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126 Corporate Communications in Practice

practitioners have effectively called for a drastic overhaul of the way in which public
relations and marketing communications are organized in the face of the turbulence
and change in the marketing and communications landscape throughout the 1990s
because of fragmented audiences, wider stakeholder concerns, media proliferation
1
and the relative decline of mass media advertising. Whether such new organizational
forms have since appeared is one of the central themes of this chapter. But, regard-
less of whether such a change in communications organization has occurred, the
subject has reappeared firmly on the agenda of academics and practitioners alike and
has become more salient and significant than before.
The chapter therefore aims to address the subject of communications organization
in a comprehensive manner, sourcing the extant research evidence as well as cases
from practice.The general structure of the chapter is as follows. First, I will discuss in
Section 5.2 the different perspectives that have been brought to bear upon the subject
of communications organization, its general importance to the corporate communica-
tions function and the organization as a whole, and the different elements of organiza-
tional structure that can be distinguished.Then I will discuss two of these structural
elements in greater detail in Sections 5.3 and 5.4: the vertical structure, which includes
the hierarchy of authority in which communications staff are placed and the way in
which they are organized into departments,and the horizontal structure,which encom-
passes cross-functional and lateral coordination mechanisms that exist over and above
departmental structures to streamline and integrate work processes of communications
staff.Then, in Section 5.5, I will explain how and why organizations differ in the way
in which they have organized their communications (that is, differences in vertical and
horizontal structures across organizations), and address the question of whether there
is a best ‘fit’ between the type of organization (i.e. small business, multinational firm,
public organization, professional service organization) and organizational form.
Being structured in this way, the chapter should thus provide the reader not only
with a clear overview of the various ways in which communications can be organized,
but also with an understanding of which organizational form suits a particular
company best.

5.2 Perspectives on communications organization

The subject of communications organization is important as it not only determines to
a large extent whether the communications function is enabled to provide strategic
input into decision making at the corporate level, but also whether the communica-
tions activities that are carried out at various places within the organization are stream-
lined and integrated in a cost-effective manner. In other words, the way in which
communications is organized carries important strategic and political dimensions and
is also crucial for the effective support and integration of communications activities.

Traditional and contemporary views
on communications organization

Despite being of such importance, historical evidence upon the subject of commu-
nications organization, in terms of the way in which different communications