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Understanding strategy in communication management

Article in Journal of Communication Management · May 2012

DOI: 10.1108/13632541211217579

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Journal of Communication Management
Emerald Article: Understanding strategy in communication management
Juliana Raupp, Olaf Hoffjann

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To cite this document: Juliana Raupp, Olaf Hoffjann, (2012),"Understanding strategy in communication management", Journal of
Communication Management, Vol. 16 Iss: 2 pp. 146 - 161
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JCOM
16,2 Understanding strategy in
communication management
Juliana Raupp
146 Institute for Media and Communication Studies,
Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, and
Received 9 July 2010 Olaf Hoffjann
Revised 24 September 2010
Accepted 3 November 2010
Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences,
Salzgitter, Germany

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this article is to provide a new perspective on the relationship between
communication management as a strategic process and corporate strategy.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper compares approaches of the prescriptive and the
descriptive branch of strategy research and highlights how these seemingly contradictory strategy
concepts are interrelated. It integrates decision-making and interpretive perspectives on strategy in
management and transfers those perspectives to strategy in communication management. Two areas
of communication management, problem definition and the identification of stakeholders, serve as
examples to illustrate the conceptual framework.
Findings – A conceptual model of strategic decision making in communication management is
developed. Strategy in communication management is understood as deliberately creating
decision-making situations. Strategic decisions in communication management are part of both
retrospective and prospective sensemaking processes in organizations.
Originality/value – This paper points to fruitful tensions between different strategy concepts and
suggests ways to resolve this tension partly. It offers further insights into the role of strategy in
communication management by providing a comprehensive view on strategies of communication
management from the perspectives of strategy content and strategy process research.
Keywords Strategy research, Decision making, Sensemaking, Management research
Paper type Conceptual paper

“Strategy” has long become an indispensable concept in the literature on

communication management and public relations. The context of its justification
has at least two facets: On the one hand, it is nowadays taken for granted that
communication management is a strategic management function. Within this context
the internal influence as well as the power of communication management is especially
scrutinized. These considerations are usually tied to strategic management
approaches. On the other hand, communication management itself should be
organized and carried out strategically. The concept of strategy here often belongs to a
discourse of quality and professionalization. These considerations usually appear in
Journal of Communication literature particularly in prescriptive approaches to the planning of communication
Management concepts. These examples demonstrate how diversely the strategy concept is used in
Vol. 16 No. 2, 2012
pp. 146-161 the literature on communication management. Nevertheless, a theoretical grounding
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1363-254X
for the strategy concept in relation to communication management remains for the
DOI 10.1108/13632541211217579 most part to be accomplished.
 Based on these considerations, the goal of this article is to provide a new perspective Strategy in
on the relationship between communication management as a strategic process and communication
corporate strategy. Such an interlocking of communication management and corporate
strategy points to a fruitful tension between the two strategies. We will also suggest management
ways how to resolute this tension partly.
Moreover, a second field of conflict shall be outlined and partly resolved: The
approaches of the prescriptive and descriptive branch of strategy research are 147
generally described to be contradictory. Instead, we propose an intermediary position
which offers further insights into the role of strategy in communication management.
In order to create a theoretical basis for the description of communication
management as a strategic function we will proceed in the following steps. First we
will briefly review the present state of research on strategy in the literature devoted to
management (1.1) and present the way strategy is regarded in the literature on
communication management (1.2). Based on this we will develop a concept of strategy
as decision-making process (2). In a third step this strategy concept will be transferred
to communication management (3.1). We will specifically examine which consequences
this understanding has for problem definition and situation analysis in communication
management (3.2), as well as for the identification and prioritization of stakeholders
(3.3).

1. The concept of strategy

The following section will provide a short overview of the present state of strategy
research, particularly of how it is conducted in economics and strategic management
literature. It will be shown that until now new insights from strategy research have
hardly been taken into account in communication management research.

