the beginning of a new age of information but also introduced a new digital competitive dimension for corporations worldwide, which, in turn, signaled the birth of digital communication strategies (Leiner, B., Cerf, V., Clark, D., Kahn, R., Kleinrock, L., Lynch, D., Roberts, L., and Wolff, S., 1997). While this was not as obvious back then, ever since the massive worldwide rise in internet adoption of the early 2000s and, at the very latest since the introduction of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or Youtube, there has been no doubt about the massive competitive impact as well as stakeholder implications of digital corporate communication strategies (Colleoni, 2013; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010). This development has not only completely changed the relationship between different organizations both from a competitive point of view as well as concerning the stakeholder environment, but it has also introduced several advantages and disadvantages for all involved parties. Some of the advantages are that companies may reach more diverse target groups in a more accurate way with higher amounts of information, while stakeholders have direct access to both a higher quality and quantity of data than ever (Adams & Frost, 2006). However, disadvantages are represented by the either unregulated or overregulated nature of online information flow (Adams & Frost, 2006; Yang, 2016), leading to the excessive presence of low-quality information that may pose multiple risks (Adams & Frost, 2006; Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Chesney & Citron, 2018).

Digital communication strategies are powerful tools of public relations and therefore represent an essential part of an organization’s general corporate communication strategy (Ki & Hon, 2006). The purpose of corporate communication strategies is the transmission of relevant strategic issues to various internal and external stakeholders and is, in turn, part of an organization’s functional strategy (Steyn, 2004). And, together with other functional departments (e.g., marketing, finance or operations) which constitute an organization’s entire functional strategy, it represents the third level of organizational strategy which is derived from the second level, the business strategy, which, in turn, is based on the highest level of organizational strategy, the corporate strategy (Vancil & Lorange, 1975). Strategic management defines the above-mentioned organizational strategy across all its levels with the goal of carrying out activities that strive to successfully compete in a given environment using concepts such as competitive business strategies (Porter, 1985), resource-based strategies (Barney, 1991), corporate diversification strategies (Rumelt, 1982), strategic mixes (Thiétart, 2005), cooperative strategies (Chen & Miller, 2015), market- or product-based strategies (Ansoff, 1957) and many more. The basic prerequisite of these and most other concepts of strategic management and its theoretical framework rests on the assumption of complete strategic choice, which denotes the ability of a given organization to choose and carry out its intended actions as it wishes, regardless of possibly limiting factors resulting from organizational, environmental, legal, political or any other contextual circumstances (Astley & van de Ven, 1983; Child, 1972, 1997; Hrebiniak & Joyce, 1985; Miles, Snow, Meyer, & Coleman, 1978; Whittington, 1988). This widely accepted condition has been challenged mainly by suggesting the existence of another state of freedom of action and decision named determinism, which stands in total contrast to strategic choice and denominates a situation where an organization is environmentally and contextually limited in planning and exercising its actions (Astley & van de Ven, 1983; Bourgeois, 1984; Child, 1997; Hrebiniak & Joyce, 1985; Whittington, 1988). Strategic choice and determinism can be understood as two ends on the same continuum and an organization’s exact placement on it is dependent on both internal company-related and external environmentally-linked variables (Astley & van de Ven, 1983; Bourgeois, 1984; Child, 1997; Hrebiniak & Joyce, 1985; Whittington, 1988). This, in turn, implies that strategies, both on the formulation and execution side, fundamentally differ based on how much the respective organization is affected by either being in a situation of strategic choice or determinism. To get back to the main point of this introduction, this Master’s Thesis assumes that corporations’ digital communication strategies and their peculiarities including objectives, content, channels and targeted stakeholder groups significantly differ based on the respective corporations’ positions on the strategic choice - determinism continuum.

2.2. Purpose of the Master ’ s Thesis

This Master’s Thesis is dedicated to analyzing and understanding patterns of digital communication strategies from the perspective of strategic choice versus determinism. For this reason, the main focus of this thesis is twofold: Firstly, emphasis is put on reviewing high-quality literature on the topic of corporate communication and the concepts of strategic choice and determinism with the goal of establishing theoretical linkages between the two relatively unrelated fields of research. Secondly, the empirical part is dedicated to formulating an appropriate research methodology based on the reviewed insights in order to then summarize, analyze and categorize relevant existing data from the chosen corporations’ digital communication channels. Consequently, the main objective of this Master’s Thesis is to identify relevant correlations between its research results for the purpose of establishing clear hypotheses supporting this thesis’ main assumption and answering its specified research questions. In effect, this Master’s Thesis should serve as both a comprehensive collection and critical analysis of the most relevant characteristics of current digital communication strategies observed and explained through the theories of strategic choice and determinism. Furthermore, this thesis strives to represent a profound exploratory study attempting to both theoretically and practically combine two largely disconnected fields of research. Depending on the significance of this thesis’ results, this may result in the identification of research gaps and thus provide potential for further research. In this regard, the discovery of implications for practitioners as well as academics is also part of this Master Thesis’ purpose.

2.3. Research Questions

The following research questions are essential to further investigating the validity of this Master’s Thesis’ main assumption and to subsequently establish hypotheses supporting this thesis’ standpoints.

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Figure 1: Main assumption and research questions

The theoretical foundation for this thesis’ aptitude to accurately examine the research questions stated above is represented by the literature review while the methods used to solve the concrete issues resulting from these questions are documented in the empirical part of this thesis. The detailed answers to the research questions are presented and further elaborated upon in the chapter “Discussion”.

2.4. Delimitation

This Master’s Thesis investigates representations of digital communication in the form of corporate websites as well as company profiles on the social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Within this context, design and content-related features as well as considerations with regards to objectives and targeted stakeholders of digital communication strategies are analyzed and evaluated solely in terms of freely available and accessible social media KPIs such as followers, likes and others (Baym, 2013). Translations of these social media KPIs into traditional financial, customer and other commonly used business-related KPIs such as RoI, market share or customer satisfaction (Tsai & Cheng, 2012; Yuan, Zeng, Skibniewski, & Li, 2009) are not within the scope of this thesis. Furthermore, representations of strategic choice and determinism are evaluated solely on the basis of the chosen representations of digital corporate communication via the methodology outlined in the appropriate chapter. Any interpretations of actual business-related performances of the analyzed companies are not within the scope of this thesis. Finally, it should be noted that results are based on observations of companies’ digital representations and that the process of observation is based on the concept of theory-laden objectivism (Marshall, 1981). Finally, the theoretical framework which acts a basis for this thesis’ empirical part is solely represented by the reviewed literature and no other scholarly works outside of the chosen portfolio were taken into consideration.

