CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS Joep Cornelissen Publisher: Sage

All organisations must "find ways to successfully establish and nurture relationships with their stakeholders," writes Joep Cornelissen in Corporate Communications, from Sage (www.sagepublications.com) . The task is `exceptionally complex,' and so `largely uncharted.' But much of what is available is glib and misleading, rues the author, before proceeding to discuss the theory and practice of corporate communications.

"Right up until the early 1900s, organisations hired publicists, press agents, promoters and propagandists," chronicles the book, tracing the historical roots of the function. "The press agents played on the credibility of the general public in its longing to be entertained, whether deceived or not, and many advertisements and press releases in those days were in fact exaggerated to the point where they were outright lies." Has the situation changed now?

Among the classic examples of marketing, PR (public relations) is a mention about how Sony aroused public interest in the Walkman by giving the product "to Japan's leading musicians, teen idols, and magazine editors." However, PR has fallen in esteem. "M. N. Olasky, among many others, has noted that practitioners of PR have become associated with a litany of derogatory terms such as `tools of the top brass,' `hucksters,' `parrots,' `low-life liars,' and `impotent, evasive, egomaniacal, and lying;' and that `corporate communications' seems a politically better alternative."

Cornelissen cites a 2001 survey of Fortune 500 companies, which found that `managing reputation' was considered "the lead philosophy among communication departments." Also, the communication practitioners understand that `identity,' or `what the company is and stands for,' is "one of the cornerstones of stakeholder engagement."

Companies that have not thought seriously about their corporate identity may suffer from a disconnect with their stakeholders. Such companies tend "to hire and fire outside agencies with regularity, trying to find the one with the ability to `sell' a message that people do not seem to be `buying'." Perhaps, therefore, one can identify such companies from account moves!

Who is a stakeholder? "Any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation's purpose and objective," reads R.E. Freeman's definition. His 1984 classic, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, had spoken of three groups of stakes — equity, economic or market, and influencer. Stakes of different groups can be at odds with one another, Cornelissen points out.

In a chapter on communications strategy, Cornelissen does a mapping of stakeholders using three circles — power, legitimacy, and urgency. The core at which all the three overlap is the `definitive' stakeholder. Six other types of stakeholders are dormant, dominant, discretionary, dependent, demanding, and dangerous.

While the `demanding' stakeholder has urgent claims but lacks the power and legitimacy to enforce them, the `dangerous' one has power and so can resort to coercion and even violence! The `dominant' one has both power and legitimacy, but lacks urgency; "examples include employees, customers, owners and significant creditors." Claims of the `definitive' category merit priority and attention, emphasises the author.

The `challenge ahead,' according to Cornelissen is to shift from a craft orientation to communications. "As a management function, communications practitioners would then enact managerial roles," such as participating in strategic decision-making, analysis and research, formulation of communications objectives, design of organisational philosophies, and counselling senior management.

A book that corporate communications departments can bank on.

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D. Murali

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