1.1 The concept of strategy in management research

The concept of strategy has long been a topic of research on strategic management
(Mintzberg et al., 2005; Eden and Ackerman, 2004; Kaplan and Norton, 2001). In order
to systematically describe the research field, existing approaches can be roughly
divided into two categories: those in the area of prescriptive strategy research (linear
and adaptive models) and those in the area of descriptive strategy research
(interpretive and incremental models) (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; Chaffee, 1985). An
alternative way of systematizing the various currents in management research
consists of examining the approaches according to whether they place the content of a
strategy or the process of strategy formation at the centre (Rajagopalan and Spreitzer,
1996). Strategy-content research studies the strategic positioning of a corporation. The
focus is on answering the question of which strategies under which conditions lead to
success; this approach corresponds to the prescriptive stream of strategy research. In
the perspective of strategy-process research, strategy is described as a consciously
shaped organizational process which can be divided into various phases,
thereby correlating at least partly to the descriptive branch of strategy research
(see Whitehill, 1996; Pettigrew, 1992).
The prescriptive branch includes works that provide recommendations on how
strategies should be designed (Porter, 1980, 1985, 1991; Wilson, 1994). This research
direction dominates textbooks just as much as the non-scholarly reception of
management theory. The dominating teaching and research methods are case studies,
JCOM which lead to the formulation of strategic decision-making models. The practical
16,2 benefits of prescriptive strategy research have been demonstrated in numerous cases
(Ansoff et al., 1970; Armstrong, 1982; Welch, 1984). However, the assumed positive
association between strategic planning and company performance, with a directional
causality from strategic planning to performance, has been doubted (Greenley, 1994).
Next to this, especially when based on simplified models of rational decision-making,
148 the scientific benefits of this approach are questionable. Some authors go so far as to
regard the practical relevance of prescriptive strategy research as an obstacle to
scientific advancement. Thus Nicolai (2000) describes strategic management research
as a discipline “in which scholars also present themselves as consultants, in which
quotable sources are widely disseminated and the proof of practical relevance enhances
their scientific reputations” (pp. 79-80, our translation). As a result, popular
management concepts have to be rendered in a scientific format. The scientific
discussion is coupled in this manner to management fashions and draws a large
portion of its dynamics from them.
The descriptive branch of strategy research in management studies and economics
is much more heterogeneous than the prescriptive one and includes a variety of
approaches from diverse disciplines. Their common theme is above all the skepticism
that the process of strategic management proceeds as rationally as studies from the
prescriptive branch basically assume. Criticism of the rationality of strategy
management has come from various directions. Prominent approaches of the
descriptive branch include for example March and Simon’s well-known concept of
limited rationality which was published first in 1958 (March and Simon, 1993), the
garbage can model by Cohen et al. (1985), and the micropolitical approach by Crozier
and Friedberg (1979). Also, ambiguity can be used strategically in order to promote
contingency and to facilitate organizational change (Eisenberg, 1984). These
approaches do not revolve around the question of what strategies should look like,
but whether – and under which conditions – strategic action is possible.
Incremental models go one step further, disregarding the idea of intentional
decisions as a characteristic of strategic action. Lindblom (1959) developed the notion
of “muddling through” in order to describe the daily decision-making in
administrations. In line of this thinking, Mintzberg and Waters (1985) demonstrate a
fundamental skepticism towards the concept of decision-making as regards strategy
formation. They ultimately call for a replacement of the concept of decision-making
with that of action. In this manner also those patterns of action would be considered
that reveal themselves to be strategies only in retrospect. This allows the examination
of emergent sequences of action which later prove to create strategies. Drawing on
conceptions of sensemaking and sensegiving (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991), on the
theory of practices (Schatzki et al., 2001), and on discursive approaches (Alvesson and
Kärreman, 2000; Grant et al., 2004), a group of researchers have proposed a research
