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Communications
How communication departments contributions
contribute to corporate success framework

The communications contributions framework

Ansgar Zerfass 397
Institute of Communication and Media Studies, University of Leipzig,
Received 15 December 2017
Leipzig, Germany and Revised 17 April 2018
Department of Communication and Culture, BI Norwegian Business School, Accepted 30 August 2018
Oslo, Norway, and
Sophia Charlotte Volk
Institute of Communication and Media Studies, University of Leipzig,
Leipzig, Germany

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify and demonstrate the core contributions of communication
departments to organizational success beyond traditional ideas of messaging or information distribution. The
main aim is to develop a better understanding of the different facets of value that the communication function
delivers by introducing a distinction between strategic and operational contributions, following established
management models.
Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on an extensive literature review at the nexus of
communication management and strategic management research and ten qualitative case studies in large,
internationally operating German organizations from different industries, combining in-depth interviews and
document analyses.
Findings – The newly developed Communications Contributions Framework demonstrates that
communications serve the corporation in four strategic and operational dimensions and emphasizes the
critical role of communications in reflecting and adjusting organizational strategies, i.e. through identifying
opportunities to innovate or securing intangible assets.
Practical implications – The paper outlines different application scenarios for how the new framework can
be used in practice, i.e. as a multi-faceted rationale for explaining the impact of communication departments in
the language of top management and reporting communication success in the logic of business.
Originality/value – The framework provides the first theoretically and empirically based “big picture” of
communications’ contributions to corporate success, designed to lay ground for further discussions both in
academia and in practice.
Keywords Strategy, Corporate strategy, Corporate communication, Communication strategy,
Communication management, Communication goals, Communication department
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Empirical studies around the world indicate that communication departments continue to
struggle with a rather low status in organizations. They are often applauded for their
support in conveying messages and their knowledge of public opinion building. But many
executives are unclear of the details of which roles communication practitioners take and
tend to estimate them as channel producers or technicians (Brønn, 2014; Falkheimer et al.,
2017). Corporate communications are primarily viewed as a service function in charge of
composing press releases, campaigns or a favorable reputation.
Journal of Communication
Management
Vol. 22 No. 4, 2018
This paper is based on results from the research program “Value Creating Communication” that has pp. 397-415
been funded by the Academic Society for Corporate Management and Communication in Germany, © Emerald Publishing Limited
1363-254X
www.academic.society.net DOI 10.1108/JCOM-12-2017-0146
JCOM On the other side, communicators often perceive their own role in the management group
22,4 as more significant than executives do and tend to complain about a lack of appreciation by
top management, unclear role descriptions and vague key performance indicators (Tench
et al., 2017). Survey results show that communicators do not use a common language, but
rather employ multiple rationales to explain the value of their work to top management.
They often report success in terms of day-to-day operations, easily measurable media
398 outputs or key campaigns. However, they seldom document how the department
contributes to the overall strategic goals of the organization through reflecting and
adjusting corporate strategies (Brønn, 2014; Zerfass et al., 2017).
Against this background, this research posits the assumption that communication
departments often miss a comprehensive understanding of their impact, and that it is
therefore little surprise that their activities are reduced to small portions and the most
visible outputs. If communicators center reporting on tactical support instead of focusing on
the implementation of strategic activities that genuinely assist the ongoing legitimacy of the
organization, they undermine their own value (Grunig, 2006). To overcome the
underestimation of corporate communications in practice, this research argues that
communicators have to emphasize that the department’s contributions go far beyond
delivering content and communication services – and highlight how communications serve
the overall strategic goals of a company.
Following these thoughts, this paper suggests ways to clarify and demonstrate the core
contributions of corporate communications to organizational success, followed by a
reflection upon the different strategic and operational tasks associated therewith. This
distinction provides a better understanding of the different facets of value that
communications actually deliver in practice. However, the department’s contribution to
the corporation has been barely analyzed from a multilevel perspective so far in corporate
communications and public relations research.
The article explores this research gap from a conceptual perspective and is based on
extensive qualitative empirical research over a three-year research period. The goal was
threefold: first, to identify different aspects of the department’s contributions to the
corporation based on a literature review at the nexus of communication management and
strategic management research; second, to reconstruct the current realities in
communication departments and contrast the self-descriptions of communicators with
concepts discussed in research, using qualitative case studies in ten organizations across
different industries that combined in-depth interviews and document analyses; and third, to
develop a conceptual framework of how communication departments serve the corporation,
which synthesizes the theoretical considerations and empirical insights and abstracts the
findings at a higher level.
The main aim of this research was to enrich the conceptual analysis and provide a more
comprehensive and holistic understanding of the topic, while shedding light on the practices
in communication departments. The article will outline different approaches for how the
new framework can be used in practice, i.e. as a multi-faceted rationale for explaining
the strategic impact of communication departments. It will conclude with directions for
future research into the current realities of communication departments, further developing
the conceptual foundations, and into professional roles of communication leaders.

