A Note on Management Communication: Module Four
2 Pages Posted: 21 Oct 2008
Abstract
This note is an introduction to the first-year course Management Communication: Module Four. See also "A Note on Management Communication: Module One" (UVA-BC-0168), "A Note on Management Communication: Module Two" (UVA-BC-0169), and "A Note on Management Communication: Module Three" (UVA-BC-0170).
Excerpt
UVA-BC-0171
A Note on Management Communication: Module Four
The biggest change in Management Communication has been the increasing visibility of communication in business. This is in part due to new technologies leading to phenomena such as the “transparency” of the Web, and also in part because of links between communication and the segments of what until recently had been called the “new economy.” Vice presidents of corporate communication and chief communication officers play increasingly key roles in developing corporate strategy, or, at the very least, in presenting how business decisions are viewed in a changing world where communication is an essential factor. The key to understanding corporate communication is to see how the relationship between internal and external communication has grown and, in the best case, has been replaced by an integrated function that communicates the organization's strategy, values, and identity to its stakeholders. The more integrated internal and external communications are, the less chance there is that an employee will learn of a layoff from the financial news. Additionally, managers will not recognize the link between the external perception of the company and its internal performance.
Module Four, Communicating as an Organization, serves as an introduction to corporate communication and is based on a stakeholder approach (frequently known as constituencies in communication and publics in public relations). Topics include employee communication (on the organizational level), business and the media, image and identity, and crisis communication. Hardly a day goes by where a major corporate crisis cannot be found on the front pages of major newspapers. Indeed, new kinds of crises seem to proliferate as quickly as new business practices. Round-the-clock news coverage has created a voracious appetite for scandal, and financial news has reached unprecedented heights of visibility and new terrain for maintaining the kind of trust business depends on.
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Keywords: Communication Process, Communication Strategy
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