The document discusses three models of strategic communication: linear, adaptive, and interpretive. The linear model views strategy as long-term planning by top managers to achieve goals through rational decision making. The adaptive model focuses on continuously adjusting the organization to its dynamic environment through co-alignment. The interpretive model views strategy as managing meanings and symbols to legitimize the organization through shared understandings. It then covers characteristics like public communication, the communication source, and a transactional approach. Finally, it discusses the traditional perspective on internal communication topics like orientation, morale, and change, and external communication topics like public relations, issues management, and advocacy.

1. Chapter 13
Strategic Communication

2. Strategic Communication
• Characteristics of Strategic Communication
• The Traditional Perspective
• The Interpretive Perspective
• The Critical Perspective

3. Characteristics of
Strategic Communication
• Models of Strategy
• Strategic Communication as Public
Communication
• The Source in Strategic Communication
• Strategic Communication as Transaction

4. Models of Strategy
• Linear
• Adaptive
• Interpretive [Chafee, 1985]

5. Linear Model
• Strategy consists of integrated decisions,
actions, or plans that will set and achieve viable
organizational goals
• Reflects the most conventional and traditional
understanding of strategy where top managers
engage in a sequential, long-term planning
process with rational decision making aimed at
producing and controlling organizational change

6. Linear Model
• Managers identify goals, generate alternatives
for achieving those goals, weigh the likelihood of
success for each alternative, then they decide
which alternatives to implement.
• Based on the older, machine-like notion of
rational control in the traditional perspective.
• Strategic communication is concerned with
presentation of managerial plans to stakeholders
and with stakeholder acceptance of those plans.

7. Adaptive Model
• Shifts the focus of strategy from sequential planning
and decisions about organizational goals to
continuous adjustment of the relationship between
the organization and its larger environment.
• The organization is an open system in a dynamic
environment where the goal is represented by co-
alignment of the organization with its environment.
• Co-alignment refers to matching up opportunities and
risks in the environment with the capabilities and
resources of the organization.

8. Adaptive Model
• Although it is less centralized, less integrated, and
more multi-faceted than the linear model, it is
nonetheless in the domain of top management
responsibility.
• Based on the organic metaphor of system theory.
• Strategic communication is more than just messages
aimed at informing and persuading stakeholders. It
includes all of the communication processes involved
in adaptation, i.e., the information exchange and
feedback processes within the organization and
interactions between the organization and its
environment.

9. Interpretive Model
• Concerned with the social construction of reality.
• Based on a social contract view that portrays the
organization as a collection of cooperative
agreements entered into by individuals with free
will.
• Strategy is concerned with the management of
meaning and with symbol construction aimed at
legitimizing the organization by providing
orienting metaphors or frames of reference that
allow the organization and its environment to be
understood by organizational stakeholders.

10. Interpretive Model
• Strategy is embedded in metaphors and frames
of reference, and strategic communication is all
about negotiating and shaping stakeholders’
understandings of what the organization is and
what it does.
• Top management leads most of the shaping,
orienting, and meaning management.

11. Strategic Communication
as Public Communication
• Involves constructing and presenting messages
to different organizational stakeholder groups
• Purpose ranges from presenting messages
about products and services, to framing the
organization’s mission, gaining acceptance for
management’s plans, responding to a crisis or
scandal, or promoting a merger or acquisition

12. Strategic Communication
as Public Communication
• For large, complex, organizations, relevant audiences
for strategic public communication include
shareholders, employees, customers, government,
media, activist groups, special interest coalitions,
communities, and citizen-journalist web bloggers.
• Public communication can require a substantial
commitment of resources: production facilities for
websites, newsletters, company magazines, and video
programs; advertising space in print and electronic
media; time, space, and materials for special events;
and salaries for the professionals who write, edit, and
produce the messages, programs, and events.