Literature review
The first goal of this project was to explore the multiple perspectives on how communication
departments serve the corporation discussed so far by reviewing previous conceptual and
empirical works. An extensive literature review on the value created through
communication was conducted in the field of communication management and strategic
management research over a three-year research period.
 The literature analysis revealed that previous research has drawn comparatively little Communications
attention on the communication department as a unit of analysis for researching its contributions
contribution to value creation. Instead, a greater focus has been laid on the professional roles framework
of communication practitioners and their individual strategic contribution to the
corporation. Overall, large-scale empirical studies of communication departments remain
rare in contemporary research. Most data available are based on singular case studies that
explore the structure and size of communication units across different countries and 399
industries. Therefore, it remains difficult to identify key patterns concerning the setup of
communication departments, such as budgets, staffing or efficient process structures
(Smith, 2012; Gregory, 2013; Moss et al., 2017).
The review indicated that communication departments make numerous contributions to
the achievement of organizational goals, but that multiple explanations exist in an
unconnected way and that a comprehensive understanding is still missing. Despite the
difficulty of grasping the essence of the unique contribution of corporate communications
(Zerfass and Viertmann, 2017), wide agreement exists regarding the rationale that
communications need to serve the overall strategic goals of an organization (e.g. Grunig,
2006; Riel, 2012; Argenti, 2016). In this context, the significance of strategy for
communication management has been emphasized all along in the literature.
Systematizing the review’s findings, various trends were identified: research on the
excellence of communication departments, the efficient and effective management and
leadership of communication departments, and the internal counseling and coaching
function of communication departments. Furthermore, roles research offers relevant
insights, i.e. with regard to technical vs managerial role concepts and parting expectations
between managers and communication leaders. In addition, strategic management
research provides a foundation for adopting a well-established distinction between
strategic and operational contributions to the corporation, which corresponds to
management concepts used in practice.

Excellence of communication departments

Early research has explored what general principles make communication departments
successful and how to unfold the full potential of the unit. The large-scale IABC excellence
study (Grunig, 1992; Grunig et al., 2002) identified characteristics that make
communication departments excellent. According to the study, communication
departments should be empowered as members of the top management in order to
make a strategic contribution to corporate success. Physical and mental proximity to the
CEO were also identified as key success factors in later research (e.g. Fombrun and Riel,
2007; Argenti, 2016). The department should be headed by a communication manager
with a managerial mindset and professional experiences. The excellence study further
emphasized the importance of goal setting for measuring communication effectiveness
and ensuring efficient processes in the department. In terms of messaging, the authors
highlighted the superiority of two-way symmetrical communication over one-sided
communication or persuasion (Grunig et al., 2002).
Recently, this normative understanding of excellence in communication has been
complemented by a new approach that is based on business excellence models in strategic
management and large-scale empirical surveys across more than 40 European countries.
The Comparative Excellence Framework for communication management (Tench et al.,
2017) identified nine principles of excellence on the organizational, departmental and
professional level. At the departmental level, an excellent department is characterized as:
embedded in decision-making processes, working closely with top management; datafied,
using data for insights and automated communication; and strategized, which refers to the
alignment of communication activities to overall goals.
JCOM Management and leadership of communication departments
22,4 Apart from questions of excellence, many scholars have called for a strategic management
function of the communication department, arguing for its increasing participation in
strategy decisions (Grunig et al., 2002; Yeo and Sriramesh, 2009; Brønn, 2014; Argenti, 2016).
On the one hand, scholars have pointed to the growing significance of communication
departments in securing the “license to operate” by building beneficial relationships with
400 critical stakeholders (Ledingham and Bruning, 2000), a favorable corporate reputation
(Fombrun and Riel, 2007) or a strong corporate brand (Hatch and Schultz, 2008). On the
other hand, investor relations scholars have emphasized the relevance of communications
for strategy execution and realization, primarily constituted through communicating the
corporate strategy to investors, but also through raising the strategic knowledge and
awareness of all employees (Ragas and Laskin, 2014). Despite these calls for adapting a
strategic management function, empirical insights reveal that most communication
departments in fact do not play a strategic role at the top management level. They are
seldom able to proactively influence the formulation of corporate strategy (Steyn, 1999;
Brønn, 2014).
Another line of research has focused more specifically on the efficient and effective
management of communication departments, adopting and introducing concepts and tools
from management research to the discipline. One major research topic includes the
measurement and evaluation of communication success and the department’s performance
as a whole (e.g. Penning and Bain, 2018). Over time, scholars have suggested a plethora of
metrics, tools and methods to demonstrate communication effectiveness (Watson, 2012;
Macnamara, 2015; Volk, 2016). In this context, researchers have highlighted the need to link
communication goals to overarching organizational goals in order to prove how
communications add value to the corporation (Steyn, 2007; Riel, 2012; Argenti, 2016). In a
recent synthesis, Zerfass and Viertmann (2017) summarized 12 holistic dimensions of value
created through communication, arguing that communication value has to be derived from
corporate strategy. Empirical surveys in this regard have demonstrated that the alignment
of communication departments has remained an ongoing challenge over ten years and
sophisticated approaches to evaluate the value contributions are scarce (Tench et al., 2017).
Another debate has evolved around the topic of leadership in communication departments,
including the analysis and development of competencies and skills for future
communication leaders. Results have indicated that future leaders need a variety of
competencies beyond communicative and creative skills, including general managerial and
analytical skills (Berger and Meng, 2014; Falkheimer et al., 2017).

