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Traditionally, the debate on communication value and the contribution of communication professionals to organisational decision-making has been linked to diverging roles (managers, technicians). This chapter introduces an alternative view, based on an exploratory, qualitative study of communication professionals in Finland. It focuses on the diverse ways in which these professionals contribute to organisational decision-making. The results show a rich, constantly developing picture of communication practices, which challenges the traditional dichotomy of manager and technician roles.

The article has two major purposes. The first purpose is to examine the roles and practices of communication professionals in relation to internal aspects of crisis communication. The second is to suggest new roles and practices for communication professionals that will enable a strategic approach to internal crisis communication. This article is based on empirical material from a larger three-year research project that focuses on internal crisis communication at a university hospital (UH) in Sweden.

This article is based on empirical material from a larger, three-year research project that focuses on internal crisis communication at a university hospital (UH). For the purpose of this article the authors have mainly analysed transcripts of 24 semi-structured interviews that lasted 1-1.5 hours each. The authors chose to interview both communication professionals and other key persons/crisis managers in order to have the role and practices of communication professionals elucidated not only from the perspective of communication professionals themselves.

A conclusion from the case study is that communication professionals have a rather limited role in internal crisis communication. Their role is primarily focused on information distribution through the intranet, even though they are also involved in strategic managerial work during the acute stage of the crisis. The communication professionals are first and foremost called for once the crisis has already occurred, which can be seen as a “communication on demand” approach, which limits a strategic orientation. In this paper some new roles and practices for communication professionals are suggested, which involve a strategic approach and cover all the stages of crisis.

Future research needs to go deeper into the practices and processes of these roles.

Important prerequisites for fulfilling a strategic role as a communication professional are membership of the board, diversified communication roles, a developed managerial role, being closer to core operations, and legitimacy.

The absence of a strategic crisis management thinking and discourse in organisations delimits communication professionals to a technical role rather than a managerial and strategic role. Taking internal crisis communication seriously and adopting a broader view of crises will raise new demands on communication professionals, which go beyond the operational and tactical roles in the acute phase of a crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how communication professionals enact an educational role aimed at improving organisational communication through communication training. Furthermore, this article analyses what this implementation means for the role of the communication professionals.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with seven communication professionals and ten managers in two organisations. The organisations were selected due to their involvement in developing and implementing communication training programmes. The interviews were then transcribed and analysed inductively.

This study demonstrates how communication professionals are expanding their professional role to become trainers in communication. The managers who participated reported increased awareness of the communication departments and the support they can provide. The communication departments became more visible in the organisations.

The study is qualitative and limited to two organisations. The managers' perspectives suggest that when communication professionals act as internal trainers, their role within an organisation is strengthened.

The results of this study indicate that in-house communication professionals enable managers to improve their communication, boosting their ability to implement simultaneous large-scale training and rendering the communication department more visible and available throughout the organisation.

This study adds to the existing discussion regarding the new roles of communication professionals in organisations by presenting two cases in which communication professionals are successfully functioning as internal communication trainers. The findings can help both researchers and practitioners gain insights into the future role of the communication profession.

Jobs of communication professionals are closely linked to transformations in society and therefore the role of these professionals is changing rapidly. Communication students must be prepared for the new demands put on communication professionals in the field. In Ede, a new curriculum in communication was launched in order to enable students to become relevant partners in dialog with society. Not only has the content of the curriculum changed but also the organizational structure of our faculty and the educational role of the lecturers.

We can identify three areas in the new curriculum where fundamental transitions have been made, in order to meet the expectations of a profession in transition:

1. Decentralization. In order to create an agile educational environment, we choose flatter structures and more autonomy for development teams (including budgets). Creating educational ownership improved knowledge sharing and idea generation among lecturers.

2. An agile curriculum. We renewed the content of the curriculum and added subjects as online reputation management, web care, training skills, and advanced listening. What’s more: from now on we invest to improve the curriculum every year, in cooperation with stakeholders. Students participate in focus groups about the curriculum and partners in the field are invited as cocreators.

3. The role of lecturers. The ongoing development of the profession has huge implications for the role of the teaching staff. The lecturer used to be the expert. He shared his knowledge with the newcomers, the students. Nowadays lecturers only add value if they continuously gain experience from practice. Therefore, we encourage teachers and students to learn together with partners in the communication field.

Many organisations wrestle with how to develop value-oriented businesses and societies. A humanistic communication approach that promotes understanding and dialogue amongst stakeholders can contribute to a solution. Communication professionals play a pivotal role in achieving a humanistic communication process. This paper aims to determine the significance of humanistic communication professionals and their characteristics.

A literature review was conducted to identify the characteristics of humanistic communication professionals. Thereafter, the extent to which such characteristics have been implemented in competency models in the Netherlands was investigated. This country’s strong tradition of developing competencies for communication professionals has resulted in competency models that serve as standards for professional development.

The literature review shows that a humanistic approach to communication is characterised by dialogic engagement and social listening to build and maintain trust, foster transparency and create engagement with stakeholders. Communication professionals can act as “cultural interpreters”, “organisational listeners” and “stewards of meaning”. The human element plays a key factor in the competency standards for communication professionals in the Netherlands, although the extent to which they are embedded varies. The analysis shows a shift from passing on a message towards dialogue and engagement.