agenda for the study of strategy as practice ( Jarzabkowski et al., 2007).
Likewise, some strands of systems theory have essentially questioned the
possibility of intentional and rational action. Especially in combination with a
constructivist view, intended changes are seen to have virtually nothing to do with
“real” changes, due to the operative closedness of psychical as well as social systems
(Willke, 2000, p. 201).
 Some researchers have recently argued against strictly separating prescriptive and Strategy in
descriptive strategy research and instead interweaving strategy-content research and communication
strategy-process research (e.g. Sminia, 2009). We embrace this appeal and in the
following will develop an understanding of strategy that incorporates various management
perspectives. But first we will review how the concept of strategy has until now been
treated in the literature on communication management.
149
1.2 The concept of strategy in the literature on communication management
If one examines the literature on communication management it is apparent that here, a
practically-oriented perspective which implicitly is based on simplified
decision-making models dominates (e.g. Tibbie, 1993; Argenti and Forman, 2002).
Many textbooks or handbooks formulate strategy concepts determined by case studies
(Fombrun and van Riel, 2004). In addition, numerous studies commissioned or
conducted by agencies adopt the synoptic-planning strategy model without
questioning it, yet hardly contribute to a systematic increase in knowledge. The
extent to which communication management is in fact a strategic function has rarely
been directly addressed (Moss and Warnaby, 1997). Often it is simply taken for granted
that this is the case: It is assumed that communication represents a decisive factor in a
corporation’s value chain, and the demand that communication managers are either
included among upper-level managers or at least report to them directly is derived
from this assumption.
Botan (2006) differentiates between a “grand strategy” and a “strategy”. While a
grand strategy refers on a policy-level to decisions regarding goals, ethics,
relationships to publics, strategies are positioned at the campaign-level of
decision-making. Here decisions refer to maneuvering and resources in order to
realize the superordinate grand strategy. Tactics then refer to specific activities and
outputs through which strategies are implemented. Bentele and Nothhaft (2007, p. 341)
likewise advocate a distinction between strategy and tactics. Cornelissen (2009, p. 100)
regards corporate strategy and communication strategy as interlocking levels of
strategy, linked with one another by means of translation and information services
which those responsible for communication perform for the overall management.
One of the few empirical analyses that examine the contribution of communication
management to the formulation of corporate strategy has been carried out by Dolphin
and Fan (2000). Based on a survey of communication managers in 20 British
corporations they came to the conclusion that those responsible for communication had
a growing influence on the formulation of corporate strategy. The significance of
communication management for corporate strategy, however, depends on whether the
organization is more traditional (in these cases the influence of communication
management is minimal) or whether communication generally enjoys high standing
within the corporation. According to the results of the European Communication
Monitor, a long-term European-wide survey among communication practitioners, the
link between business strategy and communication is regarded as the most important
issue for communication management within the next three years (Zerfass et al., 2009,
p. 66).
Only a few texts on communication management and on public relations critically
engage with the concept of strategy. Hallahan et al. (2007) aim at deconstructing the
concept of strategy in relationship to strategic communication. One of their central
JCOM argument states that the development of strategies depends on organizational cultures
16,2 just as much as on societal cultures, implying that strategic decisions are not objective,
independent of culture and gender-neutral, but rather influenced by all of these factors.
This brief overview of the literature illustrates that in most cases it is simply assumed
that communication management is a strategic management task. The concept of
strategy, however, is rarely taken into consideration (Bronn, 2001). Likewise, the
150 process of strategy formation and the contribution of communication strategy to
corporate strategy are only marginally discussed. The following will develop a
theory-driven understanding of strategy which then will serve as a basis to describe
communication management as a strategic corporate function.

