Navigating through digitalization challenges in strategic communication: introducing the VUCA radar

Abstract

Purpose

In recent years, the acronym VUCA has gained traction in strategic communication (SC) as an umbrella term that summarizes the recurrent challenges (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) of digital communication environments. However, an integrated reflection on how the VUCA dimensions facilitate a deeper understanding of specific digitalization challenges and how to navigate through these challenges is lacking. This article aims to explore and substantiate the descriptive (how) and prescriptive (how to) potential of VUCA for SC under digitalization conditions.

Design/methodology/approach

We first provide a systematic discussion of the four VUCA dimensions based on the general strategy literature. While their descriptive value is undisputed, prescriptive advice on how to respond to these challenges is contradictory. We substantiate this observation in a second empirical step based on problem-centered interviews with strategic communicators at the agency and corporate levels.

Findings

Our findings reveal that VUCA facilitates a systematic mapping of digitalization challenges consistently identified by professionals. The proposed strategic responses, however, remain contradictory at the theoretical and empirical levels. Hence, we propose the VUCA radar as a comprehensive descriptive and prescriptive framework.

Originality/value

The radar provides (a) a systematic overview of recurrent digitalization challenges to SC at the industry and practice levels and (b) prescriptive advice on how to navigate through these challenges by balancing contradictory strategic responses at the levels of vision, understanding, clarity and agility.

Citation

Winkler, P., Kretschmer, J. and Wamprechtsamer, P. (2024), "Navigating through digitalization challenges in strategic communication: introducing the VUCA radar", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-11-2023-0119

Since the earliest attempts to define the field, strategic communication (SC) scholarship has acknowledged that volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity represent inherent challenges to strategy-making in contemporary communication environments (e.g. Hallahan et al., 2007; Hoffjann, 2022; Nothhaft and Wehmeier, 2007; van Ruler, 2018; Zerfass et al., 2018). Nevertheless, VUCA as a handy acronym summarizing these challenges has only recently gained traction in SC scholarship and practice. This is particularly the case when addressing the challenges that digitalization, as a comprehensive socio-technical transformation process affecting personal, institutional and social life (Badham and Luoma-aho, 2024; Kretschmer and Winkler, 2024), poses to the field. In general, the diagnosis of living in a VUCA world is emphasized to call for a revised strategic mindset in SC (Adi, 2019; Ragas and Ragas, 2021). More concretely, VUCA is addressed to highlight the necessity of a more comprehensive understanding of the potential benefits of data-driven analysis and automation (Gregory, 2022), while other scholars draw on VUCA to recommend new forms of integration (Einwiller et al., 2022) and agile work practices in SC (Dühring and Zerfass, 2021). Despite the growing traction of VUCA in the SC literature, a systematic perspective on the concept’s four challenges, their manifestation in the digitalization context and recommendations on how to navigate through them are lacking. This not only presents a shortcoming to SC, but the general strategy literature, too, has started to scrutinize the frequently superficial use of VUCA as a fashionable concept in recent years (e.g. Taskan et al., 2022). This superficial use, so the critique goes, has led to a blurring instead of a concretization of VUCA-specific challenges and to the acceptance of strategic laissez-faire rather than providing concrete strategic guidance (Bennett and Lemoine, 2014a, b). Taking this critique seriously, our contribution aims to systematically illuminate the descriptive and prescriptive potential that VUCA holds for SC in digital environments. At the descriptive level, we aim to define how VUCA fosters a better understanding of the central recurrent challenges that digitalization poses to our field. At the prescriptive level, we aim to provide recommendations on how to navigate through these challenges in a strategically sustainable way.

We proceed as follows: After a brief review of the current use of VUCA in extant digital SC scholarship, we introduce a comprehensive definition of the four VUCA dimensions deduced from the general strategy literature. While the descriptive definition is widely accepted, prescriptive recommendations on how to engage strategically with VUCA challenges are contradictory. To substantiate how VUCA challenges are experienced and dealt with in the SC industry and everyday practice in the digitalization context, we draw on a rich set of problem-centered interviews with leading communication professionals in agencies and the for-profit and non-profit sectors in Austria. The results show that these professionals share consistent perceptions of the persistent challenges of digitalization, which can be systematized along the VUCA dimensions. However, their responses on how to strategically handle these challenges are contradictory. Hence, in our concluding recommendations, we introduce the VUCA radar as a comprehensive descriptive and prescriptive framework. First, it provides a descriptive orientation regarding recurrent digitalization challenges that are to be expected at the industry and everyday practice levels in SC. Second, informed by the paradox literature, it provides prescriptive guidance that proposes embracing and balancing contradictory strategic responses as the most sustainable way to navigate through recurrent VUCA challenges at the levels of vision, understanding, clarity and agility.