Internal counseling and coaching function of communication departments

Relevant insights can further be derived from related research into the specific reflective
functions of the department: for instance, scholars have produced interesting findings by
exploring the internal counseling role of the communication department (Mykkänen and
Vos, 2015). Empirical studies indicate a trend that the unique role of the communications
department functions as a “boundary spanner” – spanning corporate boundaries and
monitoring relevant issues and trends in the external environment – which increasingly
entitles the department to become a sparring partner of the CEO, who provides strategic advice
in all communicative dimensions of business (Fombrun and Riel, 2007; Zerfass and Franke,
2013). Recent concepts such as the development of organizational listening capabilities
(Macnamara, 2016) – as a counter pole to well-established messaging capabilities – add to this
area of research into the communication department’s role as a strategic facilitator, based on
the provision of data-based analyses and intelligence gathering. This, in turn, enables
communication departments to demonstrate their critical impact for reflecting and adjusting
corporate strategies (Steyn, 2007; Ragas and Laskin, 2014; Mykkänen and Vos, 2015).
 Another research area has investigated how communication departments enable Communications
organizational members to communicate professionally. Arguing from the perspective of contributions
the “communicative organization,” scholars have elaborated upon how each employee is framework
also a communicator in today’s mediatized and polyphonic environment (Kuhn, 2008;
Schoeneborn, 2011). A recent study has confirmed that the department’s role in coaching
and educating other organizational members has become more important and provides the
potential for improving the understanding of the value of communication among executives 401
(Falkheimer et al., 2016)

Relevant insights from roles research

Ultimately, research at the functional level of the communication department has numerous
conceptual overlaps with roles research investigating different professional roles,
self-perceptions and expectations or encroachment. The roles of communication
professionals have been widely discussed among both scholars and practitioners
since the 1970s, with early debates centering on the dual roles of public relations
managers – steering the department – and public relations technicians – composing texts
and images (Dozier and Broom, 1995). Steyn and Niemann (2010) added the role of the public
relations strategist to the aforementioned two-role conceptualization. It highlights the
strategic contribution of communicators who provide input for strategy formulation
processes on top management level.
Contemporary research suggests that today’s communication professionals play
multi-faceted roles at the same time and have undergone a transition from being executors
and producers to consultants and business supporters, demanding rather generic
management skills (Falkheimer et al., 2016). In this context, Falkheimer et al. (2016) argued
that those new strategic roles as consultants and business supporters might be considered
more prestigious than a writer or a graphic designer and that the focus on technical roles
might be seen as counterproductive in the quest for professionalization. A similar argument
was brought up by Grunig (2006) who lamented that the persistent focus on tactics and
techniques instead of strategic principles robs the field of respect.
These interpretations correspond to the earlier assumption that communication leaders
often fail to demonstrate the strategic contributions of the department, since they focus on
presenting success in terms of operational activities. This, in turn, leads to discrepant
perceptions and expectations in practice, as managers do not perceive corporate
communications as being as important as sales, marketing or human resources, but rather
as a service function (Brønn, 2014; Zerfass and Sherzada, 2015).
Against this background, this research posits that it is it vitally important to draw a
more precise picture of the different strategic and operational contributions of
communication departments, as this might counteract the tendency of communications
being reduced to a trivial or secondary matter (Riel, 2012). However, as the literature review
has revealed, a comprehensive understanding of how communication departments
contribute to corporate success in strategic and operational terms is still missing – both in
research and in practice. Therefore, the second part of the literature review aims at closing
this research gap by clarifying the strategic roles of the communication department in the
corporation. To do so, this research suggests that starting with a reflection of how the terms
have been used in public relations and corporate communications literature and contrast it
with popular understandings in strategic management literature.