2. Strategy formation as decision-making and as construction process

In our opinion, neither strategy-process and strategy-content research nor descriptive
and prescriptive strategy research present irreconcilable opposites. Instead the
following will delineate an integrative understanding of strategy which will serve as
the theoretical foundation of communication management as a strategic organizational
function. Without wanting to consider here the decision-making models of prescriptive
strategy research, strategy will be first modeled as conscious decision-making.
Decisions will, moreover, be regarded as conscious, calculated choices among
alternative actions, in which certain goals are linked to certain possibilities of action.
They can stand at the end of a rationalized decision-making process just as much as
they can be the result of incremental “muddling-through” (see Schimank, 2005).
Finally, the perspective of decision-making theory on strategy will then be augmented
with an interpretative strategy perspective.

2.1 Strategy as a sequence of decisions

In the understanding of strategy from the viewpoint of decision-making theory there is
initially no difference between strategies and decisions. As in strategy development, a
conscious, calculated selection among alternative actions is made (Barnard, 1938;
Schimank, 2005). Even the cross-situational quality that is often ascribed to strategies
(see for example Quinn, 1988, p. 3) can also be assumed for decisions in organizations.
Every decision is not only connected to previous decisions, but is oriented to specific
rationalities and thus reproduces the organization and its structures (path-dependency
of decisions). At the same time every decision is the basis – in a structuration-theory
perspective a “resource” (Giddens, 1995) – for subsequent decisions.
A process-oriented perspective allows decision-making to be broken down into
different phases. The recognition of a problem is the prerequisite for a decision-making
situation. When decisions, in contrast to simple actions, thematize their own
contingency, the result is that there are several alternatives which – no matter how
rudimentary – will be evaluated and from which one will be selected. Evaluation follows
implementation, which then in turn can lead to the recognition of a new problem.
Again, decision-making can essentially be divided into these four phases. The
existence of these phases does not imply anything about their rational or irrational
formulation. A decision of enormous consequences can – voluntarily or due to external
circumstance – be made within an hour or be the result of a rationalized decision-making
process. Precisely as the rationality of the result cannot be predicted, actors are left only
with the procedural rationality (Simon, 1976) of their decision-making.
2.2 Interpretative understanding of strategy Strategy in
With regard to decision making the interpretative view takes into account the communication
prerequisites that lead to decisions: decisions are the product of individual or collective
processes of sense-making of the organization and the organization’s environment. In management
contrast to an incremental perspective which qualifies the process of decision-making,
the interpretative view emphasizes the significance of decisions. It does so, however,
against the background of a different knowledge interest and can thus suitably 151
augment the perspective of decision-making theory. Strategic decisions have recourse
to the need of management to structure the perceived organizational environment and
to establish as well as maintain a commonly shared meaning. Seen from this
perspective, decision-making is part of a retrospective sense-making which serves to
localize, articulate and ratify decisions made previously (Weick, 1995; Weick et al., 2005).
From an interpretative perspective, however, strategic decisions cannot only be
explained in retrospect, but can also be interpreted prospectively as a concept for
action (Hendry, 2000). A sense-making perspective regards the contribution of
strategies to develop an interpretation of the organization and to offer it to internal and
external stakeholders. While stakeholders refer to these interpretative patterns the
organizational environment, which feeds the sense-making processes, is in turn
transformed.
Action research describes the process of strategy formation as organizational
practice ( Jarzabkowski, 2005; Whittington, 2006), thereby providing empirically
constructive questions for our research problem. Praxeological strategy research, for
example, investigates which actors are involved in which manner in strategic actions.
Who writes texts within a corporation that are of strategic importance? Who reads
these texts? And how are the symbolic artifacts formulated in this manner
disseminated within the organization? These questions are helpful in order to
determine the role of communication management in the formulation of organization
strategies. At the same time it is vital to study from an interpretative perspective the
extent to which “strategic plans” devised in this manner from practical action become
part of, and in turn shape, a corporation’s identity.