Strategic communication in a VUCA world: state of the art

Over the last 15 years, VUCA has gained traction in public discourse and SC alike (e.g. Adi, 2019; Dühring and Zerfass, 2021; Ragas and Ragas, 2021; Wiencierz et al., 2021). At the most general level, VUCA is used as a handy umbrella term to point to the multiple challenges that—among other issues such as polycrisis and new forms of activism (Adi and Stoeckle, 2022; Mayfield and Mayfield, 2022)—digitalization poses to our field. It is argued that digitalization as a comprehensive, socio-technological transformation process affecting all areas of life (Badham and Luoma-aho, 2024; Kretschmer and Winkler, 2024) demands that SC abandons established routines and strives for a fundamentally new digital mindset (Dühring and Zerfass, 2021; Wiesenberg et al., 2017). More concretely, scholars refer to VUCA to address the challenges of a new communication environment with an explosion of available data and response opportunities. This calls for an advanced understanding of how to utilize these data and their computations in a meaningful manner in SC (Gregory, 2022). Others refer to VUCA to invite rethinking established hierarchical, functionally differentiated forms of organization in SC. These scholars promote new forms of organization that enable interdisciplinary and cross-departmental work (Buchholz and Knorre, 2017) and, consequently, new ways of integrated communication (Adi, 2019). Corporate newsrooms (Einwiller et al., 2022; Seidenglanz, 2021) are considered a viable integrated approach responding to VUCA, as they allow for responsive coordination of a variety of digital content and channels. Lastly, VUCA is associated with the necessity for new ways of working in SC. In this context, scholars promote agile (Wiencierz et al., 2021) and design thinking approaches (Vuillermin and Huck-Sandhu, 2021) that facilitate flexible responses to often unpredictable digital challenges.

Overall, VUCA has gained some traction in current digitalization-focused SC literature, and it has triggered a promising debate on future-ready forms in the field. However, the current use of VUCA mainly as a catchphrase has its shortcomings. Both the descriptive question of how the four VUCA dimensions relate to specific digitalization challenges as well as the prescriptive question of how to find a holistic strategic response to these challenges have yet to be answered. Accordingly, in the next section, we provide an overview of current discussions of the VUCA acronym in general strategy scholarship to better understand its descriptive and prescriptive meaning.

The VUCA debate in general strategy scholarship

Like many strategy concepts (Knights and Morgan, 1990), VUCA originated in military science. It was introduced by the US army in the 1990s to refocus from the bilateral conflict of the Cold War to a multilateral global perspective (e.g. Whiteman, 1998). Soon, VUCA diffused from its original military field to general strategy scholarship as a handy acronym to grasp the major strategy challenges of the dawning 21st century. Among other megatrends, digitalization and its impact on business and society were identified as core drivers of a global shift toward a VUCA world (e.g. Millar et al., 2018).

Not least due to its catchiness, the VUCA acronym experienced rapid uptake in a variety of strategy textbooks, consultancy and training materials. However, in this uptake, VUCA often remained at the level of a catchphrase to promote diverse new approaches and competencies to get future ready. Such a fashionable diffusion of strategy concepts presents a double-edged sword. While it can mobilize shared problem awareness and engagement, it can also lead to an overexpansion of the original conceptual meaning, which first triggers exaggerated expectations but ends in critique and cynicism (Giroux, 2006).

In recent years, the use of VUCA has spurred a related critique. Critique at the descriptive level argues that the definition and distinction of the four VUCA challenges often remain vague (Mack and Khare, 2016; Taskan et al., 2022). Critique at the prescriptive level argues that the superficial use of VUCA serves as an excuse for strategic laissez-faire. Strategic propositions on how to concretely engage with each of the VUCA challenges, in turn, are often lacking (Bennett and Lemoine, 2014a, b). Taking these lines of critique seriously, in the following, we first provide a descriptive definition of the four VUCA challenges. Then, we discuss the two most popular yet contradictory prescriptive approaches of engagement with these challenges.

The descriptive meaning of VUCA

The definition of the four VUCA challenges by the strategy scholars Bennett and Lemoine (2014a, 2014b) is the most elaborated and cited. Taskan et al. (2022) recently conducted a systematic review of the general strategy and consultancy literature to identify whether and how this definition of the four VUCA challenges has changed over the last 15 years, with its use peaking between 2017 and 2021. Despite minor overlaps, their study identifies a comparably stable conceptualization of the four VUCA challenges, summarized as follows.

1. Volatility stands for a situation of unstable and dynamic change, whereby the variation and duration of change tend to be unknown (e.g. April and Chimenya, 2019; Bennett and Lemoine, 2014b). While there is essential knowledge that the situation is going to change, the scope and impact of the change are unknown.

2. Uncertainty, in turn, refers to a state in which central intervening factors are considered essentially known. However, the unknown lies in the unpredictability of determining whether and how these factors will concretely play out in a given situation due to a lack of information and interpretation skills (Bader et al., 2019; Bennett and Lemoine, 2014b).

3. Complexity describes seemingly chaotic and confusing situations emerging from a multitude of factors that are logically and temporally interrelated (Bennett and Lemoine, 2014b; Billiones, 2019).

4. Ambiguity—different to the established understanding of vagueness and polysemy in SC (Hoffjann, 2022)—describes situations with no prior experience in the VUCA literature. Accordingly, the factors, interrelations and consequences constituting a situation are unknown. “Causes and the ‘who, what, where, how, and why’ behind the things that were happening are unclear and hard to ascertain” (Sullivan, 2012, cited in Taskan et al., 2022, p. 198). This allows for multiple interpretations of a situation, and future scenarios are contingent.

