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130 Corporate Communications in Practice

that are laid over the vertical structure to coordinate and integrate functionally
separated tasks and activities.Vertical structure divides each organization’s primary
tasks into smaller tasks and activities, with each box on the organization chart repre-
senting a position assigned to undertake a unique, detailed portion of the organiza-
tion’s overall mission. Such vertical specialization, and the spreading out of tasks over
different departments, however, requires some coordination or integration of work
processes.This coordination or integration is achieved through a horizontal structure,
which ensures that tasks and activities, while spread out over departments, are com-
bined into the basic functions (i.e. human resources, finance, operations, marketing,
and communications) that need to be fulfiled within the organization. Horizontal
structure can take various forms, including multidisciplinary task or project teams,
formal lines of communication, standardized work processes, council meetings or the
use of ‘czars’ (senior professionals working as integrators between departments), and is
not normally displayed within an organization chart.Figure 5.1 shows the vertical and
horizontal structure of a mid-size Japanese corporation in the financial services industry.
The vertical structure of this organization shows that corporate communications is
placed quite high within the organization as an independent staff department advising
the president (CEO) and chairperson of the corporation. The horizontal structure,
which for this corporation most likely involves formal collaborative ties connecting
the corporate communications department with the advertising and general affairs
departments, cannot, as mentioned, be directly read from the organization chart.
The above three prescriptions also suggest that with a few exceptions (e.g. small
businesses), organizations would be wise to use both vertical and horizontal struc-
tures for organizing communications. The obvious reasoning behind this is that
although bringing communications specialists together vertically into one or a few
departments may lead to enhanced efficiency, the ability to develop specialized, dis-
tinctive capabilities,and ease management through the centralization and consolidation
of communications activities, it may not lead to coordination between communica-
tions disciplines and with other functional areas (e.g. marketing) outside those
departments, it risks ‘turf wars’, functional myopia and over-specialization. A hori-
zontal structure overlaying the vertical structure is therefore needed for coordinating
disparate communications tasks and activities, which also recognizes that communi-
cations with key stakeholders might emerge from various places within the organiza-
tion and that the process of developing and executing communications programmes
is therefore essentially cross-functional or cross-disciplinary. 7
Seen in this light, many academic researchers have in recent years started to argue
that there should be a balance or trade-off between differentiation (vertical structure)
and coordination or integration (horizontal structure). On the one hand, it is argued,
communications disciplines should still be consolidated into one or a few depart-
ments or units, as too much differentiation and dispersion of communications into
several small units misses potential interactions between the disciplines, dilutes the
technical sophistication and knowledge base of communications, and might lead to
a more tactical, ‘craft’ orientation within communications. The communications
scholars Grunig and Grunig point out in this regard that many separate communi-
cations units are likely to contribute mainly to tactical routine operations and are less
8
likely to participate in strategic planning and management. In other words, the