Corporate Reputation Review
Corporate Communications:
Corporate Reputation–Review,
Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 114–133
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd,
1363-3589 $30.00
114
Volume 9 Number 2
A Practice-based Theoretical
Conceptualization
Joep Cornelissen
Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, UK
Tibor van Bekkum
Positioning Group, The Netherlands
Betteke van Ruler
Amsterdam School of Communications Research, University of Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we develop a practice-based con-
ceptualization of corporate communications.
We review prior theoretical and empirical work
on communications management and draw upon
a set of case studies of European firms (Nokia,
Shell, Siemens and Philips) to circumscribe and
conceptualize the issues and activities that define
corporate communications as an area of practice.
A central contribution that emerged from our re-
view and conceptualization is that the dimensions
(structure, activities and consumption of activities,
professionals, political and cultural context) of this
area of practice are interrelated through two proc-
esses: strategic positioning and cultural accommo-
dation. We discuss these two fundamental proc-
esses in corporate communications and the
implications for theory, practice, and research.
Corporate Reputation Review (2006) 9, 114–133.
doi:10.1057/palgrave.crr.1550015
KEYWORDS: corporate communications; pub-
lic relations; reputation; identity; stakeholder;
practice
INTRODUCTION
There is a widespread belief in the profes-
sional world that in today’s society the future
www.palgrave-journals.com/crr
of any one company depends critically on
how it is viewed by key stakeholders such
as shareholders and investors, customers and
consumers, employees, and members of the
community in which the company resides.
Public activism, globalization and recent
accounting scandals have further strength-
ened this belief; and have also brought the
importance of strategic communications
management into closer orbit. Not surpris-
ingly, therefore, both the academic and
professional worlds have been suggesting
frameworks and models that prescribe steps
towards the ‘strategic’ use of communications
including such ideas as ‘integrated marketing
communications’ (Kitchen and Schultz,
1999), ‘corporate identity management’ (Van
Riel and Balmer, 1997), ‘reputation manage-
ment’ (Fombrun, 1996), ‘stakeholder com-
munications’ (Christensen and Cheney,
1994) and ‘excellent public relations’ (Grunig
and Grunig, 1998). Much of this work has
been prescriptive in suggesting frameworks
for managing communications and for man-
aging firm–stakeholder interactions, as
opposed to a more grounded and detailed
understanding of the practices of branding
and communications professionals and how

these may make a difference in the manage-
ment of firm–stakeholder relationships. Such
an understanding is, we suggest, particularly
important given the rift between the impor-
tance placed by CEO’s and senior executives
upon strategic corporate communications,
that is, linking communications activities
with the overall corporate strategy and ob-
jectives of the firm, and their views that there
is a huge under-performance in the com-
munications profession in the US, the UK
and continental Europe because of a lack of
qualified personnel and a limited under-
standing of what communication practices
actually make a difference (Argenti et al.,
2005; Murray and White, 2004; Van der Jagt,
2005).
Against this background, we conducted
primary research into practices (responsi-
bilities, roles and activities) of communi-
cations professionals in four European
corporations (Siemens, Nokia, Shell and
Philips) that have had consistently strong and
glowing reputations over the past years, de-
spite market setbacks and negative coverage
in the media. We conducted interviews with
communications professionals from the dif-
ferent departments involved in communica-
tions in each of these companies, asking
them about their roles, responsibilities, com-
munication strategies and tactics, as well as
the organizational context in which these
took place. We used these interview data
alongside our review of the academic litera-
ture to piece together a practice-based con-
ceptualization of corporate communications
(CC) (for an overview of our data collection
and analysis, see Appendix 1). Our overall
aim here was to elicit and conceptualize in
more detail the activities and issues that
define CC as a managerial function in prac-
tice.This extended conceptualization is based
upon a view of CC as a ‘practice’, which
focuses upon how practitioners engage in
the doing the ‘real work’ (Cook and Brown,
1999, p. 387) – a view that, we hope, will
stimulate conceptual debate and empirical
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler
research and offer a more informed basis for
practitioners to make sense of their profes-
sional realities and act upon it.
BACKGROUND
According to writers Ewen (1996) and
Cutlip (1995) the professional discipline of
public relations (PR) – communication
activities undertaken by an organization to
inform, persuade or otherwise relate to
individuals and groups in its outside environ-
ment – developed itself, expanding in its
scope and activities, because of public skep-
ticism, political reform, turmoil and activism
throughout the 20th century. In PR’s early
days as a discipline, at the height of the
Industrial Revolution, power was largely
concentrated with big businesses, although
the balance has since then shifted towards
powerful groups in society including
governments, trade unions, investors and
stockholders (Broom et al., 1991). In
response to the increased saliency and pow-
er of such groups, new areas of expertise
such as investor relations, public affairs, issues
management and employee communications
were added to the existing specialties of
media relations and publicity, and PR grad-
ually developed into a full-fledged ‘manage-
rial discipline’ in the early 1970s (Olasky,
1987). The ‘managerial discipline’ of PR has
since then, as writers Van Riel (1995) and
Cornelissen (2004) have documented,
evolved into the ‘managerial function’ of CC.
The fundamental contrast being that under
CC communications activities and special-
ties (eg media relations, government
relations, employee communications, com-
munity relations, advertising, investor rela-
tions, corporate design and issues manage-
ment) have been increasingly taken together
and consolidated into one or a few units or
departments and, importantly, these activities
are increasingly given shape and coordinated
from the strategic interests of the organization
as a whole. Van Riel (1995: 26) for
example suggests in this regard that CC as
Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 115
 Corporate Communications
a managerial function is ‘an instrument of
management by means of which all con-
sciously used forms of internal and external
communication are harmonized as effec-
tively and efficiently as possible’, with the
overall objective of creating ‘a favorable ba-
sis for relationships with groups upon which
the company is dependent’. The evolution
of PR into CC and its recognition as a
managerial function is furthermore document-
ed in the relatively high position of com-
munications managers and departments (eg
‘Corporate communications’, ‘Public Affairs’
or ‘Corporate affairs’) within organizations’
hierarchical structures (Cornelissen, 2004),
the rise of a new ‘style’ more business savvy
‘corporate communications’ manager (Free-
man, 1984; Harris and Bryant, 1986; Marion,
1998), and the widespread adoption of the
CC vocabulary of ‘stakeholders’, ‘identity’
and ‘reputation (Argenti, 1996; Van Riel,
1997). For example, a recent survey of For-
tune 500 companies found that rather than
using PR terminology around publics (ie
people who mobilize themselves against an
organization on the basis of some common
issue or concern to them), managing ‘repu-
tations’ with stakeholders is nowadays con-
sidered the lead philosophy among commu-
nication departments (Hutton et al., 2001).
In the wake of this recognition of CC as
a managerial function, much academic lit-
erature has started to consider communica-
tions not as a tactical or ‘functionary’
activity supporting the firm, but rather than
as a strategic boundary-spanning function
operating at the interface between the
organization and its environment – to help
gather, relay and interpret information from
the environment as well as representing the
organization to the outside world (eg White
and Dozier, 1992; Vercic and Grunig, 2000).
For example, theoretical frameworks that
consider strategy as a process of positioning
– that is as positioning the firm vis-à-vis its
competitors in the marketplace – have shown
an increased concern with concepts as
116 Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 9, 2, 114–133
‘corporate identity’ and ‘corporate branding’
to articulate the strategic process of linking
corporate strategy to communication proc-
esses that express and differentiate the firm
in relation to stakeholder groups in its envi-
ronment, and ultimately impact upon and
lead to corporate images and reputations
(eg Balmer and Greyser, 2003; Fombrun,
1996; Fombrun and Van Riel, 2004; Hatch
and Schultz, 2000; Van Riel and Balmer,
1997). Another stream of literature, stake-
holder theory, has started to specify the dif-
ferent stakeholder groups that a firm may
depend upon, the nature of the stakes that
they hold (eg Freeman, 1984; Clarkson, 1995;
Mitchell et al., 1997) as well as the appropri-
ate strategies for firms to establish and main-
tain relationships with these groups (eg Ar-
genti and Forman, 2000; Heugens et al.,
2002; Meznar and Nigh, 1995). Much schol-
arship and research on stakeholder manage-
ment assumes the importance of communi-
cations between firms and stakeholders in
their environments within the different
response modes that it suggests for firms.
That is, firms can broadly speaking either
‘buffer’ or ‘bridge’ the claim of a certain
stakeholder group (eg Meznar and Nigh,
1995; Heugens et al., 2002). Buffering in-
volves trying to keep claims from stakehold-
ers in the environment from interfering with
internal operations and trying to influence
the external environment. Bridging on the
other hand occurs as firms seek to adapt
organizational activities so that they conform
with external expectations and claims of im-
portant stakeholder groups.
In reviewing these literatures that have
dealt with the function and process of
communications between firms and groups
in their respective environments, we
observed two key points about the current
conceptualization of CC and its embodi-
ment as a managerial function in firms
around the globe. First, theories and theo-
retical frameworks in these literatures impli-
cate the importance of communications in
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00