Contradictory prescriptive responses to VUCA

While the descriptive understanding of the four VUCA challenges is consolidated in the strategy literature, the prescriptive question of how to engage with these challenges is debated. In the following, we present the two most prominent propositions. The first proposition with the highest recognition in the professional domain is promoted by Johansen (2012) and his colleagues from the Institute for the Future. The prominence of this proposition is due not least to the catchiness of the solution provided. Johansen’s solution to the challenges of VUCA is again VUCA or “VUCA prime” to be more precise. Yet, in the latter case, VUCA prime stands for vision, understanding, clarity and agility.

1. Volatility calls for a new strategic mindset in terms of a daring, future-oriented vision.

2. Uncertainty requires understanding by collecting and using as many information sources as possible.

3. Complexity requires organizational clarity by streamlining internal structures towards a shared future vision, supported by means of storytelling.

4. Ambiguity ultimately calls for process agility in terms of fostering efficient collaboration in networked teams driven by an entrepreneurial spirit.

In contrast to this leadership-centered, “one best way” approach, Bennett and Lemoine (2014a, 2014b) promote an approach that follows a contingency theoretical understanding of strategy (Fiedler, 1993). Accordingly, these scholars argue that each VUCA challenge requires a situated strategic response that aligns best with the current external conditions:

1. Following this understanding, Bennett and Lemoine challenge the idea that a vision responding to volatility needs a daring, long-range focus. Rather, they call for a selective stocking-up of expertise to be flexible and prepared for change. Selectivity is crucial, as building up expertise is resource-demanding.

2. Gaining an understanding of an uncertain situation, in turn, requires collection of information. However, this approach is worthless without critical analytic skills to identify relevant information and accountable responses.

3. Increased environmental complexity, again, calls for internal restructuring. Yet, organizational clarity is not reached by streamlining structures but by increasing organizational complexity according to environmental complexity.

4. Ambiguity, lastly, calls for agility, yet not in terms of increasing efficiency but in terms of allowing for redundant, problem-centered experimentation.

Hence, the two most prominent propositions on how to respond to VUCA challenges at the levels of vision, understanding, clarity and agility point in divergent directions. Indeed, they reflect well-known contradictions in strategy literature, that is strategic responses that seem mutually exclusive at first sight (Putnam et al., 2016): long-range vs adaptative vision (Fiedler, 1993) as contradictory responses to volatility; full information availability vs reflective information processability (Schneider, 1987) as contradictory responses to uncertainty; streamlined structures vs increased structural complexity (Ashby, 1956) as contradictory responses to environmental complexity; and efficient exploitation vs explorative experimentation (March, 1991) as contradictory agile responses to ambiguity.

To better understand how VUCA challenges and potentially contradictory strategic responses manifest in the realm of SC professionals who have engaged with the challenges of digitalization over the last two decades, in the next step, we introduce our empirical study.

Design

Research field and sampling

Given our explorative interest in SC professionals’ everyday experiences of digitalization challenges, we decided on a qualitative approach and conducted an interview study in Austria. Austria is a small European country with a dominant capital, Vienna. This allows for comparably easy identification of key players, as most of the country’s leading agencies and communication headquarters are based in Vienna. Austria is a wealthy nation, yet it is not among the early adopters when it comes to digital technological progress (European Commission, 2022). Decision-making positions and structures tend to be inertial, and future-skeptical attitudes are common (Rathkolb, 2021). Accordingly, it is possible to identify professionals with long-term experience in the same domain who are open to talk critically about how they have experienced digitalization’s impact on the industry and everyday practice during the last two decades.

In total, our data consist of 21 problem-centered interviews (Witzel, 2000) with communication professionals in leading positions (interview length: 1–2 h). The selection of interview partners followed purposive sampling (Flick, 2014). Thus, we developed a theoretically and practically informed sampling plan that captured the diversity of the local industry and various approaches to SC in a digital VUCA world. To identify key players, we relied on popular industry magazines, online research (e.g. websites, LinkedIn) and our industry knowledge. In particular, one coauthor provided relevant contacts based on his experience working in an agency and volunteering for the national professional association. We conducted two-step sampling. In the first step, we interviewed the CEOs of Austria’s big full-service agencies to get a general overview. In the second step, we focused on specialists representing specific digital communication approaches in leading functions in agencies and the for-profit and non-profit sectors.

Data collection and analysis

We conducted all interviews in the first half of 2022. Due to the ongoing national COVID-19 safety measures, we interviewed professionals either online (via Zoom or Microsoft Teams) or in person, depending on their preference. After receiving consent for study participation, the audio of the conversation was recorded and transcribed.

We used a problem-centered interview questionnaire (Witzel, 2000). This assured a structured conversation about how the respondents have perceived and coped with the challenges of digitalization over time. To check the suitability of our questionnaire, we conducted a pre-test with experienced professionals. After minor modifications to the questionnaire, the interviews were structured along the following topics: To get the conversation going, we first invited the respondents to reflect on the impact of digitalization on their professional field and career over the last two decades (or later, depending on career entry point). Second, we addressed major phases of digitalization, such as the introduction of social media, new forms of digitally enhanced organization and work, and the rise of data and automation in SC. Based on this overview, third, we examined ethical concerns, such as digital privacy, transparency and surveillance issues. In addition, we asked participants in the second interview wave to illustrate their specific approach based on a recent digital communication project or campaign. The interviews ended by asking the participants about their outlook on upcoming digital trends in SC.

