Corporations:

- they are constantly in the public eye

- highly specialized in their activities but they may gather extremely diverse types of
operation together under one company name
- concentrated in one region of the world, but may operate across several continents
- perpetual existence – can exist a lonng time , it is not the end of their existance when
founder die

Companies:
-Business entities, they have a legal personality (osobowość prawna), distinct from the
natural persons (osoby fizyczne) who invest in them.
Company can undertake actions, own property and do business in its own name, it can
sue and be sued.

Personal liability - the fact of a person, rather than a company organization, being
legally responsible for something.

Corporate identity - It’s a combination of color schemes, designs, words, etc., that a
firm employs to make a visual statement about itself and to communicate its business
philosophy. It is an enduring symbol of how a firm views itself, how it wishes to be
viewed by others, and how others recognize and remember it.

Corporate vs. national identity

- Corporate identity is constantly modified and controlled,
-National identity is something built throughout hundreds of years of country’s
existence (flags,symbols,language). National identity could be influenced by historic
events.

Corporate culture
- includes miths, ritual and stories that integrate members of company and make them
a community
- not a ‘natural’ community. Its members integration is provisional.
- its culture are usually controlled topdown.
-organized hierarchically
Corporate value- an enduring belief that one mode of conduct or end-state of
existence is better than opportuning ones

Roles of values:
- the employees will experience a greater sense of identification with the company
- sense of unity and being a community member

Corporate identity
-self-representation that a firm wants to give of itself to the public it addresses
-multidimensional and dynamic construct that is realized in and through the discursive
practices of members of business and disciplinary cultures.
→ that’s how company want to be vieved

The corporate image

- the impressions or beliefs that people in general have about a company
- the representation of the company in actions and products, that is transmitted to
internal and external audiences
→ that’s how consumer view the company

Types of stakeholders(partner w biznesie, interesariusz)

- customers who buy from the company
- persons and entities linked to the company through some legal or normative
relationship (shareholders, regulatory agencies)
- employees, unions or suppliers
- wider public, the media or the community

Constructing employees
- Identity and identification are a reciprocal process: one thing is not identical to
another, but it may be identified with it because of shared interests; such
identifications are generated through a process of persuasion.
-Some employees have their value system reinforced (e.g. they ascribe to family
values) and they accept tasks and claims by the company.
-The pronoun “we” is prominent in corporate communication at all levels.
-Engaging employees in the corporate mission, inspire their loyalty and encourage
them to subscribe to specific values that are held to be central in the corporate
enterprise.
-Bringing employees into the corporate body, making them identify with its aims and
value system and ensuring that they come to embody these in their own work.

Constructing investors
Two types of communicative action:
- factuall (based on facts) sober presentation of information from the annual audit of
the company’s accounts
- discussion of the company’s past performance and future prospects, often in warmly
optimistic light, found in documents (letter to shareholders)

Companies seek to legitimize (justify) their actions in the eyes of the shareholders
(esp. negative media attention).

Constructing consumers
-Advertising - a means of selling (encouraging consumers to buy a particular product
or service)
-Persuasion – straightforward information, suggestion, allusion, creation of positive or
negative effect, invoking people’s social aspirations, exploiting their insecurities etc.
-Brands – a network of associations in the mind of a consumer, a set of positive or
negative associations or a symbolic language.

Communities of consumption -in which human relations dissolve into objects of

consumption

Communicating with a wider audience

Presenting a good public image to immediate stakeholders and the world at large:
sponsoring a sports event, cooperating with an NGO (non-govermental organization)

Corporate websites include: ‘about us’ sections, corporate mission statements

(description of aims of a business)
‘About us’ section:- the section in which the company presents itself to the general
public

- presenting the positive points. Common themes: company history, current status,
mission statement, info about senior management and allusions to corporate social
responsibility issues.

Corporate discourse
-a set of messages that a corporation chooses to send to the world at large and to its
target markets (group of people that company want to sell its product) or existing
customers.
-Overall, it’s a communicative activity of the company on a variety of levels.
-any kind of communicative action.
-It includes a range of spoken and written genres, as well as certain identifiably
distinct
‘discourses’, such as promotional, informative or legitimatory discourses.

