This document contains the final exam for a corporate communication elective course. It consists of 7 questions assessing the student's understanding of key concepts in corporate communication. The questions cover topics like defining corporate communication, the importance of mission statements, the difference between shareholders and stakeholders, factors that influence company reputation both positively and negatively, tools used for internal communication, reasons why businesses use social media, and what cultural customization of company websites involves. The student provided well-explained and detailed responses to each question demonstrating an understanding of the course material.

1. 6th Februaly, 2014
Elective: Corporate communication WS 2013/2014
Final exam
Name: Takeyuki Matsumoto
Score: ____________ / 35 points
1) What do you understand by the term “corporate communication”? Explain clearly. What
are the key concepts in corporate communication? (6p).
Corporate communication is the process of enabling data and information exchanges between
corporation and stakeholder who have a straightforward relationship with the corporation. In other
words, that is the sharing of information within a business. It provide the information to the
employees, suppliers, investors, partners, and customers. It relies heavily on public relations that
is including an company and employee newsletter, communicating with shareholders, clients and
donors, special events planning, employee recruitment, building the corporate brand, and crisis
management with the news media.
The key concepts in corporate communication is management of perceptions, and creation of
timely dissemination of information. It is important that to communicate effectively and profitably by
the total of a corporation’s efforts. It define the corporate image as means to improve corporate
performance. It is also important that it is a strategic tool for the contemporary corporation to gain a
competitive advantage over its competitors.
2) Give an example of a company mission statement and explain its importance for this
company’s image (3p).
Google’s mission statement is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally
accessible and useful. Google Inc. is the corporate that you would expect as an No.1 internet
services company. This mission statement is important to protect its image and to live up to the
expectations from users. It appeal to users that Google has informations of inexhaustible supply,
and they are organized in an easy­to­understand, further the users can use these informations
conveniently and flexibly regardless of time and place. It focused on providing the best user
experience possible.
3) What is the difference between shareholders and stakeholders? Who are the
stakeholders of a given company (4p)?
Shareholders are anyone who has financial shares in the company whereas stakeholders are
anyone who has interest in company's performance. Stakeholders have an interest and are
affected by a corporation. Stakeholders in a corporation include the employees, the employees'
families, suppliers, customers, community, and others.

2. Shareholders are stakeholders in a corporation, but stakeholders are not always shareholders. In
other words, the shareholders aren't the only party having a stake in the corporation. A shareholder
owns part of a company through stock ownership, while a stakeholder is interested in the
performance of a company for reasons other than just stock appreciation. Although shareholders
may be the largest stakeholders because shareholders are affected directly by a company's
performance, it has become more commonplace for additional groups to be considered
stakeholders.
Stakeholders is bondholders who would like a solid performance from the company and, therefore,
a reduced risk of default. Customers who use a particular good or service, suppliers who get a
consistent revenue stream, and employees who work at the company are also stakeholder.
Some organizations don't have shareholders, but have stakeholders. For example, the University
of Aizu doesn't have shareholders, but it has many stakeholders: students, the students' families,
professors, administrators, employers, Aizu city's taxpayers, the local community, the prefecture
community, society in general, custodians, suppliers, etc.
4) What factors influence a given company’s reputation? Give examples of good and bad
reputation factors (6p).
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) influence a given company’s reputation. How people feel
about a company is based on their perceptions of the CSR. It is important to a corporation's overall
reputation. On the other hand, crises are taken as a threat to the organizational reputation. Crises
damage the reputation and such changes can affect how stakeholders interact with the
organization.
For example, Starbucks maintain a reputation as a company that gives back to society. Following
its vision of sustainability, Starbucks has been moving beyond just an international coffee house
brand to a meaningful organisation. It is committed to helping communities thrive when it comes to
the places we do business. It also committed to offering the highest­quality, ethically purchased
and responsibly produced products. Further it committed to minimizing our environmental footprint
and inspiring others to do the same. Starbucks is committed to being a good corporate citizen. In
addition, it has publicly reported our goals and performance in the area of corporate social
responsibility since 2001. These CSR influences good reputation to Starbucks.
On the other hand, the cruise ship Costa Concordia, operated by Costa Crociere S.p.A. and
owned by Carnival Corp., partially sank on the night of Jan. 13, 2012, after hitting a reef off of the
Italian coast and running aground at Isola del Giglio. More than 4,000 people on board had to be
evacuated, and more than thirty were confirmed dead. The images of the half­sunken cruise liner
made evening news across the world. This crisis raised serious issues over safety practices at the
ship’s operating company, it damage the reputation of Costa Crociere S.p.A. and Carnival Corp..
5) How do companies communicate internally nowadays? What tools are used? Give
examples (6p).
Internal communication is a kind of communication with employees within the
organisation. Nowaday, companies communicate internally by new technologies like
Internet blogs and emails. For example, Podcasts is used as useful means of