2.5. Outline of the Thesis

This Master’s Thesis is divided into 5 main chapters. The first chapter represents the executive summary. This sub-chapter signals the end of the second chapter, the introductory chapter. The third chapter consists of the literature review and provides a detailed overview and evaluation of this thesis’ theoretical framework which consists of academic literature about corporate communication strategies as well as strategic choice versus determinism. The theoretical part of this thesis, therefore, acts as the scientific foundation for the subsequent empirical part. Chapter four, “Research Design and Methodology” deals with the definition of the empirical process detailing the exact methods and criteria employed for conducting this Master Thesis’ research. After the execution of this thesis’ empirical part, the fifth chapter, “Results”, categorizes, illustrates and elaborates upon relevant findings from the conducted content analysis. The sixth chapter, “Discussion”, analyzes and explores the previously stated results in greater detail: Hypotheses are generated, linkages to existing literature is investigated, limitations are stated, academic and practical implications are specified and potential for further research is examined. Chapter number seven represents the end of this Master’s Thesis and provides the final conclusion.

3. Literature Review

This chapter reviews and summarizes selected literature which represents this thesis’ theoretical framework following the concept of a traditional “literature review” in academic management and business research (Fisch & Block, 2018). Although there is no universally accepted definition of a literature review, it is generally agreed upon that the purpose of a literature review consists of outlining and evaluating the accumulated knowledge on a specific academic topic (Tranfield, Denyer, & Smart, 2003).

According to Webster and Watson (2002, p. iii), the exact scope, elaborateness and objectives of a literature review are dependent on the level of maturity of the research topic and whether or not it is connected to any emerging issues. Following this argumentation, the literature review of this Master’s Thesis represents the intellectual state of affairs of the two strategic management-related fields and concepts of “corporate (digital) communication strategies” and “strategic choice versus determinism”. And, as this Master’s Thesis is composed of both a theoretical and empirical part, the literature review serves as the contextual foundation of the subsequent empirical part.

The next chapter details the literature review approach and provides a precise outline of the selected literature.

3.1. Review Approach and Literature Selection

For the purpose of this literature review, sources of information including high-quality and peer-reviewed journal articles and selected books have been selected and analyzed.

The databases which were used to find relevant literature were EBSCOhost (i.e., Business Source Premier), Emerald Insight, Google Scholar, JSTOR, SAGE Journals, SpringerLink, Web of Science and Wiley Online Library.

Search queries were based on the denomination of this thesis’ topics as well as related synonyms and hyponyms. That is to say, search queries in the above-mentioned literature databases and search engines included the following keywords in different combinations and using a variety of syntax inputs: corporate communication strategy, digital, social media, website, strategic choice, determinism as well as related synonyms and hyponyms. Additionally, after finding suitable sources originating from the above search queries, further sources were identified using backward citation search on the already selected literature.

Furthermore, this Master’s Thesis has been equipped with the following quality threshold: Journal articles with a rating of “B” or higher following the journal rating of the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB) ‘‘Jourqual 3” and/or a rating of “3” or higher following the journal rating of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) ‘‘Academic Journal Guide 2018” were kept in the base sample. Exceptions to this quality threshold were made regarding selected key sources which contain either foundational or innovative insights relevant to this thesis’ theoretical framework. Therefore, select few sources cited within the literature review of this thesis are not listed in any high-quality journal. However, in these exceptional cases, special attention was given to only include literature from authors that are particularly established in their respective fields. Furthermore, literature used to illustrate specific concepts, facts and figures in the introductory or empirical part of this paper were also not rated according to the above method. Barring one exceptional source written in German, all cited sources used in the literature review are composed in English. Because of this thesis’ reliance on established theories from the field of corporate communication as well as strategic management and organizational science, no boundaries regarding the dates of publication of sources covering the above-mentioned academic topics have been set. Exceptions include sources on topics such as digital communication strategies and social media: In this context, no literature older than 2006 has been selected, as it is the year of publication of this thesis’ most relevant journal article dealing with digital communication (Adams & Frost, 2006) and thus any sources from before the year of 2006 on these particular topics were considered outdated.

The total number of used sources is 108. These 108 sources are composed of 90 peer-reviewed journal articles and 13 high-quality books and/or book chapters, 4 articles from professional journals or specialized internet sources and 1 piece of gray literature. The sources are listed in the chapter “Bibliography”. These sources are implemented into the following literature review, the preceding introductory chapters and the empirical part of the thesis.

The next chapter commences the official literature review of this Master’s Thesis and reviews literature on corporate communication.

3.2. Corporate Communication

One definition of corporate communication by van Riel and Blackburn (1995, p. 24), which was one of the earliest scholarly books on the subject (Balmer, 2009), reads as follows: "The integrated approach to all communication produced by an organization, directed at relevant target groups". Furthermore, Christensen et al. (2008, p. 3) define corporate communication as one perspective which unites “everything the organizations says or does in a unitary and consistent manner” and thus makes it possible for organizations to “project a coherent and unambiguous image of what the organization is and stands for”. As a concept which is related to the field of corporate communication, public relations is defined by Long and Hazelton (1987, p. 6) as "a communication function of management through which organizations adapt to, alter, or maintain their environment for the purpose of achieving organizational goals". Because of their conceptual similarities and, in order to resolve any common misconceptions regarding the definition of the above concepts, Steyn (2004) argues that there are no theoretical differences between the concept of “public relations” and “corporate communication”. This understanding is adopted and utilized for the remainder of this Master’s Thesis.

Since the inception of the term in academic management sciences, a multitude of different definitions and descriptions have surfaced, however, the main function of corporate communication within organizations consists of connecting, interacting and building or maintaining relationships with internal and external stakeholders in different ways and using different means and methods of communication (Cornelissen, 2014). As a result of the above function, the final goal of corporate communication is to influence all relevant stakeholder groups of an organization in such a manner that they act favorably towards the organization’s objectives. Consequently, effective corporate communication increases the market performance of the respective organization’s product or service offering because of the way customers, shareholders and other stakeholders perceive and react to the company’s actions while, at the same time, shielding the organization from and reducing the risk of reputational damage caused by possible inefficiencies or errors, which would obviously have negative effects on the organizational performance (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 54).

The next chapter focuses on the strategic aspects of corporate communication, discussing its historical and academic development and its correlations with the field of strategic management. Furthermore, its conceptualization and the resulting intricacies as a strategic management function are explored. Finally, a practically oriented explanation of the corporate communication function within corporations is presented.

3.2.1. Corporate Communication Strategy

The application of strategic management theory on the field of corporate communication or public relations has been problematic and unclear for decades which has resulted in a long-lasting confusion of what a “corporate communication strategy” exactly is (Tibble, 1997). One of the main reasons for this unstable relationship between strategic management and corporate communication was the general absence or, in the best case, merely superficial consideration of communication in strategic management literature (Moss & Warnaby, 1998). Indeed, for a long time, corporate communication was just given some degree of importance as a supportive tactical tool in implementing strategies or as an decision-making area on the level of operations but was not analyzed as a stand-alone element in the strategic decision-making process (Kay, 1993; Moss & Warnaby, 1998).