3. Transferring the concept of strategy to communication management

In the last two sections we have presented some basic assumptions of strategy
formation within the decision-making and the interpretative paradigm. The two
approaches highlight distinctive features of strategy, yet they can complement each
other well. By combining the two approaches and applying them to strategy making in
communication management, different aspects can be brought together: The focus of
the sensemaking perspective is mainly on questions of perception and interpretation of
ambiguous information. The decision-making perspective, on the other hand, deals
primarily with problems of rationality respectively irrationality of decision-making as
a sequence of consecutive operations. Both approaches refer to actions which are
embedded in a specific context. A linkage of decision-making and interpretative
perspectives sheds light on essential problems of communication management
strategies. In the next section, we will demonstrate this with regard to the act of
decision-making itself and thus for the development of communication strategies,
internal and external effects of communication strategies and finally, a retrospective
and prospective view on communication strategies.
JCOM In the next step, we will apply this concept of strategy to communication
16,2 management and its contribution to strategy-making on a corporate level.
Subsequently, we will illustrate our line of thought: We will single out two specific
stages of communication management and substantiate how they are interlocked with
corporate strategy.

152 3.1 Strategic communication management from a decision-making and interpretative

perspective
The strategic capability of collective actors, such as corporations, depends on how the
division of labor is internally organized and on which opportunities for strategy
development are given to individual actors or departments within the organization.
The issue thus is of scope of action and self-responsibility as prerequisites for strategy
formation. In a traditional conception of management the primacy for strategy
formation lies exclusively in the corporation’s management. Subordinate segments of
the corporation are thus not allocated an independent ability to formulate strategy, but
at most the ability to implement strategies. This deterministic view of the primacy of
strategy formation with management is nowadays considered as obsolete. It has been
replaced by the recognition that corporations operate under conditions of structural
uncertainty. This results in the need for subordinate segments of a corporation as well
in order to develop their own rationalities of action. However, those are themselves
related to the rationalities of action of the entire corporation (Steyn and Niemann, 2010).
Steyn (2003), Harrison and St John (1998), and Steinmann and Schreyögg (2005) define
this as the functional strategy or the strategic programs of functional areas. These
programs follow the same logic of planning processes as the superordinate corporate
strategy and usually take place in all those functional areas of a corporation where
processes are strategically managed. If communication management is regarded as a
subsystem of a corporation, then the function of communication management at the
level of the overall organization has a legitimizing function, as well as being
constitutive for the interpretation and evaluation of the organization’s environment in
the form of stakeholder expectations. These functions allow one to conclude that
communication management performs independent interpretation, explication and
selection services and is thus functionally constitutive for the formulation of a
corporate strategy.
Decision-making and thus strategies of communication management and of the
corporation’s management exist in a close interrelationship with one another, but are
not identical. Corporate strategies rest on decisions made by management which on the
whole decides the direction and the goals of the organization. Communication
strategies, which however are directly connected with corporate strategies, are decided
by those responsible in specialized departments for communication management. With
reference to strategy and management theory this difference can be described as
overall corporate strategy in contrast to the communicative partial or functional
strategy. The conception of strategic communication campaigns can thus be defined as
a functional strategy.
How great the mutual dependency between overall corporate strategy and
communicative partial or functional strategy is can be demonstrated with the
distinction made by Christensen et al. (2008, p. 27) between strategies of first and
second order. While strategies of first order aim to analyze the organization’s
environment and to react to contingencies from the environment, strategies of second Strategy in
order aspire to influence and to shape the organization’s environment. Since communication
communication management performs interpretation and explication as regards the
organization’s environment, it operates on both levels of strategy. From the perspective management
of interpretive communication research, communication strategies represent processes
which help organizations to structure and lend meaning to perceived environments.
Organizations make use of different functions to this end, which are anchored in 153
communication departments as regards personnel (for example environment
monitoring or issues management). Scanning procedures can serve to collect
information (information services; see Heath, 1997; Choo, 2002). By means of the
interpretation and transmission of environmental information inwards (transmitting
services) communication management contributes to changing the self-perception and
self-descriptions of organizations. In turn, communication management attempts to
exert influence on the organization’s environment by transmitting self-descriptions
after statements.
The perspective of decision-making theory necessitates that communication
management must be included in corporate decisions, since the internal and external
implementability of self-descriptions is not only a key selection criterion, but
rather both directions can never be considered separately from one another. As Dozier
(1992, p. 342) puts it, “if practitioners are to help organizations adapt to changes in the
environment, they must participate in the management decision-making process, not
simply implement decisions made by others.” Whether this requisite is given depends,
according to Botan (2006), on the grand strategy of a corporation. He differentiates
between four archetypes of a grand strategy, which at the PR level resemble Grunig’s
four models of PR (Grunig and Hunt, 1984). While communication management
assumes more of an implementer role in an intransigent and a resistant grand strategy,
in a cooperative and an integrative grand strategy it can exert a consulting influence. A
corporation’s grand strategy influences, as per Botan, not just the content of
communication-related strategy but also the essential influence of communication
management.
The question arises here of how corporate and communication strategy are formally
integrated with one another. Bentele and Nothhaft (2007) distinguish three alternatives:
In a personnel-oriented solution the head of communication management either
exerts influence on corporate decision-making formally (e.g. via a seat on the board) or
informally (e.g. since he or she has known the chairperson for a long time). In a
process-oriented solution aspects are systematically integrated in the processes and
procedures of corporate strategy formulation (see also Steyn, 2007, pp. 147-8). Finally,
in the result-oriented variant communicative aspects are incorporated in the values and
identifiers of a corporate financial control system. All three variants, however, have in
common the question of the status of communication management within the
organization.
While communication management is united in its relevance for the interpretation
and evaluation of the organizational environment, its segments are marked by
numerous contradictions – as in the traditional opponents, public relations and
marketing communication. PR and specific marketing strategies therefore have to be
differentiated from strategies related to communication. The following will
exemplarily describe decision-making criteria and behavior, which are constitutive
JCOM for two sub-segments of communication management, namely for situation analysis
16,2 and for the identification and prioritization of publics resp. stakeholders. These
represent two functions of communication management that have particular relevance
for the development of a superordinate corporate strategy.

