Roles of corporate communication practitioners

Roles of corporate communication practitioners

To be able to better understand the overall role of corporate communication in supporting better

workplace safety, we need to look at the roles of communication practitioners within the corporate

communication function. Research about the roles of communication professionals has primarily

focused on tasks, activities and functions, often described using different role typologies (Heide &

Simonsson, 2014, 132). The practitioner roles are indicators of the power (participation in decision-

making) of the corporate communication function in organizations (Dozier & Broom, 1995).

Even though these types of typologies can be criticized as being too categorical, they offer a useful

framework from which to look at my own research subject. One of the most referred typologies is the

events)

Even though the typology refers to public relations and specially relationship with client and consultant

agency, I find it useful when describing internal communication too, since internal communication can

be seen as serving internal clients (management, business functions, other corporate functions) within

an organization. Heide & Simonsson (2014, 132) point out that later research has shown the first three

roles to be closely related and only a two-fold distinction between managers and technicians is needed.

The typology of Broom and Smith offers, however, more interesting nuances for my purpose to evaluate

the role of communication professionals.

In their research on developing internal crisis communication, Heide and Simonsson (2014), by

As a conclusion of their study, Heide and Simonsson (2014, 141) suggest diversified communication roles

and a developed managerial role for internal communication. Even though their study concerned

internal crisis communication, I consider it to be very applicable to other areas of strategic

communication, such as workplace safety communication.

By diversified roles, Heide and Simonsson (2014, 141) refer to the services that the communication

function provides: it must be able to offer both managerial and technical expertise covering roles such

as director, counselor, pedagogue and facilitator. By development managerial role, Heide and

Simonsson mean that the managerial role should be expanded from “knowing and managing all” to the

role of facilitation and development of others’ (e.g. line management’s) communication that is a highly

strategic role of communication. They also note that this requires being close to operations, and one

way of doing this is to decentralize the communication function to business units and thereby offer

communication consultation to both managers and coworkers. As Allessandra Massei (2010) concludes:

the main function of internal communication department is no longer to transmit messages, but to

promote active communication behaviors at all organizational levels.

Stakeholder relationships and transparent communication (Luoma-aho, 2015) are becoming increasingly

critical for organizations in developing and protecting their reputations. These days, stakeholder

management is considered an “old-school” way of talking about stakeholder communication. A more

preferable approach is stakeholder collaboration and engagement with an emphasis on relationship

initiative, Global Reporting Initiative and guidelines for business partners and multinational companies

(Cornelissen, 2011,39).

A standard and widely-cited definition of a stakeholder is given by Edward Freeman: “A stakeholder is

any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organizations purpose

and objectives” (Cornelissen 2011, 42).

This definition supports the more wider socio-economic stakeholder theory, where all stakeholders are

seen as equal and the organization is accountable to them all, not only to itself and shareholders

(Cornelissen 2011, 40). This sort of stakeholder model emphasizes communication: the stakeholder

groups are interdependent and all need equal consideration and communication from the organization

to secure financial performance and continued acceptance of the organization’s operations (license to

communities. These groups have different stakes or interests (Cornelissen 2011, 43) according to which

the stakeholders can be categorized:

Segmentation may vary across various communication topics and require careful consideration with

regards to communication. If we look at safety as a communication topic or issue, the most important

ways to segment stakeholders when communicating safety issues would be site/off site (site workers

might have different interests and power regarding safety than off-site workers and safety surely is of

higher importance in the daily work of site workers), position in organization (e.g. line and top

management have different roles in safety communication line managers being the primary contact

regarding day-to-day safety issues and top management being a supportive backbone for line

management communication) and technical competence (site workers might require different

information about safety than non-technical off site workers). Welch and Jackson (2006, 188) call to

Smith internal communication requires sensitivity and a deep understanding of the organization, and

she warns against patronizing employees. I see this point as being of high importance in safety issues.

Especially site workers deal with safety issues on a daily basis and might easily get frustrated and

annoyed if the top management or headquarters seems to patronize and tell them what to do. Thus,

instead of passing information, the more important role of corporate level safety communication could

be showing organizations and management’s support and commitment to safety issues and in this way

emphasize the importance of safety. This could be done, for example, by using participation as a

management practice as suggested by Vredenburgh (2002).

After defining stakeholders and their stakes and the importance of different stakeholder groups, the

organization needs to communicate with varying groups on a continuous basis by taking their interest