To some scholars, it was clear that the connection between corporate communication and strategic management was more complex and significant than described above (Grunig, 1992; Haedrich, 1992). For example, public relations make it possible for organizations to build rapport with the stakeholders that reinforce the organization’s efforts of fulfilling its mission and reaching objectives (Grunig, 1992), therefore effectively setting the stage for maximizing the effectiveness of the overall corporate strategy. Consequently, strategically managing corporate communication leads to comprehensible effects on a company’s bottom line: These effects consist of cost savings resulting from positive relationships with stakeholders, because, in the opposite case, adverse connections with stakeholders would cause negative financial impacts (Grunig, 1992). Furthermore, Grunig (1992, p. 118) was one of the first scholars to point out the importance of a separate public relations function in order to effectively manage corporate communication. These academic considerations made their way into corporations and multinationals and thus, as the advantages of strategically positioned communication efforts became more apparent, organizations worldwide began integrating many previously separate and fragmented communication-related (sub-)departments into single communication-focused departments at the organizational level (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 57). According to Haedrich (1992, p. 262), the positive effect of corporate communication on organizations’ strategic effectiveness stems from the following benefits: Firstly, it enables organizations to create “strategic guidelines” that permit a clear differentiation when it comes to the way of communicating compared to other competitors. Secondly, because of these predefined strategic profiles, the organization is able to identify with relevant strategic stakeholders and vice versa, which leads to a strengthening of their relationships. Thirdly, corporations’ scope of action may expand because the correct execution of public relations leads to positive effects on societal legitimacy, which further supports organizations in reaching their objectives (Haedrich, 1992, p. 262).

Because of the above-mentioned demonstrations of shortcomings when it comes to the implications of corporate communication within strategic management and due to suggestions of possible points of contact between the two fields of literature (Grunig, 1992; Haedrich, 1992; Long & Hazelton, 1987; Moss & Warnaby, 1998; Tibble, 1997), various scholars attempted to fill this apparent research gap. As a result, one conceptualization in particular established itself as relatively accepted amongst academics, as it was used by a multitude of later scientific journal literature on corporate communication strategies, such as Grunig (2009), Grunig (2006), Grunig and Kim (2011), Soojin Kim (2016), Soojin Kim and Kim (2016), J.-N. Kim, Flora Hung-Baesecke, Yang, and Grunig (2013), Steyn (2007), Steyn (2004) and Steyn (2000): This conceptualization defines corporate communication strategy as being part of organizations’ functional strategy. Since the functional strategy constitutes an organization’s third and departmentally located level of strategy below the divisionally located business strategy level and headquartered corporate strategy level (Vancil & Lorange, 1975), it connects all strategies established at the two levels above with the operational plane of corporate communication and thus provides the framework necessary for potential communication plans’ abilities to implement communicative solutions and measures supporting the strategic issues of the organization (Steyn, 2000, 2004). According to Steyn (2004, pp. 178–180), following the above definition, corporate communication as a strategic management function supports corporations’ environmental adjustment by interacting with different stakeholder groups in acceptable ways, thus making it possible to maintain profitability while also maintaining an at least socially acceptable image. Furthermore, a successful corporate communication strategy determines relevant stakeholders and their related issues as well as potential for social interest around these issues. The purpose of the above is to establish the right relationships with each of these stakeholders in order for the corporation to reach its goals (Steyn, 2004, p. 180) and generate competitive advantages (Halal, 2000, p. 12). How effective a particular corporate communication strategy proves to be can, therefore, be measured by the results of organization-stakeholder relationships (Ki & Hon, 2007), successful organizational adaptations as responses to changes within stakeholder groups as well as any potentially arising competitive advantages (Steyn, 2004). In particular, competitive advantages are generated whenever changes in stakeholder climate are detected in time and thus corrective measures are still possible through inputs of the corporate communication function (Steyn, 2004, p. 180).

Aside from these academic advancements concerning the conceptualization and sensemaking of corporate communication strategies, the reality of the field within organizations worldwide showed that previously separate departments, such as “issues management”, “direct marketing”, “community relations”, “investor relations” and many others were increasingly consolidated within the previously explained single corporate communication function (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 81). This holistic union of the field of corporate communication was the main factor which made it possible to perform corporate communication as a functional strategy compared to the previous mostly tactical behavior of smaller separate departments within organizations. The underlying reasons for this increased effectiveness of corporate communication consisted of in-firm communication-related know-how being increasingly connected and centralized as well as relevant individuals becoming part of their respective companies’ top management teams (Cornelissen, 2014).

In addition to definitions such as the ones presented in the previous chapter as well as representations of the above stated integrated view, scholarly descriptions of corporate communication in terms of its (sub-)functions are examined. For example, Argenti (1996, pp. 77–82) describes corporate communication as the main function encompassing the following areas of activity: Image and identity, corporate advertising, media relations, financial communications, employee relations, community relations and corporate philanthropy, government relations as well as crisis communications. Another example of the above method of illustration was proposed by Cornelissen (2014, p. 81), who uses a practically-inspired depiction of international corporations to illustrate the responsibilities and subfunctions of corporate communication, as shown by figure 2.

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Figure 2: Corporate communication as an integrated framework for managing communication (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 81)

The above illustration by Cornelissen (2014, p. 81) shows corporate communication as a unified communications function, featuring the following subfunctions: Public affairs, issues management, investor relations media relations, advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, digital online communication, internal communication, community relations and publicity/sponsorship. On the grounds of further elaborating the scope of corporate communication within this Master’s Thesis, these subfunctions are explained. Firstly, the function of public affairs encompasses all actions with the goal of influencing the respective organization’s political and policy-related environment in such a way that supports its strategic and business efforts (Davidson, 2015). Issues management deals with methods to determine, analyze and react to any issues, problems or crises that happen inside or outside of the company in question (such as critical situations caused by politics, societal developments or strategic decisions of the company, etc.) (Wartick & Rude, 1986). Investor relations’ field of activity is aimed at communication-based methods and strategies with the objective of attracting financing for the organization in question, either directly from possible investors or indirectly by seeking attention from relevant information brokers such as investment banks or specialized and well-connected media outlets (Bushee & Miller, 2012, p. 868). Media relations deal with methods for obtaining the attention of relevant media actors which are relevant for reaching organizational goals (Grunig, 1990). Finally, the remaining subfunctions of corporate communication are explained (Cornelissen, 2014): Advertising is the process of striving for attention by means of paid media announcements, direct marketing comprises activities which allow to directly contact consumers individually with concrete offers, sales promotions represent all possible methods used to directly increase consumers’ purchase potential (e.g., discounts, gifts, demonstrations), digital and online communication denotes corporate communication carried out via the internet (e.g., mail, websites, social media, etc.), internal communication is focused on the company’s internal environment with employees as the main stakeholder, community relations include actions which strive to establish positive relationships with the society and community around the respective organization and, lastly, the subfunction “publicity/sponsorship” stands for methods which consist of the respective organization funding or supporting particular events or other organizations in return for media coverage (Cornelissen, 2014). Although, as it can be seen from the above illustration, the corporate communication function has a rather broad area of activity, some highly specialized related subfunctions remain part of other functional departments such as HR, M&A, marketing or finance (Cornelissen, 2014).

