International Journal of Strategic Communication

ISSN: 1553-118X (Print) 1553-1198 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hstc20

Expanding the Scope of Strategic Communication:

Towards a Holistic Understanding of
Organizational Complexity

Mats Heide, Sara von Platen, Charlotte Simonsson & Jesper Falkheimer

To cite this article: Mats Heide, Sara von Platen, Charlotte Simonsson & Jesper Falkheimer
(2018) Expanding the Scope of Strategic Communication: Towards a Holistic Understanding of
Organizational Complexity, International Journal of Strategic Communication, 12:4, 452-468,
DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2018.1456434

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Platen, Charlotte Simonsson, and Jesper
Falkheimer]

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION
2018, VOL. 12, NO. 4, 452–468
https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2018.1456434

Expanding the Scope of Strategic Communication: Towards a

Holistic Understanding of Organizational Complexity
Mats Heide, Sara von Platen, Charlotte Simonsson, and Jesper Falkheimer
Department of Strategic Communication, Lund University, Helsingborg, Sweden

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to contribute to the discussion concerning the
present position and future directions of strategic communication by look-
ing into the past and offering some proposals and a vision of how to
develop and advance the field further. Research in strategic communication
has mostly focused on communication professionals working in commu-
nication departments or agencies as primary agents of communication.
However, this reflects a limited comprehension of organizations. The article
addresses the need to focus not only on communicators, but also on
managers and coworkers as key actors when trying to understand and
theorize the practice of strategic communication.

Introduction
Strategic communication has been defined as the study of how organizations use communication
purposefully to fulfill their overall missions (e.g., Frandsen & Johansen, 2017; Hallahan,
Holtzhausen, van Ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2007). The aim of strategic communication as an
academic movement has been formulated as an ambition to break down the silos surrounding
closely related communication disciplines and create a unifying framework that integrates public
relations, organizational communication, marketing communication and other areas. The funda-
mental idea of strategic communication is thus inclusive, which is a laudable ambition. However, the
broad scope of the field is also a challenge because it requires research to break away from
established disciplines and fields of knowledge, thus allowing for novel approaches and questions
to be explored (Holtzhausen & Zerfass, 2015b).
The purpose of this article is to contribute to the discussion concerning the present position and
future directions of strategic communication by looking into the past and offering some proposals
and a vision of how to develop and advance the field further. Fundamentally, we follow the main aim
of strategic communication as it is formulated here: as a transdisciplinary, holistic and inclusive field
of knowledge. The problem, which we will show later by referring to published research in
International Journal of Strategic Communication (IJSC), is that the aim has not yet been fulfilled.
This may not be strange because strategic communication is still a young field of knowledge. Still,
there is a need to revisit the fundamental definitions of the field and find theoretical and empirical
pathways that may take us further.
At the beginning of this article, we refer to the review of articles in IJSC presented by Werder,
Nothhaft, Verčič, and Zerfass (2018) and a similar review done by ourselves. These reviews
demonstrate the problems with the early development of strategic communication and we highlight
some aspects which we find troublesome. In the following section, we present a theoretical frame-
work that broadens the understanding of strategic communication. We emphasize the importance of

CONTACT Mats Heide Mats.Heide@isk.lu.se Department of Strategic Communication, Lund University, Helsingborg
25108, Sweden.
Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC © 2018 [Mats Heide, Sara von Platen, Charlotte Simonsson, and Jesper Falkheimer]
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://
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original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 453

a communication perspective on organizations, and specifically proclaim the use of the

Communicative Constitution of Organizations’ (CCO) perspective. We also reflect upon the use of
strategy, and criticize the modernist use of strategy in much current research. In the third section, we
present the approach and some results from a research project, “Communicative Organizations,”
aiming to illustrate how we think that strategic communication may be developed, based on the
premises that we have described earlier. In this project, there is a strong focus on managers and
coworkers and their communication, in line with the shift from bureaucratic to postbureaucratic
organizations, which involves a move from organizations based on hierarchies, rules and close
supervision to organizations built on loosely structured networks, management by values and
visions, self-directed team work, and horizontal communication (Fairtlough, 2008).

On strategic communication—the current state of the field

In the next section, we discuss the present state of strategic communication in three aspects—
research foci, methods, and meta-theoretical perspectives. We point out some weaknesses and
consequent potentials for the development of the field. Our argumentation is based on a content
analysis of articles published in International Journal of Strategic Communication 2007–2017 by
Werder et al. (2018). We will also refer to a similar content analysis that we presented at the
International Communication Association preconference “Future Directions of Strategic
Communication” (Heide, Simonsson, von Platen, & Falkheimer, 2017).

Research foci
In trying to characterize the field, it is relevant to address the question of what topics scholars in the
field tend to focus on. The content analysis we conducted (Heide et al., 2017) displayed that the
topics most frequently addressed were communication management, planning, and related topics
such as audience segmentation, message design, relationship building, campaigns, and evaluation. It
is quite apparent, regarding research, that the analyzed articles were mainly concerned with what we
would designate as traditional public relations issues. This, to be certain, does not mean that these
issues are not approached and dealt with in a novel and fruitful manner. However, the topics in
themselves do bear some resemblance to what is being published in other academic journals
operating in the intersection of organization and communication. It should also be noted that
Werder et al.’s (2018) analysis of the disciplinary focus of published articles, shows that 38% of
the articles are categorized as belonging to the discipline of public relations. One critical question
must then be raised: Have we reached the goal of integrating the different specialties of commu-
nication studies or are scholars doing the same things as before (i.e., more of the same), but using the
heading of strategic communication (instead of public relations)? We would not go so far as to argue
that public relations scholars have “invaded” the field of strategic communication, but we definitely
need to integrate a greater variety of disciplines than hitherto, not least from the fields of organiza-
tional theory and social theory.
What may also be worth noticing is the near absence of communication professionals as a
research topic (Heide et al., 2017). Communication professionals are, of course, present, even if
they are not approached directly, because it is ultimately their work, values, and domain that are
under scrutiny. However, a more explicit discussion about roles in terms of expectations and work
tasks is nevertheless important if we want to say something about how, and to what extent,
communication professionals contribute to the fulfillment of overall goals. At the same time, in
this article we argue that not only communication professionals, but also managers and coworkers,
should be included in the study of strategic communication. Following the holistic approach claimed
to be significant for the research field of strategic communication, it should be clear that the
communication function and its activities only represent a small proportion of the communication
carried out in, and by, an organization.
454 M. HEIDE ET AL.

