Page 31 - Corporate Communication

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22 Mapping the Field

Table 1.3 Characteristics of strategic management
and operational management

Strategic management Operational management
Scope Organization-wide/fundamental (strategic) Operationally specific and tactical
(craft)
Nature of strategies Changing and varied (in response to Routinized and programmed
environment and changing corporate (executing and fine-tuning existing
objectives) strategies)
Time-frame Long-term implications Short-term implications
Role of practitioner Reflective and strategic Pragmatic and tactical

the adjective ‘strategic’ in strategic management suggests that professionals need to be
able to reflect upon their practice and critically understand their actions, and need to
manoeuvre and devise communications programmes in the light of (changing) corpo-
rate objectives. A second sense in which the adjective ‘strategic’ plays a part is in the
way in which corporate communications, as a management function, is put to use in
and for organizations. Organizations need to understand, from a strategic perspective,
how corporate communications can work most effectively; and how it can be used for
corporate objectives and to increase organizational performance. 33 In other words,
from an organizational perspective, the interest is in knowing how the management
function of corporate communications can be used to meet corporate objectives, how
the function therefore needs to be organized, and with what resources it needs to be
vamped to fulfil its potential.The nature of ‘strategic management’ in this sense also
suggests that corporate communications is valued for its strategic input into decision
making and the overall corporate strategy, and not just for its operational excellence in
managing communications resources and programmes already deployed within the
context and guidance of an existing strategy. The strategic management of corporate
communications – as opposed to the mere operational management of the function –
thus implies a more organization-wide or corporate scope and involvement where
communications is integrally linked to corporate objectives and with generally more
long-term implications, instead of an operationally specific scope with more short-
term and tactical implications.Table 1.3 summarizes some of these differences between
the strategic and operational management of corporate communications.

Characteristics of corporate communications
as a management function

The previous sections of this chapter have already started to suggest that corporate
communications can be characterized as:

1. A management function that requires communications practitioners to look at all
communications in a holistic manner, and to link the communications strategy to the
corporate strategy and corporate objectives. Communications is as such not seen as a