firm–stakeholder interactions – and in that
sense are coming together (cf Schultz et al.,
2000: 3) – but only focus on the process of
communicating between a firm and stake-
holders in its environment. These theories
have been particularly focused on stakehold-
er effects and outcomes (eg images, reputa-
tions, relationships) established, but have paid
very little attention to the managerial acti-
vities, professional issues and organizational
contexts that characterize CC as a manage-
rial function (cf Vercic and Grunig, 2000).
Some work to this effect has emerged in
recent years (Cornelissen, 2004; Scholes and
Clutterbuck, 1998;Van Riel, 1995, 1997), but
is still a long way off from fully conceptual-
izing and describing CC as a management
function and practice – at least in compari-
son with other management functions and
practices as for instance strategy (Whitting-
ton, 2003) and accounting (Hopwood and
Miller, 1994). Second, there has been little
actual empirical research into CC as a man-
agement function, despite the recognized
importance of the function and a proliferat-
ing stream of literatures that directly or
indirectly refer to it. Thus, there is a gap
between theoretical deliberations on the rele-
vance and importance of CC, and descriptive
accounts of its actual use and embodiment in
practice. We argue that a practice-based con-
ceptualization of CC accounts for these lim-
itations and provides not only a framework
for extended theorizing and empirical re-
search but also a means for practitioners to
attain a fuller and richer understanding of this
critical management function.
TOWARDS A PRACTICE-BASED
THEORETICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION
The limitations of previous work point to
the need for more attention to CC as a
managerial function that is being practiced
within and by firms. Here, we follow the
basic tenets of arguments made in related
managerial fields as strategy (Whittington,
2003) and accounting (Hopwood and
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler
Miller, 1994) to focus on managerial func-
tions within firms as areas of practice; as
activities and work being carried out by
practitioners in an organizational context
with the latter referring to the political, cul-
tural and structural aspects related to the
practice of CC within the firm. The motives
for following this line of argumentation are
to obtain a richer and more comprehensive
picture of CC as it is currently practiced,
and thereby offset the limitations of prior
work that has considered CC primarily in
terms of strategic effects and outcomes. Sim-
ilarly, within the strategy field, current theo-
retical and empirical work has shown a pre-
occupation with strategy not as a structural
function that is manifested at the structural
level of the firm or indeed the macro level
of entire industries but as an activity that is
actually shaped and constituted by specific
activities and professional issues of strategy
makers operating individually or in commu-
nities of practice (see Johnson et al., 2003).
Although there are various ways to
consider CC as a practice, scholars who have
followed the ‘practice turn’ in related mana-
gerial fields have been guided by a shared
list of questions in their research. These
include questions of where and by whom
work is actually done and the tools and tech-
niques that are being used (ie practitioners and
activities), the roles and skills required of
practitioners and how these are acquired (ie
practitioners and their professional development),
the ways in which practitioners and the work
involved are organized (ie the organization of
communication work), political and cultural
issues that contextualize and mediate these
practices and activities (ie political and
cultural issues), and the way in which the
process and products of practices and
activities are communicated and consumed
(ie the contribution and use of practices and
activities) (cf Whittington, 2003). Taken to-
gether, these questions equally provide a
template for our present purposes to con-
sider CC as a practice, and to map and
Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 117
 Corporate Communications
conceptualize the function in a more com-
prehensive manner than previous work has
done. Although our primary purpose is an
improved conceptualization of CC, we will
inform our theoretical analysis with data and
insights from case studies that we conducted
with four European firms with strong repu-
tations with their stakeholders and the mar-
ketplace: Nokia, Shell, Philips and Siemens
(see Appendix 1). In the following parts of
this section, we first discuss each of the prac-
tice dimensions, incorporating insights from
our literature review as well as data from our
case studies. The subsequent section then
discusses the interrelatedness between these
dimensions by describing two central proc-
esses that cut across them: strategic position-
ing and cultural accommodation. Both these
processes are described with data from our
case studies.
Practitioners: Roles and Activities
A detailed practice view of CC starts with
circumscribing the practitioners involved in
this area of management; in terms of their
roles and backgrounds, and the range and
nature of the activities that they are prima-
rily responsible for. Larger firms typically
house communication practitioners with
different functional responsibilities, includ-
ing, for example, advertising, publicity, com-
munity relations, corporate advertising, crisis
communications, internal communications,
government relations, financial communica-
tions and investor relations, media relations,
issues management, lobbying, promotions,
sponsorship and public affairs. These practi-
tioners are commonly arranged into larger
functional areas, such as ‘corporate affairs’
(including media relations and internal com-
munications) and ‘corporate brand commu-
nications’ (Nokia), or as in the case of Shell
‘external affairs’ (involving strategic corpo-
rate communication activities), ‘corporate
communications’ (involving support com-
munications activities) and ‘corporate
marketing’. Practitioners working in each of
118 Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 9, 2, 114–133
these various functional areas of communi-
cations are on a day-to-day basis engaged in
a broad variety of activities ranging from, for
instance, editorial work, internal counseling,
handling of inquiries, gathering information,
looking at data from research, talking to press
contacts, drafting communications plans,
delivering presentations, producing commu-
nications materials (brochures, visuals, etc),
and administrative tasks within the depart-
ment. The job of communication practition-
ers at various levels of seniority, then, consists
of a broad range of activities that in its scope
and variety not only varies with the func-
tional responsibilities and tasks that have
been assigned to a communications depart-
ment (ie, whether the department has a ‘cor-
porate’ or ‘marketing’ remit and whether the
department is a service unit or is involved
in counseling and decision-making at the
senior management level), but also with the
range of issues and inquiries from stakehold-
ers that are directed to communications
practitioners for handling. In companies
like Shell where stakeholder groups indeed
wage many claims upon the organization
and raise issues that require a response, prac-
titioners often work at an unrelenting pace
to counsel management, draft resolutions
and policy documents, and respond to and
communicate with those outside stakehold-
er groups.
As in many other organizational jobs,
practitioners thus often work at a fast pace
and under pressure on a whole range of dif-
ferent tasks and activities (see Mintzberg,
1994). While these activities may be charac-
terized by variety and brevity, and thus dif-
fer from practitioner to practitioner, there
are two general dimensions alongside which
they can be considered and understood.
The first dimension involves whether
practitioners on the basis of the activities that
they perform can be characterized as gener-
alists or specialists; the second dimension
involves whether the activities carried
out predominantly reflect a manager or
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00

