Current trends in
corporate
communication
Michael B. Goodman
The author
Michael B. Goodman is based at Fairleigh Dickinson
University, Madison, New Jersey, USA.
Keywords
Corporate communications, Crisis management,
Management roles, Corporate culture
Abstract
Explores trends in corporate communication based on the
Corporate Communication Institute Benchmark Study and
on the Council of Public Relations Firms Spending Study.
Presents answers to five basic questions on how change
has an impact on practitioners and the profession.
Change. You have been hearing about it and
how important it is for a decade or more.
What can I add to your knowledge? I have
some data from the Corporate
Communication Institute’s Benchmark Study
conducted November 1999 to March 2000,
and the Council on Public Relations Firms
Spending Study conducted February 2000 –
April 2000.
Before I get to the five questions I hope to
address, not answer since that implies finality,
let’s begin with the simple notion that all
change is personal.
Change happens like the tide or the wind or
the build up of mountains; or like an
earthquake, tidal wave or tornado. Nothing
prepares you for change better than the
awareness of what you can do, and cannot do,
about it.
Let’s investigate some basic questions
about change as it relates to us personally and
to our profession:
.
What has change got to do with it?
.
What is the role of business and
communication?
.
What does this mean for the individual,
and what is the challenge in meeting
future changes?
.
What new tools do you need for your
toolbox?
.
What has changed in audiences and in
communication channels?
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What’s change got to do with it?
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Everything – if you plan to survive.
Nothing – if you don’t.
I’ll assume you are all here to survive.
Last winter the Corporate Communication
Institute conducted a study to set a benchmark for the practice of corporate
communication. We surveyed Corporate
Communication executives from Fortune
1,000 companies and asked 18 questions.
Several of these focused on the functions of
their work and the budget responsibilities for
Corporate Communications: An International Journal
Volume 6 . Number 3 . 2001 . pp. 117±123
# MCB University Press . ISSN 1356-3289
This paper is based on the Corporate
Communication Institute’s Benchmark Study
(2000) and remarks at the Council of
Communication Managers Annual Meeting
(October 2000) and at the Corporate
Communication Institute’s New Leaders Forum
(January 2001). The author acknowledges
contributions from Jill Alexander, Christia Genest,
James Huttin, Jennifer Lehr and Gary Radford.
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Current trends in corporate communication
Michael B. Goodman
Corporate Communications: An International Journal
Volume 6 . Number 3 . 2001 . 117±123
those functions. Other questions asked about
the executives themselves – age, educational
background, gender, salary. We also conducted phone and e-mail interviews with
selected respondents.
We were also commissioned by the Council
of Public Relations Firms to conduct a study
of the relationship between spending on
Corporate Communication functions and its
reputation as reported by Fortune in its annual
ranking of the ‘‘Most admired’’.
What we found in these studies has
implications for you, and how you do your work.
Here are a few of them (11 if you are counting):
(1) Relationships with your community matter a
great deal. The CPRF Study indicted a
positive, statistical relationship between
what a corporation spends on its
‘‘foundation activities’’ and its reputation
ranking. This finding was unanticipated,
and we plan to follow this up with our
second round of research.
(2) Culture is vital to organizational health.
Intangibles such as the culture of the
organization form an inviting
environment that can attract and retain
quality people; or create one that
encourages people to be less productive
or to leave. A positive culture has
become a standard for global
corporations, such as: American Express,
Boeing, GE, H-P, IBM, SONY, Johnson
& Johnson
(3) Communication is strategic – now more than
ever. Many company executives consider
communication as purely tactical in both
its nature and its execution. In an
information driven age, communication
is an integral part of the corporate
strategy. Strategic issues include an
orientation of communication to an
organization’s priorities, as well as
toward the external environment.
Integrity and credibility are the pillars of
strategic communication. Realistic
measurement systems and processes for
improvement are strategic tools for
success.
(4) The age gap between you and your
employees must factor into your planning.
Sixty-eight percent (68 per cent) of
corporate executives in charge of public
affairs and employee communication
(internal and external) – a large majority,
are between 40 and 55 years of age. The
workforce they manage is
overwhelmingly younger. A ‘‘generation
gap’’ exists, but can be mitigated by
applying the basic communication
process, by conducting an audience
analysis, and by focusing on the concerns
of the workforce and the generation.