Methods and empirical material

The content analysis by Werder et al. (2018) reveals that surveys, content analysis, and case studies
are the most common methods. It is noticeable that observation is not included among categories of
used methods. Our impression, after having read many papers, articles, and books within the field of
strategic communication, is that research findings are too often based on small samples, student
samples, or single case studies. There are several possible explanations for this: lack of research
funding, increased pressure in universities to publish articles, and dominating scientific norms and
genres that are not questioned by new generations. We find it important to urge for more studies
with richer and more varied empirical material, at least on an aggregated level. The field of strategic
communication would benefit from three different kinds of studies that hitherto are rare: a) large-
scales studies, b) close-up studies, and c) multimethods.
There is certainly a need for more large-scale studies—both national and international. Our research
project “The Communicative Organization” (2014–2017) is one of few examples with a large national
sample, which targets both coworkers, managers, and communication professionals. Another valuable
exception is the European Communication Monitor (see http://www.communicationmonitor.eu),
which is a yearly transnational study on strategic communication. But because this study exclusively
focuses on communication professionals, there is need for international, comparative studies that also
include coworkers and managers.
Quite often, we see a case study based on 10 interviews. Even if such studies may produce interesting
results, they are often criticized for being too meager. Another criticism is that interview studies only
focus on interviewees’ talk. Although there often are differences between talk and actions, it is
interesting and disclosing to study both. One method of studying talk and actions is the use of close-
up, ethnographic studies that render “thick descriptions” (see Geertz, 1973). These are detailed
accounts that describe patterns of cultural and social relationships, and can reveal what coworkers
actually do when they try to do what they claim to do, e.g., strategic communication (cf. Alvesson &
Jonsson, 2016).
Following the inclusive approach in strategic communication, multimethods may be fruitful
(Bryman, 2011). The use of both quantitative and qualitative methods in the same study is some-
times applied in order to secure the quality. If the same results are reached with different methods, it
is claimed that a study demonstrates good validity. This, however, presupposes the existence of an
objective reality “out there” as well as an understanding that theories mirror reality. Our perception
is quite the reverse, theories and knowledge are constructs (cf. Cheney, 2000). Thus, we argue that
the main advantage of multimethods is the possibility to capture tensions and contradictions rather
than making sure that we find the “truth” (cf. Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009). We would instead like to
encourage more reflexive and constructive dialogues between researchers, which implies that
researchers: “drop their heavy tools of paradigms and monologs” (Weick, 1999, p. 804).

Lack of meta-theoretical reflections

Another reflection based in our content analysis (Heide et al., 2017) concerns the rare occurrence of
philosophy of science discussions—primarily methodological aspects are presented and discussed (cf.
Gartrell & Gartrell, 1996, who identified this in sociology). This tendency is troublesome because
critical reflections concerning e.g., ontology, epistemology, universalizing claims, rationalism, and
the relation between theory and empirical material is important for the development of research
quality. Almost four decades ago, Morgan (1980) emphasized that a researcher studying an object
(e.g., an organizational phenomenon), approaches it based on taken-for-granted ideas of how
research should be conducted in order to be perceived as “scientific.” These ideas are frequently
reproduced by the research community, which tends to reward researchers who follow the ideas of
the dominating paradigm (cf. Burrell & Morgan, 1979). Morgan (1980) suggests that the result is a
self-sustaining nature of orthodoxy that impedes alternative ways of understanding phenomena. The
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 455

solution, Morgan claims, is to encourage theoretical and methodological pluralism that allows
progress in new perspectives and knowledge.
In line with Morgan’s reasoning, the content analysis displayed that positivism tends to be the
dominating paradigm within the field of strategic communication (Heide et al., 2017). The analysis
also demonstrated that some articles that are categorized as qualitative still follow the logic of the
quantitative paradigm, and use concepts such as hypotheses, limitations, respondents, reliability,
validity, and so forth. Hence, these articles are in fact pseudo-qualitative pieces. An explanation of
the tendency to embrace a quantitative ideal is that qualitative researchers too often adapt to the
positivistic rules in order to become published. This is nevertheless problematic because it forces
qualitative researchers to cause-effect theorizing and obstructs possibilities of richer, explanatory
theorizing (Cornelissen, 2017).
In our analysis of published articles, we tried to identify from what perspective each research
problem was studied, and for whom the results were framed as relevant. The analysis indicated that
researchers in strategic communication tend to take a management perspective and privilege
managers and their actions, which could be interpreted as a sign of managerialism (Alvesson &
Sveningsson, 2011). Managerialism is grounded in a discourse of instrumentality (Deetz, 1992) and
management is primarily perceived as a technical activity performed by administrative experts
(Mintzberg, 2009). This understanding also involves a traditional view of rationality where it is
taken for granted that it is possible to control and manage stakeholders.
The lack of reflexive discussions of philosophy of science and the domination of positivism and
managerialism could be explained by the fact that the field is rather young. Nevertheless, it is
problematic, because it may imply that certain ideas of how “good” science should be conducted and
what kind of knowledge it should result in, tend to develop into taken-for-granted ideas and become
a barrier to theoretical and methodological pluralism within the field. Perhaps more studies from a
critical perspective would facilitate shifting our gaze from the top echelons of organizations to
different stakeholders, and open up for other questions concerning e.g., the exercise of power in
organizations as well as in the public sphere as an important but rarely recognized constituent of
strategic communication. In this article, we argue that the Communicative Constitution of
Organizations (CCO) perspective could also contribute to further development of the field. The
CCO perspective is interesting in at least two ways: partly because it opens up for new meta-
theoretical approaches, and partly because it invites one to a broadened view of what kinds of actors
and communication activities could be perceived as essential to organizational strategic
communication.