3.2 Problem definition and situation analysis of communication management

154 The relevance of the considerations of the decision theory for communication-related
decision-making is demonstrated in the problem definition and situation analysis of
communication management, which will be explained in the following.
Communication-related decision-making requires that a problem is recognized which
cannot be solved by means of routine action. As Baecker (1994, p. 163) argues, “the
decision does not accept [. . .] the course of things and instead inverts the course of
things against itself, to the benefit of desired or merely other possible, conditions” (our
translation) In the everyday flow of routine actions, therefore, it is the identification of a
problem that leads to decision-making being initiated. How one has arrived at this
diagnosis of a problem is yet another question. The diagnosis can be a partial result of
an elaborate issue-management process, but it can also arise in the context of an
incremental “waiting for a problem”.
When organizations are regarded from a social-interpretative perspective as
information-processing systems, then the connection between organization and
environment takes on the form of a reciprocal relationship: The information
organizations transmit to the environment represent the input for the environment. By
this, the environment changes and in turn influences the organization. From a
constructive view the organization’s observation of the environment can be seen as the
application of various interpretation schemata of the organization’s members, who are
able to explain the different environmental constructions. Strategic communication
management can resort to different methods of gathering environmental information
in the analysis phase. Sutcliffe distinguishes between “scanning”, i.e. formal methods
of environmental observation, and “noticing”, the informal perception of the
environment (Sutcliffe, 2001, p. 204f.). Daft and Weick (1984) establish four different
methods of information processing, ranging from incremental to formalized methods.
These different methods are examples of which strategy-relevant routines of action can
arise in the framework of organizational communication.