technician role for the practitioner involved.
Both dimensions characterize the range and
nature of activities within the practice of
CC; and the roles performed by practition-
ers. The generalist vs specialist dimension
concerns the range of activities performed
by a practitioner, and whether this range
encompasses a wide variety of tasks, objec-
tives and stakeholder groups (eg the director
of a corporate affairs department), or rather
is more tied to a select set of tasks and a
limited number of objectives and stakehold-
er groups (eg a public affairs practitioner).
There has been some suggestion that ‘gen-
eralist’ practitioners are better equipped for
strategic, integrated and holistic thinking
(Gronstedt, 1996a,b, 2000; Lauer, 1995;
Stewart, 1996). These practitioners are seen
to have a more general outlook and under-
standing of the communications profession,
know how work processes need to be inte-
grated, and they also tend to look beyond
their own departmental boundaries and ap-
preciate other communications disciplines
and the professionals working with them.
Within Philips, for example, practitioners
with ‘top potential’ are enrolled into a man-
agement development program where they
become trained as generalists (through a
broad-based management training and job-
rotation system), with the purpose of devel-
oping and educating the new leaders within
CC, whereas ‘bread and butter’ support com-
munications staff (eg media relations officers)
are trained and maintained in their roles as
specialists.
Communication practitioners are charac-
terized as technicians if their work focuses on
such activities as writing communications
materials, editing and/or rewriting for
grammar and spelling, handling the technical
aspects of communication campaigns,
producing brochures or pamphlets, doing
photography and graphics, and maintaining
media contacts and placing press releases.
Dozier and Broom (1995: 22) defined a
technician as ‘a creator and disseminator of
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler
messages, intimately involved in production,
[and] operating independent of management
decision-making, strategic planning, issues
management, environmental scanning and
program evaluation’. In other words, a tech-
nician tactically implements decisions made
by others and is generally not involved in
management decision-making and strategic
decisions concerning communication strat-
egy and programs. Practitioners enacting the
manager role, on the other hand, predomi-
nantly make strategy or policy decisions and
are held accountable for program success or
failure. These practitioners are primarily
concerned with externally oriented, long-
term decisions, rather than solving short-
term, technical problems. Activities within
the manager role include counseling
management at all levels in the organization
with regard to policy decisions, courses of
action, and communications, taking into
account their public ramifications and the
organization’s social or citizenship responsi-
bilities, making communication program
decisions, evaluating program results, super-
vising the work of others, planning and
managing budgets, planning communica-
tions programs, and meeting other execu-
tives. The enactment of manager and
technician roles also indicates whether, as a
consequence of role enactment, communi-
cation practitioners and their departments
participate in strategic decision-making of
the dominant coalition or simply execute
decisions made by others. In a management-
oriented communications department such
as in Philips or Siemens one or a few senior
communication managers oversee a range of
management and decision-making-oriented
activities including analysis and research, the
formulation of communications objectives
for the organization, and counseling of sen-
ior management. In contrast, if the large
majority of practitioners in a firm enact the
technician role they are likely to be located
in a peripheral department; technicians
do not participate in management
Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 119
 Corporate Communications
decision-making but only make program
decisions necessary to the internal function-
ing of their department. Within Nokia, for
example, the ‘corporate communications’
department has a primarily tactical remit
around media relations and internal com-
munications and is as a result not involved
in corporate decision-making, whereas the
firm’s ‘corporate branding’ department is.
Philips, in contrast, has a ‘corporate com-
munications’ department at group headquar-
ters in Amsterdam which together with the
‘corporate marketing’ department counsels
the CEO and senior executive team on
stakeholder and (corporate) branding issues.
The Organization of Communication
Work
The way in which communication practi-
tioners and functional areas are organized is
important as it not only determines to a large
extent whether the communications func-
tion is enabled to provide strategic input into
decision-making at the corporate level, but
also whether the communication activities
that are carried out at various places within
the organization are streamlined and coor-
dinated. In other words, the way in which
communications is organized carries impor-
tant strategic and political dimensions and is
also crucial for the effective support and
integration of communication activities.
Ever since the 1970s, academic and practi-
tioner writings have emphasized that firms
should consolidate rather than fragment
their communications by bringing practi-
tioners and functional areas together into
central organizational departments, with
the purpose of pooling and enhancing
communication expertise and increasing the
organizational autonomy and visibility of
communications within the organization
(eg Cook, 1973; Dozier and Grunig, 1992;
Grunig and Grunig, 1998; Schultz et al.,
1993;Van Riel, 1995). Siemens, for example,
has consolidated all of its communi-
cations staff and their responsibilities into a
120 Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 9, 2, 114–133
‘corporate brand and design’ department re-
sponsible for the strategic development and
policing of the Siemens umbrella brand
values, brand design and brand portfolio
management, a ‘corporate communications’
department which includes advertising,
internal communications and media rela-
tions, and a central ‘corporate messages’ unit
encompassing both senior communications
professionals responsible for developing
and guarding the overall corporate story of
Siemens and copy writers for speeches of
senior managers. Such consolidation is accor-
ding to a number of research surveys (eg
Cornelissen and Thorpe, 2001; Grunig and
Grunig, 1998; Post and Griffin, 1997) now
commonplace, with the exception of a few
large corporations like General Motors
which rather than bringing functional areas
together into a few central communications
departments have devolved them as stand-
alone units (eg a governmental affairs unit)
or subordinated to other functions such as
human resources or finance (Fombrun and
Van Riel, 2004). Generally, then, there app-
ears to be a greater consolidation of commu-
nications into a few departments, yet still in
separate ‘corporate communications’ and ‘mar-
keting’ or ‘corporate branding’ departments.
Within large firms, such as multidivision-
al firms and multinational corporations
like Siemens, Nokia, Philips and Shell, the
relationship between the corporate center or
group headquarters and the various business-
units is usually a major strategic issue.
One key structural consideration here, is as
Argenti (1998: 5) suggests, to have ‘all com-
munications focused by centralizing the
activity under one senior officer at a corpo-
ration’s headquarters or to decentralize acti-
vities and allow individual business units to
decide how best to handle communications’.
Most large multinationals like Siemens, Shell,
Nokia and Philips have a combination of
centralized ‘global’ departments at the
corporate center and decentralized ‘local’
departments, teams and professionals in
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00