Theoretical approach—broadening the understanding of strategic communication

In this section, we present a theoretical framework that broadens the understanding of strategic
communication. First, there is a need to challenge the traditional understanding of communication
and its relation to organizations. It is quite astonishing that our research community sometimes
takes communication for granted. One could expect that researchers who have expertise in com-
munication theory, should frequently try to understand and explain different phenomena from a
communication perspective and also reflect on communication per se. For the purpose of reflecting
on communication and its vital importance for the existence of organizations, we proclaim the use of
the CCO perspective. Second, there is also a need to challenge the often taken-for-granted under-
standing of strategy. For that purpose we use the strategy as practice tradition that is related to the
practice turn in strategic communication (cf. Aggerholm & Asmuß, 2016). Finally, to reach a more
realistic understanding of the complex organizational realities, we have consulted literature within
the organizational paradox and contradiction movement.
The CCO perspective has its roots and primary advocators within the discipline of organizational
communication. However, we believe that the CCO approach goes hand-in-hand with the basic
tenets of strategic communication and that it could enrich our field. It should be noted that CCO is
456 M. HEIDE ET AL.

not a single, consistent theory, but rather “a collection of perspectives about grounding the role of
communication in the ontology of organizations” (Putnam & Nicotera, 2010, p. 158). We will not
advocate any specific approach, but rather draw on some of the core assumptions of the CCO
approach and discuss the implications of these for the study of strategic communication. Like
Hallahan et al.’s (2007) reasoning, the CCO perspective argues for a broadened view of commu-
nication agency. The CCO perspective makes it clear that communication cannot be reduced to a
single profession or organizational function (irrespective of whether corporate communication,
public relations or marketing is used), because communication is a process that cuts across the
entire organization and is constitutive of its very existence (Kuhn & Schoeneborn, 2015). Regarded
this way, communication is not a variable. Rather we understand communication as a perspective or
lens that can help researchers to understand organizational processes and actions. Researchers in
strategic communication do not have a patent to study communication, but we ought to develop
communicative theories and explanation models. Deetz and Putnam (2001) reason in the following
way when it comes to organizational communication, but we believe that the same reasoning is valid
for strategic communication:

Researchers in psychology, sociology and economics do not simply study individual behavior, societies, or
economies, respectively; they bring to their research particular lenses that help them to form explanations for
how to view the world. Our inability to articulate a clearly developed “communicative” explanation for social
life has not only hurt us professionally, it has kept society from understanding experience in this important
way. (p. 9)

The notion of communication as constitutive is mentioned in Hallahan et al.’s (2007) article but is
not developed further. Nevertheless, the conception of communication as the key factor in consti-
tuting and maintaining organizations is consistent with the holistic, integrated approach of strategic
communication.
Taylor (2009), one of the founders of the CCO approach, argues that organization emerges from
the bottom up rather from the top down, which implies that an organization is a product of
continuous sense making and communication processes. This reasoning is in line with Weick’s
(1995, 2009) theory of organizational sensemaking. According to Weick, an organization should not
be perceived as something stable, constant, or objective. Consequently, Weick declares that we
should use the verb organizing, that embraces the active role of organizational members’ commu-
nication when organizations are produced and reproduced, rather than the noun organization.
Already three decades ago, Schall (1983) emphasized that organizations are: “created, sustained,
transmitted, and changed through social interaction—through modelling and imitation, instruction,
correction, negotiation, story-telling, gossip, remediation, confrontation, and observation—all activ-
ities based on message exchange and meaning assignment, that is, on communication” (p. 560).
Another fundamental concept—strategic—has also been rather ignored and taken for granted.
Strategic is naturally related to strategy, that is, a description of how ends (i.e., goals) will be reached
by means (i.e., resources) and involves two processes—formulation (strategic planning and strategic
thinking) and implementation (Freedman, 2013). In the research literature, there is a widely shared
perception that the traditional way of conducting strategic planning is not working (Liedtka, 2000).
The traditional approach is described by Hallahan et al. (2007) as the modernist strategy approach,
and strategic work in this approach is regarded as a controllable, rational process initiated from top
management. Liedtka (2000) concludes that “the strategic planning literature has focused too much
attention on strategic choices and not enough on the day-to-day strategic conversations through
which strategies get developed, tested, and implemented” (p. 203). This seems also to be the case for
the research field of strategic communication—more research should be conducted on how strategic
communication is realized and materialized.
An alternative way of studying and understanding strategic work is the emergent approach, which
values the communication and decisions of all employees at all levels. Rather than studying how
managers construct and transmit strategy to employees (the doers), the emergent approach focuses
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 457

