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The Organization of Communications 131

Executive board

Communication

Marketing Human resources Finance Operations

Manager A
(internal coms)

Manager B
(investor relations)

Manager C
(advertising)

Figure 5.2 A matrix structure of communications organization

autonomy and functional expertise of communications needs to be secured through
vertical structuring into one or a few departments. But, on the other hand, as many
academic researchers have equally suggested in recent years, there is a need for much
greater coordination and collaboration through horizontal structures working across
departments and linking communications with other functional areas within the
9
organization.The marketing communications scholars Gronstedt and Thorson, for
instance, have responded to this quest for a balance or trade-off between differenti-
ation and integration by proposing a matrix structure where vertical and horizontal
structures coexist in the dual reporting relationships that any individual communi-
cations practitioner in the matrix has. A matrix structure, Gronstedt and Thorson
suggest, enables a company to enjoy both the depth of specialized knowledge that
the functional departments facilitate and the collaboration across the disciplines through
the horizontal structure. Figure 5.2 illustrates such a matrix structure within a sim-
ple ‘functional’ organization chart in which communications is organized as a staff
department (as in Figure 5.1), and where individual communications managers report
to both communications and another department (marketing, human resources,
finance or operations) that they serve.
Sections 5.3 and 5.4 report on the evidence from academic research and practi-
tioner cases on the vertical and horizontal structuring of communications across
different types of companies. Section 5.5 then elaborates from this in discussing what
explains structure and, in a more prescriptive sense, which organizational form suits
a particular company (i.e. manufacturing or service company, small business, public
organization, professional service organization, multinational corporation) best.