We evaluated the interview data with qualitative text analysis (Kuckartz, 2014) using the MAXQDA software (2022 Version). We applied thematic structuring text analysis to condense the material in the first step. To do so, we created paraphrases of all relevant passages and, for orientation purposes, first performed deductive coding of the data based on categories derived from the questionnaire structure. All further thematic categories were defined inductively. In the second step, these inductive thematic categories were aggregated by applying typology-building text analysis. This allowed for systematizing recurrent challenges and strategic responses along the VUCA dimensions. Given the manageable amount of data, both deductive and inductive coding were performed consensually, that is all codes were checked, debated and approved by all three coders involved. In the last validation step, the team of authors collaboratively double-checked whether our typology reflected the central themes and arguments of our interviews.

Findings

Our findings are structured along the four VUCA dimensions. Each dimension is specified in terms of a recurrent digitalization challenge, which the respondents have experienced at the industry and everyday practice levels. While the identification of these challenges is consistent in our data, strategic responses to the challenges are not. This mirrors in two ways: either the respondents self-reflectively reported experiencing tensions and incommensurability when addressing strategic responses to a specific challenge, or the respondents promoted divergent strategic lines of argumentation that proved contradictory from an analytic perspective. Following the VUCA dimensions, in the following subsections, we elaborate on each digitalization challenge and the contradictory strategic responses at the industry and everyday practice levels, and we illustrate them with original quotes from our data.

Volatility through digital acceleration triggering adoption-purpose contradictions

In our interviews, volatility manifests in perceptions of the increasing digital acceleration of industry and everyday workflows in the wake of digitalization. In accordance with the definition of volatility in the VUCA literature, the respondents do not consider the increasing acceleration induced by digitalization as something unknown or unexpected. The majority of respondents have already witnessed a “light speed” transformation over the last two decades. They also agree that “acceleration will further increase in the future”. Yet, what presents a strategic obstacle is correctly assessing the impact of each digital transformation surge on industry and practice and adopting it without jeopardizing an established understanding of purpose in SC. Such adoption-purpose contradictions are addressed at the industry and everyday practice levels alike.

At the industry level, the respondents address this challenge in terms of experiencing a steady digital acceleration of trend cycles. This perception shapes both the retrospection of industry transformation over the past 20 years and the prospect of the industry’s near future. The respondents consider adoption of accelerating trend cycles a strategic must in the communication industry. Yet, only a minority of respondents follow a line of argumentation that wholeheartedly embraces new digital trends and emphasizes the strategic advantages of being an early adopter. The majority perceives the current trend adoption by the industry critically. They problematize trend adoption as often remaining at the level of “buzzwords […] which are suitable to hide behind” when “surfing a [trend] wave”. Based on past experiences, there are concerns that upcoming trends “will absorb many resources […], and early adopters will definitely waste a lot of money”. Reflections on industry’s adoption of accelerating digital trends, hence, unveil a contradictory picture. On the one hand, there is broad agreement that adoption presents a strategic necessity for survival. On the other hand, its current application is perceived critically and as frustrating by the majority of fourteen respondents, as it lacks substance and accuracy. In line with this critique, these critical respondents suggest that strategic engagement with digital trends requires a much more rigorous assessment of the concrete relevance for established communication goals and purposes, which are pushed out of sight and devaluated in the wake of precipitous trend adoption.

The respondents also address volatility in terms of digital acceleration in reflections on SC everyday practice. They scrutinize digitalization as having accelerated client and corporate demands to provide ever-faster, “time-crunching” analyses and planning cycles as well as “real-time” responses and proof of success in SC. While a minority of four respondents explicitly see an advantage in the increased responsivity and flexibility of SC and partly ridicule the inefficiency and sluggishness of communication work in predigital times, the majority shares a more critical perception. Despite digitally enhanced flexibility and measurability, these critical respondents fear that the acceleration of work cycles may lead to a decline in rigor and quality. The adoption of accelerated digital work cycles is deemed to spur an exaggerated “focus on short-term success, while long-term reputation and related goals, which communication consultants have been hired for in the past, are increasingly neglected”. This also impacts professional reputation. Although these critical respondents admit that SC has always been a stressful profession, they argue that today it seriously struggles with a reputation as a job that leads to personal overload and burnout. In order not to jeopardize individual sense and purpose in the wake of a digitally induced always-on and immediate-response mentality in SC practice, these respondents identify two crucial future skills: first, skills to assess, which communication issues are “substantial”, time-critical and require immediate response, and which rather present “jazzed-up and quickly fading hypes”; second, skills to cultivate self-care and the “responsibility of superiors” to recognize when breaks and getting offline are physically and mentally demanded.

In sum, volatility in terms of persistent digital acceleration is experienced as triggering challenging adoption-purpose contradictions at the industry and practice levels in SC. Although the adoption of ever-faster digital trends and work cycles is considered inevitable, there are concerns that established understandings of professional purpose are threatened.

Uncertainty through digital datafication triggering utility-accountability contradictions

Uncertainty, the second challenge of VUCA, predominantly manifests in perceptions of the digital datafication of SC. Compared to the definition in the VUCA literature, uncertainty, in the case of digitalization, is less triggered by finding sufficient information on a concrete situation at stake. Rather, it concerns abundance of information due to an explosion of available data and corresponding opportunities for calculation and automation. This leads to the challenge of how to make meaningful use of data, which manifests in two contradictory lines of argumentation. While one line emphasizes the extended utility and convenience that datafication and automation have brought to industry and everyday practice, the other line scrutinizes the loss of professional accountability that goes along with it.