on how coworkers and their communication is constitutive of the strategy. Although Hallahan et al.
(2007) urged that there was a need to explore different approaches to the term strategic, the
managerial, modernist approach still seems to prevail. Although strategy in research on strategic
communication is often taken for granted or understood traditionally as a rational planning process,
the emergent approach highlights the microlevel social activities, practices, and processes of strategy
work (Golsorkhi, Rouleau, Seidl, & Vaara, 2015). The emergent approach is often referred to as the
strategy as practice approach which is part of a larger practice turn in social sciences. Practices are
regarded as arrays of individual activities (Schatzki, 2001). Hence, different phenomena such as
knowledge, power, leadership, and, by all means, strategic communication, occur within, or are
aspects of, individual practices. The practice turn is not a plea to conduct research that is more
relevant to practitioners, but to focus on activities in order to develop more nuanced understanding
of complex phenomena (Gherardi, 2016).
Contemporary research on strategy has put microstrategizing in the center of interest, i.e., what
organizational members actually do with the strategy (e.g., Johnson, Melin, & Whittington, 2003).
Jarzabkowski (2004) concludes that there is a gap between theories that describe what organizational
members do and what they really do in local, everyday life. Jarzabkowski uses the concept of
strategy-as-practice to illustrate the relationship between individual micropractices (i.e., the daily
work) and macropractices in terms of norms and values that affect the micropractices. Wilson and
Jarzabkowski (2004) emphasize that there is always a mutual relationship between macro and micro.
Microlevel activities have macroeconomic effects, whereas these activities are influenced by macro-
phenomena such as political, social, and economic institutions (e.g., industry standards). Based on
the perception that strategy is something that organizational members create, perform and materi-
alize, rather than just seeing strategy as something an organization has, Marchiori and Bulgacov
(2012) argue that we must understand the importance of communication in the creation of
strategies. Strategy is thus a communicative practice that is conducted at different levels in an
organization as the organization is continuously created and reproduced. Increasingly, researchers
in strategic communication adopt a more complex understanding of strategy by using the strategy as
practice approach (Aten & Thomas, 2016; Frandsen & Johansen, 2015; Gulbrandsen & Just, 2016).
This perspective of strategy is closely related to the CCO perspective, because both embrace the
performative and sensemaking aspect of communication.
In keeping with the bottom-up-approach, the CCO perspective is also grounded in the notion of
organizations as being polyphonic or multivocal, which invites studies on competing rationalities,
tensions, and paradoxes rather than the often used rationalistic, one-dimensional approach. Tension
is an emotional state that occurs when employees face incompatibilities and dilemmas which result
in frustration and stress (cf. Putnam, 1986), and paradox refers to contradictory conditions that exist
simultaneously and are often perceived as irrational or absurd (Lewis & Smith, 2014). Further,
complex organizational realities with globalization, new technologies, and fast-changing economic
conditions result in ubiquitous contradictions and paradoxes (Mumby, 2014). Several researchers
argue that tensions, contradictions, and paradoxes are not necessarily problematic, but should rather
be seen as normal, unavoidable, and ubiquitous in organizational life (Cooren, Matte, Benoit-Barné,
& Brummans, 2013; Putnam, Fairhurst, & Banghart, 2016; Tracy, 2004). Instead of suppressing or
ignoring tensions, it is better to embrace them—to increase awareness of them, to analyze their
characteristics and to manage them by meta-communication (Ashcraft & Trethewey, 2004; Heide &
Simonsson, 2015).
Researchers that are interested in tensions and paradoxes primarily use the case study approach
with interviews and observation to develop a deeper understanding of the phenomena. The preced-
ing discussion thus emphasizes the need for broader conceptualization and understanding of
strategic communication. It also indicates the need to shift our attention towards managers’ and
coworkers’ communication and how these practices may contribute to, as well as hamper, organiza-
tional strategic communication. In the following sections, we thus provide some examples of how
strategic communication is constituted by a multitude of subprocesses and everyday interactions.
458 M. HEIDE ET AL.

Our empirical examples should not be regarded as a precept, but rather as a humble suggestion for
how research could go beyond a more traditional way of approaching and studying strategic
communication. We believe that it is difficult to embrace all aspects of strategic communication
within a single research project, such as multiple perspectives and theories, but we would like to see
more perspectives, also critical, on an aggregated level. In the research that is presented below, we
have primarily included communication professionals, managers and coworkers, and we have used
both quantitative and qualitative empirical material.

Method and material

The empirical material in this part of the article comes from a three-year-research project, “The
Communicative Organization” (2014–2017). The purpose of the project is to increase knowledge
about how communication creates value and contributes to organizational goal attainment. A
distinguishing characteristic of the project is that it includes not only the perspectives and activities
of communication professionals but also of managers and coworkers. The project involves eleven
Swedish public (both governmental and municipal) and private sector organizations. The participat-
ing organizations were self-selected. A strategic selection of organizations based on criteria such as
size, sector, or communication excellence has thus not been applied in the study.
A quantitative survey was carried out in the participating organizations during 2015 and 2016. A
random sampling strategy was applied in all of the participating organizations, except one—where the
survey was sent out to all employees. The survey was answered by 8,091 respondents, which equals a
response rate of 29%. The survey targeted three groups: managers, coworkers, and communication
professionals, aiming to find commonalities and differences in attitudes towards different aspects of
strategic communication. The questionnaire was divided into various sections, and it covered areas such
as communication climate, managers’ and coworkers’ communication, communication professionals’
work, and interaction with external stakeholders. The majority of the questions were formulated as
statements and the respondents were asked to indicate their answers on a five-point Likert scale.
In addition, approximately 150 qualitative interviews were held with managers, coworkers, and
communication professionals in the participating organizations. The interviewees were selected with
the assistance of our formal contacts in the participating organizations. When selecting candidates
for the interviews, we applied a purposeful sampling of information-rich individuals that we
considered able to make valuable contributions to the study. In order to get rich and varied material,
we looked for individuals with different backgrounds, gender, age, positions, and experiences. The
vast majority of the interviews were individual and performed face-to-face. A smaller number of the
interviews were carried out as group interviews or by telephone due to practical circumstances. The
average duration of the interviews was one hour, and all the interviews were transcribed verbatim.
The purpose of the interviews was to gain a deeper understanding of a variety of communication
processes. The interview questions thus covered aspects such as formal and informal internal
communication flows and procedures, communication responsibilities, branding, the work and
role of the communicator, change communication, cross-functional and horizontal communication
processes, and collaboration practices. The interviews were also used to explore communication
practices related to leadership, coworkership, and ambassadorship. The interviewees were thus
encouraged to share their experiences regarding everyday communication and interaction with
superior and subordinate colleagues, as well as challenges and responsibilities related to encounters
with external stakeholders. A thematic approach was applied when analyzing the qualitative material.
The interviews were studied thoroughly, as we searched for themes related to a wide variety of
communication processes involving mangers on different levels as well as coworkers. In relation to
each theme, patterns, irregularities, and nuances were identified. The material was then sorted into
categories as regards e.g., processes, actions, key actors, positive and negative experiences, tensions,
and paradoxes—thus generating a rich material for exploring how managers and coworkers con-
tribute to strategic communication.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 459

Managers and coworkers as communicators

We now present some of the results from the project. Empirical material from both the survey and
the interviews are included. The focus is on illustrating the importance of manager’s and coworker’s
interactions as constitutive of strategic communication, and also on some of the tensions and
challenges within this area. Based on the notion of strategic communication as communication
that contributes to the goal attainment of the organization, our line of argument is that the overall
ability of an organization to act and communicate strategically hinges upon a variety of formal and
informal communication processes that take place as managers and other members interact on an
everyday basis.