Distinction between strategic and operational contributions to corporate success

The significance of strategies in communication management has been emphasized all
along and the term “strategic” is almost used in an inflationary way in communication
research and practice. Nevertheless, providing a clear distinction between strategic,
JCOM operational and tactical aspects still remains quite difficult. In fact, Deetz (2001) lamented that
22,4 the term strategic is one of the most inclusive, although conflicting and contradictory terms in
the field. This is quite surprising, especially since there is an entire research strand dedicated
explicitly to strategic communication research. Strategic communication scholars
have defined strategic communication as “purposeful” and “intentional” or “decisional” (e.g.
Hallahan et al., 2007, p. 7; Zerfass, Verčič, Nothhaft and Werder, 2018, p. 489) or aligned with a
402 company’s overall strategy (Argenti et al., 2005, p. 83). Yet, they have not explicitly elaborated
upon what distinguishes strategic from non-strategic or operational communication.
Grunig’s (2001) noting of that the idea that public relations should be strategic has
become increasingly popular over time. He argued that this is based on the assumption that
communications should be planned, managed by objectives, evaluated and linked to
organizational objectives. Numerous researchers have called for a more strategic role of
communication professionals recently. For instance, De Beer (2014) argues that
communications is becoming an organization-wide issue and concern, which is no longer
a set of tactical activities, but an ongoing strategic process that considers the issues of
identity, legitimacy and organizational survival. Yet, as Brønn (2014) points out,
communication managers are often not empowered as decision makers at the strategic level
and are not seen as key players in the success of the organization in today’s practice.
Other scholars have moved beyond calling for a strategic role toward exploring the
origins of the strategy concept (e.g. Moss and Warnaby, 1999; Raupp and Hoffjann, 2012;
Bentele and Nothaft, 2014; Nothhaft and Schölzel, 2015), the necessity of strategy for
planning or evaluation (e.g. Tibbie, 1997; Daugherty, 2003; Botan, 2006; Gregory, 2013;
Watson and Noble, 2014; Smith, 2017; Stacks, 2017). Roles research has furthermore
analyzed tactical or technician roles as opposed to strategic roles of professionals, who
define communication strategies and participate in strategy formulation (e.g. Steyn and
Niemann, 2010; Brønn; 2014; Fieseler et al., 2015).
In a similar vein, the literature review revealed that while there is clarity on the goal
of being strategic, the term is often used synonymously or is conflated with the idea of
managing communications or the managerial roles performed by practitioners. In terms of
the distinction between the terms strategic, operational and tactical, the analysis indicated
that the latter terms were often used interchangeably. In general, scholars have described
operational strategies as specific instructions, which translate strategies into action on how
things should be done (e.g. Brønn, 2001; Steyn, 2003). Tactics have similarly been defined as
specific activities through which strategies are implemented (Botan, 2006) or as the visible
elements of a public relations plan (Smith, 2017). As Falkheimer et al. (2016) noted, there is
not really a dichotomy in practice since communication professionals must deal with both
strategic and operational or tactical work, and hence there are overlaps in day-to-day
activities. However, for analytical clarity, it is essential to introduce a sound distinction, one
that is compatible with established understandings.
In view of the lack of a commonly agreed upon understanding of the terms strategic
and operational in communications scholarship, this research suggests looking into
strategic management research, from which strategy research originated. This field offers a
well-established distinction between strategic and operational contributions to the
corporation (Drucker, 1986), which also corresponds to management concepts in
corporate practice. By adopting this popular understanding of strategic and operational,
the conceptualization will be compatible with both management research and the common
language used by executives in the real world.
In strategic management research, strategic means doing the right things and outlines
what should be done in order to compete in the marketplace, obtain a competitive advantage
and prepare for an uncertain future (Drucker, 1986). Strategic is hence about being different
and choosing a different set of activities than others (Porter, 1996; Mintzberg, 1987).
It relates to the long-term prospects of the company and exerts a critical influence on its Communications
success or failure (Agarwald and Helfat, 2009). Operational, in contrast, means doing contributions
things right and describes how actions should be done (Drucker, 1986). Operational framework
activities do not relate to a company’s future prospects in a substantial way, but
support daily business and are critical to its current well-being (Agarwald and Helfat, 2009;
Zerfass and Viertmann, 2017).
Contrasting this distinction with the common understanding prevalent in much of PR and 403
corporate communications scholarship reveals that what is often labeled “strategic”
communication is not necessarily compatible with the well-established notion of strategic in
management literature. Many textbooks, articles and professional publications tend to refer to
the term strategic rather in the context of well-managed communications, but not in the sense
of its critical significance for future success and survival of the corporation. Only a few
conceptualizations correspond to the present understanding outlined above (e.g. Argenti et al.,
2005; Zerfass and Huck, 2007; Falkheimer et al., 2016). Following management research and
building upon the references listed above, this research suggests the following clarification.
Strategic. Tasks and activities are strategic if they relate to the core positioning of
corporations in a substantial way and create potential for future success. Following this
understanding, a communication department delivers strategic contributions by
implementing effective measures for organizational survival in dynamic environments.
Operational. Tasks and activities are operational if they support ongoing business processes
and help to generate profit. The focus is on mid- and short-term success, on the maintenance of
liquidity and the license to operate on a day-to-day basis. A communication department delivers
operational contributions by implementing efficient communication services.
Building on the findings of this literature review and the conceptual clarification of the
terms strategic and operational, the main goal of this research was to explore the current
realities in communication departments, using a qualitative perspective, asking the
following research questions:
RQ1. What are the core strategic and operational contributions of communication
departments to corporate success?
RQ2. Which tasks are typically associated therewith?