3. disseminating corporate information in an efficient and engaging way. Corporate
information and communication systems (CICS) are also used. It broadcast of corporate
decisions and developments to all employees across the organisation releasing
information to employees through the intranet, emails. Corporate TV networks, such as the
digital FedEx Television Network or Nokia's digital broadcasting systems, are also used as
communication channels for reaching employees around the world.
For other example, Yammer is an internal social networking and document storage tool designed
for companies to use for knowledge exchange. When working with Yammer it depends on how you
setup the program. As the administrator you can create different groups for different departments
so that everyone’s stream does not get cluttered with information that does not apply to them.
For further example, Chatter is a social collaboration tool that allows users to setup profiles, share
status updates, and share files in a secure and private environment. Chatter’s basic platform is for
companies looking to begin sharing information internally. However, Chatter is best used by
companies that are currently using Salesforce.com as a lead management program. If you have a
sales team, Chatter is an excellent choice for communicating since it is already integrated with
your Salesforce data. Integration with Salesforce can create a hub for your salespeople to review
dashboards, discuss leads, and run custom reports.
6) Why do businesses increasingly make use of social media (4p)?
Because social media is a great way to drive repeat business and to attract new customers. It is
the technology that connects people whether it’s to share content or just to chat. Social networks,
like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are the places where social interactions happen,
discovering, and sharing. It attract new customers through friends sharing with friends.
Social media has a lots of merits for helping business succeed. At first, social media marketing
results are measurable, much more so than the results of more traditional advertising methods,
like print and broadcast. Then, many businesses have seen a drop in marketing expenses by
moving some or all of their marketing efforts to social media networks. Further, it is becoming more
and more relevant for every demographic. Social network usage is steadily increasing among all
age ranges and demographics. In fact, 93% of U.S. adult Internet users are now on Facebook. In
addition, its interactive function has the ability for consumers to actively engage with businesses
presents real opportunities for social businesses. Social media sites, in general, are a far more
casual environment that can help build brand awareness, provide bite­size bits of industry
information, and create communities among your customers. Furthermore, it is timely and
immediate; it allows your organization to spread breaking news quickly, efficiently, and effectively to
hundreds, thousands, even millions of people, without having to issue a single press release.
7) What is mean by “cultural customisation” of company websites? What are the steps
involved (6p)?
Cultural customisation is a basic step in order to reach a global users with company website, and
should be completed as part of website translation and website localization. While many companies
treat this step as optional, it should be treated as vital things. Website cultural customization can
ensure the effectiveness of their website to local specific users. Culturally customized websites not
only takes into account the language and locale of the target audience, but also one or more levels

4. of cultural adaptation: perception, symbolism and behavior.
After website translation and website localization, when a company is going to do cultural
customization for its website, it should take the following issues into consideration.
The very first step in cultural customization is to make sure that a website will be able to display
any language. The Unicode Standard is the universal character encoding standard for written
characters and text. It defines a consistent way of encoding multilingual text. Setting up the right
encoding will ensure that the website's contents will be correctly displayed.
If possible, the company should use a highly flexible or "fluid" design that allows pages to scale
based on what content is in them. It should avoid using fixed sized structures with text in it. Space
should be allowed to expand or contract in accordance with the size of the text.
Then, if the company is designing a website for a culturally diverse users, it should carefully
consider what visual representations it use on your website as their meanings can vary
considerably from culture to culture. Culture is shaped by our perception of the word, symbolism
and behavior.
There are many factors that affect perception. One of the most important and easiest factors to
adjust after website localization is color. The company should not perceive colors in the same way
for people from different cultures.
It also has to think about symbol meaning. There are times when the same symbol could mean
two completely different things from one culture to another. One of the examples is the "thumbs­up"
gesture. Many countries recognize this as a sign of approval or confirmation, and a graphic
designer looking for a graphical way to let users know that they have successfully completed an
action might be tempted to base an icon on this image. However, in modern day Afghanistan, Iraq
and parts of Greece, Italy and France this simple gesture can be considered to be very impolite. In
fact it is often regarded as the equivalent of the "middle finger salute" used in the UK and USA.
Further it should consider about behavior is defined by the cultural values like Collectivism, Power
Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity­Femininity and High­Low Context. Basic behavior is
influenced by the tone of the writing in content, images, layout, etc. It has a big influence on any
"Call­to­Action", as they are tightly connected.
These steps can be accomplished by doing moderate research on target locales, coding the
website of the recommended standards, and adjusting the localized website content to avoid
insulting global users.