business-units around the world. Within
both Philips and Siemens, the ‘corporate
branding’ and ‘corporate communications’
departments have defined a brand charter
and a number of work processes to assist
professionals within the business with their
specific communication programs.
The obvious reasoning behind these
examples is that although bringing commu-
nications specialists together vertically into
one or a few departments may lead to
enhanced efficiency, to the ability to develop
specialized, distinctive capabilities, and to
ease of management through the centraliza-
tion and consolidation of communication
activities, it may not lead to coordination
between communication-related depart-
ments and with other functional areas
(eg human resources) outside those depart-
ments, and it risks ‘turf wars’, functional
myopia, and over specialization. A horizontal
structure overlaying the vertical structure,
therefore, is often seen as necessary for
coordinating disparate communications tasks
and activities, which also recognizes that
communications with key stakeholders
might emerge from various places within the
organization and that the process of develop-
ing and executing communication programs
is therefore essentially cross-functional or
cross-disciplinary (Gronstedt, 1996a,b; Heath,
1994). Horizontal structure can take various
forms including multidisciplinary task or
project teams, formal lines of communica-
tion, standardized work processes (Philips),
council meetings (Shell, Siemens), commu-
nication guidelines (Siemens, Philips) a cor-
porative vision and communications strategy
(Nokia) or the use of ‘czars’ (senior practi-
tioners working as integrators between
departments). Large organizations in both
the private and public sectors generally need
at least some of these horizontal structures.
Particularly in multidivisional firms operat-
ing across geographical borders, horizontal
structures do not appear to be a luxury but
an absolute necessity.
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler
In recent years there has been a lot of
discussion around the departmental arrange-
ment of communications and the reporting
relationship of the central corporate affairs
department (see Cornelissen, 2004). Ulti-
mately, the stakes of this discussion are about
the professional status of corporate commu-
nications (vis-à-vis other established func-
tions as human resources and finance) and
its strategic involvement in decision-making
at the highest corporate level. Claims that
have been made to this effect include the
arguments that different communications
disciplines should be consolidated in a single
department, and that the head of this depart-
ment should report directly to the CEO or the
senior management team (or be a member
of this team) to bolster and secure the
functional expertise as well as the strategic
involvement of corporate communications
in decision-making. Broom and Dozier
(1986) and Grunig and Grunig (1998) char-
acterized this involvement in organizational
decision-making as perhaps most important
to the communications practitioner than any
other measure of professional growth. The
guiding idea in this regard is that a direct
reporting relationship to the CEO may be
seen as an indication that there is indeed a
broad, growing recognition among corpo-
rate executives and corporate boards that
the ability to succeed will depend upon the
firm’s ability to effectively communicate
with its stakeholders; and that therefore the
communications function is recognized as an
absolute, integral part of the top manage-
ment function. White and Mazur (1995)
have added that such a direct reporting
relationship is also important as it leads to
excellent communications management as
senior management is counseled on issues,
and stakeholder and identity considerations
may more easily get factored into the proc-
ess of organizational decision-making. The
results from a number of studies indicate that
in the large majority of cases, there is indeed
such a direct reporting relationship from the
Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 121
 Corporate Communications
staff communications department to the
CEO and/or executive team (eg Argenti and
Forman, 2000; Cornelissen and Thorpe,
2001; Grunig and Grunig, 1998; Grunig
et al., 2002; Van Ruler and De Lange, 2003).
In most large firms, such a direct reporting
relationships consist of counseling and advis-
ing the CEO and senior executive team on
stakeholder and reputation issues, rather than
having a direct involvement (through a
seat on the executive team) in corporate
decision-making. In a recent study in the
UK, Moss et al. (2000) found that within
the sample of companies studied communi-
cations directors report directly to the CEO
or chairperson of the senior management
team, but were not formal members of the
senior management team responsible for
determining corporate strategy and strategic
decision-making. In other words, all of the
directors in the study indicated that ‘they
were often consulted on important issues
likely to affect their organizations, [but] their
involvement in key operational decision-
making was often limited to advising on how
best to present policies to the outside world
or to internal stakeholders’ (Moss et al., 2000:
299). Similarly, within companies such as
Shell, Siemens and Nokia, the senior vice-
president in the area of CC sits on the
second-tier management team (one level
below the senior executive team), and in that
capacity advises and counsels the CEO and
senior executive team regarding corporate
decision-making.
Political and Cultural Issues
This is not to say, of course, that the com-
munications director should not have a seat
on the executive board and should remain
in this advisory capacity, but the UK study
did show the current impediments to such
a move. On the one hand, there is still a
considerable lack of understanding and a lack
of commitment to communications among
senior managers. On the other hand, many
122 Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 9, 2, 114–133
senior communication practitioners often do
not meet the needs of senior managers to
provide communications advice and an in-
put into corporate strategy in ways that
contribute to the accomplishment of
organizational objectives and that affect the
bottom line. In other words, strategic corpo-
rate communications stands or falls with
highly qualified input from the communica-
tion practitioner at the decision-making
table; and only then will there be such a
receptive environment for that contribution.
The practitioner therefore needs to produce
strategically focused recommendations for
strategic corporate action; bringing to the
attention of top managers a broad under-
standing of the strategic management
process and of those issues that may affect
and impact upon a company’s reputation
(Cornelissen, 2004; Cropp and Pincus, 2001;
Moss et al., 2000). Otherwise, communica-
tions will be seen as a largely tactical or
‘functionary’ activity; in which practitioners
are considered ‘communications technicians’.
Grunig et al. (2002) have argued that for
many firms, the strategic potential of CC in
its boundary-spanning role appears to go
largely unrealized. This is the case, Grunig
et al. (2002) argue, as senior management
equally tends to treat communications
largely as a tactical function, concerned
primarily with the technical gathering of
information and with carrying out publicity
and promotion campaigns to external
audiences.
Equally, practitioners who are expected to
enact a more strategic managerial role, do
not always meet these requirements and
expectations of senior managers to provide
such an input into corporate decision-
making. Many communication practitioners
still lack the requisite knowledge and skills
to fully enact the manager role, particularly
in areas such as financial management, the
strategy-making process, and the use of com-
munications in organizational development
and change (Moss et al., 2000). As a result,
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00

these practitioners and the communications
departments that they represent may be side-
lined by firms and treated as a peripheral
management discipline – one viewed as
unimportant to the overall functioning of
the corporation. Pincus et al. (1994) refer in
this regard to a belief allegedly held among
some parts of senior management that
communications adds little to corporate
performance as it is a ‘fluffy’ discipline that
is insufficiently focused on the practicalities
and demands of the business. Seen in this
way, practitioners in senior positions who are
expected to enact the manager role bear a
responsibility to show and communicate the
value of communications in terms of what
it contributes to the organization. Within
Philips, for example, the senior professionals
within the corporate communications
department have developed so-called process
survey tools, which document and standard-
ize work processes (eg a process in relation
to a media inquiry), and can as such be
improved upon – these tools are used
instrumentally to increase and sustain per-
formance, but are also used symbolically to
position CC as a professional function and
to increase visibility. A general theme
emerging from this is the importance of
showing the added value of CC to the firm.
Each and every function or set of disciplines
within a corporation is evaluated and
scrutinized by senior management for its
contribution to the firm and to the achieve-
ment of corporate objectives.When the con-
tribution or ‘added value’ of a particular
function to the organization is high and
visible, it is more likely that the function
will be granted input into strategic deci-
sion-making. The same goes for CC,
which as every other function (human re-
sources, finance, etc) is measured with the
same stick. Capturing and quantifying
the contribution of CC to the firm and
to the commercial bottomline is thus the
key, although, unfortunately, not always com-
monplace (eg Dolphin, 1999; Fleisher and
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler
Burton, 1995; Van Ruler and De Lange,
2003).
Contribution of Work and Activities
The contribution and consumption of work
and activities carried out by communication
practitioners takes place at three levels with-
in large firms: the corporate, market (or busi-
ness-unit), and operational levels. Strategies
and activities at the corporate level are
concerned with the overall purpose (mission
and vision) and scope of the firm to meet
its various stakeholder expectations and
needs. Strategies and activities at the market
level are concerned with determining how
the firm will compete successfully in par-
ticular markets. Strategies and activities at the
operational level concern the way in which
CC manages its own resources, processes and
people to help deliver corporate and market-
level strategic goals. Central to the question
of what type of contribution CC makes and
whether this is located at the corporate,
business-unit or strictly operational level, is
the definition and enactment of the function
as either strategic or tactical. As a strategic
function, there is likely to be strategic
involvement of communications practition-
ers in managerial decision-making at the
corporate and business-unit levels. Such a
strategic view of communications, which in
part has already been realized within the
business world but in part is also still aspira-
tional (Cornelissen, 2004), means that com-
munications strategy is not just seen as a
set of goals and tactics at the operational
level – at the level of the CC function – but
that its scope and involvement in fact stretch-
es to corporate and business-unit-wide deci-
sions and activities. At the corporate level,
where strategy and activities are concerned
with the corporate mission and vision as well
as corporate positioning, communication
practitioners can aid managers in developing
strategies for interaction with the environ-
ment. In this sense, communication practi-
tioners are directly involved or support
Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 123
 Corporate Communications
strategic decision-making through their
‘environmental scanning’ activities which
may assist corporate strategy-makers in ana-
lyzing the organization’s position and iden-
tifying emerging issues which may have sig-
nificant implications for the firm and for
future strategy development. Communica-
tion practitioners can at this corporate level
also bring identity questions and a stake-
holder perspective into the strategic man-
agement process, representing the likely re-
action of stakeholders to alternative strategy
options, and thereby giving senior manage-
ment a more balanced consideration to the
attractiveness and feasibility of the strategic
options open to them.This happened in each
of the four firms (Shell, Nokia, Philips,
Siemens) in our case studies. In addition,
communications practitioners in these four
companies also implemented the corporate
strategy by helping to communicate the
firm’s strategic intentions to both internal
and external stakeholders, which may
help avoid misunderstandings that might
otherwise get in the way of the smooth
implementation of the firm’s strategy.
Seen in this way, the layers between the
corporate, market, and operational CC levels
thus need to be permeable and relaxed;
allowing decentralized initiatives and input
from the lower level corporate communica-
tions function to the higher senior
management echelon. For this to happen,
communication practitioners as mentioned
need to meet management expectations in
terms of understanding and responding to
the needs and concerns of the firm or its
separate business units – that is, in terms of
demonstrating how corporate communica-
tions can contribute to the bottomline or
provide invaluable counsel on the organiza-
tion’s environment. A tactical or support role
for CC comes into play when it is employed
at the corporate level to just make decisions
of the organization and its operations public
and inform relevant stakeholder groups
(eg investors, government officials); and
124 Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 9, 2, 114–133
communications thus takes a backseat. This
happens when an organization lacks fully
developed programs of engagement with a
wide range of its stakeholder groups, or
when instead of relying on communications
it rather strategically adapts its output, goals,
and methods of operation to conform to
prevailing definitions of legitimacy (Dowling
and Pfeffer, 1975; Meznar and Nigh, 1995).
It is also important to note that the practice
of CC and the management of stakeholders
spirals to other functions at the operational
level as well. Within Philips, for example,
the director of communications meets once
a year individually with all of the company’s
senior managers (in finance, human resour
ces, etc.) to discuss their communications
needs.
CENTRAL PROCESSES IN THE
PRACTICE OF CC
We have conceptualized the practice of CC
by circumscribing in very broad terms four
dimensions: (1) the roles, skills and activities
of practitioners, (2) the organization of these
practitioners and their work, (3) political and
cultural issues that contextualize and mediate
these activities, and (4) the communication
and consumption of the process and
products of activities performed.Throughout
our discussion, and in the course of our
primary research with Shell, Phillips,
Siemens and Nokia, we identified two
central processes in the practice of CC that
cut across these four dimensions, and appear
to be central to the field.
The first process labeled as strategic position-
ing describes the ongoing efforts of
communication practitioners to position
themselves as credible communications
managers to senior executives within the
executive team and in other functions by
developing staff, by finding appropriate
mechanisms for coordinating work, by
developing value-added activities and by
communicating the contribution of CC.
Underlying this process is perhaps the
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00