In conclusion, this Master’s Thesis follows the above conceptualization of the corporate communication strategy being an integral part of an organization’s functional strategy repertoire along with e.g., marketing, finance or operations. The next chapter will focus on existing theoretical models dealing with the development of corporate communication strategies. Despite its breadth of theoretical approaches (Mintzberg, Lampel, & others, 1999), two authors in particular (Steyn, 2004; Tibble, 1997) have conceptualized the development process of corporate communication strategies, which is discussed in the next chapter.

3.2.1.1. Corporate Communication Strategy Development

Before examining the actual corporate communication strategy development process, it is important to note that corporate communication plays both an anticipative and reactive role in how a company interacts with its environment. Because of this interplay, a particular corporate communication strategy represents not only a deliberate or planned strategy but also an emergent strategy that is changing its constitution based on the ongoing strategy development process of identifying key internal and external circumstances (Steyn, 2004, p. 180). Furthermore, as the prerequisite for being able to develop a corporate communication strategy, an organization needs to have at least some understanding of its corporate identity, which is a foundational element for all communications-related aspects of a given company: The corporate identity provides the basic figure of an organization’s values and beliefs, which are transmitted to various external and internal stakeholders as corporate image and reputation through its corporate communication strategy as means of diffusion (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 53). Although, as stated above, corporate communication strategies are partly regarded as emergent because of their adaptive properties with respect to stakeholder behavior and loosely or undefined parameters at the beginning of their strategy development process (Steyn, 2004, p. 180), the following two conceptualizations by Tibble (1997) and Steyn (2004) solely focus on corporate communication strategies’ projectable aspects and thus each of them represents a model of communication strategy development as a planned strategy.

Tibble (1997, pp. 358–361) was one of the first scholars to attempt a conceptualization of the development process of corporate communication strategies. His method consisted of applying elements from the field of public relations to the general model of strategy development: Firstly, relevant pieces of information are gathered in the “raw materials” stage, followed by the filtering of the previously gathered sources in the “refinement” stage. According to Tibble (1997, p. 359), this refinement shall be carried out through the usage of different strategic management concepts such as the SWOT or PESTEL analysis. After establishing the most important communication issues in the previous stage, linkages between these issues are identified and communication strategies are created around the previously discovered connections in the “strategy development” phase. Finally, the chosen strategies are tested in the “testing fit” stage and, should the test turn out negatively, the development process must be restarted. Only if the previously defined corporate communication strategy fits its purpose, it will be embedded into the organization, which allows further development and adjustment over time (Tibble, 1997, pp. 358–361).

Steyn (2004, pp. 174–181) further developed the conceptualization of the corporate communication strategy development process and thus created a more refined model, describing it as follows: Firstly, the organization’s internal and external environment is analyzed. While traditional elements such as mission, vision, values, policies and others are within the scope of the first analysis stage, the focus is placed on identifying interdependencies and connections between and within internal as well as external strategic stakeholders. Secondly, as a result of the environmental scanning stage, the organization’s key strategic issues are identified and applied to the previously defined strategic stakeholders with the goal of accurately establishing the consequences of each strategic issue for each stakeholder. After prioritizing which issues and stakeholders are most important, a corporate communication strategy is formulated with the purpose of solving the problems stemming from the previously classified key strategic issue - stakeholder combinations, resulting in the identification of clear communication goals. Eventually, communications plans and actions plans are developed in order to reach these goals (Steyn, 2004, pp. 174–181). This process is outlined in figure 3.

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Figure 3: Corporate communication strategy comes before the communication plan (Steyn, 2004, p. 181)

As an example to the above development process, Steyn (2004, p. 180) mentions M&A as being a key strategic issue and employees as being key strategic stakeholders. When combining these two factors, one of the results is that employees could feel confusion and worry about possible job losses or other unwanted changes following the M&A process. Therefore, a possible solution in form of a corporate communication strategy may be to improve employees’ level of information on the effects of the merger or acquisition (Steyn, 2004, p. 180). In order to provide a more extensive portrayal of the above conceptual model, the following example featuring the key strategic issue of a new market entry and the respective government agencies as key strategic stakeholders is presented: One result of combining these two factors might be the lack of trust and knowledge of the government in/about the respective company. The respective organization’s method of resolution in the form of a corporate communication strategy might then be to use company presentations/events, lobbying or negotiations in order to increase both the level of trust and information of the foreign government with the goal of realizing the key strategic factor “new market entry” in the most optimal way possible.

In conclusion, the development of a corporate communication strategy can be conceptualized as effectively as other strategic management processes (Steyn, 2004; Tibble, 1997). Nevertheless, although the strategy formulation process always follows a similar pattern, the resulting corporate communication strategies differ based on their content, their targeted stakeholders/receivers or the objectives that shall be achieved by corporate communication, resulting in different types of corporate communication strategies (Cornelissen, 2014; Sora Kim, 2011; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010; Morsing & Schultz, 2006). The following chapter explores these strategies and proposes a typology of corporate communication strategies.

3.2.2. Types of Corporate Communication Strategies

This chapter analyzes characteristics of corporate communication strategies as depicted in established literature on the topic. The goal of this process is to identify the most applicable pieces of knowledge in order to discover and classify distinct patterns within corporate communication strategies. These patterns are meant to represent certain types of corporate communication strategies. The resulting typologies, while based on theory found in academic literature, deviate from the denomination or scope of definitions found in the respective literary sources. The reason for this modus operandi is based on the theoretical framework’s optimization with regards to the objectives and research questions set forth in this Master’s Thesis. Furthermore, adjustments are required in order to create the most suitable analytical foundation for the empirical part of this thesis. Keeping this in mind, three main types of corporate communication strategies are proposed and presented in the next subchapters.

The first classification is based on the stakeholder approach of corporate communication and features the two corporate communication strategies of internal and external corporate communication (Argenti, 1996; Cheney & Christensen, 2001; Cornelissen, 2014; Welch & Jackson, 2007). Here, the strategic categorization focuses on the receiving stakeholder(s) of the corporate communication. These communication strategies are complemented by corresponding focused areas of corporate communication identified in the relevant literature (Cornelissen, 2014; Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997; Palmer & Hartley, 2012; Smidts, Pruyn, & van Riel, 2001; Wheelen, Hunger, Hoffman, & Bamford, 2018).