Genereal features:
- corporate discourse is concerned with communication between a company and
specific audiences, ranging from well-defined interest groups to ‘public opinion’ at
large
- corporate discourse seeks to present the company’s point of view and to depict its
activities in a positive light
- corporate discourse is dialogic in that it constructs and projects particular types of
reader
- corporate discourse is dominated by the English language, yet intercultural
differences play an important role
- corporate discourse is closesly bound up with corporate

Job adverts
- job ads for specific jobs are often the first contact that young people have with the
world of business and employment as potential participants
- the role of job ads is to attract suitable candidates to keep the business going and
improve it
- a significant transactional dimension: their social purpose goes beyond providing
information or enhancing the company’s image
- the language of job ads has a dual function: need to recruit and need to pursue
general public relations objectives

Transactionality and impression management:

- to attract suitable candidates to keep the business going and improve it
- a significant transactional dimension: their social purpose goes beyond providing
information or enhancing the company’s image
The language of job ads has a dual function: need to recruit and need to pursue
general public relations objectives.

Building a relationship:
- the choice of word is vital in establishing the tone of company – recruit
communication
- metadiscourse – a range of discursive resources used in the categories of
engagement and self-mention
“we genuinely believe” – the body corporate.

Job interviews

Two discourses meet:

1) the personal language and the experience of the candidate,
2) the company’s expectations

A bad job interview

1) too vague(unclear)
2) insecurity, misunderstanding of the discursive role
3) modesty maxim (too modest)
4) ritual boasting

A good job interview

1) showing that one belongs to the relevant discourse community
2) more successful candidates signal membership of the professional community
through language, talking like an insider
3) using specialized terminology

Induction seminars and guides for new employees (socialization process – entry
to corporation)
- socialization through discourse
- apprenticeship – learning process, preparing new employees for central roles in a
community of practice
- training and updating sessions, learn about changes in company policy, language and
image
- further forms of situated learning: developing managerial (kierownicze) or
consultancy (doradcze) skills for senior roles
- induction process: courses, mentoring, evaluation and self-evaluation schemes
- process of socialization: the employee has to accomodate to his/her surroundings

Managing the relationship

- the discourse of induction is framed in terms of ‘helpfulness’ to the recruit, a high
degree of pseudopersonalization
- recognizing employee’s achievements, individualized approach to training
- company self-promotion, flattering and motivating employees, discursive closeness,
both parties benefiting
- emphasis on specific values

Testimonies – first person accounts of life within the company:

- a description of day-to-day activities, a positive evaluation of in-house training
schemes for new employees;
- a description of a project that the writer has completed for the company;
- and an expression of satisfaction and personal fulfillment

Testimonies’ characteristics:
- heavy emphasis on the company’s achievements
- recruitment processes
- highlighting certain key values, offering models
Failing to manage the relationship (counterproductivity = ineffectuality of
‘indoctrination video’)
- too much focus on company’s founder
- too much focus on the expansion in terms of buildings and physical locations
- employees only shown in relation to a specific machine
- anonymity (employees shown in masks and gloves)
- a long list of products
- inadequate slogans
- ignoring the role of the individual in the organization

Creating and maintaining a community

Community building:
positive stories of achievement, providing opportune information, inculcating key
ideas, generating a sense of belonging to an attractive entity, encouraging ‘corporate
spirit’

Identification strategies in employee newsletters:

- use of common ground, shared interests between employees and employer
- identification by antithesis (common cause against a common enemy)
- implicit identification (pronoun ‘we’)
- unifying symbols (logos, identification with the organization, its values and actions)

Employee & employer branding

Employee branding:
- ensuring that employees reflect or embody company values or the company image.
- the way in which employees behave in relations to the company’s brand values: the
same ‘branded experience’ through all their dealings with the organization
- an extension of the management of corporate culture; the norms, values and goals of
the organization are made explicit and presented as an ideal to identify with
Employer branding:
- refers to the way the company itself is seen by its employees
- employer branding activities centre on how the company is seen by actual or
potential employees, with a view to recruiting and maintaining talented staff

Annual Reports
– the principal document used by most public companies to disclose corporate
information to their shareholders.

Annual reports have two categories:

1) review of the year Self-description written in positive light and includes:
- financial highlights, the Chairperson’s letter or statement, the CEO’s letter or
statement
- reports about corporate governance, it may contain a section on corporate social
responsibility
2) the operating and financial review
- balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, notes to the financial
statement, etc. These are accompanies by a verbatim statement from the auditors.

Information and persuasion:

- parts of the Annual Report composed freely and those imposed by the external
auditor
- to encourage shareholders to maintain and increase their investments vs. to provide
a true picture of the company’s performance and general financial situation over the
previous year.