13. The Source in Strategic
Communication
• Conventional definitions of public communication
treat the message source as a specific individual or
agency (e.g., senior management).
• While this may apply in some situations, messages
intended for strategic communication in
organizations often are originated and produced by
organizational subsystems composed of many
individuals.
• Communication professionals often serve as a staff
arm of top management to produce and execute a
strategic communication program

14. Strategic Communication
as Transaction
• Many strategic communication programs arise
out of objectives derived through a linear model
• Strategic communication programs may also be
developed through a transactional model where
various organizational stakeholder groups
(including customers, community members, and
employees) participate in creating messages for
public consumption

15. The Traditional
Perspective
• Internal Communication
• External Communication
• Risk and Crisis Communication

16. Internal Communication
• Orientation and Indoctrination
• Morale and Satisfaction
• Compensation and Benefits
• Organizational Change and
Development
• Effective Employee Communications

17. Orientation and
Indoctrination
• New employees arrive with a number of unanswered
questions: What is the company philosophy? How does
my job relate to the total organization? When do I
receive my first paycheck? Where do I park my car?
• Many organizations provide answers to such questions
through some type of formal orientation program.
• This program may include topics pertaining to the
organization as a whole (policies, procedures, operating
philosophy, and structure), your specific position (scope
of authority, job duties, work procedures), and other
personal concerns.

18. Orientation and
Indoctrination
• The maintenance and integration functions of
communication described in chapter 2 often are
carried out in part through a continuous program
of public communication aimed at indoctrination
and socialization of organization members.
• Such programs often are intended to build an
organizational image with the internal employee
public and to present and reinforce specific
values, beliefs, and practices.

19. Morale and Satisfaction
• Messages that serve maintenance and human
functions help to promote morale and
satisfaction.
• Examples: an employee-of-the-month column in
a company magazine, notes about departmental
accomplishments in the newsletter, and the
discourse at special celebratory events are
instances of messages that have as their primary
objectives the improvement of members' self-
concepts, interpersonal relationships, and
attitudes toward the organization.

20. Compensation and
Benefits
• The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of
1974 requires organizations to make full and
understandable disclosure of employee benefit
programs.
• Benefit programs in large organizations can be very
elaborate and very expensive.
• According to a study by the U. S. Chamber of
Commerce (2006), benefit programs constituted
more than 40% of payroll expenses in 2004.
• In 2005, 70% of employees in private industry had
access to medical plans, and 60% had access to
retirement plans.

21. Compensation and
Benefits
• In addition to basic health protection and retirement
plans, benefits programs also may include life
insurance, disability insurance, credit union
participation, use of company recreation facilities,
child-care services, family and personal counseling
services, profit-sharing plans, and other benefits.
• Benefits communication includes providing clear
and accurate provision of information about
benefits and it may involve promoting wellness
programs and preventative care.

22. Organizational Change
and Development
• Examples of Strategic Change: merger of
different organizations in one entity, acquisition of
one organization by another, major new
ventures, restructuring, downsizing, or radical
reengineering of core organizational processes
and functions.

23. Organizational Change
and Development
• Strategic change depends on backing from those
who authorize change, accessibility in the sense
that managers understand what they are working
toward, specificity in terms of the detailed
planning, and cultural receptivity, i.e., those
affected by change are receptive enough to
facilitate it. [Miller, 1997]
• Successful change also depends on
propitiousness. Simply stated, accomplishing
major change also requires some luck.

24. Effective Employee
Communications
• Management is supportive. Top and middle
management are directly involved in and
responsible for communication.
• Professional communication staff members are
well positioned, i.e., close to the issues and
included in the strategic planning. Communication
is integrated into other business processes and
part of the business plan.
• Communication reinforces strategic objectives to all
employees. Targeted messages are adapted to
relevant audiences, but they also are consistent.

25. Effective Employee
Communications
• Communication uses all appropriate media,
but it privileges face-to-face communication
over print and electronic media.
• The effectiveness of the communication
program is assessed formally and frequently.

26. External Communication
• Public Relations and Image Building
• Public Affairs and Issues Management
• Issues Management and Organizational
Change
• Issues Management and Issues Advocacy

27. Public Relations and
Image Building
• Image building is a process of creating the identity
an organization wants its relevant publics to
perceive.
• Image building involves an organization's attempt
to cultivate a public impression that a set of
positively valued features defines the essential
character of the organization. [Goldhaber, 1993]
• Changing a corporate image requires developing
and publicizing specific organizational
characteristics and behaviors that are consistent
with the image being cultivated.

