Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is Everything – if you plan to survive.
available at Nothing – if you don’t.
http://www.emerald-library.com/ft I’ll assume you are all here to survive.
Last winter the Corporate Communication
Institute conducted a study to set a bench-
mark 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
however, did not conceive that their Table I Some of the results of the benchmark study
recent court victory could have resulted Function Responsibility (%) Budget (%)
in a crisis of their own – funds drying up
Communication strategy 95.6 N/A
and communities barring their use of
Media relations 93.4 88.3
public facilities. Be prepared, indeed.
Public relations 93.4 80.3
(11) Writing is still the core skill for corporate
Executive speeches 90.5 86.1
communication. The Internet has
Crisis and emergency 89.8 77.4
underscored that writing of the highest
Communication policy 86.9 N/A
order is still the major talent required of
Annual report 79.6 69.3
those who create and send the messages
Corporate identity 75.2 67.9
in and from our major corporations. Internet communication 73.7 59.1
Some of the findings of our research indicate Intranet communication 72.3 58.4
some changes in how we communicate at Community relations 66.4 56.9
work. Others indicate changes in relationships Issues management 58.4 48.2
between you and your workforce, as well as Advertising 56.2 42.3
changes between you and the community Marketing communication 52.6 26.3
your company is in. Which brings us to our Corporate culture 48.9 39.4
next question. Corporate philanthropy 46.7 41.6
Employee relations 43.8 82.5
Mission statement 38.0 29.9
Investor relations 27.0 19.7
What is the role of business and Government relations 21.9 19.7
communication? Ethics code 8.8 N/A
Labor relations 3.6 1.5
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 Table II Corporate communication budgets of the
only gain in its importance in an information Fortune 1,000
driven economy. It is tied to the messages you Percentage of
create for all your audiences – internal and Corporate communication budget ($) companies
external, paying and non-paying. <500,000 19.1
What are the functions of corporate 500,000–999,999 14.0
communication? We asked in our benchmark 1,000,000–4,999,999 27.2
study whether or not our corporate 5,000,000–7,499,999 14.7
communication executives’ responsibilities 7,500,000–10,000,000 4.4
and budgets included 24 communication >10,000,000 20.6
functions such as annual report, crisis,
employee relations, Internet, intranet, media The Council on Public Relations Firms
relations, policy, strategy, and public Spending Study asked more detailed
relations. Some of the results are shown in questions about spending in the Fortune 500.
Table I. The Spending Study found:
These figures indicate substantial (1) The ‘‘typical’’ corporate communication
involvement of corporate communication department in the study had a budget of
executives in communication actions central $7.5 million and a staff of 10
to corporate growth and survival. The professionals and three support staff. It
responses also indicate substantial budgetary was headed by a VP (often a senior or
responsibility for traditional communication executive VP) who reported to the chief
functions and a shared or matrix role in executive or chief operating officer, and
forging important corporate relationships expects next year’s budget and staffing
with customers, vendors, and investors. will both increase.
And just how big are the corporate (2) The range of spending on corporate
communication budgets of the Fortune 1,000? communication was very large:
Results from the benchmark study are shown $285,000 to $100 million. The mean
in Table II. was $21.6 million
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Current trends in corporate communication Corporate Communications: An International Journal
Michael B. Goodman Volume 6 . Number 3 . 2001 . 117±123
(3) Among those companies whose budgets Creation of messages remains the work
included them, the following were the of the corporation itself with its own
largest line items: resources. It appears that vendors help with
. corporate advertising ($11.4 million); technology, production, distribution, and
. foundation funding ($8.1 million); execution.
. social responsibility ($4.65 million, For the individual practicing corporate
including community relations, non- communication the variety of functions and
foundation funding, etc.); responsibilities indicates a broader set of
. government relations ($4.2 million); skills beyond writing. And I do not mean the
. employee communications ($2.6 Internet, though that is an essential skill that
million); and you have mastered. How you use media – all
. investor relations ($2.1 million). types of media – to project your company
message. How you relate interpersonally as a
These figures underscore that playing the manager, as a colleague, as a corporate
communication game at the Fortune 500 level representative. How you teach and
requires substantial resources in professional motivate.
staff and financial commitment. How you communicate to your colleagues
that they are company ambassadors. Everywhere
you go, you are you and your organization.
What does this mean for the individual, You are your organization. That is a tough
and what is the challenge in meeting realization for the generation of self-absorbed
future change? employees. The success of the enterprise calls
for them to be proud of their organization,
Chances are you got into corporate even if their commitment is temporary.
communication because you are a good writer The model for your company is no longer
– a very good writer. But you realized early on a family. It is a community. Family implies
that not too many paying jobs out there were a much different relationship, and a much
called ‘‘writer’’. No one advertises for poets, more obligatory bond. Family, according to
novelists, and short story writers. But writing Frost, is the place that when you go there
for organizations is booming – Web pages, they have to take you in. Besides, divorce
newsletters, press releases, speeches. All rates have remained constant, and
those are still there. Now much more work contemporary family constellations are very
for individuals acting as vendors is the result complex. How many times have you seen
of ‘‘outsourcing’’. someone with a person that just did not fit,
We asked in our Benchmark Study how and they may have said something like,
corporate communication executives used ‘‘Oh, yes this is my cousin,’’ or, ‘‘Yeah, he’s
vendors and agencies for their work. The my wife’s uncle’s stepson visiting from
most commonly cited were: Texas’’?