Multimodality:
- images, colours and visual information
– public relations purpose - dense text with technical-sounding heading, tables with
numbers, little colour and few graphs
- multimodal strategies: metaphor, iconicity, faces or things, magazine designs,
highlighting key information, displaying numbers, photographs of board members

The CEO letter

Major characteristcs:
- heavily promotional
- opening address, the closing, the body of the letter
- communicative purpose: inform the reader who are the
stakeholders in the company, about the performance of the company in the past year
- president, chairman, CEO publish letters or statements; photo included
- use of rhetorical strategies to build credibility and inspire confidence

Three main types of strategy:

1) Logos or rational appeal reinforced by textual organizers
2) Credible and convincing ethos
- the use of hedges, emphatics and relations markers to reinforce statements
- appeal to external sources to underwrite authority
- frequent use of “I” to communicate a personal message
3) Pathos– the effects of the text on readers and the ways of involving them
- the expression of positive feelings in which the writer anticipates the readers
reaction
- the use of “you” to engage the shareholders
- interpersonal concerns: the letters must appear direct and sincere

Frequency of forward-looking statements and a large number of nominal

constructions:
- general words: progress, objectives, growth
- business concepts: operating efficiency, financial flexibility, free cash flows
- positive future expectations: a world-class management team, strong leadership
qualities, unprecedented flexibility, commitment to find greater productivity gains

Legitimation strategies

- dealing with negative issues, justifying themselves and salvaging their reputation
- an air of sincerity and authenticity
- CEO framed as responsible for corporate disasters, a scapegoat punished to redeem
the company as a whole
- explaining what happened and justifying what has been done to make redress
- a range justificatory, discursive strategies to reflect socially accepted ideas, feelings
or desires
- self-defence: but it is not usually a response to a specific accusation or attack
- pre-empting criticism from other social players and marking out the boundaries of
the institution’s rights and obligations within society
- self-justificatory activity: press releases, corporate publications, brochures etc.

Advertising

Parasite or creative genre:

- Advertisements may invade the time and space of other genres (TV programmes,
newspapers, magazines and websites – a secondary, parasitic role)

Product advertising:
- advertisemens are defined by their purpose: using a vast range of discourses from
the culture in which they are situated
- the more similar a product is to its competitors, the more necessary it is to advertise

Metaphoricity and indeterminacy:

How can we communicate aspects of smell?
Main approach: ignore the smell and focus on the associations which the
manufacturer believes will make the perfume attractive to its target purchasers
- evoking positive associations through metaphor and analogy
- show how other people react to the wearer: the effect that the perfume will have on
other people

Crossing culture borders:

- Global advertising: connecting with an audience or market as broad as possible to
save money and maximize the benefits
- advertising works best if customized to reflect local culture
- reflecting local habits, lifestyles and economic conditions to be effective
- advertising functions well because each element in it has a particular significance in
a particular culture
- and advertising message can easily be decoded in the culture it was coded; decoding
is done using the schemata of one’s own culture

Values link up together in systems:

a value system is a“learned organization of principles and rules to help one choose
between alternatives, resolve conflicts and make decisions”

Five factors for people’s attitudes and assumptions across cultures:

1 – uncertainty avoidance
2 – masculinity/feminity
3 – power distance
4 – individualism/collectivism
5 – short-term/long-term orientation

Exploiting the local -

stong local connotations; tapping into local identities and loyalties
- regional accent or music, dialect words or text

Advocacy advertising :use of advertising to promote a particular message or cause

(NGOs, pressure groups)
- shaking the public conciousness (awarenes)– bringing foods and famine into the
suburban living room
- direct appeal: phrased as direct speech, with a photograph that looks the reader in
the eye

Discourses of corporate legitimation:

- change the way people think by bringing particular
aspects of their company and its activities to the public notice
- corporate advocacy: bring a better image of the company to the wider audience and
to create positive associations that will offset the negative impressions generated
around a given industry by the media

Possible corporate strategies:

- defend continued use of fossil fuels
- attack attempts at regulatory legislation
- encouraging the notion of ‘balanced’ environmental policy
- undermine the environmental discourses
- establish businesses and technology as the true heroes who would solve the world’s
energy problems

Hybrid genres (the advertorial) → 2 in 1

- advertisements presented as though it were something else
- advertorials are also known as infomercials; combining information with a marketing
message
- benefit mix – sponsor keeps control over the message and the audience perceives
the message as credible
- readers remember advertorials better than advertisements
- advertorial genre undergoes a process of constant renewal

Brand : a network of associations in the mind of a consumer, a map of positive or

negative associations or a symbolic language

Particular groups of consumers have a common way of perceiving certain things;

with persuasion, they may be induced to share certain associations, and the sharing of
those associations will give them greater strength and meaning

Corporate websites (information and interaction)

Role of corporate websites:

- to present a company visually

- a direct form of contact; forming impressions on the basis of the design and
organization of the website

- sites must be user-friendly, the information must be credible and well organized and
the presentation must be active

- the task of global ‘impression management’ carried out through online media

- managing the public impressions of entire organizations

Eight different features:

