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The purpose of this paper is to assess the leadership skills and competencies defined in the Pathways to the Profession and understand the value senior corporate communications managers place on those skills and competencies and how senior-level corporate communicators demonstration of those skills and competencies.

Institutional review board approval was obtained for a qualitative research design based on focus groups conducted in four Canadian cities with 25 senior corporate communicators, human resources professionals, and general business managers.

This research has validated the competencies and credentials for senior-level corporate communications and public relations executives as highlighted in the Pathways to the Profession framework. It has also provided the profession with an understanding of the value senior public relations and organizational managers place on professional association membership and professional and academic credentials. This research is an important contribution to the growing body of knowledge on competency frameworks as professional associations, such as the Canadian Public Relations Society, take leadership positions in providing educational institutions with sets of standards for public relations and corporate communications education in Canada.

This research will help the public relations and corporate communications profession provide guidance to educational institutions programming for senior-level public relations and communications management education based on quantifiable data on the value executives place on a particular set of skills and competencies.

This is the first study of its kind that examines the perceived competencies and skills of Canadian senior public relations/communications management leadership. Further this research sought to assess the value of academic and professional credentials necessary for participation in executive leadership roles.

To examine the role of perceived team climate in facilitating leadership and sociotechnical optimization to affect quality related outcomes in a municipal government.

A survey was administered to employees working in a municipal government, measuring leadership, perceived team climate, technical subsystem components, and team performance. Hypotheses were tested with multiple regression, and the fit of a path model implied by all hypotheses was tested with structural equation modeling.

Institution‐level communications and department‐level leadership had the greatest effects in shaping perceptions of team climate. Perceived team climate predicted process improvement, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction. Perceived team climate also substantially mediated relationships between leadership support for teamwork and technical components with these outcomes.

Data were collected at one point in time from a single source, workers in a US municipal government. Some measures were new. A longitudinal design would strengthen causal inferences regarding the origins and effects of team climates.

Soft controls such as norms influence the effectiveness of teams in process improvement. Mid‐level managers have the greatest impact among leaders in creating a team climate. Open communication makes a difference to virtually every aspect of performance.

This paper demonstrates the importance of shaping perceptions of a team climate to facilitate process and quality improvement. It emphasizes the importance of open communications and clarifies changing roles of leadership in modern organizations. Finally, it provides rare documentation of quality management in government.

This study, informed by the Situational Crisis Communication Theory, aims to suggest two primary response strategies that can be used for effective internal crisis communication during a pandemic situation, such as COVID-19. The effect of base response strategies on employees' perceptions of communication quality, leadership and relational outcomes were investigated.

An online survey of full-time employees in the United States was conducted.

The findings showed that for an instructing information strategy, not all types of information were equally associated with positive employee responses in terms of perceived quality of internal communication related to the COVID-19 pandemic and transformational leadership. Specific information that employees need to know in order to safely perform daily tasks, such as organizational protocols and thorough preparation, seem to be the most needed and desired information. Adjusting information was positively associated with employee perceptions of internal communication quality and perceptions of CEO leadership. Employees' perceived quality of internal communication affected by the base crisis response strategies were positively correlated with perceptions of transformational leadership and relational outcomes (i.e. employee trust in the organization, employee perceptions of the organization's commitment to relationships with employees, employee support for organizational decision-making related to COVID-19).

This study presents important theoretical and practical insights through an interdisciplinary approach that applies the theoretical framework and relationship-oriented outcomes of public relations to public health crisis situations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate and nonprofit leaders partner on public relations for corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.

Through semi-structured interviews across the USA, and stretching into Europe and South America, leaders (n=24) from US-based corporations top-ranked for corporate citizenship, and the nonprofit organizations with which they have developed CSR programs, shared insights and best practices.

Corporate and nonprofit leaders who collaborate on CSR programs spoke independently about several essential shared values, including community-focused collaboration, fiscal responsibility, and strategic alignment. How they described their CSR partnerships reflects a mutual commitment to a distributed leadership model, which involves the need to span organizational boundaries, share unique expertise across levels and roles, and sustain long-term relationships. Consistent with prior research, this study also suggests that communication leaders in both corporations and nonprofit organizations leverage transactional (process-focused) and transformational (people-focused) leadership styles, as they work to build and foster these long-term partnerships.

