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152 Corporate Communications in Practice

when the interaction is about clear and standard issues, work procedures or
guidelines can be used, when the interaction is more varied and equivocal it
rather requires face-to-face meetings and consultation in a council meeting,
committee or task force team.

Taken together, these three steps point to an effective and efficient structuring of
communications, and provide guidelines for practitioners in evaluating their current
structuring of communications, whether any change in structure is needed and what
this change may then look like. As with most management and corporate communi-
cations problems, organizing communications does not involve ‘right’ or ‘wrong’
answers or general principles, but these three steps may nevertheless be an aid to
senior managers and communications staff in deciding upon an appropriate structure
for communications.

5.6 Chapter summary

The subject of communications organization carries important strategic and politi-
cal dimensions; the way in which communications is structured not only determines
whether communications activities that are carried out at various places within
the organization are coordinated in a cost-effective manner, but also whether the
communications function is enabled to provide strategic input into corporate decision
making. In fact, the fullest strategic use of corporate communications in many ways
stands or falls with an effective structuring of communications, with the presence of
a consolidated communications department with ready access to the decision-
making coalition, and with the use of horizontal mechanisms to align the work and
communications products of practitioners from different departments. Fortunately, as
this chapter has suggested, many companies do have such consolidated departments
placed at a high location in the organization’s hierarchy.This high location, however,
often consists of a direct reporting relationship from the senior communications
manager to the CEO or executive board rather than this manager actually having a
seat on the executive board.The reason for this, as mentioned, is the still consider-
able lack of understanding and lack of commitment to communications among
many senior managers, but also the incompetence of many communications practi-
tioners to meet the needs of senior managers in ways that contribute to the accom-
plishment of organizational objectives and that affect the bottom line.The following
chapter takes a closer look at the competencies of communications practitioners.

Key terms

Centralization Dominant coalition
Contingency Economies of scale
Coordination mechanism Executive/senior management team
Council meeting Horizontal structure
Departmental arrangement Line function
Domain similarity Matrix structure