3.3 Identification and prioritization of stakeholders

A second area of communication management, the identification, prioritization and
addressing of stakeholders, is likewise directly or indirectly relevant for the
development of a superordinate organization strategy. A rich literature exists
on identifying and prioritizing stakeholders (Donaldson and Preston, 1995;
Andriof et al., 2002; Friedman and Miles, 2006; Freeman et al., 2010) resp. publics
(Grunig and Hunt, 1984; Hallahan, 2002; Aldoory and Sha, 2007; Newsom et al., 2010;
see for a discussion of both concepts Grunig and Repper, 1992, for a critical
perspective Mackay, 2009).
With regard to stakeholders or publics, the key outcomes of communication-
related decision-making are the self-descriptions (e.g. press releases or product
advertisements), dialog options, and recommendations to the corporation’s
management (e.g. on product policy or on the change to more environmentally-
friendly production processes). The criteria of selection for the self-descriptions, the Strategy in
options for dialogue, collaboration, negotiation and for the recommendations reflect the communication
relevance of different stakeholders (Flynn, 2006). Communication management
receives these selection criteria from a multifarious connection to the environment: management
primarily from explicitly stated or assumed corporate goals[1] and secondarily from
the interests of externally relevant stakeholder groups (Mitchell et al., 1997). And
finally selection criteria are received from “intermediary target groups” such as 155
journalists or other opinion leaders (Fassin, 2009).
PR often has conflicts with the corporation’s management since what one reference
group expects from a corporation is sometimes connected with (at least short-term
financial) harm to the corporation – and vice versa. An imminent tension therefore
exists between the goals of PR and those of corporate strategy. This probably leads to
the most original criterion for PR strategies: The enforceability of self-descriptions in
an inward as well as outward direction. As regards external stakeholders,
enforceability is linked to the credibility of self-descriptions. Inwards, liability is
again important, i.e. the reconnection with the operations (Kieserling, 2005). One could
exaggeratedly say that reconnecting self-descriptions are often unsuccessful with
external stakeholders, since they place the corporation’s rationale at the centre.
Self-descriptions that promise success with external stakeholders, however, have few
chances of being put into effect internally, since they run contrary to the corporation’s
rationale.
A further original selection criterion is connected with this: issues that are positively
regarded by stakeholder groups. These can include issues in which a corporation
consciously relinquishes something for the good of society – for example bonus
payments or a controversial production site. The rare ideal case of positive
self-descriptions which can be implemented everywhere are so-called win-win
situations, described as follows by Jarchow (1992, p. 98): “When public relations
systems come against ‘shared realities’ or common levels of sense between social
systems which can be used for cooperative behavior, then they have discovered the
lever with which their arguments can enter the self-informing constructive manners of
target groups. A good PR campaign is characterized by the fact that it makes the
interest – the ‘argumentandum’ – of one system compatible in meaning for other
systems with other constructs of reality” (own translation). An example of this
provides the aviation industry. Efficient airplanes which are in demand by airlines for
cost reasons are re-positioned as “climate protectors” after the renewed beginning of
the climate debate. In addition, communication management will pay attention to the
consistency of self-descriptions, so that contradictions and thus irritations among
external publics are avoided.
Differences between the communication management disciplines of public relations
and marketing communication are also evident with regard to the publics or target
groups. While in marketing communication the initiative comes from the corporation –
after all, sales of products and services are to be supported – in Public Relations the
initiative in a certain sense comes from the environment: stakeholders have a
“problem” with a corporation’s operations. This leads to publics considered as relevant
by PR momentarily become target groups (Szyszka, 2005).
How publics differ from each other as concerns their knowledge and involvement
has been studied by Grunig in the situational theory of publics (Grunig and Hunt, 1984;
JCOM see for an overview Ni and Kim, 2009). Building on this theory and also drawing on
16,2 Luhmann’s (1995) distinction between a social, a material and a temporal dimension of
information processing, publics can be described in various dimensions. In the social
dimension publics seem to be organized in extremely different ways. One or two shared
characteristics suffice and there is no need that any kind of social integration or feeling
of solidarity among these persons exists. However, it is often assumed that the persons
156 belonging to such a common category will react in a similar manner under certain
conditions (Klima, 1994). Thus, publics can consist of individual persons who have
approached corporations with a critical concern, without knowing anything about each
other, or publics can be organized in initiatives or formal organizations. In the material
dimension, publics constitute their relationships with the organization by means of a
specific issue. However, once such a relationship has been constituted – for example a
citizens’ initiative aiming to prevent the expansion of a chemical plant – then further
issues can be added in the material dimension. For a conflict leads to generalizations –
the action group will later criticize emissions and possible lay-offs as well. For the
monitoring of organizations this means that although organizations, in order to
conserve resources, do indeed look for risk issues initially and in this way come across
new relevant stakeholders. However, organizations will very closely observe the issues
of existing stakeholder groups (“observation of the adversary”). In the temporal
dimension the relevance of publics is subject to great changes. Thanks to a current
cause a reference group which until now has been completely irrelevant can become a
major threat for the perceived legitimacy of an organization.
This exemplary overview of the selection criteria and publics or stakeholders of PR
has briefly shown which aspects influence the development of PR strategies and the
extent of that influence. At the same time it has become apparent with which
contradictions communication-related strategies have to deal.