The second proposed way of categorizing corporate communication strategies is based on the content that the communication strategy is presenting. According to Sora Kim and Rader (2010), these classifications include corporate ability (expertise)-focused strategies, corporate social responsibility (image)-focused strategies and hybrid strategies. In the interest of providing a degree of elementariness when it comes to the terminology used in this Master’s Thesis, the following denominations for the above-mentioned strategies are used: Expertise, image and hybrid corporate communication strategies. A detailed explanation is provided in the homonymous chapter and, as before, this typology is expanded by corresponding theory from literature on the topic (Sora Kim, 2011; Sora Kim, Kim, & Hoon Sung, 2014; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010).

The last typology of corporate communication strategies is based on the intended effects on the receivers/stakeholders and/or the motivation behind the sender of the communication strategy. In this context, Morsing and Schultz (2006) present three types of corporate communication strategies: The informational strategy, the persuasive strategy and the involvement strategy. As before, this typological explanation is properly supplemented by additional literature on the focused corporate communication-related topic (Capriotti, 2011; Cornelissen, 2014).

Because of this Master’s Thesis’ focus on digital communication, two additional chapters discussing the effects of the internet and social media on corporate communication, respectively, are added. The objective of these chapters is to provide state-of-the-art knowledge added to the strategies discussed above and thus create an ideal theoretical basis for this thesis’ empirical part, which focuses on digital representations of corporations’ communication strategies.

The next subchapters will feature detailed explanations of all organizational communication strategies and related topics stated above.

3.2.2.1. Internal and External Corporate Communication Strategies

Cheney and Christensen (2001, p. 231) define internal communication as “employee relations, statements of mission and organizational development” and external communication as “public relations, marketing and issues management” (Cheney & Christensen, 2001, p. 231). However, the boundaries between internal and external communication are somewhat unclear and blended into each other, which can lead to situations where internal communication and external communication are one and the same type of corporate communication (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 77). The reasons for that circumstance are found in linkages between the two types of communication as well as so-called “fuzzy boundaries” which may cause internal communication to become external and vice versa (Welch & Jackson, 2007, p. 180). Examples for the connectivity between internal and external communication include employees which fulfill roles of both internal and external stakeholders, such as the CEO of the company who internally represents the role of the organizational leader and externally portrays the company’s main representative. A similar situation can be observed in cases where employees are, at the same time, customers of the organization they are working for (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 77). Furthermore, other examples are internal documents leaked to the company’s environment or internally used data which originates from third parties (Welch & Jackson, 2007, p. 180). Finally, the increased pressure by societies on corporations to provide more transparency has also led to a merger of internal and external communication (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 77). That is why internal and external communication is often used and depicted as one integrated concept (Welch & Jackson, 2007).

Internal and external communication follows the stakeholder approach (Cornelissen, 2014), meaning that strategies based on this typology vary depending on the importance of the targeted stakeholders to the organization in question. Therefore, in order to develop a corporate communication strategy targeted at specific stakeholders, it is essential to accurately identify the particularities of the recipients’ relationship with the organization in order to understand the specific stakeholders’ informative, normative and contextual demands and expectations (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 103). According to Cornelissen (2014), a stakeholder classification model (Mitchell et al., 1997) which is suited for this first fundamental step in the internal or external communication strategy formulation process is the stakeholder salience model by Mitchell et al. (1997), illustrated in figure 4. This model defines stakeholder groups dependent on the main variable called “salience”, which represents the sum of (communication) managers’ perceptions with regards to stakeholders’ power, legitimacy and urgency (Mitchell et al., 1997).

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Figure 4: Stakeholder typology (Mitchell et al., 1997, p. 874)

As it can be seen in the above illustration, Mitchell et al. (1997, p. 874) have defined seven separate stakeholder groups and an eighth group consisting of “non-stakeholders”, i.e., parties without any stake in the respective organizations. The three illustrated circles represent the three stakeholder attributes power (i.e., the ability of the stakeholder to impose his/her will on the organization), legitimacy (i.e., the validity and justification of the demand posed by the stakeholder toward the organization) and urgency (i.e., the expected and actual promptness of implementing what the stakeholder desires) (Mitchell et al., 1997). And, the stakeholder groups are positioned in context to the variables owned by them, with the outer three most stakeholders representing the group of “latent stakeholders” (consisting of dormant, discretionary and demanding stakeholders) which merely hold one variable, while those that hold two variables each make up the “expectant stakeholders” group (consisting of dominant, dependent and dangerous stakeholders). Finally, the stakeholders which hold all three variables and are arguably the most important ones are the so-called definitive stakeholders (Mitchell et al., 1997). In conclusion, it can be said that a particular stakeholder’s salience increases with his/her centrality within the above illustration.

For the purpose of providing a high level of completeness and elaborateness of this concept, the individual stakeholder groups defined by Mitchell et al. (1997, pp. 874–876) are described, starting with the group of “latent stakeholders”: Dormant stakeholders are parties which hold some degree of power, however, because their demands are neither urgent nor legitimate, the execution of their power remains on hold. These stakeholders are characterized by low interaction rates with the company and examples might include labor unions, ex-employees, large activist groups or influential third parties in general. Discretionary stakeholders are parties which possess a legitimate claim against the company but have neither the power nor any given urgency to act on it. Examples might include individual, non-influential critics or NGOs. Demanding stakeholders are characterized by high levels of initiated contact toward the respective company, however, they neither have the power nor any justification which backs their approaches. Protesters might serve as example for this particular stakeholder group (Mitchell et al., 1997, p. 876). Secondly, the group of “expectant stakeholders” is presented (Mitchell et al., 1997, pp. 876–878): Dominant stakeholders are powerful and their demands are legitimate, they interact with the organization on a regular basis and mostly include (key) customers, employees, investors, key suppliers and other similar parties. Dangerous stakeholders consist of parties which are powerful and wish to act urgently but lack any justified claim. Dependent stakeholders, which mostly consist of parties negatively impacted by an organization’s actions, have legitimate claims and a sense of urgency regarding their demands but lack the necessary power to carry out their intentions and therefore are dependent on the goodwill of the corporation in question. “Expectant stakeholders” might become definitive if they acquire the missing variable needed to increase their saliency to the maximum degree. Finally, the most salient stakeholder group, the definitive stakeholders, score high with regards to all three variables. In order for a stakeholders to reach such a high level of salience, they usually need to be strongly embedded in the dominant coalition of the company and thus this particular stakeholder group is mostly represented by majority shareholders. (Mitchell et al., 1997, p. 878).