(5) People in your workforce care more about
themselves than the company. Members of
the contemporary workforce have been
told since high school, and by parents and
elders, that corporate life is not forever
and no job has a guarantee. Is it any
surprise they practice enlightened selfinterest? How can a company expect
employee loyalty in such an environment?
(6) Your company is expected to be a good
corporate citizen, as well as to make money.
In the wake of diminished power among
almost all power structures in our society
– religion, government, the family –
corporations have by default taken on a
greater role in solving many of the ills of
society. Social problems – substance
abuse, sexual harassment, child care,
elder care – have fallen to the
corporations by default.
(7) Media relations is more complex – no more
old boy system. In a 24/7/365 environment
with scores of media outlets from
newspapers to broadcast to the Internet,
relationships with the media are no
longer a matter of contacting a few old
friends over a leisurely lunch. Each
channel, each reporter demands a
professional relationship built on
credibility.
(8) Internet is just a tool; Internet is a strategy –
truth is on the continuum. Any
anthropologist will tell you that a new
tool in a human system changes that
system. So the Internet has changed
dramatically the way people in
corporations communicate internally
and externally. It has at once created a
sense of liberation, and also represents a
constantly present taskmaster.
(9) Speed is faster than it ever was. Experts
compare an Internet year to a ‘‘dog’’
year. Is it any wonder that some of us
seem much older than our years? The
speed of life has us live several lives in
one lifetime.
(10) Your company will have a crisis; prepare for
the ones you can’t conceive of. Crisis
planning is informed by the Boy Scout
motto: ‘‘Be prepared.’’ The Boy Scouts,
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Corporate Communications: An International Journal
Volume 6 . Number 3 . 2001 . 117±123
Michael B. Goodman
however, did not conceive that their
recent court victory could have resulted
in a crisis of their own – funds drying up
and communities barring their use of
public facilities. Be prepared, indeed.
(11) Writing is still the core skill for corporate
communication. The Internet has
underscored that writing of the highest
order is still the major talent required of
those who create and send the messages
in and from our major corporations.
Some of the findings of our research indicate
some changes in how we communicate at
work. Others indicate changes in relationships
between you and your workforce, as well as
changes between you and the community
your company is in. Which brings us to our
next question.
What is the role of business and
communication?
Communication is what you do every day and
that role has changed. It is more complex,
strategic and vital to the health of your
organization than it was yesterday, and will
only gain in its importance in an information
driven economy. It is tied to the messages you
create for all your audiences – internal and
external, paying and non-paying.
What are the functions of corporate
communication? We asked in our benchmark
study whether or not our corporate
communication executives’ responsibilities
and budgets included 24 communication
functions such as annual report, crisis,
employee relations, Internet, intranet, media
relations, policy, strategy, and public
relations. Some of the results are shown in
Table I.
These figures indicate substantial
involvement of corporate communication
executives in communication actions central
to corporate growth and survival. The
responses also indicate substantial budgetary
responsibility for traditional communication
functions and a shared or matrix role in
forging important corporate relationships
with customers, vendors, and investors.
And just how big are the corporate
communication budgets of the Fortune 1,000?
Results from the benchmark study are shown
in Table II.
Table I Some of the results of the benchmark study
Function
Communication strategy
Media relations
Public relations
Executive speeches
Crisis and emergency
Communication policy
Annual report
Corporate identity
Internet communication
Intranet communication
Community relations
Issues management
Advertising
Marketing communication
Corporate culture
Corporate philanthropy
Employee relations
Mission statement
Investor relations
Government relations
Ethics code
Labor relations
Responsibility (%)
Budget (%)
95.6
93.4
93.4
90.5
89.8
86.9
79.6
75.2
73.7
72.3
66.4
58.4
56.2
52.6
48.9
46.7
43.8
38.0
27.0
21.9
8.8
3.6
N/A
88.3
80.3
86.1
77.4
N/A
69.3
67.9
59.1
58.4
56.9
48.2
42.3
26.3
39.4
41.6
82.5
29.9
19.7
19.7
N/A
1.5
Table II Corporate communication budgets of the
Fortune 1,000
Percentage of
Corporate communication budget ($)
companies
<500,000
500,000–999,999
1,000,000–4,999,999
5,000,000–7,499,999
7,500,000–10,000,000
>10,000,000
19.1
14.0
27.2
14.7
4.4
20.6
The Council on Public Relations Firms
Spending Study asked more detailed
questions about spending in the Fortune 500.