The findings pinpoint how principles of the distributed leadership model come to life across CSR partnerships and contribute to the success of such partnerships. Corporations and their nonprofit partners must mutually focus on spanning, sharing, and sustaining as they build programs together. These shared principles exemplify a distributed leadership model and help define what CSR partnership truly means.

This study looks at CSR programs beyond just the perspective of the corporation and the public, taking into account the critical role the nonprofit organization plays as a partner in some CSR programming, and within a distributed leadership model.

Purpose – Libraries have been experiencing relentless change and uncertainty in their environment. The literature on corporate communications, strategic management and planning, marketing and public relations more recently, has been recommending using communications as a strategy to coherently and proactively handle and foresee change. Planning and using an overall communications strategy will bring integrity and adherence to the library's goals and direction while reducing the discomfort of change. This selected bibliography is a quick starting point for understanding the significance of an overall communication strategy and its use for managing conflicts and changes in the library's environment strategically. Design/methodology/approach – This article covers books and articles from mid‐1980s to 2004, published around the world. The sources are listed alphabetically by author and then chronologically for different sources by the same author, providing brief but useful information about the content covered for each source. Findings – This bibliography illustrates a variety of research from corporate communications, strategic planning, communications management, marketing and public relations literature that emphasize the role of communication in strategic management. Research limitations/implications – It records a comprehensive list of publications covering international perspectives as well as publications about communication strategy. Practical implications – This selected bibliography is primarily intended for librarians, library planners, managers or administrators, but is also relevant to corporate and business professionals, planners and administrators. Further, it would also be a useful resource for students, faculty and researchers of communication. Originality/value – This bibliography presents a much needed resource list for gathering insights into the strategic role of communication for organizations such as the library that are in a state of constant change.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a model examining how three influential organizational factors – authentic leadership, transparent organizational communication, and employee engagement – are linked to employee trust.

This study conducted an online survey on a random sample of 391 employees across different industry sectors in the USA.

Authentic leadership, transparent organizational communication, and employee engagement directly and significantly influenced the level of trust that employees have toward their organizations. Authentic leadership indirectly impacted employee engagement through transparent organizational communication. Authentic leadership also indirectly affected employee trust via the presence of transparent organizational communication and employee engagement.

The study informs communication managers and organizational leaders with the importance of integrating authentic leadership and transparent communication skills, strategies, and tactics in various training and mentoring workshops. Creating a motivating, nurturing, and transparent organizational environment contributes to employee engagement and trust.

This study examines the drivers of employee trust by testing the effects of employee engagement, authentic leadership, and transparent organizational communication.

Socioeconomic stress has been a major influence on organizational development during the past decade, and will continue for the foreseeable future. This treatise aims to focus on The Key and its importance for effective organizational development via leadership responses to communication challenges during the present era. It is a conceptual paper based on an actual case.

The Key is a concept that refers to the thoughts and feelings (based on attitudes) that a leader reflects in communications and interactions with his/her universe, a universe that exists both internally within an organization as well as externally to it. The case focuses on communication challenges encountered by Judith Campbell, executive vice president of Creative Innovations, Ltd, and her interaction with Jonathan Bryant, president of Bryant and Associates, Ltd, an organizational development firm. Communication challenges that had arisen primarily due to socioeconomic stress, were seven in number: tendency to rely on only logical thinking; negative responses to external influences; lack of expectations for positive results; tendency toward reliance on sensory input; actions that ignore an inclusive perspective; failure to value and trust in change; and lack of commitment to interactive relations.

Following Bryant's counsel, Campbell chose to address these communication challenges with a training seminar that focused on a paradigm of seven leadership responses related to The Key. These were: Paradoxical thinking; Controlled reflecting; Intentional focusing; Instinctive responding; Inclusive behaving; Purposeful trusting; and Relational being. The training program, as described herein, proved to be very enlightening to the participants and quite effective for the continued organizational development of the firm.