Senior managers
It can be argued that senior management communication is, or should be, inherently strategic in
character. Without senior managers who listen—both to coworkers and to the surrounding world—
and who make decisions and communicate them to employees, one of the most fundamental means
to coordinate action and perform as an organization is lost. But how do coworkers perceive senior
management and their communication? The survey results showed that coworkers are quite critical
towards the communication of their top management. Of the respondents, 36% disagree with the
statement that senior management is providing clear information to employees; 23% do not have any
confidence in top management. Several of the organizations that were included in the project are
quite large and complex with thousands of employees (in some cases more than 50,000 employees),
which of course aggravates communication between senior managers and employees. Even so, we
found no clear patterns in relation to the size of the organizations. It is also interesting to note that
top management communication was one of the areas where we found the greatest differences
among the 11 organizations. Hence, reaching a trustful level of communication between senior
managers and employees should not be considered an impossible task.
The interviews confirmed that there is variety in the perception of senior management
communication, primarily between, but sometimes also within, the different organizations.
When arranging different perceptions of senior management communication along a continuum,
at one end we find coworkers who are very negative towards senior management and who frame
the situation in terms of “us” in contrast to “them.” One key explanation to this negative attitude
is that senior managers are not being seen as honest and authentic. One coworker expresses it in
in the following way:
Everything has become so “political.” Everything has to look good from the outside so that senior managers can
keep their jobs. At the same time, we all know that it does not work. And yet they just repeat: “Everything
works great!”

At the other, and positive, end of the continuum of attitudes towards senior managers, we find
coworkers who trust and respect senior managers for the job they are doing. At this end, we also find
coworkers who seem to have reasonable expectations of how much senior managers can be visible
and communicate directly with employees in the organization. Behind the positive attitudes we often
find senior managers who have high ambitions with their communication. For instance, there are
managers who spend a lot of time regularly visiting different parts of the organization and who invite
“ordinary” employees to dialogue meetings several times per year. The importance of these face-to-
face-meetings seems to lie in the connection between visibility and being seen as a person. A major
concern among the coworkers seems to be: “Do they [senior managers] really know how we as
employees are doing and what conditions we have”? Personal meetings provide a forum where both
managers and employees can appear as persons—not only as an anonymous mass or group—and tell
their own stories.
However, even when senior management communication works fairly well, there are some
tensions that need to be understood and managed. One of these is the tension between top-down
460 M. HEIDE ET AL.

or bottom-up, or between speak and listen. A complaint among coworkers, but also among middle
managers, is that communication with senior managers is often too much of a monologue—it is very
much a matter of senior managers providing the rest of the organization with information. On the
other hand, we have also found examples where the senior managers are very eager to show that they
are listening, which in the long run also may cause some problems. One senior manager reflects
upon dialogue meetings between senior managers and employees:
There is such a strong willingness to respond to questions that arise in those intimate meetings. And sometimes
these questions can get out of proportion./…/One example is when someone said that the trousers we wear at
work are ugly. And then we started a process of evaluating these trousers. It is like… when you attend those
dialogue meetings, you can always expect to get what you want.

The quote illustrates that a very strong willingness to listen may imply that leaders abdicate from
their role as leaders to prioritize and also say no to some ideas. Another senior manager said that
when she meets different employee groups, she is very careful in clarifying that her intention is to
talk about what the employees find important: “I underscore that this is their time, and that I have
no agenda.” This is of course a laudable approach, but if taken to an extreme, it also implies missed
opportunities for leadership and strategic communication, e.g., by addressing values, visions, strategy
and other long-term issues that are challenging to communicate.
It is the responsibility of senior management to craft long-term strategies, make significant
decisions and coordinate organizational actions to reach the goals. For these processes to take
place, communication between senior management and organizational members is of course a
prerequisite. The preceding examples illustrate that these communication processes can be executed
either more or less strategically. When one third of the employees perceive the information from
senior management as unclear, and sense that management is not authentic or honest, and in
addition, prone to monologue rather than dialogue, communication certainly cannot be considered
to be strategic. However, it is also evident that senior management communication may have a
strategic potential, e.g., when managers communicate directly with employees. In these face-to-face
encounters, even if they are few and far apart, influential and more subtle mechanisms are set in
motion. Information is not merely shared and interpreted, there is also mutual recognition between
“them” and “us.” The employees do not only “see” the manager, they also experience that the
manager “sees” them, i.e., in terms of being acknowledged. The symbolic value of this interaction is
inherently strategic, and it goes far beyond the value of a weekly newsletter from the CEO or
director-general.

Middle managers as communicators

The survey included several questions about how employees perceive their immediate manager and
her/his communication. The questions concerned aspects such as the manager’s availability, open-
ness for feedback, communication of objectives and invitation to dialogue. In contrast to senior
managers, middle managers are generally highly appreciated by their coworkers. Coworkers are most
pleased with their manager’s availability; 82% of the employees think that their manager is available.
Coworkers are least satisfied with managers’ capability to explain current events in the organization
and how their own work may be affected by these events. Only a little more than half of the
respondents, 55%, agree that their manager is good at this, i.e., connecting the parts and the whole,
which clearly indicates a potential for improvement.
The interviews confirm the main patterns from the survey. When asked why coworkers are
satisfied with their managers, we often get answers indicating that managers are close to daily work
and operational business: “s/he knows the business,” “when having problems, I can talk with my
manager,” “my manager is prepared to pitch in when needed,” and “s/he is good at leading
meetings.” Some coworkers also confirm the weaknesses found in the survey and call for additional
communication about the “bigger perspective” e.g., concerning finance:
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 461

When the budget is done, it would have been good to know more about the preconditions and how it went
this year. […] we get information about what is happening at our little unit, but it would be good to have the
bigger perspective.