As illustrated and explained, the above model represents an ideal basis for classifying one of the guiding elements of any corporate communication strategy: the target stakeholder. Furthermore, because the above model is basically a snap-shot of an organizations’ stakeholder relationship network, it is possible to continuously track any particularities of stakeholder relations and thus change strategies accordingly (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 108). This is especially useful considering the particularities of corporate communication strategies as being both reactive and anticipative strategies (Steyn, 2004). In conclusion, internal and external corporate communication consists of strategically managing stakeholders’ communication processes from the inside to the outside of the company or solely within the internal sphere of the organization (Argenti, 1996; Cheney & Christensen, 2001; Cornelissen, 2014; Dirsmith & Covaleski, 1983; Mitchell et al., 1997; Welch & Jackson, 2007). However, because of the two communication strategies’ distinct differences when it comes to their interrelationships, effects and modes of functioning as well as the relevant factors for creating strategies, both shall be reviewed individually in the next two subchapters.

3.2.2.1.a Internal Corporate Communication Strategy

Internal corporate communication is part of an organization’s internal environment, together with its structure, processes, culture, and other elements (Palmer & Hartley, 2012; Wheelen et al., 2018). All these elements taken together affect all members of the respective internal environment on an individual and psychological level. The employees’ shared perception of the internal environment results in the organizational climate, which is defined by a number of facets including the communication climate (Smidts et al., 2001, p. 1053). The communication climate influences all information-related aspects of the internal environment and its efficiency and success is determined by dimensions such as trust and acceptance within employee-to-employee communications, the ability to engage in decision making-related communicative processes and helpfulness of employees among themselves (Smidts et al., 2001, p. 1053). Therefore, it is possible to draw conclusions about the performance of an organization’s internal communication strategy by analyzing its internal environment and experiencing the communication climate resulting from it. This performance is measured by the respective internal communication strategy’s ability to reach its goals. In this context, Welch and Jackson (2007, p. 188) identify the following goals of internal corporate communication: The creation and maintenance of employees’ sense of belonging to the company; Strengthening employee commitment by making certain improvements to relationships with and among employees; Advancing employees’ understanding of the organizations’ changing environment and the underlying reasons for the organizations’ responses to external inputs. These objectives are linked to each other and are influenced by the quality of internal corporate communication, which, if performed correctly, creates trust amongst employees, leading to them being committed and resulting in a proactive staff that understands the strategic decisions taken by top management (Welch & Jackson, 2007, p. 190). Smidts et al. (2001) further argue that a positive communication climate has strengthening effects on internal corporate communication goals such as employee commitment and identification with the company. Going further, it can be said that the culture as well as the structure of an organization’s internal environment, is essential for forging a communication climate that supports an internal communication strategy capable of reaching organizational goals (Smidts et al., 2001; Welch & Jackson, 2007). While this statement may be true for evaluations on a holistic level, it is important to view the state of internal communication within a company from a fragmented point of view based on the respective organization’s structural and hierarchical levels (Welch & Jackson, 2007). In this context, when it comes to the relationship between internal corporate communication and firm performance, Lenz (1981) argues that highly rigid organizational structures featuring formalized corporate communication leads to managers focusing on improving internal effectiveness and reducing inefficiencies while Dirsmith and Covaleski (1983) suggest that more open and flexible internal corporate communication is reflective of executives who rather focus on environmental changes and resulting organizational reactions.

The perspective on which internal communication strategies are based is named the internal stakeholder approach. And, as shown in the previous chapter, the particularities of each internal communication strategy vary depending on the targeted internal stakeholders’ attributes. However, as this chapter deals with internal communication on a more detailed level, the involved senders and recipients of information, or, in other words, the exact stakeholders who affect and are affected by internal communication (Argenti, 1996; Cheney & Christensen, 2001; Welch & Jackson, 2007), are identified and analyzed. The main group of internal stakeholders includes the following participants on different levels within an observed organizational structure: Strategic management consisting of the dominant coalition, top management and other managers occupying strategic roles; Operational managers including supervisors, middle and line managers; Teams within divisions and departments; Project teams as well as all employees which are not part of the above groups stated above (Welch & Jackson, 2007, p. 184). Aside from the implicated parties in internal corporate communication processes, directions of communication are essential for understanding the dynamics of the topic: When it comes to the level of line, team or project management internal communication, the direction of the communication process is (predominantly) two-way, which results from the hierarchical position of the involved participants (senders as well as receivers) being on a similar or equal footing, while the direction of top strategic level internal communication is predominantly asymmetrical due to the superior hierarchical position of the senders of communication (Welch & Jackson, 2007, p. 185). Obviously, the content of the internal communication varies on the basis of the previously described levels of communication (Welch & Jackson, 2007, p. 185): Generally speaking, the relevancy for the entire organization is higher the greater the distance with regards to the hierarchical level between sender and receiver. In contrast to that, internal communication within (project) teams or on the operational level is geared at transmitting more specific information (Welch & Jackson, 2007, p. 185).

In conclusion, the internal environment consisting of, among others, organizational structures, processes and culture, influences the overall communication climate and thus the way in which internal communication is performed within an organization on a macro-level targeted at all employees and other internal stakeholders of a respective organization or on a micro-level between individual or groups of internal stakeholders (Smidts et al., 2001; Welch & Jackson, 2007). From the micro-level perspective within organizations, however, internal communication differs regarding content, importance and scope depending on the affected organizational levels and participants of a communicative process, such as line management, team or project-related internal communication (Welch & Jackson, 2007).

3.2.2.1.b External Corporate Communication Strategy

The core purpose of external corporate communication strategies stems from the universal necessity of every organization to interact with its external environment so as to economically function, and, in order to achieve this, interactions are created by inputs and exchanges of information (Dirsmith & Covaleski, 1983). In this context, Dirsmith and Covaleski (1983, pp. 138–139) argue that external communication and its underlying strategies are heavily dependent on the nature of the respective organization’s environment: In stable, simple and established environments, such as the agriculture or oil market, the nature of external communication relies on maintaining the current status quo. This might be done, for example, by communicating historical performances and achievements that support the respective organization’s role as an environmentally essential player with the according track record, such as stable growth figures and products/services holding market shares over long periods of time. In contrast to that example, dynamic environments such as high-tech sectors require the completely opposite type of external communication: Because of the very nature of those environments which consist of changes being the norm rather than the exception, organizations’ situated within these environments shall ideally focus their external communication strategies on proving their ability to adapt (Dirsmith & Covaleski, 1983, p. 139) by, for example, illustrating successful changes in business strategies and turnarounds of previously underperforming products/services. However, in practice, an external communication strategy always reflects some degree of dynamism and stability in combination targeted at the relevant external stakeholders (Dirsmith & Covaleski, 1983).