28. Public Relations and
Image Building
• The art of image building is associated with the field
of public relations.
• Public relations has been defined as the
management function which evaluates public
attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an
individual or an organization with the public interest,
and executes a program of action to earn public
understanding and acceptance.
• Farsighted, contemporary public relations practice is
concerned with developing public appreciation of
good organizational performance [Cutlip & Center,
1964]

29. Issues Management
• The organized activity of identifying emerging
trends, concerns, or issues likely to affect an
organization in the next few years and developing a
wider and more positive range of organizational
responses [Coates, Coates, Jarratt, and Heinz, 1986]
• Issues management in business emerged largely as
a response to the activism of public interest and
special interest groups and as a means of
identifying, understanding, tracking, and acting on
issues before they are subjected to public policy
deliberations and decision making [Jones & Chase,
1979]

30. Issues Management
• Public issues often represent adversity to
executives and managers precisely because they
raise challenges to the organization’s established
traditions and modes of operation
• Post (1978) characterizes organizational
responses to public issues in light of two factors:
– the organization’s stake in maintaining the status
quo (i.e., in continuing its current practices)
– the perceived legitimacy of public complaints
against the status quo

31. Issues Management
Organizational Response to Public Issues
• Organizations will avoid a public issue if both the
stakes and perceived legitimacy are low.
• If the stakes are high and perceived legitimacy is low,
organizations tend to “stonewall” with cover-ups,
distortions, and other methods.
• Where stakes are low and perceived legitimacy is
high, the organization attempts to accommodate
critics through some form of change.
• If both the stakes and perceived legitimacy are high,
the organization attempts to collaborate with critics.

32. Issues Management
• Issues management is concerned with emerging
issues whose definition and contending positions are
evolving in the public arena and legislation or
regulation is likely in a moving time frame of 18 to 36
months.
• Ewing (1979) described several techniques that
organizations can use to track and predict the
development of such issues. Some of the more
common techniques include the following:

33. Issues Management
• Trend extrapolation. A factor or variable is measured
over time and statistical forecasting techniques are
used to project a trend from these measurements.
• Trend impact analysis. This technique is a variation
on trend extrapolation. After a trend is extrapolated,
experts identify future events that would affect the
extrapolation and the trend is modified in light of
these events.
• Scanning. A relatively simple technique in which
issues that might affect an organization are identified
and monitored by use of volunteers who regularly
scan print and electronic media for useful information.

34. Issues Management
• Monitoring. This method may be used in conjunction
with scanning. Scanning identifies potential issues,
while monitoring tracks these issues through
systematic analysis of data. Monitoring may include
public opinion polling and other forms of social
science research.
• Scenario writing. This technique begins by asking the
question, “What would happen if X came to pass?”
Given an assumption that X occurs, a chronological
projection into the future is written.

35. Issues Management and
Organizational Change
• Issues management may be followed by some form of
adaptive change to accommodate the organization to
the environment.
• General Electric and its ecomaginationTM
project (GE’s
effort to go green)
• The core elements of the program include a
commitment to increase GE’s research investment in
clean technologies to $1.5 billion per year by 2010, to
realize more than half of its revenue from clean
technology products by 2015, and to turn a projected
40% increase in its production of greenhouse gases
into a net decrease of 1% by 2012.

36. Image Management and
Issues Advocacy
• Issues advocacy addresses itself to specific
controversial issues, presenting facts and arguments
that project the sponsor’s viewpoint to try to influence
political decisions by molding public opinion [Sethi,
1982]
• Pfizer advertised its Access program to help uninsured
persons obtain free prescription drugs when politicians
were debating addition of drug coverage to Medicare,
an action opposed by Pfizer.
• The message was an image ad in appearance, but it
functioned as an advocacy ad by implying that the
Medicare drug program was unnecessary.