From a strategic communication perspective, it is quite problematic that middle managers have
difficulties in communicating organizational-wide issues and in connecting these to the everyday
work of their employees. As a result of many factors—the shift from production to information/
knowledge and service economy, leadership is becoming increasingly based on visions and goals rather
than control and direct surveillance, and the digital transformation—the communication role of leaders
is more a matter of managing meaning rather than “pure” information distribution (cf. Rouleau &
Balogun, 2011; Smircich & Morgan, 1982; Weick, 1995). As organizations are becoming increasingly
complex, the communication content also becomes more complex and ambiguous. Therefore, managers
at all levels need to be able to translate messages and invite coworkers to talk about complex issues—i.e.,
managers who act as sense makers. The rather poor results in relation to senior management commu-
nication can also be related to middle managers’ shortcomings in communicating strategic, overall
messages that often emanate from the top management. One of the senior managers being interviewed
argued that the rather negative results of senior managers and the contrasting positive results of middle
managers show that “we have a problem which is not related to the dialogue between senior managers
and employees, but we need to find out what problems we have in communication between different
management levels.” This quote illustrates one area often neglected in leadership studies and in the field
of strategic communication, namely communication between managers (Balogun & Johnson, 2004).
The interviews indicate that middle managers are not always involved in strategic issues, which
means that in some cases they are just as much “receivers” of strategic messages as their coworkers
are. Some interviewees also claim that the material that middle managers get from the top managers
is often insufficient and is distributed too late. Although sometimes lacking substantial material,
middle managers also talk about difficulties in handling the amount of information. One possible
interpretation is that middle managers are in a communicative line of fire, with a lot of information
and messages coming from senior managers, coworkers, and stakeholders. A major tension thus
seems to be how to prioritize between daily, operational business and strategic, overall questions.
Moving downwards in the hierarchical line of communication, middle managers have a pivotal role
as communicators, as they translate, inform, make sense, support, and give feedback to employees in
order to coordinate actions towards organizational goals. As illustrated before, managers that are
available and willing to talk and listen to coworkers on a daily basis, are one of the fundamental assets
of strategic communication. Interpretation, framing, and naming of organizational events takes place in
everyday interaction, which makes this a principal arena for managers to communicate strategically and
guide collective action. Line manager is a challenging position in terms of communication responsi-
bilities, though. For example, too much and too little information and their hierarchical position
contribute to line managers not being fully able to communicate with their coworkers on goal related
matters such as the “big perspective” and to discuss these issues in a local context. This implies that, to a
certain extent, neither managers nor employees have adequate knowledge about these topics. An
organization does perhaps not stand and fall with members’ awareness of these overarching issues.
However, underestimating their importance as part of strategic communication certainly does not
facilitate joint action or lessen the gap between the top and bottom echelons of an organization.

Coworkers as communicators
The notion that employees’ everyday interaction and communication constitute organizational
strategic communication and goal attainment may be also illustrated in a number of ways. For
instance, the ability of one of the participating organizations, a municipality, to “serve the citizens
and the public” rests not only on the provision of information and physical resources to citizens,
but also on the organization’s ability to scan the environment and listen to stakeholders. This
462 M. HEIDE ET AL.

may be achieved in many ways, but it certainly hinges on the public servants’ inclination to turn
visions and ideals into listening practices. As expressed by one interviewee: “We set up these
dialogue meetings with the people living in the area, we had a good discussion and could really
take in some important suggestions.” Without the capacity to enact listening practices, scan and
bring back impressions to the organization, fulfilling the ambition of “serving the public” would
be a lot more challenging. However, to practice listening in complex, politically governed
organizations is demanding. For the employee, as well as for the organization, it involves taking
into account numerous and often contradictory opinions that have to be weighed against strategic
planning and sustainable, long-term goals that are integral to democratic institutions. In addition,
knowing that decisions about e.g., town planning or social housing can be difficult to explain,
and that some stakeholder group is bound to be disappointed, certainly brings tension to
organizational listening.
Another example is in a multinational manufacturing company. Here, operations to a quite large
extent rely on cross functional processes, decentralized structures, and individual responsibilities.
The success of this particular organization thus rests upon members’ ability to resolve conflicts and
other work-related issues in a flexible manner. One employee says: “If there is a problem, something
wrong, I just call this guy right away and we sort it out. I have never needed to involve a superior in
resolving our everyday issues or problems.” Operations are thus enabled and to a certain extent
constituted by the coworkers’ shared capacity to interact or communicate with each other in a
certain way.
Regarded as discrete behaviors, the examples given here may not be so remarkable. However,
both the survey and the interviews reveal that on an aggregate level there is a great concern for and
willingness among employees to contribute to an open communication climate in their respective
organizations. The survey shows that, for instance, 94% agree with the statement: “I contribute to
create good dialogue in my work group,” and that 85% agree with the statement “I often give
feedback to my colleagues.” One employee characterizes the communication climate in the work-
place in the following manner: “At this place we have a really casual and direct way of commu-
nicating. We often solve a lot of issues when having lunch. If there is something I need to know I just
go and ask my manager.” Taken together, these patterns of interaction constitute a valued resource
for most organizations, i.e., a supportive communication climate that enables interpersonal trust.
Without skilled interpersonal interaction that allows for employee voice and engagement, over-
arching goals such as organizational change, learning, and crisis resilience will be difficult to achieve.
Still, the material illustrates that the challenge lies not so much in striking a balance between a
climate of voice vs. silence. The task is rather to foster a climate that is open and allowing, but still
has norms for what is considered appropriate and what is not. As one employee said: “The thing
here is that some people blurt out all sort of criticism that comes to mind, like a five-year-old. Then,
surprisingly, they get offended and feel silenced when they are told to keep their opinions to
themselves.” Fostering a climate of participation and openness thus brings new tensions and
challenges to the table.
Brand and reputation are key organizational assets, though expressed in different ways by public
and private organizations. A great deal may be done in order to enhance these resources in terms of
marketing communication and public relations. Nevertheless, when it comes to these and other
intangible assets, interaction between organizational members and external stakeholders is of vital
importance. The survey shows that coworkers display a great willingness to act as ambassadors on
behalf of the organization or employer. For instance, 65% of the coworkers answered that they often
say good things about their organization. Moreover, 77% of the coworkers claimed that when they
encounter incorrect rumors about their organization, they try to refute and correct them. Being an
ambassador is interpreted in various ways.
For instance, one person employed by a governmental institution framed this task as not talking
in a derogatory way about colleagues or their work: “When I have external contacts, I represent the
entire organization. I would never even consider saying something bad about a colleague.” Another
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 463