An organization’s external environment is not the only deciding factor when it comes to formulating and executing external communication strategies. The corporate and business strategies, which are formulated by the organization itself, need to be adequately supported by an organization’s external communication function which projects the appropriate information to the respective company’s outside environment (Steyn, 2004). This external environment which makes up the area of effect of external corporate communication is comprised of an organization’s macro-level environment, consisting of political, economic, societal, technological, ecological and legal environments as well as its micro-level environment which is represented by its task environment consisting of various stakeholders. (Palmer & Hartley, 2012; Welch & Jackson, 2007; Wheelen et al., 2018). In more detail, in contrast to the internal communication strategy, the external communication strategy follows an external stakeholder approach, meaning that the targets of all external communication strategies are entities such as customers, suppliers, potential investors, political groups, social groups, governmental bodies, communities, trade associations, potential business partners, etc. (Cornelissen, 2014). Thus, the central notion of the external stakeholder approach is that, for an organization to economically function, it is necessary for that particular company to be considered legitimate by as many relevant external stakeholder groups as possible, including both business and non-business-related parties. Consequently, external corporate communication strategies have to support the overall corporate strategy by fulfilling two purposes: On the one hand, instrumental purposes which are necessary for the respective company to deliver the performance needed to exist and grow, and, on the other hand, normative reasons which have to be fulfilled so that the organization’s environment, consisting of the external stakeholders described above agree with the existence of said organization (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 99).

These internally and externally originating effects and implications on external corporate communication strategies are made up of different contents being used in the final strategy, either alone or in combination, such as elements consisting of quantitative, qualitative, comparable, historical, forecasted or any other type of information, resulting in distinct and specialized types of strategies (Cornelissen, 2014; Dirsmith & Covaleski, 1983). There are communication sub-functions which exclusively carry out specialized external commination strategies, such as “issues management, community relations, investor relations, media relations and public affairs” (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 74). Some specialized external communication strategies might focus on certain stakeholders’ groups only, for example, strategies which exclude customers as target stakeholders and are only directed at corporate stakeholders. However, these strategies might be even more focused and targeted at one specific stakeholder in combination with one specific issue, such as buffering strategies (i.e., strategies which specifically ignore certain issues in contact with certain stakeholders), bridging strategies (i.e., strategies which have the goal of finding win-win agreements with certain stakeholders on certain issues) or advocacy strategies (i.e., strategies which focus on enforcing the corporation’s objective on the stakeholder concerning one specific issue) (Cornelissen, 2014, 289-201). Theoretically, these strategies might also partly include internal stakeholders, however, first and foremost, they are externally geared (Cornelissen, 2014).

The next chapters deviate from the stakeholder-approach and introduce other communication strategies based on the content of communication as well as the objective of communication.

3.2.2.2. Expertise, Image and Hybrid Corporate Communication Strategies

As mentioned in the preceding chapters, the main function of corporate communication strategy is to assist a corporation in reaching its objectives by interacting with its relevant publics/stakeholders (Steyn, 2007; Tibble, 1997). The way in which corporate communication can successfully fulfil this function is by creating certain associations about the respective company inside their stakeholders’ minds (Sora Kim & Rader, 2010), similar to how marketers strive to create certain associations for their offered products or services amongst their target customer groups (Brown & Dacin, 1997). In this context, Sora Kim and Rader (2010, p. 60) have introduced three types of corporate communication strategies inspired by corporate associations identified in marketing literature (Brown & Dacin, 1997; Schumann, Hathcote, & West, 1991). According to Brown and Dacin (1997, p. 69) corporate associations represent an individual’s cognitive image of a company, including: Every piece of knowledge that the individual has about the respective company’s actions; Any experiences from interacting with the company, whether self-experienced or indirectly conceived; Perceptions about how a company behaves and conducts business; Emotional responses with regards to the company; And, the individual’s general evaluation of the company.

The existence of these three types of corporate communication strategies is based on the content of communication and can, therefore, be classified according to the resulting associations created in receivers’ minds: Corporate ability (CAb) strategies, corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies and hybrid strategies (Sora Kim, 2011; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010). Because of this Master’s Thesis’ focus on the field of strategic management and organizational behavior, two of the above marketing-related terms are replaced by the following denominations for the remainder of this thesis: “Expertise” instead of “corporate ability” and “image” instead of “corporate social responsibility”.

An expertise corporate communication strategy underlines an organization’s expertise, ability, know-how, products or services in terms of quality, utility, price or other attributes (Sora Kim, 2011; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010). Ideally, an expertise strategy should create positive psychological associations within its receivers’ minds regarding the company’s economic performance as well as its created value to the consumer through its products and services. As more focused versions of expertise-based communication strategies, Cornelissen (2014, p. 74) presents “corporate advertising” and “marketing public relations”: The first type of strategy focuses on the presentation of the company as a whole while the latter focuses on products or services. In this context, Cornelissen (2014) argues that both types complement the effectivity of each other, especially if both strategies are carried out in an integrated way by the same communications department. An image corporate communication strategy, on the other hand, does not focus on a company’s offering in terms of products or services and business performance, but strives to position the organization as a valuable, lawful, legitimate, committed and well-intentioned member of society (Sora Kim, 2011; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010). Such strategies should ideally place into their receivers’ minds the idea of the corporation as an entity which is not only focusing on creating a monetary profit for itself and its shareholders but striving to make a positive impact of any other kind on the rest of society (Sora Kim, 2011; Sora Kim et al., 2014; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010). And, a hybrid strategy combines elements of both an image and expertise strategy in equal or close to equal measure, which allows for the creation of more customizable and flexible solutions when it comes to influencing stakeholder perceptions (Sora Kim, 2011; Sora Kim et al., 2014; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010).

Which strategy is ultimately chosen depends on the intentions and goals of a particular company: If the goal is to create expertise-related associations, which consist of positive perceptions of company-related products and services, then a expertise-focused corporate communication strategy is the right choice, and, similarly, if the objective is to create image-related associations that lead to legitimizing the corporation as a utility-producing member of society, an image communication strategy represents the ideal choice (Sora Kim, 2011). Finally, a corporation may also choose to focus both on profit-oriented and normative expectations of their stakeholders at the same time by employing a hybrid strategy (Sora Kim, 2011).

The study by Sora Kim (2011), which analyzed two well-known Fortune 500 companies, has produced the following correlations and implications regarding expertise, image and hybrid corporate communication strategies (Sora Kim, 2011, pp. 234–236): First of all, new associations tend to enhance older ones, resulting in an evolutionary development of corporate associations over time. Secondly, an image strategy promotes both image and expertise associations, whereas an expertise strategy just promotes expertise associations. This implies that most companies using image strategies are relatively established when it comes to expertise associations and thus image associations resulting from image strategies automatically enhance expertise associations as well (Sora Kim, 2011). Furthermore, a study by Chaudhri and Wang (2007) has found out that internationally active organizations with business locations in both developed and developing countries are prone to using image corporate communication strategies more often in established regions compared to their developing counterparts. Moreover, while hybrid strategies are effective in increasing both expertise and image associations, image strategies are still more effective in fulfilling the same purpose (Sora Kim, 2011). The same study has also produced correlations between company characteristics and the choice of corporate communication strategies, such as stronger expertise associations as a result of image strategies for companies in the FMCG industry compared to IT companies (Sora Kim, 2011). In this regard, Sora Kim (2011) argues that expertise associations are generally high for IT companies and thus are not as easily influenced as those of companies dealing with less technological consumer products.

