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Circumscribing Corporate Communications 15

rather than having had a direct and instrumental impact upon practice, the now
commonplace concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) has
provided communications practitioners with a metaphor or idea that they have
interpreted in the context of their own organizational setting and market envi-
ronment. The concept of IMC has, for instance, been variously found to have
refocused practitioner attention on the link between the marketing communica-
tions and marketing functions within strategic management, and to have served
as a catalyst in shaking the advertising industry from its enduring myopic view
by highlighting a more symbiotic relationship between the public relations and
marketing functions.
3. Symbolic use: this involves the use of terms from corporate communications the-
ories by practitioners for their symbolic or rhetorical value to legitimize courses
of action and to appease senior management. The current craze about ‘reputa-
tion management’, for instance, suggests that this concept is, at least in part,
used by practitioners for its symbolic leverage to acquire esteem and to help
them step up to a more senior and strategic level in companies.

Taken together, these different types of theory use provide an overview and guide-
lines for professionals in selecting theoretical concepts, and for considering how
these concepts may be used. Although it is a trite saying, determining the actual rel-
evance and currency of theories is up to the individual communications practitioner.
As with most management problems, corporate communications does not involve
‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers or general principles, and practitioners should therefore
question whatever theorizing and research there is on the subject and judge for
themselves how it applies (conceptually or symbolically) to their own day-to-day prac-
tice. At the end of the day, the ideas and guidelines from theory – including the ones
presented in this book – will become useful only when blended with what a professional
already knows and believes.

By informing their practice with theory and research, practitioners can render
some plausible account of how they perform, in other words, articulate a more
detailed understanding of their own practice, and become reflective practitioners in the
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process. Among the advantages of being a reflective practitioner is the ability to trans-
fer skills to others – as one is conscious or aware of the conceptual insights and skills
that one bears upon in practice – and the possibility of working out how to adapt
one’s practice and actions to changed circumstances rather than relying on intuition
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and trial and error (the so-called ‘fly-by-the-seats-of-the-pants’ approach), the only
route available to the practitioner who cannot reflect upon his/her practice.Theory
serves as a resource for practitioners to question continuously and revise their views,
and make sense of their situation and experiences that were not easily understood
before.This critical and reflective ability that comes from practice informed by theory
leads to more sophistication not only in the professional’s understanding of the
instrumental aspects of the work – what actions lead to what outcomes in what cir-
cumstances – but also in the interpreting of the broader economic, social and poli-
tical context of which it is part; and in the understanding of the kind of society that
their work is reproducing or changing.