The Spending Study found:
(1) The ‘‘typical’’ corporate communication
department in the study had a budget of
$7.5 million and a staff of 10
professionals and three support staff. It
was headed by a VP (often a senior or
executive VP) who reported to the chief
executive or chief operating officer, and
expects next year’s budget and staffing
will both increase.
(2) The range of spending on corporate
communication was very large:
$285,000 to $100 million. The mean
was $21.6 million
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Michael B. Goodman
(3) Among those companies whose budgets
included them, the following were the
largest line items:
.
corporate advertising ($11.4 million);
.
foundation funding ($8.1 million);
.
social responsibility ($4.65 million,
including community relations, nonfoundation funding, etc.);
.
government relations ($4.2 million);
.
employee communications ($2.6
million); and
.
investor relations ($2.1 million).
These figures underscore that playing the
communication game at the Fortune 500 level
requires substantial resources in professional
staff and financial commitment.
What does this mean for the individual,
and what is the challenge in meeting
future change?
Chances are you got into corporate
communication because you are a good writer
– a very good writer. But you realized early on
that not too many paying jobs out there were
called ‘‘writer’’. No one advertises for poets,
novelists, and short story writers. But writing
for organizations is booming – Web pages,
newsletters, press releases, speeches. All
those are still there. Now much more work
for individuals acting as vendors is the result
of ‘‘outsourcing’’.
We asked in our Benchmark Study how
corporate communication executives used
vendors and agencies for their work. The
most commonly cited were:
.
advertising (75.9 per cent);
.
annual report (73.7 per cent);
.
Internet (46.0 per cent);
.
public relations (43.1 per cent);
.
identity (43.1 per cent);
.
media relations (40.1 per cent);
.
marketing communication (38.7 per cent);
.
crisis communication (28.5 per cent);
.
intranet (22.6 per cent);
.
investor relations (18.2 per cent);
Only 8.8 per cent use a vendor for community
relations and for issues management, and 6.6
per cent use a vendor for employee relations
and for labor relations. Less than 5 per cent of
companies use vendors for communication
policy, corporate culture, mission statement,
corporate philanthropy.
Creation of messages remains the work
of the corporation itself with its own
resources. It appears that vendors help with
technology, production, distribution, and
execution.
For the individual practicing corporate
communication the variety of functions and
responsibilities indicates a broader set of
skills beyond writing. And I do not mean the
Internet, though that is an essential skill that
you have mastered. How you use media – all
types of media – to project your company
message. How you relate interpersonally as a
manager, as a colleague, as a corporate
representative. How you teach and
motivate.
How you communicate to your colleagues
that they are company ambassadors. Everywhere
you go, you are you and your organization.
You are your organization. That is a tough
realization for the generation of self-absorbed
employees. The success of the enterprise calls
for them to be proud of their organization,
even if their commitment is temporary.
The model for your company is no longer
a family. It is a community. Family implies
a much different relationship, and a much
more obligatory bond. Family, according to
Frost, is the place that when you go there
they have to take you in. Besides, divorce
rates have remained constant, and
contemporary family constellations are very
complex. How many times have you seen
someone with a person that just did not fit,
and they may have said something like,
‘‘Oh, yes this is my cousin,’’ or, ‘‘Yeah, he’s
my wife’s uncle’s stepson visiting from
Texas’’?
By contrast, we have a different bond with
community. We have a pride of place. We say,
‘‘I’m from Colorado Springs,’’ or ‘‘I’m from
Utah’’, or ‘‘Boston’’, or ‘‘Paris’’ with lots of
pride that comes from the context of place
and community.