realization that communication practitioners
need to enact managerial roles through
management activities like environmental
scanning, counseling and strategic planning
that demonstrably add value to the corpora-
tion, and that they need to vie for an
organizational arrangement that gives them
a central, recognizable place in the firm from
where to counsel and support senior
management as well as managers in other
functional areas. To illustrate, within Siemens
the emphasis on corporate branding and the
development of a corporate brand architec-
ture was presented as central to the corporate
strategy of the firm:
We have to influence decisions about
what businesses do we invest in and brand
as Siemens and what businesses we do not
want to be in… We have a clear business
strategy ‘go for profit and growth’, which
sounds really general but behind this is
an intensive and very detailed program,
the Siemens management system, which
our branding architecture and systems tie
into. The overall corporate target is to at-
tain worldwide leadership in each of the
businesses that we are active in. Busi-
ness success is the most important thing
and that is driving the brand values
and the brand strategy’ (Director of Brand
Architecture).
Senior brand and communication managers
within Siemens have developed brand
analysis tools and brand management
systems (such as Brand Ville, an intranet with
centralized branding and communication
resources), have nominated brand ambassa-
dors in each of the different business-units
worldwide, and have instigated weekly meet-
ings between heads of branding and com-
munications departments. All of this is done
not just to coordinate branding and com-
munication practices but also to develop
an output of their activities that is relevant
(and therefore consumed) at the corporate
level.
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler
You have to prove that you are compe-
tent… We have a general policy of bring-
ing very qualified people from across the
regions into top functions here in Munich
at our headquarters. The idea is to have
brand and communication managers that
are not only experts in their fields, but also
know about what is going on in the rest
of the company’ (director of corporate
communications).
There is a constant concern with the strate-
gic positioning of corporate branding and
corporate communications, not just to
increase and communicate the current
performance but also to secure a receptive
environment at the senior management
table.
The head of corporate communication
worldwide is a close advisor of our CEO.
In fact, the incoming CEO, Kleinfeld,
has a doctorate on the topic of corporate
identity, and has a deep understanding
of branding and communications’ (Vice
President Corporate Brand and Design).
A second process that we identified involves
what we term cultural accommodation which
describes how CC, its practitioners, its
organization and the general way in which
it is practiced is embedded in the cultural
context of the firm. Effectively, the choices
made by Philips, Nokia, Shell and Siemens
regarding staffing, training and development,
structuring and the model of communica-
tion strategy development are all highly
varied, yet linked to the core of their
business, history and culture. Such variety
and cultural adaptation may point to what
Gratton and Ghoshal (2005) call signature
practices; practices and processes that
embody a company’s character and are there-
fore somewhat unique and idiosyncratic,
rather than general and universal for the
entire industry. Signature practices are linked
with the core values of the organization
and evolve from a company-specific history
Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 125
 Corporate Communications

and are embedded in its culture and core Finland story, like what is happening in
values. Within Philips, as mentioned, corpo- this obscure country up in the north, close
rate communications is seen as a part of an to the North Pole, where school children
organization-wide technocratic engineering are using mobile phones, and secondly,
culture where every function and the work they were interested in the Nokia success
processes involved are documented and story: like how come a company coming
standardized, so that these can be constantly from this small country that no one knows
monitored, updated and optimized. Work is all of a sudden transformed into a global
processes (eg media inquiries) within corpo- leader of mobile telecommunications
rate communications have equally been
Because of this strong sense of Nokia’s
documented and standardized in flow-charts
corporate story which is based upon its
and worksheets (following ISO quality
recent history and its country of origin,
specifications). This kind of signature process
communications professionals have a clear
may not work in other companies in the
sense of what messages need to be com-
consumer electronics industry (or indeed
municated; in other words, their shared
other industries) as it is tied to Philips’
history and understanding of Finish values
core cultural values and company history.
is such that no strict formal coordination is
Within Nokia, in contrast, the corporate
necessary.
vision of ‘connecting people’ together with
the fact that members of the company have When it comes to the information flow
a strong bond between them (‘having here…we are a very flat organisation
embarked on the technological journey and although we stick to the organiza-
together’) has led to an ‘informal’, ‘innova- tion chart [vertical lines of authority] I
tive’ and ‘can-do’ culture of knowledge would say that perhaps in most of the cases
sharing and of coordinating work processes. we are basically working informally
There are little formalized work patterns or with individuals networking themselves
lines of communication between communi- together’ (Vice-president Corporate
cation professionals within Nokia; they Communications).
rather liaise frequently and informally with
one another. The Director of Corporate Although we have a brand charter in
Branding explained that this situation has place, we very much want to retain the
evolved in this way because of the strong system [ie a can-do culture] that we cur-
understanding of everyone in the company rently have. We are emphasizing the
about the corporate story of Nokia. importance of our culture, emphasizing
the importance of people making the de-
In 1997, when I joined Nokia, mobile cisions where they work, on the spot, not
telecommunications was not the glo- sort of, you know going into brand books
bal consumer business that it is today, it and in different kinds of manuals and
is only towards the end of 2002 that it look for the right answer and the wrong
took off and we managed [at that time] answer, because you simply cannot manage
to present a credible story of Nokia as a global brand with guidelines and poli-
a company transforming itself into a cies. So, our view is that it is much more
high-tech producer of handsets. In those important that the people have the cul-
days, the communications taskforce was ture and the values, and have the essence
literally 24 hours a day, and the global me- of the brand in the back of their heads, so
dia were interested in our story; first of all that they actually can put that into prac-
because they were interested in the wireless tice in their everyday work rather than