37. Risk Communication
• Risk communication is the process of
communicating responsibly and effectively about
the risk factors associated with industrial
technologies, natural hazards, and human
activities.
• Risk communication is not about managing risks,
per se; it is about managing the divide between
the expert and the non-expert to achieve an
informed understanding of risks and benefits
[Leiss, 2004]

38. Risk Communication
• The basic responsibility of risk communication
practitioners is promotion of reasoned dialogue
among stakeholders on the nature of the relevant
risk factors and on acceptable risk management
strategies.
• In order to fulfill this purpose, practitioners must
understand how risks are perceived by relevant
publics, be able to present expert risk assessments
in ways that non-experts can understand, and help
interested parties reach a shared understanding of
risk [Leiss, 2004]

39. Crisis Communication
• Crisis: a major, unpredictable event that has
potentially negative results and may
significantly damage the organization [Barton,
1993]
• The purpose of crisis communication is to
respond appropriately in such situations to
minimize damage and maintain public
confidence

40. Crisis Communication
• Crisis and Stakeholder Relationships
• Factors in Crisis Communication
• Public Bias in Crisis Communication

41. Crisis and Stakeholder
Relationships
• Crisis communication in situations that affect the
organization’s relationships with stakeholders,
especially those that draw mass media attention,
requires management of those relationships
• If you begin with the value of an organization and
subtract from it the organization's material
assets, what you have left is the value that
perception creates
• You can lose that value in a nano-second in a
crisis [Englehart, 1995]

42. Crisis and Stakeholder
Relationships
• Benoit’s (1997) theory of image restoration
• Concerned with crisis situations where relevant
audiences believe an organization to be responsible
for an offensive act
• Response Options:
– Denying Responsibility
– Evading Responsibility
– Reducing Offensiveness of the Act
– Taking Corrective Action
– Apologizing for the Act

43. Factors in Crisis
Communication
• Planning and preparation for crisis
events
• Behavior of the organization during the
crisis (who does what when)
• Communication to important publics
during the crisis

44. Factors in Crisis
Communication
• Before a crisis occurs, messages should provide
internalizing information to build positive public
opinion toward the organization.
• When it appears that a crisis is imminent, the strategy
should shift from internalizing messages to instructing
messages that tell the public how to respond to the
crisis.
• Instructing communication should increase greatly at
the breakout stage of the crisis so that affected
publics know what they are to do.

45. Factors in Crisis
Communication
• As the crisis subsides, communication may
shift to adjusting messages intended to help
people cope with the effects of the crisis.
• As the crisis abates, the organization can
return to an internalizing strategy.

46. Public Bias in Crisis
Communication
• The scope of crisis communication is not just
dissemination of messages to publics.
• Crisis management is also concerned with
preventing or minimizing imminent loss,
protecting or rescuing assets and people, and
maintaining or recovering core functions.
• Crisis communication in a broader sense also
includes the communication systems and
processes necessary for coordinated action
among those who respond to the crisis.

47. Interpretive Perspective
• Limits of the Effectiveness Model
• Transactional Strategic Communication
• Constraint and Crisis

48. Limits of the
Effectiveness Model
• Effectiveness advocates attribute failure of
strategic initiatives to ineffective
communication and contend that there are, in
fact, “best practices” for effective strategic
communication.
• Although such practices may be useful, they
do not assure success for strategic initiatives.

49. Transactional Strategic
Communication
• When one assumes a linear perspective of
strategy, it is easy to forget that communication is
a transactional process
• Strategic consensus is critical for successful
implementation of strategy
• Strategic consensus does not necessarily mean
that members are in total agreement with and
entirely committed to the strategy
• It does mean that members have constructed a
common understanding of what it is

50. Transactional Strategic
Communication
• Communication is a vital part of strategy
implementation in a process through which
organization members converge on
commonly shared meanings
• This involves not only the message of top
management to others in the organization,
but others’ transactions among themselves.

51. Constraint and Crisis
• Previous experience on communication and action in
crisis events can have potentially constraining effects.
• A cosmology episode occurs when the crisis situation
creates an overwhelming sensation on the part of
observers where all existing forms of sense-making
fail to account for experiences.
• Self-organizing is a process whereby order re-
emerges out of a random and chaotic state with new
forms, structures, and procedures, often at a high
level of order and complexity.

