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making as well as the way in which communications staff and their tasks are structured.
This chapter examines another critical element within the strategic management of
communications: the people working in communications.What people bring to the
communications job in terms of expertise, competencies and skills is a crucial
element in the effective functioning and use of communications, and for the value
that is assigned to it by other managers within the company.
This chapter provides a detailed look at the practice of communications and
the people working within it. It starts with an overview of the roles and activities
carried out by practitioners in Section 6.2. Based on these roles and activities,
practitioners have often been characterized as either managers or technicians.This
distinction between technicians and managers is important as it not only captures
the nature of the work and the views that these practitioners themselves have of
it, but also explains and suggests how the communications function is regarded by
others (i.e. as a strategic management function or as a low-level support function)
and whether it has any involvement in corporate decision making. From this
overview of roles and activities performed by practitioners, Section 6.3 then
moves on to discuss the general state of the practice and occupation of commu-
nications management at the start of the twenty-first century and attempts to
answer whether it can be characterized as a true profession (as, for instance, the
professions of medicine, law, accounting, etc.). Although the jury is still out on
this, this section attests that communications has not yet evolved into a full-blown
profession as it still lacks a comprehensive body of knowledge and the type of
education that would provide practitioners with rigorous intellectual expertise
and skills that not only are unique to it, but are also valued within organizations
and accredited by peer groups (other managers, practitioners from established
professions, etc.) and society at large.The final part of Section 6.3 picks up from
these observations on the state of communications as an occupation and suggests
ways in which it can be further developed, and also what this requires of the
parties (i.e. practitioners themselves, teachers and trainers, senior managers, pro-
fessional associations and academic researchers) involved. One particular area of
concern, for example, is that the higher education sector has not sufficiently
responded to the needs of practitioners to be equipped with management
competencies and a business frame of reference alongside their tactical commu-
nications skills (writing, editing, graphics, etc.). Calls for a more management-
oriented framework for educating practitioners have been heard for decades, yet
few university public relations, advertising or business communications courses
today include more than token business-focused course work, if any at all. Educating
students and practitioners so that they become business-literate with a specialized
knowledge of, and skills sets in, communications (and thus know how communi-
cations can be used within and for the purpose of organizations) is, however,
essential for the development of communications as a management function and as
a full-grown profession.
Taken together, the chapter should thus provide the reader not only with a clear
overview of the various activities and roles performed by practitioners, but also with
an understanding of the state of the practice and occupation of communications and
of ways in which it can be further developed.