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134 Corporate Communications in Practice

Table 5.1 Consolidation of communications disciplines in US companies
Percentage of respondents saying ‘yes’ to presence of activity as a communications
department responsibility
=
=
Discipline 1996 survey (N = 264) 1992 survey (N = 159)
Federal government relations 75 87
State government relations 75 85
Community relations 71 79
Local government relations 69 80
Contributions/philanthropy 69 75
Grass roots 68 73
Issues management 67 73
Media relations 66 71
Public relations 64 68
Employee communications 58 60
Public interest/activist groups 51 55
Educational affairs 44 48
Regulatory affairs 43 34
Volunteer programmes 41 43
Advertising 39 37
International public affairs 35 33
Stockholder relations 24 18
Institutional investor relations 23 20
Consumer affairs 17 13
Source: Post and Griffin (1997, p. 167)

‘corporate communications’ departments, while disciplines such as branding, adver-
tising, promotions and direct marketing were put under the marketing department. 14
The survey data of 85 large UK companies furthermore suggested that such consol-
idation of disciplines into corporate communications and marketing departments
does not depend on the business sector in which a company operates, but reflects
interdependencies between certain communications disciplines. For example, practi-
tioners working in media relations and investor relations strongly depend on one
another and need to liaise on a frequent basis so that the financial information that
is released to the press and the financial community is verified and issued at the right
moment. Therefore, disciplines with relatively high interdependencies are grouped
together to facilitate collaboration and to minimize the costs associated with cross-
unit interaction.
A recent study in the Netherlands equally reported that communications disci-
plines are consolidated in a single department within Dutch companies and that
these departments generally have a high position within the organization’s hierar-
chical structure. But only in a very small minority of cases was marketing commu-
15
nications incorporated into this central communications department. Small-scale
studies in France parallel the UK and Dutch results;companies such as BNP,Renault
and Elf (now part of Total) all have central communications departments, separate
from marketing. 16
Upon reflection, all of these recent studies within the US, UK and Europe indi-
cate a greater consolidation of communications disciplines within companies than
before, yet still in separate communications and marketing departments. Some of