At the industry level, utility-accountability contradictions manifest in uncertainty about how to assess the new opportunities of data-driven public analysis and targeting. About half of the respondents, mostly those working in the for-profit sector and hence in closer cooperation with marketing, present an affirmative standpoint focused on utility. Typically, they justify this standpoint by emphasizing the “convenience” that can be provided to the individual user. Thanks to data-driven analysis and targeting, the user today not only receives, but—“as described in the Clutetrain Manifesto […] also defines”—what sort of content is personally valuable. Of course, data-driven analysis and targeting are also considered an advantage for the communication industry, as they facilitate “keyword-based real-time analysis” of public opinion formation as well as personal targeting. This allows one to “circumvent the gatekeeping function […] of journalists and legacy media and to get one’s message across […] without the necessity of taking into consideration the opinion of any journalist”. In line with this perspective, current regulatory interventions, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), are considered an obstacle to effective user-centered communication: “personalization could go much further, yet, if the EU turns everything off, we will backslide to the stone age again”.

However, even the respondents promoting the utility argument are aware of the problematic sides of data-based analysis and targeting, which are at the center of the line of argumentation stressed by the other half of more critical respondents stressing the accountability argument. These respondents scrutinize the ongoing fragmentation of the public sphere. It is argued that data-based “targeting ultimately, of course, manipulates opinion formation […] as folks get stuck in their bubble”. It is considered increasingly difficult for users to distinguish between trustworthy and fake content. This development is perceived as a threat to the communication industry as well. Particularly in times of polycrisis, the communication industry is considered dependent on a media system that provides evidence-based information and serves as a watchdog. Conversely, “if public legacy media perish, and many of them will, […] we will realize that they also no longer need communication professionals and hence cut communication budgets”. Accordingly, it is argued that the communication industry, too, must have a genuine interest in supporting the development of upcoming “digital public service channels” also according to the own “professional, ethical parameters and codices”. Along these lines, respondents stressing the accountability argument emphasize stronger industry transparency about the intentions of using datafication in SC: “This is not only about access to data, but about how we use these data and how we inform people regarding the use of their data and the intention of our communication. This is the central discussion, and it goes beyond a digitalization discussion, but it is a fundamental societal discussion”.

On the level of everyday practice, the utility-accountability contradiction manifests in reflections on the implementation of data-based technology in current and future SC. In this regard, automated content and AI are of core interest. About half of the respondents promote a utility-focused “man and machine” mindset, emphasizing how artificial agents can disburden and enhance human communication skills. These agents are considered a great relief, as users can consult a “chatbot at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday”. Furthermore, AI provides analytic insight and creative inspiration that supports the development of communication campaigns: “Man consults machine and machine inspires man. I am very positive about that”.

However, the other half of the respondents shares a rather critical view. The automation of personalized content is, first and foremost, regarded as an advantage for marketing communication. SC, in turn, is considered accountable for issues, stakeholders and events that are much more delicate and crisis-prone and hence necessarily require human “empathy and experience”. This is illustrated with failed automated content experiments with critical stakeholders: “We tried it [a chatbot] with journalists, which was pretty lousy”. With varying degrees of emphasis, six of our respondents also declare their personal aversion to artificially generated content: “I do not feel addressed by such forms of data-driven, performance-driven [automated] campaigns. I can feel, even if I had no expert competence in this field, that they tell me pretty much the same thing that they tell my neighbor: Buy, you swine. There is too much stock”. These critics are convinced that professional SC rests on a set of “fundamental principles: […] creativity, empathy, conversation skills, [and] strategic thinking […] which will be maintained independent of technology”. However, while proponents argue that future SC practice will be able to maintain these principles and augment them by means of data-driven analysis and automation, critics warn that these principles need to be vindicated against increasingly pervasive data-driven, automated content.

Taken together, uncertainty from ongoing digital datafication manifests in utility-accountability contradictions at the industry and everyday practice levels. While one-half of the respondents emphasize the advantages of increased convenience and performance both today and in the future, the other half sees a necessity to vindicate public service media infrastructure and professional principles to assure accountable SC conduct in the future.

Complexity through digital fragmentation triggering integration-decentralization contradictions

Complexity manifests in perceptions of increasing digital fragmentation. In line with the definition in the VUCA literature, digital fragmentation is considered complex due to the multiplication of logically and temporally interwoven elements. This is represented by a fragmentation of market players at the industry level and a fragmentation of communication tasks and skills at the everyday practice level. This triggers integration-decentralization contradictions. While one line of argumentation in our interviews considers market consolidation and structural integration to be the most viable responses, another line of argumentation promotes a decentralized approach in terms of flexible work in ecosystems and networks.