Method
In addition to the literature analysis, this research is based upon empirical data from a
three-year research project investigating the value of communication for organizations.
Qualitative case studies in ten organizations were conducted, combining in-depth interviews
with the heads of corporate communications and document analyses of internal and
external strategy and planning documents. By gathering empirical material both from
in-depth interviews and documents, the aim was to arrive at a deeper understanding of what
is formally fixed in presentations and documents, and what is actually practiced and
informally said by the interviewees.
The study involved purposive convenience sampling of ten organizations that were
chosen purposefully from a network of more than 40 large, internationally operating
German companies with which the researchers had built good and trusting relationships
over multiple years. On average, the contributing organizations had more than 150,000
employees and annual revenues of more than €30bn. The respective communication
departments had up to several hundred employees either nationally or internationally and
annual budgets of several million Euros. The organizations operate across different
industries, including energy, chemicals, electronics, engineering, manufacturing, health care,
pharmaceuticals, transportation, technology and development services.
JCOM The selection of the ten organizations and their heads of corporate communications
22,4 interviewed were subject to a positive bias. The interviewees who decided to participate in
this study most likely had high ambitions in setting up aligned communication strategies,
measuring communication effectiveness and managing the department efficiently.
They represented a group of senior communicators with a high level of strategic and
managerial interest, and might differ from communication leaders in other organizations.
404 However, since the goal was to gain a more nuanced understanding of the core
contributions of communication departments to the organizational goals, it was beneficial
to sample senior communication managers with a presumably high level of reflectivity
and experience in the field.
The interviewed heads of corporate communications had different reporting lines and
responsibilities, with all of them in charge of the corporate communications department that
reports directly to the CEO, and a few were also responsible for marketing or brand
communications, CSR, public affairs or governmental affairs. Seven out of the ten
interviewees were male and half had an academic background in communication and
journalism, whereas the remaining had received a degree in economics, management,
political sciences or history. The interviews were conducted mostly face-to-face in the
interviewees’ office in the respective organization between April and August 2016; one
interview was conducted by phone. The interviews lasted between 74 and 189 min, on
average 106 min. The transcription of the interview recordings resulted in 391 pages of
interview transcripts. Since this research was part of a larger three-year project, the
interview guide was organized into five broad topics and an interactive exercise, of which
one topic was exclusively focused on the contributions of excellent communication
departments to overall goal achievement and corporate success. The other four topics
included: the strategic targets of the organizations and the related communication goals of
the communication department; the alignment of communication targets with corporate
strategy; the effective management, evaluation and reporting of communication success; the
challenges and experiences related to deriving communication strategies. A follow-up
interactive exercise was conducted following the thinking aloud method, using a framework
developed in prior research (Zerfass and Viertmann, 2017), to trigger the interviewees’
opinions about how communication contributes to corporate value creation. Using probing
questions and discussion, this exercise added to the comprehension of the complexities and
irrationalities of communication practices and revealed interesting gaps between
formulated, fixed and genuinely pursued communication goals.
The document analyses were conducted in two steps: at the outset, before the actual
interview, the annual reports of all the organizations were downloaded from the websites
and the respective part on corporate strategy was analyzed in order to gain a better
understanding of the strategic goals and measures of the organization. One company had
produced a distinct strategy brochure, which was also included, resulting in a sample of 11
external documents. In a second step, during the actual interview, the interviewees were
asked to illustrate their responses by means of showing specific examples from internal
presentations or documents. Nine out of ten organizations allowed the researchers profound
insights into internal documents, including budget plans, annual goals, target houses,
stakeholder maps, organization charts, reporting lines, scorecards, evaluation reports, theme
plans, crisis handbooks, social media guidelines, templates, branding relaunch plans and
reputation measurement systems. In sum, 52 internal documents were provided and
included in the analysis, resulting in a total sample of more than 60 documents in the format
of PowerPoint presentations, Excel charts or text documents.
Data analysis of the entire empirical material was conducted with the aid of the software
MAXQDA, designed specifically for qualitative in-depth analysis. Both the interview
transcripts and the documents were assigned codes, developed both through an inductive
approach and derived from the framework mentioned above (Zerfass and Viertmann, 2017). Communications
The codes were then combined into core categories. The empirical results were clustered, contributions
synthesized and contrasted with concepts discussed in research. All empirical and framework
theoretical findings were then highly aggregated to develop a first conceptual idea of the
core strategic and operational contributions of communications to corporate success.
This initial result was presented to the interviewees and additional communication leaders
in a follow-up workshop. Their feedback was collated and used to sharpen terms and 405
explanations – overall the concept proved to be convincing and exhausting from the
interviewees’ point of view.

Results
The empirical results confirmed the findings from the literature review that communication
departments serve the corporation in many different ways, but that a “big picture” is also
missing in the profession. Communication professionals themselves seem to have difficulties
describing the core contributions of communication and in particular the strategic role of the
department. Overall, none of the contemporary approaches in scholarship and practice can
actually explain how communication departments contribute to organizational success
beyond operational support and the provision of media content.
To develop a more comprehensive understanding of the core contributions of
communications and to overcome research silos, this project has highly abstracted all
findings and rethought existing conceptualizations and debates. The goal was to provide a
fresh look upon the topic and offer a new framework, which is also compatible with common
management concepts. The Communications Contributions Framework (CCF) proposed in
this paper systematizes four core contributions of communication departments and
introduces an analytical distinction between strategic and operational tasks.

Four core contributions (RQ1)

The reconceptualization of existing research debates and the empirical study suggested
that communication departments deliver four core contributions. First, corporate
communications support corporate goals directly by communicating the corporate strategy
and indirectly by supporting corporate goals through communicative activities. This
contribution was labeled (1) convey and multiply. Second, communication departments define
communication targets that are aligned with corporate strategy and support daily processes
of all organizational functions through messaging and listening activities.
This contribution was named (2) align and contribute. Third, communication departments
serve the corporation if they work effectively and efficiently. This contribution refers to
general managerial activities that every unit has to fulfill and was labeled (3) steer and
manage. Fourth, communication departments provide advice to top management on strategy
development and coach other departments or top executives to communicate professionally.
This contribution was coined (4) advise and coach.

Strategic and operational contributions (RQ2)

The four core contributions of communication departments to corporate success were
further broken down in four strategic and four operational tasks associated therewith
(see Table I). Thereby the CCF demonstrates that communications serve the corporation in
multi-faceted ways that go beyond traditional ideas of messaging and information
distribution.
In the following section, each contribution of the communication department to corporate
success is described in more detail.
JCOM
(1) Convey and multiply (2) Align and contribute (3) Steer and manage (4) Advise and coach
22,4
Conveying the Defining overarching Steering key resources Consulting and advising
corporate strategy communication goals and critical processes on the strategic
Strategic

and positioning to and a communication of the communication development of the

key stakeholders strategy aligned with department (building organization and its
406
critical for the the corporate strategy potential for future functions (independent
long-term success and positioning success) from the
of the organization communication function)

Multiplying the Delivering professional Managing day-to-day Coaching and partnering

corporate strategy and communication operations of the with all members of the
positioning to all activities that support communication organization and enabling
Operational

stakeholders and all functions of the department (harnessing them to communicate

Table I. interested publics organization and secure its potential through professionally
Communications day-to-day operations planning, budgeting,
contributions (messaging and resource allocation and
framework listening) measurement)