4. Conclusion
In this article the traditional contradictions between strategy-process research and
strategy-content research as well as between descriptive and prescriptive strategy
research have been overcome and substituted by an integrative understanding of
strategy. This integrative understanding of strategy is based on decision-making
theory and social-interpretive considerations. This double approach has allowed us to
demystify the concept of strategy, without shelving it completely.
The concept of strategy has first been demystified on the basis of decision-making
theory. We have determined that, first of all, every communication-related decision
goes beyond any given situation in the sense that it takes into consideration
rationalities of communication management and of the corporation. In this manner,
every decision has strategic character. However, when strategies can be observed at
every organizational level, this requires greater differentiation – for example between
corporate strategies reserved for management, strategies defined by the head of
communication management, and implementation strategies which are also defined by
employees. Communication-related decisions and consequently communication-related
strategies therefore have a different scope. They range from implementation strategies
regarding individual measures to strategies for the future corporate policy, which
communication management can only recommend.
 While decision theory focuses on the integration of communication management in Strategy in
corporate decision-making, from an interpretive view the influence of communication communication
management, through information and translation services, on corporate
decision-making is inevitable. management
At the same time an integrative understanding of strategy does not shelve the
concept of strategy for two reasons. First, a distinction between strategic and
non-strategic communication management continues to make sense. Decision-making 157
needs to be differentiated from spontaneous and routine actions. In habitual or routine
action thus alternatives of actions are not recognized – which is why conscious
decision-making is not necessary (Schimank, 2005). Strategic communication
management can therefore be understood as communication management which
deliberately creates such decision-making situations in which several alternatives of
action are evaluated. Second, the interpretive view has made clear the relevance
of strategic decisions for sensemaking: Strategic decisions are part of both
retrospective and prospective sensemaking in organizations. This moreover
accounts for the symbolic function of strategic decisions.
By integrating the decision-making and the interpretive perspectives, the prevailing
conflicts between strategy-content research and strategy-process research can be
overcome. Especially with regard to functional strategies – and communication
strategies are functional strategies – , this combination of the two approaches proved
to be fruitful. Because communication strategies as functional strategies are highly
dependent on corporate strategies, the content and the formation of a strategy cannot
be considered separately. A comprehensive view on strategies of communication
management requires taking into account the content and simultaneously the
development of the strategies.

Note
1. This distinction should make clear that aside from specific and explicitly formulated
corporate goals and rules (self-descriptions of the management) unregulated “empty spaces”
always exist in which structures only arise through decision-making. In these decisions,
corporate actors guide themselves by previous decisions or norms which in their view are
comparable. In other words, corporate actors ask themselves what the goal of the
corporations’s management would be in this specific situation.

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Juliana Raupp can be contacted at: [email protected]

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