At the industry level, digital fragmentation manifests in the increasing diversification of market players. While traditional agencies used to focus on media relations, “digitalization has triggered a massive increase of agencies, all sorts of digital agencies, content marketing agencies, digital whatever agencies—all of a sudden, the market exploded”. Diversification has caused oversupply and, consequently, price dumping and the cannibalization of players. This development is not restricted to the agency level, as the respondents also report growing in-house competition between different communication experts and a general tendency of “shrinking communication departments, also with regard to staff”. By the majority of respondents, this shrinking dynamic is interpreted as an indicator of a swing towards market consolidation and integration. These respondents speculate that only those agency and corporate communication players with a broad set of well-orchestrated in-house skills and know-how will survive. In this process, the recruitment of experts from other disciplines, such as marketing, project management and big data analytics, is perceived as crucial for future corporate success. Yet, also at the agency level, buy-in and mergers are considered necessary to provide the full palette of digital services. Consolidation and reintegration are perceived as a chance for SC to present itself “in the future as a confident, creative, strategic discipline pursuing an integrated approach. There may be all sorts of channels, but we need to envision them holistically”. In contrast to this more prominent integration argument, a stable minority of eight respondents rather promotes a decentralization argument when reflecting on the future of the communication industry. In their view, specialized players will maintain by means of flexible cooperation and “joint forces” […]: “I believe that in the next years, working in ecosystems will get much stronger, which, ultimately, will make organizational boundaries much more fluid.”

Integration-decentralization contradictions find further elaboration in reflections on how to respond to the growing complexity and fragmentation of tasks and skills at the intra-organizational and -agency levels of everyday practice. The respondents identify newsroom approaches as the most prominent current solution to this challenge, “which, I believe, 20 to 25% of the larger corporations already work with”, and which also find application on the agency side. There are, however, mixed feelings about this shift towards integration via newsroom structures. A rather small minority of four respondents euphorically embrace the corporate newsrooms concept and emphasize their potential to “break up silo thinking, create transparency, and build up know-how”. Newsrooms are regarded as a contemporary version of integrated communication in times of digitalization: “The way we work is much closer to media companies now. […] We think like a publisher who reflects on when to publish which information addressing which target group on what concrete channel”.

However, most respondents hold a more ambivalent position and there were three respondents that even explicitly challenged this current revival of integrated thinking in strategic communication. To them, the general direction of this revival is clear: increasing KPI (key performance indicator) orientation, optimization and streamlining of internal resources, which oftentimes imply cutting communication costs and personnel. Besides resource rigidity, these more critical respondents also scrutinize the under-complexity of integrated communication structures in digital environments: “You have to understand where your boundaries are, and if you understand that, you also know whom you have to get on board in order to transcend these boundaries. […] Digitalization is one of the central drivers of why you need cooperation, as it is the very reason why complexity has increased. […] To meet communication goals […], hiring a service provider on the operative level is not sufficient. It is all about cocreation because you actually do not even know which opportunities you have”. Hence, in correspondence with the ecosystem approach mentioned above, in this line of argumentation, decentralization by means of flexible cooperation and cocreation instead of reintegration is presented as the future way to deal with complex, fragmented digital communication environments.

To sum up, in our interviews, the core driver of increased complexity is identified in the ongoing fragmentation of the communication industry, tasks and skills. This triggers strategic integration-decentralization contradictions between attempts at structural streamlining on the one hand and networked cooperation on the other.

Ambiguity through digital disruption triggering efficiency-experimentation contradictions

Perceptions of ambiguity, as the last VUCA challenge, manifest in terms of the digital disruption of established communication environments and work routines in our interviews. In line with the VUCA definition of ambiguity, the respondents experience digital disruption as a state wherein established industry and everyday know-how no longer apply, which calls for fundamentally new solutions. The quest for these solutions, again, leads to specific efficiency-experimentation contradictions that become apparent at the industry and everyday practice levels.

At the industry level, it is the disruption of established media logics that leads to an increased perception of ambiguity. Established media structures, key players, cooperation networks as well as news values and cycles are considered to no longer apply. The digital attention economy follows its very own laws, which “no longer feature established topics. The focus is on clicks”. The question of how to respond to media disruption provokes contradictions. A minority of respondents vindicate a pronounced focus on finding efficient alternatives and promote the PESO (paid, earned, shared, owned media) approach. This approach allows for a holistic mapping of the digitally disrupted media landscape for strategic purposes: “We have to approach every client challenge from a PESO perspective. We have to leave behind the idea that earned media equal media relations and move on towards owned, shared, and paid media in a way that significantly differs from how we handled media cooperation in the past”. However, the majority of respondents is critical about a mere emphasis on efficiency when dealing with disruption. These respondents argue that every upcoming digital media platform, channel and service calls for an “experimental mindset”. It needs “trial and error” to explore specific user needs and content requirements to identify the appropriate strategic approach. This implies “the courage to make mistakes […], to prototype, and if it fails, to abandon it”.

This divergent emphasis on either efficiency or experimentation also becomes apparent in reflections on how to respond to the disruption of everyday work routines. In this context, the respondents identify a pervasive trend towards agile approaches in SC, both on the agency and the corporate side. Agility is consistently identified as a core buzzword of the last years, yet its merits are debated. Again, the minority of respondents perceive agile working techniques predominantly as the most efficient way to respond to ambiguous communication problems because they enforce output orientation: “In our 24-h hack, we come together under the mission to invent something entirely new”. Agency leaders see rising industry expectations to work this way “as many clients, large international corporations in particular, are devoted to agile work and agile processes, and hence also expect agencies to do so”. Efficient output orientation is further supported by the fact that the mission of agile is plainly clear: “The user is always right, hence the first person a user contacts is required to decide immediately how to further improve a product within the agile team”.