interviewee says that: “Every time I pick up the phone to answer a call, I remember that I have a role
as ambassador. It is about disseminating a favorable message. Service is highly rated in all our formal
policies.” Ambassadorship thus seems to be about a professional stance towards the role and work. It
is also understood as an ability to separate backstage and frontstage behaviors, as expressed by a
coworker in health care: “It is alright to moan and groan in here. But when we go out to see the
patients, we do that with dedication and great care.” Taking the idea of ambassadorship seriously,
something that the interviewees certainly do, they contribute to organizational reputation and trust
in a multitude of microprocesses, meetings and interactions that feed directly into strategic assets
such as reputation, brand, and relationships with external stakeholders.
So far, we have given a number of positive examples of how employees’ communication may provide
organizational value. Still, communication is just as prone to value destruction as it is to value creation.
This was in fact the case in one of the studied organizations that went through a prolonged and turbulent
period of reform. Due to scarce resources, high turn-over, accusations of malpractice, and silencing of
members, as well as other coinciding circumstances, the employees chose to voice their concerns and
criticism towards management in social and traditional media, thus fueling the image of an organization
in deep crisis. This may have provided a short-term value for employees in terms of public and political
attention. But, in the long run, these initiatives of “reverse ambassadorship” may cause considerable
reputational damage and undermine internal and external trust in the organization.
The preceding examples illustrate how coworkers’ communication and interaction with man-
agers, clients, and each other contributes to organizational goal achievement and could thus be
conceptualized as strategic communication. From a constructionist perspective, it makes little sense
to talk about strategic communication, or any other organizing process, without taking into
consideration how these processes are constituted by certain actors—in this case coworkers. These
assumptions are of course not new because we base our argumentation on a long tradition of
theories of social structuration and social constructionism that are embraced by the CCO perspec-
tive. What is markedly different though is the societal and organizational settings where these
communication processes take place. In postbureaucratic organizations, work is complex, highly
social and interconnected, and image and brand are key resources. Taken together, this implies that
communication has in many ways become even more essential to organizational success. We
consequently need to acknowledge the vital importance of seeing all organizational members as
actors that constitute and contribute to an organizations’ strategic communication. Listening,
sharing information, contributing to an open communication climate and ambassadorship are just
some prosaic examples of communicative actions that are performed by coworkers, often with little
reflection, but that nevertheless are prerequisites for organizational goal attainment. As such, these
actors should also be given due recognition.

Managers, coworkers, and strategic communication

The preceding results indicate that an organization’s capacity to communicate strategically is con-
stituted by a multitude of subprocesses that take place between coworkers, managers, senior manage-
ment, and external stakeholders on a daily basis. It is thus necessary to regard these processes of
interaction not only as important in themselves, but also as constitutive of an organizations’ strategic
communication and overall performance. Regarded from this perspective, it is somewhat remarkable
that communicators do not dedicate much time to support leaders, for example, in their role as
communicators. When communication professionals were asked what areas they work with most,
internal meetings, external web, and communication with customers/consumers/citizens (i.e., external
stakeholders), were ranked as the most prioritized areas. These areas were followed by intranet,
branding, media relations, and then—in seventh position—leadership communication (support to
leaders). Another interesting result in this context is that both managers and communication profes-
sionals perceive “leadership communication” as the most important communication area to focus on
in order to achieve organizational goals. However, our empirical study also illustrates that it is not
464 M. HEIDE ET AL.

sufficient to focus merely on managers’ communication, it is also vital to include coworkers’ con-
tribution to strategic communication. Consequently, if we consider that phenomena such as listening,
trust, communication climate, conflict management and ambassadorship are in fact established in and
by coworker interaction and communication activities, scholars as well as professional communicators
need to pay closer attention to coworkers’ communication and how organizational strategic commu-
nication essentially relies upon all members’ communication activities and capability.
As discussed before, the CCO perspective emphasizes that organizations emerge from bottom-up
rather than top-down activities. Coworkers and the polyphonic character of organizations are thus
seen as just as important for study as managers and their top-down messages. However, these
assumptions do not necessarily mean that managers and their communication are irrelevant—it is
more a matter of focusing on both managers and coworkers rather than either or. Thus, if we are to
study strategic communication—how communication contributes to the fulfillment of overall mis-
sion and goals—it is necessary to expand the idea of who are important communicators and what
kind of communication activities are essential for study.

