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the practitioner explains the adoption of either the manager or technician role by
practitioners. Generally, practitioners tend to enter the profession by performing
largely technician roles and it is only as practitioners become more experienced and
move up the management hierarchy in organizations that they are typically able to
adopt manager roles.
Thinking about manager and technician role types is not only helpful in captur-
ing what activities practitioners are engaged in and explaining why they do so, but
is also important as it suggests what the consequences of role enactment are. In particu-
lar, predominant manager role enactment is positively related to participation in
management decision making.The enactment of management and technician roles
thus also indicates whether, as a consequence of role enactment, communications
departments participate in strategic decision making of the dominant coalition or
simply execute decisions made by others. In a management-oriented communi-
cations department one or a few senior communications managers oversee a range
of management and decision-making oriented activities, including analysis and
research, the formulation of communications objectives for the organization, the
design of short-term and long-term organizational philosophies, and counselling of
senior management. In contrast, practitioners enacting the technician role are pre-
dominantly located in a peripheral department; technicians do not participate in
management decision making, but only make programme decisions necessary to the
internal functioning of their department. These practitioners are concerned with
day-to-day operational matters (providing services such as writing, editing, photogra-
phy,media contracts and production of publications),and they carry out the low-level
communications mechanics necessary for implementing decisions made by others.In
other words, the enactment of the manager role is crucial for communications to be involved
in management decision making concerning the overall strategic direction of the organization.
When communications practitioners are involved at the decision-making table,
information about relations with priority stakeholders gets factored into the process
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of organizational decision making and into strategies and actions. This would mean,
among other things, that senior communications practitioners are actively consulted
concerning the effects of certain business actions (e.g. staff lay-offs, divestiture) on a
company’s reputation with stakeholders, and even have a say in the decision making,
instead of being called in after the decision was made to draft a press release and deal
with communications issues emerging from it.
This enactment of the manager role, however, requires that practitioners are able
to couch the importance and use of communications in the context of general organi-
zational issues and objectives.This requires on the part of the practitioner knowledge
of the industry or sector in which the organization operates and of the nature of the
strategy-making process, as well as a strategic view of how communications can con-
tribute to corporate and market strategies and to different functional areas within the
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company (see also Chapters 4 and 5). In other words, instead of a ‘craft’ approach to
communications that is skills-based and focuses on the production of communications
materials, manager role enactment requires that a practitioner is able

to bring thoughtfully conceived agendas to the senior management table that address the
strategic issues of business planning,resource allocation,priorities and direction of the firm.
Instead of asking what events to sponsor and at what cost, [practitioners] should be asking