(1) Convey and multiply

Convey. The first strategic contribution of the communication department lies in convincing
key stakeholders of the corporate strategy and thereby securing their support.
Communication professionals use their relationship network to journalists, social media
influencers, critical stakeholders, internal opinion leaders and the financial community for
developing messages to convey the strategic goals of the corporation. Examples from daily
practice mentioned by the interview participants include, for instance, background talks
with key politicians or exclusive road shows for top investors and shareholders. In such
occasions, the Chief Communication Officer heading the department acts as an ambassador
or “voice” of the corporation, and also as a boundary spanner who shares the concerns of
shareholders with the board (Ragas and Laskin, 2014; Mykkänen and Vos, 2015).
This task strongly corresponds to the “visionary role” of managers, which is a popular
concept in management research (e.g. Mintzberg, 1973). To this point, half of the interview
participants mentioned that they attend meetings in which top executives discuss how to
turn strategic goals into action and how to gain critical stakeholder support[1]. This
corresponds with Riel’s (2012) notion that generating internal support for a new strategy
demands joint leadership from every function and executive within an organization.
Multiply. The communication department also contributes operationally to corporate
success by communicating the corporate strategy to interested publics. This task includes
breaking down the strategy into comprehensible messages and distributing these, e.g.,
through annual reports and CEO interviews, on websites or social media Köhler and
Zerfass (2018). The most frequent use case, according to the interviews, is the launch of a
new corporate strategy, which is typically accompanied by a press conference and a range
of communication activities addressing all stakeholders and especially employees. One
interviewee from a large manufacturing company said that the key challenge in practice is
explaining and translating strategic management decisions into clear and easily
remembered messages and choosing the right channels or platforms. Close collaboration
with the investor relations function is common practice.
This contribution mirrors debates in strategy research on the relevance of communication
for strategy execution by employees (Argenti, 2017). The underlying logic is that many
strategies fail because they are not well understood throughout the organization due to a lack Communications
of communication about the strategy and a consequent low strategic awareness among contributions
organizational members (e.g. Porter, 1991; Collis and Rukstad, 2008). Hence, communication framework
departments support decision making by acting as the voice of the board level to turn
strategic decisions into action (Mykkänen and Vos, 2015).

(2) Align and contribute 407

Align. The second strategic contribution of the communication department relates to the
development of communication strategies that are fully aligned with the overarching
corporate strategy (e.g. Steyn, 1999; Riel, 2012; Gregory, 2013; Argenti, 2016; Volk and
Zerfass, 2018). This task includes defining communication goals for the entire department
that either directly or indirectly adds value to the company. Key projects from the case
studies include the annual revision of the existing communication strategy against new
corporate priorities, the setup of a reputation management system or the launch of a new
brand positioning. In order to support corporate objectives with communication activities,
communication leaders need to acquire knowledge of how to set up communication
strategies and plans and how to build reputation or brands strategically. This task closely
corresponds to the role of the “strategic facilitator,” suggested by earlier research
(Verhoeven et al., 2011).
Although the interviewees attempted to portray themselves as rational strategists, most of
them openly acknowledged that linking communication strategy to corporate strategy
remains a largely unsolved challenge. The majority of the respondents had difficulties with
describing explicitly how specific communication goals and measures are linked to corporate
success. This confirms previous research findings that indicate that strategic alignment is
indeed a perennial challenge across European organizations (Tench et al., 2017, pp. 111-132).
The surveyed communication executives tried to link the communication goals to overall
goals quite systematically. To this end, different strategies, processes and tools are used and
no common approach was identified. A Chief Communication Officer of an engineering and
electronics company mentioned the challenge of developing agile communication plans and
linking communication goals to dynamic, emergent corporate strategies, which are prone to
constant environmental changes. Another respondent from a manufacturing company
described the difficulties of aligning communications both with the multiple business
strategies of the respective business units as well as with the corporate strategy.
Contribute. The communication department furthermore supports day-to-day operations of
other organizational functions by delivering professional communication activities. According
to the case studies, this includes routine communication activities such as producing media
content, campaigns, product publicity, events or reports and providing standard services for
other departments, i.e. an employer branding campaign for human resources. A challenge
raised by the interviewees is to ensure that cross-divisional communications are integrated
and orchestrated. This reflects recent academic research concerning the coordination and
consistency of corporate communications (e.g. Christensen et al., 2008).
The described tasks mirror the notion of the “public relations technician” (Dozier and Broom,
1995) or the “operational supporter” role suggested in previous research (Verhoeven et al., 2011).
Here, communication professionals focus mainly on implementing specific communication
activities that have been defined in overall communication plans (e.g. Gregory and Willis, 2013).
Instead of rational and strategic capabilities, creative writing skills, editing and media expertise
are needed for this task, as well as messaging and listening competencies.
This contribution of the communication department has probably received the most
attention throughout academic research and industry debates. In a similar vein, the
interviewed communication leaders had considerably less difficulty explaining how the
JCOM department delivers operational support. They illustrated this with many presentations
22,4 showing campaign motives or event programs from daily practice.