Most studies of communication professionals’ competencies have been based on roles or tasks they perform. Little scholarly attention has been paid to competencies that add to developing value-oriented businesses and societies. This paper focuses specifically on how communication professionals can contribute to creating humanistic organisations.

The chapter develops a typology of eight different expected employee communication roles based on literature in public relations (PR), corporate communication and related fields. As PR professionals are increasingly taking on a coaching and training role, and communication technology has made employees more visible and approachable, employees more and more take on active roles in the communication with external publics. While PR professionals’ roles are conceptualized fairly well, no framework exists that describes the many communication roles that employees play in contemporary organizations. In the chapter, it is found that employees externally (1) embody, (2) promote, and (3) defend the organization. In addition, employees use communication to (4) scout for information and insights about environmental changes, and (5) build and maintain relationships with stakeholders. Internally, employees use communication to (6) make sense of information, (7) initiate and stimulate innovation, and (8) criticize organizational behaviour and decisions. The typology highlights that employees increasingly fulfil the tactic communication roles as producers and executers of corporate communication as social media have made them more visible and approachable. The communication roles require considerable tactical skills and resources on the part of employees, which they may not always possess sufficiently. PR professionals can play a coaching role in terms of helping employees frame content and communicate in a manner appropriate for the organization, the context and the media. The chapter can help PR professionals and scholars understand the changed role of PR professionals, as well as the changed relationships between organizations and their environment, in the context of dissolving organizational boundaries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze the prevailing form of rationality that governs the challenges, goals and roles of communication professionals. The authors will also explore alternative forms of rationality and discuss what these would imply.

The paper is based on survey results from The European Communication Monitor (ECM) and qualitative interviews with communication managers in Sweden. First, the authors present the ECM data and the Swedish interview material, i.e. the authors depict the practitioners’ perceptions of what they understand as important work tasks and roles. The interviews focus on the actual practices of linking communication goals to business goals. Second, the results are challenged from a reflexive perspective, using theories from the paradox turn and questioning the “taken-for-granted thinking” in corporate communications.

The ECM data show that the main challenge in practice is “linking business strategy and communication.” The Swedish respondents stand out when it comes to “building and maintaining trust” since this is considered to be almost as important. The qualitative interview study strengthens the results in the ECM. The interviewees seem to do their work according to the traditional management agenda – i.e. they break down overall business goals and translate these to measurable communication goals. The results are reflected upon using paradox theory. Two paradoxes are discussed: between managerialism and professionalism, and strategic generalists and operational specialists.

The study is based on survey data that have been collected through a convenience sample, and the interview study is a pilot study.

The paper focuses conflicts between normative practitioner ideals and reality, and helps practitioners to reflect upon mainstream thinking.

Based on the empirical findings in the ECM, the interviews and the theoretical framework, the authors conclude that if the idea of The Communicative Organization is to be fruitfully realized, it is necessary to depart from a multi-dimensional rationality and question ideas that are taken for granted. The use of paradox theory and concepts such as functional stupidity is rather original in corporate communication research. Additional research could further explore paradoxes in order to spark dialogue, which may undermine one-dimensional thinking and functional stupidity.

This study aims, first, to explore and analyze if and how organizational members’ professions or occupations influence perceptions of internal crisis communication. The second, related, aim is to discuss the role of internal communication in creating a strong organizational identity during a prolonged crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study is mainly conceptual but uses quantitative data from a survey conducted in a health-care organization in late 2020 to illustrate the theoretical reasoning.

The results show that the administrative groups perceive factors in the internal crisis communication more favorably than the professional groups. The study suggests that organizational members perceive internal crisis communication differently depending on which intra-organizational group they belong to. This further points to the absence of a “rally-around-the-flag” effect and highlights the importance of working proactively with professionals and in internal crisis communication.

This study highlights the role of professionals in crisis communication, which is an aspect that so far has been ignored. The internal professionalization processes and an intriguing power struggle between professions have obvious consequences for crisis communication. As shown in the overview of earlier research on internal communication, leadership and professional organizations, the prerequisites for creating an increased organizational unity among coworkers are challenging. The idea that a crisis may, as in certain political situations in society, create a “rally-around-the-flag” effect is still relevant, even if the case study is an example of how this did not happen.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify and demonstrate the core contributions of communication departments to organizational success beyond traditional ideas of messaging or information distribution. The main aim is to develop a better understanding of the different facets of value that the communication function delivers by introducing a distinction between strategic and operational contributions, following established management models.

The research is based on an extensive literature review at the nexus of communication management and strategic management research and ten qualitative case studies in large, internationally operating German organizations from different industries, combining in-depth interviews and document analyses.

The newly developed Communications Contributions Framework demonstrates that communications serve the corporation in four strategic and operational dimensions and emphasizes the critical role of communications in reflecting and adjusting organizational strategies, i.e. through identifying opportunities to innovate or securing intangible assets.

The paper outlines different application scenarios for how the new framework can be used in practice, i.e. as a multi-faceted rationale for explaining the impact of communication departments in the language of top management and reporting communication success in the logic of business.

The framework provides the first theoretically and empirically based “big picture” of communications’ contributions to corporate success, designed to lay ground for further discussions both in academia and in practice.