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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.

This study seeks to illustrate shared obstacles and opportunities that US nonprofit communicators face, broadening the understanding of nonprofit communication management beyond fundraising, donor relations, and social media practices.

A total of 35 nonprofit communicators from across the USA were interviewed. The participants represented a variety of nonprofit sizes that address a variety of issues.

The interviews revealed six common challenges that the participants face: politics, laws and regulations, media attention, evaluation, brand recognition, and employee engagement. The interviews also revealed four common opportunities that the participants face: job satisfaction, collaboration, communication value, and professional development.

The findings illustrate how nonprofit communicators in the USA address some shared experiences. In doing so, the findings lead to nine valuable areas for future research. Given that the findings are limited to the USA, future research is needed to examine nonprofit communicators’ shared experiences in other countries.

The study builds on recent research examining how the environment in which communication management is practiced affects communication practices, thereby contributing to theory development that predicts effective communication practices via sector. In addition, the study serves as a call to action for researchers to address pressing management issues identified by nonprofit communicators.

The study builds on recent research examining how the environment in which communication management is practiced affects communication practices. In addition, the study serves as a call to action for researchers to address pressing management issues identified by nonprofit communicators.

This research explores approaches to, impacts of and reflections on the Covid-19 pandemic for professional communicators in the English National Health Service. It was undertaken in order to understand and analyse their lived experience and make recommendations for improving future system-wide performance.

Given the work pressure and additional commitments that communication practitioners have when working in crisis, the researchers chose a single data collection method. Qualitative and quantitative data collection was undertaken using an extensive self-completion survey instrument.

Ten distinct themes covering four time phases: crisis preparedness, entering the crisis, pandemic peak and post “first-wave” are discussed. They examine crisis readiness, to shifts in priorities and communication approaches to system-wide leadership and integration and the re-positioning of communication as a central player in pandemics.

The research outlines a number of areas for improvement along with practical recommendations for actions in the health system in readiness for future pandemics.

This is the first time the lived experience of communicators working through a pandemic at all levels in a national health system has been researched in the public relations literature.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze changes in the descriptions and requirements of professional communicators in Swedish job advertisements between 1960 and 2010.

Through a quantitative content analysis, this study approaches organizational requirement information in order to better understand changes in the description of the ideal candidate and professionalization.

The results show that job titles have gradually become more specified and strategically orientated. Tactical qualifications dominated the first decades but operational and strategic skills were increasingly required in the material over the last two decades.

Even if job advertisements could expose the historical changes in expectations and demands on communicational professional practitioners, further studies could entail complementary material such as interviews with senior communications managers and headhunters.

In order to be legitimized as a field of profession, scholars, teachers and practitioners need to create ideals and ideologies that can justify and defend business and education. This paper stimulates practitioners to reflect critically on such issues.

The key contribution of this paper is to explicate how the image of communication practice and the demands on communication practitioners have changed during the last 50 years.

The aim of this chapter is to shed light on a growing phenomenon in communication practice: employees speaking voluntarily for, about or on behalf of their organization, hereafter labelled as corporate ambassadors. The goal of this qualitative study is to analyze the role of corporate ambassadors within an organization and explore the perceived benefits and risks from three perspectives: the communication department, other departments such as marketing or human resources, and corporate ambassadors themselves. The research is based on an interdisciplinary literature review and 25 qualitative in-depth interviews with employees in one large, internationally operating German organization. By combining the theoretical and empirical insights, a conceptual framework that depicts the benefits (e.g., joy, increased trust, positive impact on reputation) and risks (e.g., work stress, lack of integration, loss of quality) of integrating corporate ambassadors into the overall communication of the organization was developed. In addition, this chapter suggests two typologies that help to distinguish between different roles of communication professionals and of corporate ambassadors. The contribution of this study is to lay a groundwork for further discussions about corporate ambassadors in the field of corporate communications. The chapter outlines directions for future research and implications for practice on how the framework can be applied in organizations.

Quotes: “The archdeacon contemplated the gigantic cathedral for a time in silence, then he sighed and stretched out his right hand towards the printed book lying open on his table and his left hand towards Notre‐Dame, and he looked sadly from the book to the church: ‘Alas’, he said, ‘this will kill that’…This was the presentiment that as human ideas changed their form they would change their mode of expression…that the book of stone, so solid and durable, would give way to the book of paper, which was more solid and durable still” (Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris). Asks: Will this kill that? Will new digital media ‐ particularly Internet‐based ‐ forever change the way companies communicate? Points out that one billion people will be connected to the Internet by the year 2000, and argues that this will affect marketing and communications as we know them today; the question is: how? Debates the long‐term implications of this media evolution.

The purpose of this study is to refine and expand an emerging US government communication model, the government communication decision wheel, by testing the differences between the communication practices of US public sector communicators working for non‐elected officials versus those employed by elected officials.

Drawing from surveys of 781 US government communicators, the study compares the communication practices and influences of government communicators working for elected officials versus non‐elected officials.

The study identifies four significant differences and five similarities in how the public sector environment affects non‐elected and elected officials’ communicators’ public relations practices.

While the study and underlying model focus on US government communication, this study provides valuable theoretical insights. It supports the model's underlying premise that the public sector is unique from the private sector while also further refining the significant differences within the US government sector.

This study helps US government communicators identify unique environmental attributes that affect communication activities in the public sector. It helps identify how these attributes affect communication practices within individual and collaborative contexts. Finally, it helps non‐governmental communicators and communicators outside of the US to understand how the attributes may affect communication practices when they collaborate with government communicators from the four levels of US government as well as with those who work for elected and non‐elected officials.

Despite the critical importance of communication in the public sector, very little research focuses specifically on government communication outside of political communication. The findings provide valuable insights for practitioners and contribute to public relations theory development for the under‐researched public sector.