The paper reveals the results of a training program based on seven communication challenges the results of which can be used to aid in continued organizational development of a firm.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the perspectives of public relations professionals against those of the general public in Spain with respect to which communications activities and organizational attributes are relevant to the leadership images of organizations, and what are the characteristics of effective leaders.

This study combines data from the European Communication Monitor (ECM) with the results of a representative online survey carried out by the global market research company IPSOS.

Results show that the general public sees TV interviews as well as TV advertising as communication tools with the biggest potential to shape the leadership image of organizations. When it comes to the attributes of effective leaders, communication professionals overestimate the role of an organization’s vision, while the population much more stresses basic attributes like leading by example and admitting mistakes. PR practitioners underestimate customer service and environmental responsibility and tend to favor more abstract attributes like innovation and CSR.

This paper touches only four sections of the ECM 2014/2015. Participant fatigue may have negatively impacted the quality of the data. A large sample of professionals was approached, but a much small number initiated and completed the online survey. The size of the sample of communication professionals makes it difficult to generalize the results. In addition, future research should extend the study to different groups of stakeholders, such as employees, investors, and suppliers.

While organizations face intensive pressure from evaluation by their stakeholders, discrepancies between the expectations of the general public in regard to leadership negatively affects the communicator’s work to position organizations in society, as well as CEOs and top executives as leaders. On this regards, getting closer to what the population expects will help to understand and improve leadership perceptions.

Very little work has been done in Spain regarding to leadership in public relations or public relations professional’s perceptions about leadership. Most research published to date has focused on the leader’s position in the company, participation in management levels, types of responsibilities assumed and their relative influence and leadership style. Even fewer public relations studies have tried to identify the communication activities that are relevant to the leadership image of organizations and compare the perspectives of public relations professionals on leadership against those of the general public. This dearth of knowledge about stakeholder expectations negatively affects the communicator’s work to position organizations and executive leaders in society.

Studies that inquire in-depth into whether the Corporate Communications Officer (CCO) is an entrusted corporate executive and enacts a genuine leadership of his/her own style are generally neglected. The purpose of this paper is to unravel the leadership nature of the CCO beyond the managerial role. More specifically, the authors collected accounts of the span of the professional life and job experiences of CCOs, with the aim of understanding how their leadership, if any, can be depicted.

The authors developed a qualitative research design to grasp the complexity of the CCO job experience. The authors chose a narrative approach involving a purposive sample of CCOs operating in global companies based in Italy to elicit and nurture their spontaneous reconstruction of the significant moments of their working lives.

Based on the interpretive analysis, the capability of the CCO to overcome the trap of the formal appointment seems to rely on the organic emergence of a genuine leadership. The turning point between his/her resting on the appointment or becoming a genuine leader is marked by the display of his/her humanistic nature that can be ascribed to the enactment of a conversational leadership.

While this is an exploratory qualitative study, it holds heuristic value in deepening the specific nature of genuine CCO leadership beyond an essentially task-based analysis of its managerial profile.

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between transformational leadership (TL) and internal marketing which is underscored by the centrality of human resources in satisfying employee’s needs and how internal marketing, as a moderator and mediator, can facilitate the effects of transformational leadership on social capital and employee loyalty.

This study develops a model and a number of propositions based on preceding literature on transformational leadership and internal marketing on social capital and employee loyalty.

The model proposes that transformational leadership can play a vital role in codification of human resources variables such as internal marketing, which is founded upon the principle of paying greater attention to employees. Moreover, despite the research gap on the relationship between social capital and employee loyalty, it can be concluded that social capital can increase the level of employee loyalty to organization.

The proposed model has a number of academic and managerial contributions. This study contributes the knowledge by examining the relationship between transformational leadership and internal marketing. Managerially, this study helps managers to emphasize the centrality of human resources in satisfying employees and increase their loyalty toward the company. In addition, guarantees management effectiveness and organizational success in reaching their intended goals.

Despite the growing acknowledgment the importance of transformational leadership as a process in which leaders and followers upgrade each other’s level of ethic and motivation. However, there are few studies on the role and importance of transformational leadership on developing and reinforcing the internal marketing.