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The latest advances in digital technologies have changed the way companies communicate with their stakeholders. This chapter explores the businesses’ usage of digital communication channels. It focuses on their utilization of social media for marketing and promotion of products, corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and stakeholder engagement with financial stakeholders. An exploratory study was carried out on a sample of 167 Italian businesses. It investigated the companies’ websites and their social media accounts. The findings suggest that the Italian businesses are using various social media networks for corporate communication purposes. This descriptive research shows that they are utilizing Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, among others, to communicate commercial information and to promote their business. Moreover, they are using Instagram and Twitter to raise awareness about their CSR initiatives. In conclusion, this chapter implies that marketers need to carefully coordinate the use of different digital tools to ensure that they reach their target audiences in an effective manner.

Institutions and organizations are increasingly using the digital media to communicate with stakeholders on a day-to-day basis and during crisis situations. Therefore, this chapter presents a bibliographic analysis on digital corporate communication technologies. The grounded theory’s inductive approach was used to capture and interpret the findings from Scopus-indexed publications. The articles were scrutinized in their entirety, including their research questions, methodologies and interpretation of the findings. Afterwards, this contribution identifies the opportunities and challenges that emerged during an unprecedented coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. In conclusion, it implies that there is scope for institutions and organizations to incorporate digital and social media in their crises’ communications and risk management plans. This will enable them to be in a better position to engage in credible and transparent dialogic communications with different stakeholders.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are seldom the focus of corporate communication research. However, they are the heart of the European economy and, as such, of utmost importance for communication science and practice. This chapter contributes to the body of knowledge by investigating how corporate communication is practised and by understanding how communication prevails in small and medium firms in Germany. The chapter starts with a clarification of current definitions of such organisations, which are very heterogeneous. Special features of SMEs – like the strong position of founder and their proximity to the company – have to be taken into account when analysing communication structures and activities. Empirical insights based on a survey of 572 respondents show that most SMEs understand corporate communication as dialogue and their governance structure for communication is oriented towards the top management. The most important communication instruments used by SMEs are websites, media relations, personal communication and events/trade fairs. Findings are presented and linked to an overarching perspective of strategic communication.

This chapter expands traditional approaches to Corporate Reputation Management by employing postmodernist approaches to value co-creation in order to identify how Facebook Features can be used to facilitate company–consumer Corporate Reputation co-creation.

Using content analysis of Facebook Fan Pages, the chapter explores how 29 of the world’s most reputable corporations use Facebook Features.

To a surprising degree, the corporations in the sample, despite having virtually limitless access to marketing communications resources, fail to make full use of the opportunities Facebook offers them. It appears that they have not yet fully adapted to this novel medium.

Facebook together with the locus has also shifted the focus of corporate communications from one-way company-controlled transmission of information to multiparty user-controlled conversations. Thus, Corporate Reputations can no longer be managed. Instead, by offering consumers experiences and emotional triggers, corporations can engage them into willingly marketing the corporation and its products to each other.

This is the first systematic analysis of the practices the world’s most prominent corporations utilize (or fail to employ) on Facebook. It illustrates that companies that adapt to the Social Media ecology can successfully orchestrate customer experiences that foster the co-creation of the desired Corporate Reputation.

In recent years, the online environment and the Internet, as a communication platform, have acquired an important role regarding the companies’ activity of communicating their social responsibility. The purpose of this study resides in drawing a typological classification based on analysing the manner in which the world’s greatest companies conduct their communication activities as depicted by their CSR reports published online.

A content analysis method was used in order to classify the common CSR activities driven by large global companies depending on their unique approaches in terms of communication.

About 100 organisations extracted from Forbes Global 2000 Leading Companies (as of 2012) were subjected to the current study. Consequently, their latest CSR reports published on the Internet were analysed according to a series of five variables. The most complex one relied on what type of CSR information have the companies focused on within their reporting activities. Thus occurs the dichotomy between structuring their communication endeavours as filtering them relative to the stakeholders’ needs, or trying to emphasise the different categories of initiatives. The resulted classification is founded mainly on the reality observed in a company’s CSR communication activities.

The chapter argues that the classification is not limited to the proposed framework, but it may vary depending on a corporation’s changes in communication or its interest in supporting new CSR tendencies so that they can be enriched. Although CSR activity is represented under various patterns by the investigated companies, all the subsequent reports can be considered as being an integral part of the system.

Even though not all the highlighted strategic directions have an integrated profile in order to be included in the general CSR reporting, they can be taken into account in the near future.

This new approach on classifying the different communication endeavours paves the way for an overall image on the manner in which companies of all types may align their social responsibility activities with the increasing stakeholders’ demands, given the digital media specifics.

This chapter offers new insights into the understanding of internal (employee) perceptions of organizational corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and strategies.

This study explores the significance of employees’ involvement and scepticism upon CSR initiatives and focuses on the effects it may have upon word of mouth (WOM) and the development of employee–organisation relationships. Desk research introduces the research questions. Data for the research questions were gathered through a self-completion questionnaire distributed in a hardcopy form to the sample.

An individual’s level of scepticism and involvement appears to affect the development of a positive effect on employees’ WOM. Involvement with the domain of the investment may be a central factor affecting relationship building within the organization, and upon generation of positive WOM.

The chapter offers a conceptual framework to public relations (PR) and corporate communications practitioners, which may enrich their views and understanding of the use and value of CSR for communication strategies and practices.

For-profit organisations are major institutions in today’s society. CSR is proffered as presenting advantages for (at macro level) society and (micro level) the organization and its employees.

Concepts, such as involvement and scepticism, which have not been rigorously examined in PR and corporate communication literature, are addressed. By examining employee perceptions, managers and academic researchers gain insights into the acceptance, appreciation and effectiveness of CSR policies and activities upon the employee stakeholder group. This will affect current and future CSR communication strategies. The knowledge acquired from this chapter may be transferable outside the for-profit sector.