1) product advertisement, 5) online sales,

2) product information, 6) online account access,

3) career opportunities, 7) support contact,

4) investor information, 8) support contact,

Interactivity: some degree of reciprocity (mutuality)

3 levels of communication:

1. Two-way (non- interactive)

2. Reactive (quasi- interactive)

3. Fully interactive (both sides react to each other, participating in the conversations
flow, producing their own information and understanding the information offered by
the other

Interactivity exists in 6 aspects:

1) user control,

2) responsiveness,

3) real-time interaction,

4) connectedness,

5) personalization,

6) playfulness

Corporate Mission Statements;

- definition: a short encapsulation of the company’s raison d’etre, often including

references to its achievements and aspirations, but also to more abstract entities such
as its spirit and values.
- legimatory function

- statements are: the missing link between organizational action and social norms

- a key instrument in the corporation:

1) building team spirit, identity, influencing the image

2) inculcating the values

3) a statement to customers in which the company’s agenda is expressed

4) a message to investors, the media and general public

Corporate Social Responsibility Reports

- legimatory function

- explaining to the public that their actions are ethical or even beneficial for society as
a whole

Main themes:

- care for the environment,

- social and community issues,

- efficiency and sustainability.

Multimodal dimension:

- pictures of idyllic natural scenes and happy, smiling people

- text or video narrative to tell heart-warming stories about ways in which the company
has helped local people or invested in the environment

- personal stories appeal to the audience through standard narrative techniques

- awaking curiosity and engaging sympathy

Sponsorship
- Definition: an investment, in cash or kind, in an activity, in return for access to the
exploitable commercial potential associated with this activity.

- it involves promoting a company’s interests and its brands by tying them with a
specific and meaningfully related event, organization or charitable cause

- sponsorship is closer to public relations than to marketing, but is related to both

- the desirable effect of sponsorship:

(1) ensuring that the values of the activity itself are ‘drained’ onto the sponsoring
brand

(2) directing the audience’s attention towards the sponsor company

- Sponsorship: association between something real (e.g. sports event) and a product

• What are the specific forms communicating?

- having, maintaining and updating a well-designed corporate website

- sponsoring (for example a sports event) or a charity

- company’s relationship with the world’s media

- company’s job adverts

- annual reports

• What kind of audiences might be included in "the world"?

- customers

- general public

- stakeholders

- investors

• What is the role of corporate websites?

- to present a company visually

- a direct form of contact; forming impressions on the basis of the design and
organization of the website

- sites must be user-friendly, the information must be credible and well organized and
the presentation must be active

- the task of global ‘impression management’ carried out through online media

- managing the public impressions of entire organizations • Why is the organization

and design of the websites so crucial? (Dlaczego tak ważna jest organizacja i design
stron internetowych?)

Because corporate websites:

- present the company visually

- form impressions

- are a basic source of information about the company for the customers

• What is meant by global impression management?

Impression management is a process in which individuals try to influence the

perceptions people have about something, a person, or an event.

Impression management may be a concious or subconcious process. If you are an

impression management professional, you attempt to influence the observations and
opinions that consumers have of your products.

Put simply; effective impression management boost sales

In most cases, people who manage impressions are trying to align other people’s
perceptions with their goals.
• What is interactivity? What types do you know?An interactive website is essentially
an Internet page that uses different kinds of software to create a rich, interactive
experience for the user i.e. it facilitates the user to be actively engaged with the site.

3 levels of communication:

1. Two-way (non- interactive)

2. Reactive (quasi- interactive)

3. Fully interactive (both sides react to each other, participating in the conversations
flow, producing their own information and understanding the information offered by
the other

• What are the features of a fully interactive website?

- product advertisement

- product information

- career opportunities

- investor information

- online sales

- online account access

- support contact

- customer support

• Six features of interactivity

1 - user control

2 - responsiveness
3 - real-time interaction

4 - connectedness

5 - personalization

6 - playfulness

Define the functions of the "About us" section

- the section in which the company presents itself to the general public

- presenting the positive points. Common themes: company history, current status,
mission statement, info about senior management and allusions to corporate social
responsibility issues.

DEFINED BY DISCOURSE GENERATED BY CORPORATIONS

ORIGINS

DEFINED BY Corporate Corporate Corporate Corporate

ADDRESS discourse to discourse to discourse to discourse to the
employees customers investors general public

DEFINED BY Employee Advertisement, Annual report, Website. Press

GENRE handbook, TV commercial, Shareholder release,
employee Customer website sponsorship
website, job website
interview

DEFINED BY Promotion, Promotion, Promotion, Promotion,

DISCOURSE Information, Information Information Information,
TYPE Control Legitimation