126 Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 © 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
 Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler

having to refer to very strict guidelines In all, the practice-based conceptualiza-

and policies and processes and with people
coming to you looking for the right an-
swer to every single question [about
branding and communications]’ (Director
of Corporate Branding)
DISCUSSION
The preceding sections have outlined the
‘practice’ perspective on CC and conceptu-
alized the important dimensions of this per-
spective. These are (1) the roles, skills and
activities of practitioners, (2) the organiza-
tion of these practitioners and their work,
(3) political and cultural issues that contex-
tualize and mediate these activities, and (4)
the communication and consumption of the
process and products of activities performed.
Together, these dimensions (see Table 1) pro-
vide a framework for considering the prac-
tice of CC in its entirety and in a much
more comprehensive manner than previous
work has done.We also articulated two proc-
esses (strategic positioning and cultural
accommodation) that appear to be central
to the practice of CC.
tion of CC makes the following contribu-
tions. First, it has started to open up the
‘black box’ of the organization in which CC
activities take place. CC is conceptualized as
an organizational phenomenon rather than
a macro strategy problem detached from
the internal dynamics of the organization.
Internal politics, structure and cultural issues
are introduced into the field of managing
CC, not as inevitable failings or difficulties
within firms, but as significant for commu-
nications strategy outcomes, perhaps
even as attributes to be exploited positively
for the status and contribution of CC. Sec-
ond, the ‘practice’ conceptualization of
CC has started to ‘humanize’ the field (cf
Pettigrew et al., 2002: 12). Unlike much
prior work that has focused on the strategic
outcomes of CC activities (eg strong reputa-
tions and relationships with stakeholders), a
‘practice’ perspective populates the field of
CC with human beings. In effect, all forces
and activities are seen to emerge from hu-
man action – from the actions and contribu-
tions of communications practitioners, as
well as the reactions by senior managers and

Table 1: Summary of the practice conceptualization of corporate communications

Dimension Themes

Roles and activities of — Manager vs technician

practitioners — Generalist vs specialist
— Professional development, status and contribution
Organization of — Departmental arrangement
communication work — Reporting relationship and/or seat on executive team
— Centralization vs decentralization
Political and cultural issues — Status of communication practitioners and their work
— Added value of communication activities
— Cultural accommodation
Contribution of work and activities — Strategic or tactical contribution
— Input into corporate strategy and decision-making
— Interface between communication and other functional
areas (eg Finance, Human Resources, etc)

© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00 Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 127
 Corporate Communications
managers in other functional areas (human
resources, finance, etc.) of the firm. Third,
and related to the previous points, the view
of CC as ‘practice’ has started to explore the
agency of communications practitioners to
bring about changes in corporate strategy
and in the interaction between the firm and
its environment, amidst general professional
as well as situational constraints (Whitting-
ton, 1988). Practitioners can be captured in
wider professional belief systems about their
roles and work – that is, the aforementioned
distinction between ‘manager’ and ‘techni-
cian’ roles (Pieczka and L’Etang, 2000) – that
effect and constrain their possibilities for ac-
tion. Similarly, the political and structural
aspects of the work situation in their
firms – that is, whether there is a receptive
environment among senior managers for an
input from CC, and whether communica-
tions practitioners are located in departments
with access (through a reporting relationship
or seat on the management team) to senior
management at the corporate level of the
firm – effects the micro activities and agen-
cy of communication practitioners. Fourth,
a practice perspective and our case studies
suggest that there are clear interrelations
between the roles and backgrounds of
practitioners, their activities, the political
and cultural situation surrounding their
work, the way in which they are organized,
and their input and contribution to the
firm at the corporate and market levels
of the firm. As such, it connects macro
phenomena with micro explanations. It does
not deny the importance of research that
has raised the awareness of key macro issues
and challenges; the challenge of achieving
and sustaining strong corporate reputa-
tions with stakeholders, of identifying
and building on unique organizational assets
or the ‘corporate identity’ of the firm, of
managing international communications
for multinational firms. Instead, it extends
such macro level accounts with descriptions
and explanations of the practices and
128 Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 9, 2, 114–133
activities that underpin and constitute such
phenomena. In addition, as our case studies
demonstrated, the practice of CC consists
of interrelated dimensions, and as such we
extend prior perspectives that have narrow-
ly focused on either dimension or only
on the strategic outcomes of CC activities.
Any change in strategic outcomes (ie strong-
er corporate reputations with stake-
holders) is not simply a case of a creative
campaign or of improving one dimension
(eg reputation measurement to demonstrate
accountability) but ultimately depends
on a whole range of factors, including the
professional roles and competencies of
practitioners and the way in which they are
organized.
Table 2 summarizes the main differences
between a ‘practice’ perspective on CC and
the more traditional perspectives on CC that
have primarily focused on macro strategic
outcomes.
A fifth contribution concerns its practical
implications. A practice perspective on CC
extends macro level explanations of CC as
outcomes of what goes on in organizations
to the activities that constitute them. This
perspective is concerned with the same
strategic issues of importance to senior
managers and communication practitioners
(ie how to build and maintain strong corporate
reputations with stakeholders of the firm?), but
in terms of the organizational activities and
practices, which are their fabric. As such, it
provides a more comprehensive and detailed
picture of how communications is and
indeed can be managed. The relationships
between the practice dimensions (ie the
backgrounds of practitioners, their activities,
the political and cultural situation surround-
ing their work, the way in which they are
organized, and their input and contribution
to the firm at the corporate and market
levels of the firm) in particular provide
managers and communication practitioners
with concrete factors or attributes that can
be understood and, if needed, challenged or
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00