(3) Steer and manage

Steer. The third strategic contribution of the communication department concerns the steering
of key resources and critical processes in a future-oriented and strategic manner, with the
408 purpose of ensuring the prospective performance of the organization (Brønn, 2001). For instance,
several interviewees reported developing competence-building programs, i.e. improving the
communication staff’s digital competencies in order to advance the digitalization of the unit.
Another example given was related to cost reduction programs through the ongoing
optimization of internal workflows and processes. The interviewees emphasized the continuing
challenge of optimizing internal procedures to secure future-proof structures as well as the
necessity to adopt tools from corporate-level strategic management to the communication
department, such as balanced scorecards or other performance measurement systems
(Zerfass, 2008). An additional key theme voiced by several communication leaders was the
intelligent use and integration of big data in strategic management processes.
This task corresponds to the role of a “strategic manager,” a popular role in management
research that is distinct from the “operational manager.” The strategic role encompasses
identifying potential for future innovation in order to achieve growth for the organization and
negotiating for organizational resources, rather than managing resources (Brønn, 2001). For
fulfilling managerial positions, communicators need to possess general managerial and
leadership competencies, i.e. how to apply popular management and controlling tools and how
to steer communication staff and external agencies (Brønn, 2001; Moss et al., 2005; Ragas and
Culp, 2014; Zerfass, Volk, Lautenbach and Jakubowitz, 2018). Against this background, earlier
debates about encroachment of public relations departments (e.g. Lauzen, 1991) need to be
reconsidered and probably rejected. Recruiting a management accountant with a background
in business administration and expertise in strategic management to fill in a managerial
position in a communication department may be much better than choosing a communication
professional without relevant qualifications for that role.
Manage. The communication department can also contribute to smooth and efficient
day-to-day operations of the corporation and other departments by implementing efficient
processes for executing standard planning, budgeting, staffing or measurement processes.
Practice examples from the case studies include implementing compliance regulations or
cost reduction measures, as well as controlling operations and reporting on the broad range
of communication activities to top management. Thereby communications contribute to the
effectiveness of the corporation by solving daily managerial problems.
This task is reflected in the “manager role” suggested by earlier research (van Ruler et al.,
2001), in which professionals need excellent project management competencies (e.g. Dozier
and Broom, 1995; Moss and Green, 2002). The document analyses confirmed that such
measurement and reporting practices remain on an operational level, as the majority of
interview participants presented evaluation data for key projects, campaigns or media
reach. Result-oriented assessments, such as measuring employee identification, media trust,
customer loyalty or brand value, were seldom performed in the surveyed organizations.
This validated the earlier assumption that communication departments often fail to
demonstrate their impact on strategic or financial targets of the corporation.

(4) Advise and coach

Advise. The fourth strategic contribution of the communication department relates to its
internal counseling role in strategic decision-making processes at the top management level,
especially with regard to potential communicative risks and societal expectations toward
the company. By monitoring critical issues and trends in the environment, the Communications
communication department can provide an early warning system for upcoming crises contributions
and help to identify opportunities to innovate. It might also influence the formulation or framework
revision of corporate strategies in a proactive manner. According to the case studies,
communication executives use meta analyses of monitoring data to derive critical insights
for issues management, they develop crisis prevention systems and they participate in ad
hoc groups with top management in crisis situations. This contribution resembles the 409
“reflective role” (van Ruler et al., 2001) or the “boundary-spanning” role of practitioners (e.g.
Grunig and Hunt, 1984; Steyn, 1999), who gather information in the external environment
and anticipate consequences to adjust the organization’s strategies for the future and secure
its “license to operate.” To fulfill this role effectively, communication leaders have to offer
serious, frank and even bold consultation to top management and gain internal expert
status similar to management consultants (Riel, 2012; Zerfass and Franke, 2013).
A clear pattern in the interviews was the trend toward an increasing advisory influence
of the communication department in the long-term strategic development of the corporation.
In a similar vein, research on the advisory function has recently seen a new rise under the
terms “listening” and “internal counseling” (Macnamara, 2016).
Coach. Ultimately, the communication department enables the entire corporation to
communicate professionally by coaching the communicative competence of employees and
executives (Hamrefors, 2010; Heide and Simonsson, 2011). In a corporate world with
polyphonic messages, this includes the orchestration of many different voices of the
organization. Examples from the case studies include regular communication trainings and
online skills trainings for employees, media coaching for top managers, as well as standard
support services such as speeches for CEO communication. In addition, the departments
develop preventive crisis messages and provide crisis guidelines. According to the
interviewees, the task of coaching has become even more important in in today’s media
environment, in which every member of the organization is and should be a communicator.
This contribution is reflected in the “educational role” (van Ruler et al., 2001), in which the
communicator facilitates all co-workers to become communicatively competent. Coaching and
feedback skills become essential in this respect (Heerden and Rensburg, 2005). In spite of the
growing research of the “communicative organization” (Kuhn, 2008; Schoeneborn, 2011),
empirical research on this rather new function of the communication department is rare.