Concluding discussion
We tend to agree with the editors of The Routledge Handbook of Strategic Communication,
Holtzhausen and Zerfass (2015a), who claim that work in this field is well under way, but it is by
no means a mature field. It is also important to keep in mind that research development takes a long
time and only 10 years have passed since the inaugural issue of IJSC. Still, the content analyses of
published articles in International Journal of Strategic Communication show that there are some clear
blind spots and underdeveloped areas for researchers in strategic communication to work on. As
regards research topics, the majority of research still seems to be closely linked to traditional public
relations issues. We would not go so far as to argue that public relations scholars have “invaded” the
field of strategic communication, but there is definitely a need to integrate a greater variety of
disciplines than hitherto, not least from the fields of organizational theory and social theory, in order
to develop the field further and gain more deep knowledge of a complex phenomenon.
As we see it, public relations is an important part of the wider area of strategic communication
that embraces all aspects of an organization’s communication—internal as well as external.
Throughout this article we have also argued for a broadened view of strategic communicators and
a stronger emphasis on communication roles. Following the holistic approach—which is perceived as
significant for the research field of strategic communication, it should be clear that an organization’s
communication function and its activities only represent a very small proportion of the commu-
nication carried out in and by that organization. Hence, managers and coworkers, should be given
much more attention in the study of strategic communication.
Regarding methods and empirical material, there is a problem of small-scale studies mainly
relying on a rather limited set of methods (survey, content analysis, and case study).
Consequently, we have urged for more large-scale studies and the use of a greater variety of
methods—especially ethnographic, close-up studies where observations can give more knowledge
about the actual practices of strategic communication. Many studies hitherto reveal what practi-
tioners say what they do when they work with strategic communication, but there is not much
knowledge about what practitioners actually do when strategic communication is materialized.
Another concern is the lack of reflective meta-theoretical discussion and the domination of positi-
vism and managerialism, which may lead to taken-for-granted ideas of what “good” science is and
how it should be conducted. In sum, we have suggested an expanded scope in relation to several
aspects—research topics, strategic communication agency, interdisciplinarity, methods, and philo-
sophy of social science.
In this article, we have also made a humble attempt to present a theoretical framework and an
empirical study that broadens the understanding of strategic communication. We have employed
CCO as a theoretical platform to discuss the fundamental concepts of communication and strategy
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 465

in order to contribute with further development of the field. From a CCO perspective, the primary
question is not how communication can be used as a tool to reach business goals. Rather, the main
question is how communication constitutes organizations and society. It could also be argued that
the CCO approach comes with a stronger focus on the actual processes and practices of strategic
communication—something we still know too little about, as previously mentioned. As our empiri-
cal study shows, managers and coworkers potentially have a central role in accomplishing an
organizations’ strategic communication efforts. But we also saw that coworkers’ and managers’
communication with colleagues and external stakeholders is far from uncomplicated, as contra-
dictory demands have to be balanced in a variety of situations. Ideals and standard advice emphasiz-
ing, e.g., the importance of listening, creating trust or dialogues are thus not easy to translate into
coherent practices when faced with the complexities of everyday life in organizations. Paradoxes and
tensions, therefore, also need to be embraced if we are to gain a more holistic understanding of
strategic communication.
A valid counterargument to our line of reasoning could be that the blind spots, biases, and
shortcomings we have identified are not unique to the field of strategic communication. Put
differently, lack of large-scale studies and use of multimethods, a tendency to favor management
interests, and too little meta-theoretical reflections and productive dialogue among researchers from
different traditions, also characterize other “immature” fields in social sciences and business admin-
istration (e.g., marketing). However, in contrast to many other disciplines, the fundamental idea of
strategic communication is to have a holistic approach, integrating several different disciplines and
perspectives for a better understanding of how communication can contribute to organizational
goals. We believe that a one-sided focus on managerial interests and a narrow scope in terms of
methods, topics, and communication agency will be a strong barrier towards fulfilling this holistic
and interdisciplinary ambition.
Another guilty counterargument could be that the pluralism and expanded scope, that we suggest,
may lead to a problematic eclecticism and lack of coherence (cf. Nothhaft, 2016), i.e., that anything
could go into the field of strategic communication. That is, of course, not the vision we have for
strategic communication. On the contrary, we envision strategic communication as a discipline that
embraces complexity and interdisciplinarity, not for the sake of it, but as a way to fully grasp the
richness and nuances of organizational life and communication. This, however, should not be done
at the expense of core ideas such as strategy, goal orientation or societal impact, that rather need to
be more accentuated than until now. In particular, we welcome a stronger emphasis on the concept
of communication. Human interaction and communication processes lies at the very core of
strategic communication. Still, these processes tend to be marginalized in strategic communication
research and this is highly disquieting. Considering communication as one of the most central
concepts that configures the discipline, it will certainly be a challenge to develop as a coherent field
of research if communication is disregarded or seldom explicitly addressed in research labeled
strategic communication.
A third counterargument, related to the second, could be that greater pluralism may just lead
to contradictory and fragmented knowledge and aggravate the problem of lack of cumulative
knowledge (cf. Nothhaft, 2016). However, strategic communication is a very complex phenom-
enon and if we are to reach a better, more nuanced understanding of it, we need a greater variety
of methods and theoretical perspectives. Further, when researchers with different perspectives
meet and debate, the outcomes can be new and constructive ideas. We agree with Deetz (2000)
that there is a value in differences and that “productive conflicts are more important than unitary
integration” (p. 107). As concerns theory development, we would actually like to encourage
researchers in strategic communication to strive for more complexity and less simplification
(e.g., best practices and simplistic, linear models). Tsoukas (2017) pinpoints that a large problem
in organization studies is the tendency to simplify complex phenomena rather than produce
theoretical complexity.
466 M. HEIDE ET AL.

As mentioned before, we would especially welcome more research from a critical perspective,
where taken-for-granted ideas, such as the notion of organizational goals, are examined and
questioned. For instance, are organizational goals necessarily the same as management goals? Such
a question would mean that a critical power perspective is introduced to the field, which is a
perspective that so far is more or less absent in the field. We would also like to see more critical
studies of the phenomenon of strategic communication itself, or as Christensen and Svensson (2017)
put it: […] “to study strategic communication as a central institution in society and, from that
perspective, challenge its existing practices and assumptions” (p. 181). One may ask reflective and
critical questions such as: “What are the potential negative effects of strategic communication efforts
from a societal and democratic perspective?”
To sum up, our vision of the development of strategic communication as a research field is a
richer and broader field that can produce nuanced knowledge about the complex phenomenon of
strategic communication. This implies that researchers within the field not only conduct traditional
research from a managerial perspective (that is of course important and legitimate), but also (1) pay
more attention to groups other than managers, such as coworkers and first-line managers, (2) adopt
a more reflexive and critical approach to core concepts such as strategy, communication, and
organization, and (3) embrace the fact that organizational life is messy and nonrational, which
would lead to an interest in contradictions and paradoxes in organizations.

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