Table 2: A practice perspective versus traditional perspectives on corporate
communications
Traditional perspectives on CC
Primary focus Macro: strategic outcomes (reputations
and reputation measurement)
Explanations of Deductive: infer best practices from
performance reputation scores across firms
Key strategic ‘Alignment’ between the reputation
processes and the identity or positioning
communicated
manipulated. To communications practition-
ers, the profound implication is not only a
greater understanding of their work but
also suggestions and prescriptions for how
their work can be changed or improved.
More specifically, if practitioners aspire a de-
velopmental shift from a ‘tactical’ or ‘craft’
orientation to communications, character-
ized by technician role enactment and com-
munications service departments or units
carrying out low-level communication
mechanics, to a strategic management
function, they know that they need to enact
managerial roles through management
activities like environmental scanning,
counseling and strategic planning that
demonstrably add value to the corporation,
and that they need to vie for an organiza-
tional arrangement that gives them a
central, recognizable place in the firm from
where to counsel and support senior
management as well as managers in other
functional areas. The two processes of
‘strategic positioning’ and ‘cultural accom-
modation’ that we observed in our four
case studies may also be taken to hand
by practitioners to bring about changes
in their firms in such a way that these chang-
es are in line with their firms’ culture and
improve the performance and standing of
CC.
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler
A practice perspective on CC
Micro: practitioners, processes and
structures within the organization
Inductive: grounded in the actual
activities of professionals and how
these add value and make a
contribution to a firm
Strategic positioning and cultural
accommodation within the firm
Recommendations for Research
In sum, the practice conceptualization of CC
suggests a need to put the micro into mac-
ro in order to both uncover plausible link-
ages to performance (with stakeholder
groups) and to offer tangible guides to man-
agerial action. Some important insights,
albeit preliminary and illustrative, on micro
issues in CC are offered through our four
case studies. However, beyond these prelim-
inary case studies, we make two main recom-
mendations in line with this research agenda.
First, we recommend further small sample
in-depth studies of CC within firms, to de-
velop the contextual and holistic under-
standing of the practice dimensions of CC
that is essential to unpacking the complex
driving forces of the management of CC
and its strategic outcomes with stakeholders
of the firm. In-depth studies, particularly at
this early stage of theoretical development
on CC, are a necessary feature of furthering
the conceptualization and understanding of
CC as an area of practice. Second, we rec-
ommend process research as a methodology
for capturing and explaining how the prac-
tice of CC evolves within firms. Process
research is concerned with understanding
how things evolve over time and why they
evolve in this way (see Langley, 1999;Van de
Ven and Huber, 1990), and process data
Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 129
 Corporate Communications
therefore consist largely of stories about
what happened and who did what when –
that is, events, activities, and choices ordered
over time. In his classic work on organization
theory, Mohr (1982) makes a distinction
between what he calls ‘variance theory’ and
‘process theory’. Whereas variance theories
provide explanations for phenomena in
terms of relationships among dependent and
independent variables (eg more of X and
more of Y produce more of Z), process
theories provide explanations in terms of the
sequence of events leading to an outcome
(eg do A and then B to get C). Temporal
ordering and probabilistic interaction
between entities are important here (Mohr,
1982). Within the context of CC, the em-
phasis is with process research on under-
standing patterns in events (eg the link
between activities and tools of communica-
tion practitioners and changes in stakehold-
er reputations), either as a narrative pattern
or analytical sequence of events. Such proc-
ess research then consists of longitudinal case
studies or event-history methods, often with
the researcher immersing him/herself in the
firm and collecting fine-grained qualitative
data through interviews, (participative)
observations and analyses of company
reports and documents. The thick empirical
descriptions produced by process research
may then in time, we suggest, be systemati-
cally compared across cases and extended
with survey-based research of general issues
and themes within the practice of CC.
REFERENCES
Argenti, P.A. (1996) ‘Corporate communication as a
discipline: Toward a definition’, Management Com-
munications Quarterly, 10, 73–97.
Argenti, P.A. (1998) Corporate Communication, (2nd edi-
tion) McGraw-Hill, Boston.
Argenti, P.A. and Forman, J. (2000) ‘The communica-
tion advantage: A constituency-focused approach to
formulating and implementing strategy’, in M.
Schultz, M.J. Hatch and M.H. Larsen (eds.), The
Expressive Organization, Oxford University Press:
Oxford, pp. 233–245.
130 Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 9, 2, 114–133
Argenti, P.A., Howell, R.A. and Beck, K.A. (2005) ‘The
strategic communication imperative’, MIT Sloan
Management Review, Spring, 46(3), 83–89.
Balmer, J. and Greyser, S. (eds.) (2003) Revealing the
Corporation: Perspectives on Identity, Image, Reputation
and Corporate Branding, Routledge, London.
Broom, G.M., Lauzen, M.M. and Tucker, K. (1991)
‘Public Relations and marketing: Dividing the con-
ceptual domain and operational turf ’, Public Relations
Review, 17, 219–225.
Christensen, L.T. and Cheney, G. (1994) ‘Articulating
identity in an organizational age’, in S.A. Deetz (ed.)
Communication Yearbook, Vol. 17, Sage, Thousand
Oaks, 17, pp. 222–235.
Clarkson, B.E. (1995) ‘A stakeholder framework for
analyzing and evaluating corporate social perform-
ance’, Academy of Management Review, 20, 92–117.
Cook, J. (1973) ‘Consolidating the communications
function’, Public Relations Journal, 29, 28.
Cook, S.N. and Brown, J.S. (1999) ‘Bridging episte-
mologies: The generative dance between organiza-
tional knowledge and organizational knowing’,
Organization Science, 10, 382–400.
Cornelissen, J. (2004) Corporate Communications: Theory
and Practice, Sage, London.
Cornelissen, J.P. and Thorpe, R. (2001) ‘The organiza-
tion of external communication disciplines in UK
companies: A conceptual and empirical analysis of
dimensions and determinants’, Journal of Business
Communication, 38, 413–438.
Cropp, F. and Pincus, D.J. (2001) ‘The mystery of pub-
lic relations: Unraveling its past, unmasking its
future’, in Robert L. Heath (ed.) Handbook of Public
Relations, Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks CA,
pp. 189–204.
Cutlip, S. (1995) Public Relations History: From the
Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, Erlbaum, Hills-
dale, NJ.
Dolphin, R.R. 1999) The Fundamentals of Corporate
Communications, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
Dowling, J. and Pfeffer, J. (1975) ‘Organizational le-
gitimacy: Social values and organizational behavior’,
Pacific Sociological Review, 18, 122–136.
Dozier, D.M. and Broom, G.M. (1995) ‘Evolution of
the manager role in public relations practice’, Journal
of Public Relations Research, 7, 3–26.
Dozier, D.M. and Grunig, L.A. (1992) ‘The organiza-
tion of the public relations function’, in J.E. Grunig
(ed.) Excellence in Public Relations and Communication
Management, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale,
New Jersey, pp. 395–417.
Ewen, S. (1996) PR! A Social History of Spin, Basic
Books, New York.
Fleisher, C.S. and Burton, B. (1995) ‘Taking stock
of corporate benchmarking practices: Panacea
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00