Or ‘‘I work for Ford’’ or ‘‘GE’’ or ‘‘IBM’’
or ‘‘Microsoft’’. We have a sense we have
joined a community of people who share
something different from what families do –
a culture.
What new tools do you need for your
toolbox?
In addition to your excellent writing expertise,
your superior interpersonal skill, your ability
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Volume 6 . Number 3 . 2001 . 117±123
Michael B. Goodman
to create media products – press releases,
video, Web pages, magazine articles,
newsletters – other tools need to be in your
professional toolbox to meet the challenge of
change. You need the ability to:
.
teach;
.
absorb and comprehend vast amounts of
complex information quickly;
.
create and build relationships internally
and externally;
.
build trust in all your audiences; and
.
build a corporate culture.
Teach
The corporate communicator is taking over
an HR role when it comes to motivating
employees and that calls for you to be a
teacher. To do that you need to be aware of
the styles of adult learners, and we can begin
to define adult for many tasks as anyone over
13. Experience is key to adult learning.
Almost everyone knows of the person who
learned to program a computer by his or
herself, fix an automobile, or stereo system, or
to have children and raise a family without the
aid of formal schooling.
So your relationship as a teacher with the
workforce works best when it is collaborative.
Absorb complex information quickly
In times of challenge – crises, emergencies,
mergers, acquisitions, strikes – the appetite
for quality information by your own
community and your corporate community
is voracious. Stacks of information about
the merger must be translated from
‘‘lawyer’’ and ‘‘accountant’’ speak to a
language reasonably intelligent people
understand.
People with a background in the liberal arts
developed a facility for complex ideas and
information when they interpreted the novels
of Dickens and Twain; or understood the
monographs of Freud and Jung; or decoded
the field studies of Mead; or commented on
the observations of Churchill: or criticized the
thoughts of Socrates and Confucius; or
misread the essays of Derrida.
Create and build relationships
Building relationships was never that easy,
but in simpler times the role of employee
communication was given to trusted
employees who knew almost everyone in the
company because he or she had worked there
since high school. In a family cultural model,
trust was institutionalized since everyone in
the company was family.
Relationships with the media were also
built through recruiting reporters who had
covered your company and hiring them to be
the media relations representative. With the
change to a corporate community model,
you have to work at identifying the people
who are important to the organization and
then go about cultivating a relationship with
them.
Build trust
How do you go about building trust? As
country simple, and as emotionally difficult as
being worthy of trust. People you interact
with must have a sense of your integrity as the
cornerstone of trust. Every positive
interaction with people builds a reservoir of
trust. It is cumulative, from simply showing
up on time, to keeping your promises. On the
other hand, integrity is something you can
only lose once.
Build corporate culture
When your boss asks you to take a few days
to change the culture of the company, stop a
take a few deep breaths before you begin
your lecture. You might ask if he or she has
ever been swimming in the ocean and gotten
caught in the receding tide, or felt the
enormous pull of a rip tide. Or you might ask
if they have ever been tossed around by a
sudden gust of wind. A hurricane. A
tornado.
Culture is like the wind and the tide. It
exerts very strong and often invisible forces. It
has to be considered. We renovated, actually
we are still in the process of renovating an old
cottage in Maine that was ravaged by the
forces of winter, water, and entropy.
Cultures can be changed, but not
instantaneously. And rapid culture changes
are painful and destructive, like wars. We
don’t have to look too far a field to find
destructive cultural changes that are slow to
heal – Ireland, the Middle East, Bosnia,
Korea, Central Africa. The citizens of
Georgia (US that is) still recall with anger the
slash and burn policy of General Sherman
during the Civil War. The British have no
monument at Edgehill the site of the first
battle of their Civil War to overthrow the
King by Cromwell and the Roundheads over
350 years ago.
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Corporate Communications: An International Journal
Volume 6 . Number 3 . 2001 . 117±123
Michael B. Goodman
What has changed in audiences and
communication channels?
Globalization, women, Gen-X, Gen-Y,
Gen-Z, Gen-Jones, the digital generation...
Beloit College has for three years developed
a ‘‘Mindset List’’ for professors to better
understand freshmen (the members of the
class of 2004). It has interesting statements
such as:
.