To conclude, three dominant types of corporate communication strategies based on their content have been identified by academic literature (Sora Kim, 2011; Sora Kim et al., 2014; Sora Kim & Rader, 2010). And, these strategies can be clearly classified based on observing relevant indicators of each particular strategy, represented by their respective content. The next chapter focuses on strategies based on objectives of corporate communication.

3.2.2.3. Information, Persuasion and Involvement Corporate Communication Strategies

The intended effects of corporate communication strategies can also represent guiding principles of their underlying strategies. Morsing and Schultz (2006) and Cornelissen (2014) illustrate this approach with the following model, where three distinct strategies are defined. In order to provide a superior level and quality of theoretical knowledge to this Master’s Thesis, the following approach is synthesized from both the original approach by Morsing and Schultz (2006) as well as the expansion thereto by Cornelissen (2014). This model is illustrated in figure 5.

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Figure 5: Models of organization-stakeholder communication (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 112)

The illustrated strategies are: The informational, persuasive and dialogue communication strategies (it is noted that the denomination of the “dialogue” strategy in the above model shall be “involvement” strategy for the remainder of this thesis). The differences between these strategies stem from the depth and extent of the intended influences on the respective stakeholders. An informational strategy mainly strives to create awareness and give sense to what the respective organization is communicating by transmitting information to the stakeholder in the form of providing facts about the content of the communication strategy (Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 327). While such a procedure might also provide support concerning stakeholders’ understanding for what the organization is communicating and/or certain decisions taken by the company, the main goal of this strategy is purely to inform (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 110). Therefore, in this case, the design focus of the corporate communication function lies in presenting the related messages in a way that is consistent and attractive enough to both inform and keep the receiver of the communication interested in consuming the conveyed information (van Riel & Blackburn, 1995). Compared to this, a persuasive strategy has the objective of not just transmitting information, but influencing a stakeholder’s behavior, perception, attitude and know-how in a way that results in a beneficial reaction for the organization (i.e., recommendations, endorsements or purchases by the stakeholders), for example by changing the receiver’s opinion on a certain topic or creating a positive image about the corporation and its values, its products and/or services (Cornelissen, 2014, pp. 110–111; Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 327). While the communication function’s task is, in this case, also to perform the necessary tactics in an appealing way, the focus here also lies on evaluating the effects resulting from stakeholders’ reactions to the employed persuasion strategy, i.e., analyzing whether or not persuasion attempts were successful and investigating possible causes behind the results (Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 327). Finally, a dialogue/an involvement strategy strives to engage and/or commit the receiver to interact with the organization in a mutual interaction-based exchange of information away from corporate self-interests and towards win-win situations (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 111; Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 328). In this context, the corporate communication function is not only involved in the related communication processes via informing or evaluating stakeholders’ actions, but also by setting up and maintaining the resources and channels needed to communicate and engage with several stakeholders over certain amounts of time and on a constant or frequent basis (Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 328). The effect of such strategies may also include persuading the targeted stakeholders, however, this would happen as a result of mutual engagement within a communicative process and not because of the objectives of the communication strategy itself (Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 328). Morsing and Schultz (2006, p. 328) argue that an involvement communication strategy might also lead to changes of the organization itself as a result of dialogues with stakeholders. In conclusion, these three strategies are clearly meant to target different stakeholder groups that differ in their level of importance for the organization in question because of their relevant, previously introduced variables. And, because stakeholders’ significance for the organization may change over time, these corporate communication strategies make it possible for the organization to behaviorally adapt to these changes so that the communication more closely matches the quality of the relationship between organizations and certain stakeholders (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 111).

The complexities of these three different communication strategies are also reflected by their particular directions and the hierarchical positions of the sender (organization) and the receiver (stakeholder) within the communicative process (Morsing & Schultz, 2006). The informational communication strategy follows a one-way communication model, as the communicative process originates from the corporation and travels to the stakeholder without any response expected or needed from the receiver (Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 326). Furthermore, this strategy is deemed to be symmetrical because no party strives to gain an advantage over the other as the sole goal of this strategy is to factually inform (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 111). However, because of the one-sidedness of the source(s) of information and the one-directional dissemination of the communicative process, Capriotti (2011, p. 362) argues that the informational communication strategy is actually asymmetric, i.e., favoring the organization. When it comes to the persuasion strategy, the mode of communication is based on a two-way model, as a reaction from the stakeholder is expected by the corporation and thus communication flows to and from both parties (Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 327). However, the communicative process, in this case, is clearly asymmetrical, because the two communicating parties are not interacting on an equal footing, i.e., the corporation is trying to change or modify the stakeholder’s behavior while the stakeholder is not in a position to do so, which places the organization at a superior position compared to the receiver and thus makes the entire communication model asymmetrical in favor of the company (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 112; Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 327). In this context, Morsing and Schultz (2006, p. 328) argue that the persuasive communication strategy is not truly a two-way form of communication, but actually tends to being a one-directional strategy due to the foundational set-up of these strategies being highly biased in favor of their creators, i.e., the organizations formulating and executing them. Finally, the involvement strategy is a prime example for two-way communication, as the objective of this type of strategy is to initiate an exchange between the two parties, and, because, in this instance, the goal of the communication is to create a mutually beneficial result, the two engaged parties are placed on the same hierarchical level within their communicative processes (Cornelissen, 2014, p. 112; Morsing & Schultz, 2006, p. 328). Morsing and Schultz (2006, p. 328) regard a communicative climate based on an eye-level mode of communication consisting of equality, neutrality and openness as the prerequisite for an involvement communication strategy to fundamentally reach its desired goal, as any deviation from this situation (especially by the respective organization) would lead to the stakeholder losing trust and/or interest in engaging with the company.

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Title
Key success and competitive factors of digital communication strategies analyzed through the lens of strategic choice and determinism
College
University of Linz  (Institut für Strategisches Management)
Grade
1,00
Author
Year
2019
Pages
155
Catalog Number
V901619
ISBN (eBook)
9783346203809
ISBN (Book)
9783346203816
Language
English
Quote paper
Sebastian Bobocel (Author), 2019, Key success and competitive factors of digital communication strategies analyzed through the lens of strategic choice and determinism, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/901619

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