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14 Mapping the Field

In 1945, the Chicago psychologist Kurt Lewin claimed that ‘nothing is as practical
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as a good theory’. Lewin’s dictum has often been referred to in discussions about
the practical utility of academic theory within many professional contexts, including
the field of corporate communications. Given the considerable differences in orien-
tations of both academics and professionals that I have outlined (Table 1.1), there are,
however, doubts about the direct and instrumental applicability of corporate commu-
nications theories in practice, as Lewin’s dictum would suggest.That is, because of
their academic orientation theorists do not generally produce techniques that can be
directly applied to specific situations within practice. A more realistic (and helpful)
image, therefore, is the view that practitioners nonetheless can be informed and
shaped by theories and research in their work, with theories providing them with
ideas, concepts and frameworks that may explain, contextualize or otherwise help
them understand what they do on a day-to-day basis (see Box 1.1 below).That is,
the real-world situations and problems with which practitioners are confronted are
often characterized by uncertainty, complexity and instability, and, as unique cases,
cannot be directly solved by general theoretical principles (nor does academic the-
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ory yet possess many of these principles!). Theory and academic research, however,
can act as a source of knowledge, soundboard or interpretive framework to provide
practitioners with a better understanding of their day-to-day work, and together
with the intelligence, experiences and applied research that practitioners otherwise
rely on will provide them with the ‘suitable’ knowledge to understand and act upon
the situation or problem in hand. 9

Box 1.1 Management brief: how to ‘use’
corporate communications theory in practice 14

There are a number of ways in which one can look at the concept of ‘using’ theory
(or theoretical knowledge) in a professional context. From empirical observations, we
know that three types of ‘uses’ can be distinguished:

1. Instrumental use: the instrumental type of theory use concerns the traditional
view of theory use, where academic theory and research are seen to provide ratio-
nal solutions to managerial problems in a direct and instrumental way. This type
of use is very rare within corporate communications or adjacent management and
social science fields because very few of the theories within these fields are in such
a formal and elaborate shape that they can directly prescribe actions in practice
without requiring any interpretation or adaptation by the practitioner (this type of
theory use does, however, have its currency in scientific fields such as physics and
engineering where theories contain more procedural, rule-based knowledge).
2. Conceptual use: using theories conceptually means that theory offers ideas,
problem definitions and interpretative schemes as a set of intellectual tools to
practitioners for understanding and anticipating real-world problems. The impact
of conceptual use may be more indirect and diffuse than instrumental use, but
has nonetheless been found to make up for the bulk of theory use within cor-
porate communications and allied management fields (and should, I believe,
even be increased in the light of the notion of ‘reflective practice’). For example,