. advertising (75.9 per cent); By contrast, we have a different bond with
. annual report (73.7 per cent); community. We have a pride of place. We say,
. Internet (46.0 per cent); ‘‘I’m from Colorado Springs,’’ or ‘‘I’m from
. public relations (43.1 per cent); Utah’’, or ‘‘Boston’’, or ‘‘Paris’’ with lots of
. identity (43.1 per cent); pride that comes from the context of place
. media relations (40.1 per cent); and community.
. marketing communication (38.7 per cent); Or ‘‘I work for Ford’’ or ‘‘GE’’ or ‘‘IBM’’
. crisis communication (28.5 per cent); or ‘‘Microsoft’’. We have a sense we have
. intranet (22.6 per cent); joined a community of people who share
. investor relations (18.2 per cent); something different from what families do –
a culture.
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
What new tools do you need for your
and for labor relations. Less than 5 per cent of toolbox?
companies use vendors for communication
policy, corporate culture, mission statement, In addition to your excellent writing expertise,
corporate philanthropy. your superior interpersonal skill, your ability
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Current trends in corporate communication Corporate Communications: An International Journal
Michael B. Goodman Volume 6 . Number 3 . 2001 . 117±123
to create media products – press releases, trust was institutionalized since everyone in
video, Web pages, magazine articles, the company was family.
newsletters – other tools need to be in your Relationships with the media were also
professional toolbox to meet the challenge of built through recruiting reporters who had
change. You need the ability to: covered your company and hiring them to be
. teach; the media relations representative. With the
. absorb and comprehend vast amounts of change to a corporate community model,
complex information quickly; you have to work at identifying the people
. create and build relationships internally who are important to the organization and
and externally; then go about cultivating a relationship with
. build trust in all your audiences; and them.
. build a corporate culture.
Build trust
Teach How do you go about building trust? As
The corporate communicator is taking over country simple, and as emotionally difficult as
an HR role when it comes to motivating being worthy of trust. People you interact
employees and that calls for you to be a with must have a sense of your integrity as the
teacher. To do that you need to be aware of cornerstone of trust. Every positive
the styles of adult learners, and we can begin interaction with people builds a reservoir of
to define adult for many tasks as anyone over trust. It is cumulative, from simply showing
13. Experience is key to adult learning. up on time, to keeping your promises. On the
Almost everyone knows of the person who
other hand, integrity is something you can
learned to program a computer by his or
only lose once.
herself, fix an automobile, or stereo system, or
to have children and raise a family without the
Build corporate culture
aid of formal schooling.
When your boss asks you to take a few days
So your relationship as a teacher with the
to change the culture of the company, stop a
workforce works best when it is collaborative.
take a few deep breaths before you begin
your lecture. You might ask if he or she has
Absorb complex information quickly
ever been swimming in the ocean and gotten
In times of challenge – crises, emergencies,
caught in the receding tide, or felt the
mergers, acquisitions, strikes – the appetite
enormous pull of a rip tide. Or you might ask
for quality information by your own
if they have ever been tossed around by a
community and your corporate community
sudden gust of wind. A hurricane. A
is voracious. Stacks of information about
tornado.
the merger must be translated from
Culture is like the wind and the tide. It
‘‘lawyer’’ and ‘‘accountant’’ speak to a
exerts very strong and often invisible forces. It
language reasonably intelligent people
understand. has to be considered. We renovated, actually
People with a background in the liberal arts we are still in the process of renovating an old
developed a facility for complex ideas and cottage in Maine that was ravaged by the
information when they interpreted the novels forces of winter, water, and entropy.
of Dickens and Twain; or understood the Cultures can be changed, but not
monographs of Freud and Jung; or decoded instantaneously. And rapid culture changes
the field studies of Mead; or commented on are painful and destructive, like wars. We
the observations of Churchill: or criticized the don’t have to look too far a field to find
thoughts of Socrates and Confucius; or destructive cultural changes that are slow to
misread the essays of Derrida. heal – Ireland, the Middle East, Bosnia,
Korea, Central Africa. The citizens of
Create and build relationships Georgia (US that is) still recall with anger the
Building relationships was never that easy, slash and burn policy of General Sherman
but in simpler times the role of employee during the Civil War. The British have no
communication was given to trusted monument at Edgehill the site of the first
employees who knew almost everyone in the battle of their Civil War to overthrow the
company because he or she had worked there King by Cromwell and the Roundheads over
since high school. In a family cultural model, 350 years ago.
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Current trends in corporate communication Corporate Communications: An International Journal
Michael B. Goodman Volume 6 . Number 3 . 2001 . 117±123
``Corporate Communication Spending Study’’ (2000), ``Remember when? This Fall’s freshmen may not’’ (2000),
Corporate Communication Institute for the Council Chronicle of Higher Education, 8 September , p. 10.
for Public Relations Firms, Madison, NJ. Tahmincioglu, E. (2000), ``To shirkers, the days of whine
Gardyn, R. (2000), ``Who’s the boss? The new American and roses’’, New York Times, 19 July, p. G1.
worker’’,, American Demographics, September , Tapscott, D. (1998), Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the
pp. 53-9. Net Generation, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Goode, E. (2000), ``How culture molds habits of thought’’, Wellner, AS. (2000), ``Generational divide’’, American
New York Times, 8 August, pp. 1 and 4. Demographics, October, pp. 52-8.
McClain, D.L. (2000), ``Forget the raise, give me some Wellner, A.S. (2000), ``Generation Z’’, American
time off’’, New York Times, 5 July, p. G1. Demographics, September , pp. 61-64.
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