Kurt Cobain’s death was the day the
music died;
.
the Kennedy tragedy was a plane crash,
not an assassination;
.
there have always been ATM machines;
.
‘‘spam’’ and ‘‘cookies’’ are not necessarily
foods; and
.
they feel more danger from having sex
and being in school than from possible
nuclear war.
Developing and maintaining the
organization’s culture as part of your
responsibility has added to the challenge of
corporate communication. Your employees
are no longer captives to your organization.
They move often from job to job. They
learned their lesson well from the experience
of the decades of downsizing, restructuring,
mergers and acquisitions.
They were told in school and observed from
their parents that corporations and
organizations would not have a job for them
for life. They were taught in high school and
college to see each job as a learning
experience for them to prepare for the next
job in their career path. Service was selfservice, so they have no role models for
understanding the concept of the value-added
nature of customer relations.
Enlightened self-interest was the
appropriate way to think about their place in
the world of work. They saw what happened
to their fathers and mothers who committed
themselves to work and a life of delayed
gratification – downsized at 55 just short of
their pension and other benefits.
Now your challenge is to motivate a
generation of workers who have priorities
vastly different from the priorities of the
company. Work/life balance for corporation
places work first. For the new workforce,
work/life balance means life balance. When
work does not fit, it’s time to move on. The
low unemployment rate contributes to the
validity of their approach to work.
Culture is also an essential understanding
for the global workforce. You may understand
the personality style preferences of your
employees because you have their MeyersBriggs profiles. But an understanding of the
influence of cultures from an anthropological
perspective is also essential.
Cognitive psychologists are challenging
the assumptions about our individual habits
of thought. They are questioning the belief
that
... the strategies people adopted in processing
information and making sense of the world
around them ... are the same for everyone ...
[that is] a devotion to logical reasoning, a
penchant for categorization and an urge to
understand situations and events in linear terms
of cause and effect (Goode; 2000).
Your employees from counties such as
Japan, China, and Korea seem to think
‘‘holistically’’. At the risk of gross
generalizations, they construct the world
differently than Westerners do by paying
more attention to context and relationships.
Many also have an ability to hold
contradicting thoughts simultaneously –
Yin/Yang. So your audience analysis
challenge becomes even more complex.
Keep in mind the Easterners born and raised
in a Western environment show no clear
preference for either rational or holistic
thought as a result of strong competing
cultural influences.
When all is said and done
With all the changes in the nature of work, the
tools, the people, the companies, maybe some
simple guidelines might be helpful. How
about Nordstrom’s? They have two.
(1) use your best judgement; and
(2) see rule 1.
Judgement, wisdom, understanding, integrity
– develop and rely on them.
References and further reading
Belkin, L. (2000), ``Life’s work’’, New York Times, 5 July,
p. G1.
Belkin, L. (2000), ``Buying Gen-Y (Series)’’, Wall Street
Journal, 9-11 August, pp. B1 and B4.
``Corporate Communication Benchmark Study’’ (2000),
Corporate Communication Institute, Madison, NJ,
(www.corporatecomm.org)
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Michael B. Goodman
Corporate Communications: An International Journal
Volume 6 . Number 3 . 2001 . 117±123
``Corporate Communication Spending Study’’ (2000),
Corporate Communication Institute for the Council
for Public Relations Firms, Madison, NJ.
Gardyn, R. (2000), ``Who’s the boss? The new American
worker’’,, American Demographics, September ,
pp. 53-9.
Goode, E. (2000), ``How culture molds habits of thought’’,
New York Times, 8 August, pp. 1 and 4.
McClain, D.L. (2000), ``Forget the raise, give me some
time off’’, New York Times, 5 July, p. G1.
``Remember when? This Fall’s freshmen may not’’ (2000),
Chronicle of Higher Education, 8 September , p. 10.
Tahmincioglu, E. (2000), ``To shirkers, the days of whine
and roses’’, New York Times, 19 July, p. G1.
Tapscott, D. (1998), Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the
Net Generation, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Wellner, AS. (2000), ``Generational divide’’, American
Demographics, October, pp. 52-8.
Wellner, A.S. (2000), ``Generation Z’’, American
Demographics, September , pp. 61-64.
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