Yet, there is also a more nuanced reading of agility shared by the majority of respondents in our interviews. This reading distinguishes between an agile mindset and agile management. The former—“agile mindset”—is perceived as something that communication professionals have always promoted in terms of fostering “collaboration, dialogue, empathy, being on a par with the other”. The latter—“agile management”—in turn—is perceived as “coming from IT programming, as we all know, as very formalistic and very hierarchical and very process-driven […] which I see no need for in our work”. Following this distinction, these respondents embrace agility if it presents an experimental, cocreational approach when dealing with unknown digital communication problems. However, they express reservations regarding the implementation of efficiency-focused agile methods, which they consider creativity killers rather than facilitators.

In sum, ambiguity in terms of ongoing digital disruption of the media environment and work routines triggers specific efficiency-experimentation contradictions in SC, as some strive for clear guidance on how to find efficient solutions, while others consider trial and error the necessary way to go.

Discussion and recommendations: introducing the VUCA radar

So far, our conceptual and empirical elaborations have substantially contributed to a deeper descriptive understanding of how VUCA can help analyze and systematize recurrent digitalization challenges in SC. Drawing on the general strategy literature, we could show that each VUCA dimension presents a specific challenge that corresponds with different tasks of SC. Based on our interview study, we could elaborate on how these challenges manifest in professionals’ experiences dealing with the digitalization of industry and everyday practice over the last 20 years. The outer layers of Figure 1—the VUCA radar—provide an overview of these findings. Starting from V for volatility, moving clockwise, our radar facilitates orientation, as it explains how each digitalization challenge manifests at the industry level (outer level) and the everyday practice level (middle level): Volatility manifests in terms of the digital acceleration of industry trends and work cycles. Uncertainty manifests in terms of digital datafication and its impact on targeting and automated content. Complexity manifests in the digital fragmentation of market players, tasks and skills. Ambiguity, lastly, manifests as a disruption of established media logics and work routines. Notably, these perceived digitalization challenges go beyond temporary snapshots but represent challenges perceived as recurrent and ongoing by the respondents. This is in line with media sociological literature identifying digital acceleration (Wajcman, 2014), datafication (Nassehi, 2023), fragmentation (Reckwitz, 2020) and disruption (Zuboff, 2019) as constitutive and persistent drivers of the digital transformation of our society.

The more fundamental prescriptive question of how to respond to these VUCA challenges of digitalization in SC—presented at the core of the radar—is yet to be answered. Regarding this question, our conceptual and empirical inquiry indicates contradictory results. In the general strategy literature, the two most established prescriptive VUCA approaches (Bennett and Lemoine, 2014a, b; Johansen, 2012) provide contradictory recommendations. These contradictions are also echoed in our empirical results: Volatility through digital acceleration triggers adoption-purpose contradictions; uncertainty through digital datafication triggers utility-accountability contradictions; complexity through digital fragmentation triggers integration-decentralization contradictions; and ambiguity through digital disruption triggers efficiency-experimentation contradictions. Neither the former nor the latter option reflected in these strategic contradictions seems to provide a convincing solution to the VUCA challenges of digitalization, as these challenges reoccur and persist over time. This calls for rethinking strategy in the case of VUCA challenges.

Embracing the paradoxical nature of VUCA challenges in strategic communication

First to do so, Ferrari et al. (2016) proposed paradox thinking to deal with contradictory strategic responses to VUCA challenges, yet they did not elaborate further on this idea. The paradox literature has also recently identified VUCA as a promising future field of study (Lewis and Smith, 2022). In the remainder of this discussion, we build on these suggestions and reformulate them in terms of recommendations for sustainable engagement with VUCA challenges in SC under digitalization conditions.

Comparable to VUCA scholarship, paradox scholarship starts from the observation that contemporary environments increasingly confront strategic entities with challenges that can no longer be resolved following established approaches. While VUCA scholarship has its strength in describing how to make sense of contemporary strategic challenges, paradox scholarship places a stronger emphasis on how to engage with strategic challenges such as VUCA. The paradox literature (Smith and Lewis, 2011) considers neither “one best way” approaches—such as VUCA prime (Johansen, 2012)—nor contingency theoretical approaches, as proposed by Bennett and Lemoine (2014a, 2014b), to be strategically sustainable. Neither a daring future orientation nor ongoing contextual adaptation alone (either/or thinking) are considered equipped to navigate through constantly recurring and persistent challenges, as in the case of VUCA. The paradox literature empirically shows that such a one-sided strategic response has detrimental consequences as challenges reappear, leading to strategic inertia and cynicism over time (Smith and Lewis, 2011; Lewis and Smith, 2022).

Alternatively, the paradox literature proposes embracing strategic contradictions provoked by recurrent challenges, suspending strategic either/or thinking and privileging both/and thinking instead (Putnam et al., 2016). Based on a large body of literature, paradox scholarship identifies four main contradictions in the context of rapidly transforming organizational environments: the contradictions of belonging, the contradictions of learning; the contradictions of organizing and the contradictions of performing (Smith and Lewis, 2011). For each contradiction, the paradox literature suggests no longer considering contradictory strategic options as mutually exclusive but as codependent to find sustainable solutions to recurrent challenges. In the following section, we apply this form of strategic thinking to the core contradictions of VUCA identified in our empirical data. On this basis, we propose a paradox redefinition of the prescriptive dimensions of VUCA—vision, understanding, clarity and agility—as the most sustainable response to navigate through digitalization contradictions in SC.

