Page 158 - Corporate Communication

Cornelissen-05.qxd 10/11/2004 5:30 PM Page 146

146 Corporate Communications in Practice

The above-mentioned mechanisms apply to the coordination and integration
of work among practitioners from different communications disciplines. But it is
important to note that corporate communications and the management of stake-
holders spirals to other functions as well. Horizontal procedures and arrangements
for the coordination of work processes between communications practitioners and
professionals in, for instance, human resources or finance, therefore equally need
to be put in place. This might take the form of simply a meeting between senior
managers of communications, human resources and finance to sound out the issues,
and align their strategies accordingly. FedEX fits this picture, where the director of
communications meets once a year individually with all of the company’s senior
managers to discuss their communications needs.As he explains,‘we need to under-
stand what the business priorities are, in order to align corporate communications
with them. Otherwise we will be relegated to a mouthpiece, a media impression
generating machine’. 35
It might, however, also be that there are more concrete interdependencies and
work processes between communications and other management functions, which
require more structural horizontal arrangements. The implementation of work teams
connecting these functions might be an option in such cases, and it perhaps also
requires that communications managers approach professionals from these other
functions as their ‘customers’. Hewlett-Packard’s corporate communications staff, for
instance, have even developed a database to profile their internal ‘customers’ to better
meet their needs.Telefonica, the global telecommunications firm, equally has such an
arrangement where the corporate reputation department counsels ‘clients’ – i.e. all
other functions within the company (including finance, human resources, operations
and marketing) – on stakeholders issues, and assists and supports each of these func-
tional areas in the development of stakeholder management programmes.

Horizontal structure in different contexts

Academic research on the use of horizontal coordination mechanisms across differ-
ent companies has been scant. There is thus very little systematic evidence from
research that documents whether and how companies may be seen to use some of
the horizontal mechanisms outlined above. Case studies and evidence from practice
are equally limited, but the few existing case studies do indicate that generally not
enough horizontal structures are in place to assist communications practitioners in
the carrying out and integration of their work. In small businesses, one might in fact
expect little formal horizontal structures such as teams and communications guide-
lines, as personnel can easily, and often informally, liaise with one another and solve
the communications problem at hand. But large organizations in both the private
and public sectors generally need more elaborate horizontal structures, such as coun-
cil meetings and teams. Particularly in multidivisional firms operating across
geographical borders, horizontal structures are not a luxury but an absolute necessity.
Nonetheless, in many large organizations not enough attention is being paid to the
use of horizontal structures,as there is often among managers and practitioners a pre-
occupation with the vertical structure of bringing disciplines together into depart-
ments. Gronstedt, author of an influential study into horizontal structures in eight