or Pandora’s box’, Public Relations Review, 2,
1–19.
Fombrun, C. (1996) Reputation: Realizing Value from the
Corporate Image, Harvard Business School Press,
Cambridge.
Fombrun, C.J. and Van Riel, C.B.M. (2004) Fame and
Fortune: How Successful Companies Build Winning
Reputations, Financial Times Prentice Hall, Upper
Saddle River, NJ.
Freeman, R.E. (1984) Strategic Management: A Stake-
holder Approach, Pitman: Boston.
Gratton, L. and Ghoshal, S. (2005) ‘Beyond best prac-
tice’, MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring, 46(3),
49–57.
Gronstedt, A. (1996a) ‘Integrating marketing commu-
nication and public relations: A stakeholder relations
model’, in: E. Thorson and J. Moore (eds.) Integrated
Communication: Synergy of Persuasive Voices, Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 287–304.
Gronstedt, A. (1996b) ‘Integrated communications at
America’s leading total quality management corpo-
rations’, Public Relations Review, 22, 25–42.
Gronstedt, A. (2000) The Customer Century: Lessons from
World-class Companies in Integrated Marketing and
Communications, Routledge, London.
Grunig, J.E. and Grunig, L.A. (1998) ‘The relationship
between public relations and marketing in excellent
organizations: Evidence from the IABC study’, Jour-
nal of Marketing Communications, 4, 141–162.
Grunig, L.A., Grunig, J.E. and Dozier, D.M. (2002)
Excellent Public Relations and Effective Organizations,
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey.
Harris, T.E. and Bryant, J. (1986) ‘The corporate com-
munication manager’, Journal of Business Communica-
tion, 23, 19–29.
Hatch, M.J. and Schultz, M. (2000) ‘Scaling the
tower of Babel: Relational differences between iden-
tity, image and culture in organizations’, in M.
Schultz, M.J. Hatch and M.H. Larsen (eds.) The
Expressive Organization, Oxford University Press,
Oxford.
Heath, R.L. (1994) Management of Corporate Commu-
nication: From Interpersonal Contacts to External Affairs,
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey.
Heugens, P.P.M.A.R., Van den Bosch, F.A.J. and
Van Riel, C.B.M. (2002) ‘Stakeholder integration:
Building mutually enforcing relationships’, Business
& Society, 41, 36–60.
Hopwood, A. and Miller, P. (1994) Accounting as Social
and Institutional Practice, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Hutton, J.G., Goodman, M.B., Alexander, J.B. and
Genest, C.M. (2001) ‘Reputation management:
The new face of corporate public relations?’ Public
Relations Review, 27(3), 247–261.
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler
Johnson, G., Melin, L. and Whittington, R. (2003)
‘Micro-strategy and strategizing’, Journal of Manage-
ment Studies, 40, 3–20.
Kitchen, P.J. and Schultz, D.E. (1999) ‘A multi-country
comparison of the drive for IMC’, Journal of Adver-
tising Research, 39, 21–38.
Kotler, P. and Mindak, W. (1978) ‘Marketing and
public relations, should they be partners or rivals?’
Journal of Marketing, 42, 13–20.
Langley, A. (1999) ‘Strategies for theorizing from
process data’, Academy of Management Review, 24,
691–710.
Lauer, L.D. (1995) ‘Will we need a whole new breed
of professional?’ Communication World, August 1995.
Marion, G. (1998) ‘Corporate communications
managers in large firms: New challenges’, European
Management Journal, 16, 660–671.
Meznar, M.B. and Nigh, D. (1995) ‘Buffer or bridge?
Environmental and organizational determinants of
public affairs activities in American firms’, Academy
of Management Journal, 38, 975–996.
Mintzberg, H. (1994) ‘Rounding out the manager’s
job’, Sloan Management Review, 36, 11–25.
Mitchell, R.K., Agle, B.R. and Wood, D.J. (1997)
‘Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and
salience: Defining the principle of who and what
really counts’, Academy of Management Review, 22,
853–887.
Mohr, L.B. (1982) Explaining Organizational Behavior,
Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Fransisco.
Moss, D., Warnaby, G. and Newman, A.J. (2000) ‘Pub-
lic relations practitioner role enactment at the senior
management level within UK companies’, Journal of
Public Relations Research, 12, 277–307.
Murray, K. and White, J. (2004) ‘CEO Views on
reputation management: a report on the value of
public relations, as perceived by organizational
leaders, UK survey of CEO views of reputation
management website: www.insightmkt.com/ceo_
pr_briefing.
Olasky, M.N. (1987) Corporate Public Relations: A New
Historical Perspective, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Hillsdale, New Jersey.
Pettigrew, A.M., Thomas, H. and Whittington, R.
(2002) ‘Strategic management: The strengths
and limitations of a field’, in A.M. Pettigrew,
H. Thomas and R. Whittington (eds.) The Handbook
of Strategy and Management, Sage, London, pp. 3–30.
Pieczka, M. and L’Etang, J. (2000) ‘Public relations and
the question of professionalism’, in Robert L. Heath
(ed.) Handbook of Public Relations, Sage Publications,
Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 223–235.
Pincus, J.D., Rayfield, B., and Ohl, C.M.(1994) Public
Relations Education in MBA Programs: Challenges and
Opportunities, California State University.
Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 131
 Corporate Communications
Post, J.E. and Griffin, J.J. (1997) ‘Corporate reputation
and external affairs’, Corporate Reputation Review, 1,
165–171.
Scholes, E. and Clutterbuck, D. (1998) ‘Communica-
tion with stakeholders: An integrated approach’,
Long Range Planning, 31, 227–238.
Schultz, D.E., Tannenbaum, S.I. and Lauterborn, R.F.
(1993) The New Marketing Paradigm: Integrated
Marketing Communications, NTC Publishing,
Lincolnwood.
Schultz, M., Hatch, M.J. and Larsen, M.H. (eds.) (2000)
The Expressive Organization, University Press,
Oxford.
Stewart, D.W. (1996) ‘Market-back approach to the
design of integrated communications programs:
A change in paradigm and a focus on determinants
of success’, Journal of Business Research, 37,
147–153.
Van de Ven, A. and Huber, G. (1990) ‘Longitudinal
field research methods for studying processes of
organizational change’, Organization Science, 1,
213–219.
Van der Jagt, R. (2005) ‘Executives on reputation,
Dutch survey of CEO views of reputation manage-
ment Boer and Croon consulting.
Van Riel, C.B.M. (1995) Principles of Corporate
Communication, Prentice Hall, London.
Van Riel, C.B.M. (1997) ‘Research in corporate com-
munication: Overview of an emerging field’, Man-
agement Communication Quarterly, 11, 288–309.
Van Riel, C.B.M. and Balmer, J. (1997) ‘Corporate
identity: The concept, its measurement and
management’, European Journal of Marketing, 31,
340–356.
Van Ruler, B. and De Lange, R. (2003) ‘Barriers to
communication management in the executive suite’,
Public Relations Review, 29, 145–158.
Vercic, D. and Grunig, J.E. (2000) ‘The origins of
public relations theory in economics and strategic
management’, in D. Moss, D. Vercic and G. Warnaby
(eds.) Perspectives on Public Relations Research,
Routledge, London, pp. 9–58.
White, J. and Dozier, D.M. (1992) ‘Public relations and
management decision-making’, in J.E. Grunig (ed.)
Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Man-
agement, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale.
White, J. and Mazur, L. (1995) Strategic Communications
Management: Making Public Relations Work, Addison-
Wesley, Wokingham, UK.
Whittington, R. (1988) ‘Environmental structure and
theories of strategic choice’, Journal of Management
Studies, 25, 521–536.
Whittington, R. (2003) ‘The work of strategizing and
organizing: For a practice perspective’, Strategic Or-
ganization, 1, 119–127.
132 Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 © 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
APPENDIX 1
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
We conducted case studies with four Euro-
pean corporations with strong reputations
with their stakeholders and the marketplace:
Nokia, Shell, Phillips and Siemens. These
four corporations were selected chiefly for
two reasons. Firstly, each of these four cor-
porations is a multi-divisional firm operating
under the same corporate umbrella. As such,
they are typical of other large firms with a
corporate communications (CC) presence
– as opposed to small to medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs), where communications
responsibilities and activities may not have
evolved into one or more full-fledged
functional areas, let alone into a managerial
function (cf Kotler and Mindak, 1978).
Secondly, each of the four corporations has
an excellent reputation in the eyes of their
stakeholders and the general public accord-
ing to ToMAC (Top of Mind Awareness of
Corporate Brands) scores and reputation
rankings published in recent years. The
inclusion of these corporations therefore
allows us to examine not only the range and
kind of activities carried out within CC,
but also to what extent these make a differ-
ence (given the strong reputations enjoyed
by these four corporations). An analytical
case-study approach was chosen as most
appropriate for our theory-building pur-
poses (Yin, 2003). It allowed us to examine
CC holistically and address each of the ‘prac-
tice’ dimensions mentioned above. We
conducted interviews with up to four senior
managers of each organization, for example,
president of corporate communication and
marketing communication, communication
managers within divisions, and if possible,
a board member who is responsible for
(corporate) brand communication. Here, we
used a topic guide with topics that are
relevant in the context of the practice of CC.
However, the guide left enough room for
the respondent to communicate his or her

particular views on in what way activities
and dimensions (structure, political and
cultural issues, professionals) are linked and
it prevented us from pre-structuring the
concept of ‘practice’ in any way. The topic
guide consisted of the following themes:
communication organization (How are
communications activities and the staff re-
sponsible for them departmentalized and
structured within the corporation? What
organizational processes and facilities exist to
support communications? What is the pro-
fessional ethos and culture of communica-
tions staff and of people in other depart-
ments of the corporation?), communications
work (What is the general view of people
within the corporation (ie the CEO and
senior managers, marketing staff, communi-
© 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363–3589 $30.00
Cornelissen, Bekkum and Ruler
cations staff, and others) of communications
and its role and contribution to the corpora-
tion? How is decision-making concerning
communications strategy organized? What
does the process of communications strategy
formation look like, in both corporate and
market-led communications? What general
activities does your job involve?) and com-
munications professionals (What is the gen-
eral profile of communications practitioners
working in the corporation? How are com-
munications staff recruited and selected?
What training and development initiatives
and trajectories exist for communications
staff?). We analyzed the data by looking for
common themes across the interviewees and
four corporations and by identifying links
between the dimensions of CC practice.
Vol. 9, 2, 114–133 Corporate Reputation Review 133