How vision balancing adoption and purpose navigates through contradictions of belonging

Under conditions of constant change, such as VUCA, the paradox literature identifies the fundamental contradictions of belonging in terms of “conflicts between the need for adaptation and change and the desire to retain an ordered sense of self and purpose” (Smith and Lewis, 2011, p. 383). Adoption-purpose contradictions, as identified in our empirical data, represent such contradictions of belonging: Volatility from digitally accelerated trends and workflows makes adoption inevitable. Yet, this often goes at the expense of what has been sense-giving to the SC industry and practice—a focus on substantial, long-term communication goals as the professional purpose. Transcending these contradictions means accepting and embracing adoption and purpose as being codependent. Accordingly, a vision for navigating through digital volatility calls for balancing adoption and purpose. Applied both/and thinking works in circular ways. From a long-term perspective, it needs to consider both: how an established understanding of professional purpose serves as a baseline to assess the substance of accelerated digital trends and work cycles and, conversely: how upcoming trends and work cycles may impact and call for a revision of established understandings of purpose.

How understanding balancing utility and accountability navigates through contradictions of learning

Under conditions of steady technological innovation, the paradox literature identifies an increase in the contradictions of learning in terms of “tensions between building upon and destroying the past to create the future” (Smith and Lewis, 2011, p. 383). Utility-accountability contradictions triggered by uncertainty about how to deal with new opportunities for data-driven analysis, targeting and automation represent this contradiction in our data. On the one hand, the SC industry and practice benefit from new utilities of targeting and automation; on the other hand, these utilities are perceived as destroying established understandings of accountable conduct at the public and relationship levels. Following paradox thinking, a strategic approach that balances utility and accountability is needed. Analytical understanding navigating through digital uncertainty, hence, also needs to apply both/and thinking in a circular manner: on the one hand, in terms of datafied practices guided by established accountability principles; on the other hand, in terms of adapted accountability principles for radically new SC practices such as digital surveillance and human-machine interaction, to which established principles no longer apply.

How clarity balancing integration and decentralization navigates through contradictions of organizing

Contradictions of organizing, in turn, are discussed in the case of the coexistence of “organizational capabilities [that] seek stability and clarity, focus, and efficiency while also enabling dynamic, flexible, and agile outcomes” (Smith and Lewis, 2011, p. 383). This contradiction between stability and flexibility manifests in integration-decentralization contradictions triggered by the complexity of digital fragmentation in our data. While some promote industry consolidation and integrated communication, others propose thinking in ecosystems and flexible cooperation between specialists. Organizational clarity navigating though digital complexity, from a paradox perspective, hence calls for responses balancing both stability and flexibility at the practice and industry levels: both/and thinking, in this case, calls for both a revival of established integrated communication thinking, yet with openness to transcend organizational boundaries for flexible cooperation and new ways of thinking about industry consolidation by applying ecosystem and co-creative network approaches.

How agility balancing efficiency and experimentation navigates through contradictions of performing

Contradictions of performing, lastly, emerge when organizations strive for “building capabilities for the future, while ensuring success in the present” (Smith and Lewis, 2011, p. 383). In our interviews, such contradictions are mirrored in efficiency-experimentation contradictions on how to handle uncertainty triggered by digital disruption of the media logics and work routines. While some see an advantage in the application of efficient, ready-made solutions, such as the PESO model or agile methods, others emphasize the necessity of an unregulated, experimental mindset to find successful ways to deal with unknown media and communication challenges. Following the paradox literature, agile processes navigating through digital ambiguity again need to find ways to balance both efficiency and experimentation. Although the agile SC literature (Dühring and Zerfass, 2021) is aware of the necessity of such a balance of agile mindset and methods, the respondents in our interviews share different, partly incommensurable experiences. This calls for establishing a shared understanding of agility in SC industry and practice that makes clear which concrete work tasks allow for experimentation and which strive for efficiency. Both efficiency and experimentation—despite their seeming contradiction—are necessarily dependent on each other to navigate through the recurrent ambiguity challenges of digitalization.

Limitations and outlook on future research

Our study comes with certain limitations. First, we are aware that Austria, as the country of investigation, has sociocultural specificities, being a small, highly centralized, wealthy nation with a future-skeptical attitude, which may have biased our data. A similar case study in another national and cultural context may have produced different results. Yet, as the digitalization challenges empirically identified are also reflected in the more general media sociological literature, we consider our study a useful first explorative step in the right direction. Second, although we followed the principle of high diversification in our purposive sampling, our qualitative interviews, of course, stand for typicality and not representativity. Accordingly, we encourage future research to translate our explorative findings into a questionnaire testing the acceptance of contradictory responses to recurrent digitalization challenges in a larger, and internationally comparative sample. Lastly, our interview questionnaire, aimed at a broad retrospection of the digitalization challenges of the last 20 years, clearly privileged thematic breadth over depth. According to our research goal of mapping the most pressing digitalization challenges for the first time, we consider this approach justified. However, we encourage future research to explore in more detail each digital VUCA challenge and strategic contradiction mapped out in this paper, which may be of use not only for SC but also for neighboring research fields such as leadership, management and employee communication. Lastly, we see a lot of potential for future conceptual inquiry in further synthesis of VUCA and paradox thinking, which we could only hint at in the recommendations of this contribution.

Figures

Figure 1

The VUCA radar