Conventions, issues, and an alternative approach to strategic communication
Strategic communication can be understood as a concept eclipsing and embodying disciplines
that focus on communication and organizations and as a concept for organizations´ deliberate
communication practices (c.f. Holtzhausen & Zerfass, 2015b). Thus, it has emerged as a dominant
approach to make sense of the conditions for communication and how organizations ought to organize,
plan, and execute communication activities and the organizational structures in which it takes place.
Strategy is hence central to strategic communication, referring to prescriptive processes where
intentional goal formulation and implementation are proposed and to emergent perspectives that
acknowledge that strategy develops over time (Frandsen & Johansen, 2015).
The prescriptive approach to strategy represents a dominating understanding in strategic
communication that is based on a transmission view of communication (c.f. Shannon & Weaver, 1949).
In the present work, this is referred as a conventional perspective of strategic communication. Thus,
strategic communication is often understood and studied from a managerial perspective, directing
attention to what is described as rational decision making and a top-down implementation of activities
in organizations. Foci include the intentional use of communication to support organizational goals and
how communication is purposefully applied in organizational-stakeholder relationships (Argenti et al.,
2005; Hallahan et al., 2007). In such approaches, the notion of integrated communication is central and
has emerged as a guiding principle for how to understand the structuring of, and work with,
communication, including its purposes. Integration mainly rests on a managerial perspective in which
control of communication is related to its centralization to a communication department and the
influence of senior management in order to achieve a coordinated organization that communicates
consistent messages (Cornelissen, 2011).
The managerial perspective has dominated the research field and communication practice,
although alternative approaches and understandings are emerging and growing rapidly, rejecting linear
understandings that imply control of communication and organization. Today, the generally accepted
understanding is a constitutive view of communication that focuses on how meanings are co-
constructed (Craig, 1999). There are still issues and problems in need of further analysis in strategic
communication and those are addressed in this chapter. The chapter starts with a brief historical
overview to situate the study and then presents conventional strategic communication and its central
characteristics and view on the nature of communication. Thereafter, the discussion centers on how
strategic communication is to be operationalized via, for example, the role of strategic documents, its
organizing structure, and roles and responsibilities. The dissertation´s problem formulation and the two
research questions guide the logic of the chapter. In a concluding section issues on the conventional
perspective are addressed together with the presentation of how they may be re-approached through
the adoption of a neo-institutional framework.
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