Practical implications
The new framework provides many possibilities for practical application. It helps
communication professionals to visualize and explain the full impact of communication
units. It offers a structured approach for communication leaders and their teams to reflect
and agree on a common understanding of the core – and particularly the strategic –
contributions of communications to corporate success. This is imperative if communication
departments want to be valued and treated as “a creator of value” by the top management
(Dozier et al., 1995; Fombrun and Riel, 2007; De Beer, 2014). In the long-term, the framework
may facilitate the cooperation with top management and other departments and ultimately
help to strengthen the departments’ influence within the organization.
Communication professionals can use the CCF in multiple ways.
First, communication executives can use the framework as an analytical tool to analyze
the status quo of the communication unit. The framework can help to structure all
communication goals, programs and activities into strategic and operational dimensions in a
systematic manner. This allows for the determination of whether the department serves the
corporation in all eight dimensions and verifying whether the right goals are prioritized and
the right measures are in place. In addition, executives can analyze whether allocated
JCOM budgets and human resources are in accordance with the various contributions and the
22,4 priorities assigned to each dimension.
Second, the framework can be applied to analyze the department’s standing from the
perspective of top management. This helps to understand external expectations toward
the communication unit. Communication executives can compare the actual impact and
performance of the communication department with top management perceptions and
410 formally agreed upon objectives. Managing those expectations helps communication leaders
to position their department and steer its activities.
Building on these two analytical application scenarios, communication professionals can
use the framework to develop a convincing story of communications’ contributions in the
language of top management, as the underlying logic of the framework is compatible with
popular management concepts. By reflecting on both the strategic and operational
contributions, communication executives can explain communications’ impact in its
complexity and demonstrate that communications is a strategic facilitator, not only “a
message-maker or even an image-maker” as Riel (2012, p. 2) pointed out. In addition, the
framework provides a template for structuring and reporting the impact of communications
on corporate performance in a consistent way. It is crucial that communication departments
report on all eight contributions, not only on key projects or on operational activities.
Ultimately, the framework can help to identify potential for the further development of
the communication department in all eight dimensions in order to grow its core
competencies, leverage its full potential and secure its future contribution to the long-term
success of the corporation.
The suggested framework is highly generic in nature and can, hence, be adjusted for
applications to other types of organizations, such as governmental organizations or nonprofits.
To this point, the four core contributions of the communication department remain the same,
whereas the specific communication goals and tasks would certainly need revision. For instance,
a nonprofit also needs to convey its mission to donors and volunteers, define communication
goals that are aligned with the nonprofit’s vision, manage resources efficiently and monitor
societal trends to counsel the nonprofit’s leaders on how to react to external changes.
It is up to practitioners now to adopt this framework for developing a convincing story and
arriving at a collective understanding of how communications contribute to creating tangible
values and building immaterial assets. Such a consistent storyline is needed, since multiple and
diverging stories tend to confuse, not to convince, top management (Zerfass and Viertmann, 2017).

Conclusion
Building on the assumption that communication departments and top managers often lack a
comprehensive standing of communications’ impact on corporate success, this research
project suggests a new holistic framework to explain how communication departments
contribute to the value creation of the corporation. Based on an extensive literature review
and case studies in ten large organizations, the newly developed CCF outlines four core
contributions of communication departments, which are grouped into four strategic and
operational contributions, following established management models. Strategic in this
context means “doing the right things,” whereas operational refers to “doing things right.”
According to the new rationale, communication departments add value as they: convey and
multiply corporate strategy, align communication goals and contribute through routine
communication services, steer key resources and manage daily operations, and advise top
management and coach organizational members to communicate professionally.
The CCF is designed to lay ground for further discussions both in academia and in
practice and to stimulate more conceptual and empirical as well as critical research upon the
topic. Like any qualitative study, this research is marked by limitations. While the literature
review was comprehensive in terms of scope, the sampling of corporations and
communication professionals to participate in the case studies posed a limitation to the Communications
presented research project. As problematized before, the selection was, without a doubt, contributions
subject to a positive bias, representing large international organizations with well-equipped framework
communication departments and communication leaders with a high interest in strategic
and managerial issues. In addition, the study did not capture the opinions of top managers
or other department heads regarding their perceptions of the core contributions of the
communication function. Scholars should hence engage in qualitative explorations of the 411
mutual expectations from top management and other departments and specifically
problematize the consequences of discrepant perceptions.
To overcome the limitations of the present project, follow-up research should extend the
focus beyond large companies to include small and medium enterprises and other
organizations and different groups of communication leaders. In addition, future research
could combine interviews and document analyses with observations in practice, i.e. through
shadowing communication professionals to better understand how they actually explain,
report and document the strategic contribution of communications in their daily work.
Furthermore, large-scale quantitative research comparing the contributions, structures, and
resources of communication departments across different industries, organization types and
countries would be a desirable extension of the present project.
Second, a little empirical research has been conducted in the area of the two core
contributions: (1) convey and multiply and (4) advise and coach. Hence, those contributions
provide fruitful starting points for further empirical inquiries into the role of strategy
communication and the counseling and enabling function of communication departments.
Third, scholars might take a critical perspective and focus on paradoxes and conflicting
logics in the professional field, for instance, the conflict between traditional communication
planning and agile methods (van Ruler, 2014), between fixed communication strategies and
emergent strategies (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; King, 2010) or between a creative
communication logic and rational management logic (Falkheimer et al., 2016). Moreover,
scholars could engage in theoretical discussions of strategy concepts in both strategic
management and strategic communication research to clarify further the distinction
between “strategic” and “operational” communication activities.
A final area concerns the multi-faceted role portfolio of today’s communication executives
at the individual level. Future research should link the conceptual insights from this project to
the research of professional roles (Arthur W. Page Society, 2016; Fieseler et al., 2015). Scholars
might explore empirically how various contributions are reflected in different roles, how
communication leaders combine both strategic and operational aspects in practice and which
competencies are required for performing such multiple responsibilities.

Note
1. Since the interviews were conducted in German, the original statements were paraphrased for this
paper instead of using direct quotes.

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Corresponding author
Sophia Charlotte Volk can be contacted at: sophia-charlotte.volk@uni-leipzig.de

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