52. Critical Perspectives
• Strategy and Hegemony
• Coping with Power
• Transformation and Strategic Communication

53. Strategy and Hegemony
• Case Study of the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue
(TABD)
• Developed in the 1990s by U. S. Secretary of
Commerce Ron Brown under the Clinton
administration.
• The TABD promotes close commercial ties between the
U.S. and European Union.
• TABD claims to do this through a dialogue system of
input from public and civil society to foster a more
integrated transatlantic marketplace.
• Presumably, this input from public and civil sources
shapes TABD policy recommendations.

54. Strategy and Hegemony
• Increased economic and political tension between
the European Union and United States in recent
years has pushed the TABD into a dual rhetorical
challenge
• Promoting its success to business and government
participants to further its agenda while
encountering a small but growing activist
community protesting TABD's influence as an
example of corporate hegemony [Zoller, 2004]

55. Strategy and Hegemony
• TABD links dialogue with the public good and denies any
aims to weaken regulations on business, yet deregulatory
goals are apparent in its public communication.
• TABD represents dialogue as civil participation and its
own role as advisory and nongovernmental, but its goal is
incorporation of its expert group recommendations into
government policy.
• The effect of TABD’s strategy actually is to exclude
multiple viewpoints from dialogue on trade and business
policies: “Rather than contributing to increased public
debate, the process forwards only business interests and
only one version of those interests” [Zoller, 2004]

56. Coping with Power
• Howard and Geist studied a 4,200-employee
public utility company that they identified with the
pseudonym, California Gas and Power (CGP).
• CGP was engaged in a merger with a larger utility
company, an effort supported by a strategic plan
and a transition program.
• CGP’s identity and culture were based on
espoused values of empowerment, openness, and
participation.
• It also was a relatively small, secure, and
family/community-oriented company.

57. Coping with Power
• The merger decision set up a primary contradiction
between the desires of shareholders for increased
profitability and the needs of the organization as a
community of people, especially since the merger
decision was essentially centralized.
• There were also secondary contradictions between
change and stability (over the issue of job security),
empowerment and powerlessness (the trade-off of the
espoused value of participation against the non-
participatory merger decision), and identification and
estrangement (a company once promoting
organizational identification and commitment, but now
offering severance packages for people to go away).

58. Coping with Power
• Organization members developed four distinct
ideological discourses to deal with the contradictions:
invincibility, diplomacy, betrayal, and defection.
• Those who engaged in a discourse of invincibility
represented themselves not only as accepting the
merger, but also as immune from any negative
consequences.
• The discourse of diplomacy simultaneously embraced
the value of change while questioning the benefits of
this merger, going along with the transition, hoping to
remain in the merged organization, yet unwilling to
renounce the values and culture of the unmerged CGP.

59. Coping with Power
• Feelings of betrayal produced a discourse of
powerlessness, lost identity, and
estrangement from the organization.
• A discourse of defection was used by
employees who opted out, took the severance
package, or just rejected the change and left.

60. Transformation and
Strategic Change
• Executives who frame strategy certainly hope for
it to have transformative effects in terms that they
define, but strategic communication can be
transformative for the organization in ways that
may not be obvious.
• Livesey (2002) examined Shell’s first corporate
social report issued in 1998, Profits and
Principles: Does There Have to Be a Choice?
• Shell had made a strategic decision to embrace
the concept of sustainable development.

61. Transformation and
Strategic Change
• Shell described in detail how it intended to
accomplish its new objectives with sustainable
development and the issues and challenges that
it would face in the process.
• Livesey noted that Shell’s report could be read
from a fairly typically critical standpoint, i.e.,
simply as a corporate attempt to reestablish
discursive regularity and hegemonic control in
the wake of challenges by environmentalists and
human rights activists.

62. Transformation and
Strategic Change
• Livesey found instead that the corporation’s
discourse on sustainable development had
transforming effects on the company and on the
idea of sustainability.
• Talk may be the vehicle for change; realization of
alternatives happens in talk about alternatives.
Words have effects. Shell’s words embodied
commitments to actions, at least some of which
are tangible and radical.