The Strategic Communication Imperative

E-Book Overview

The link between strategy and its implementation has always been tenuous. Top consulting companies have employed countless MBAs to develop strategy for their clients. Academics at top business schools have spent their careers developing frameworks explaining how to develop better strategies for top companies. However, only a handful of academics and a cadre of tactical consultants, primarily at public relations companies, have struggled with strategy implementation in the area where it matters most: its communication to a set of varied constituents. Many companies take a tactical, short-term approach to communicating with key constituencies, which is not only nonstrategic but may be inconsistent with the corporate strategy or even impede it. Exxon Corp.’s decision in 1989 to remain silent for days after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, AT&T Corp.’s decision to permanently lay off 40,000 employees on the first business day of 1996, a CFO’s decision to avoid notifying senior managers about a downgrade of the company’s stock by a major investment bank and, more recently, Merck & Co. Inc.’s decision to wait until pressured to pull Vioxx, its arthritis and acute pain medication, from the market are all examples of communications being used tactically as part of a short-term legal or financial orientation. However, the dearth of both academic and practitioner emphasis on the strategic nature of communications, coupled with recent legal and regulatory responses to corporate scandals(such as enactment of Regulation Fair Disclosure and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002), has created a strategic communication imperative — an increasingly urgent need for executives to ensure that their communications practices contribute directly to corporate strategy implementation.

E-Book Content

SPRING 2005 VOL.46 NO.3 Paul A. Argenti, Robert A. Howell and Karen A. Beck The Strategic Communication Imperative Please note that gray areas reflect artwork that has been intentionally removed. The substantive content of the article appears as originally published. REPRINT NUMBER 46315 The Strategic Communication Imperative T he link between strategy and its implementation has always been tenuous. Top consulting companies have employed countless MBAs to develop strategy for their clients. Academics at top business schools have spent their careers developing frameworks explaining how to develop better strategies for top companies. However, only a handful of academics and a cadre of tactical consultants, primarily at public relations companies, have struggled with strategy implementation in the area where it matters most: its communication to a set of varied constituents. Many companies take a tactical, short-term approach to communicating with key constituencies, which is not only nonstrategic but may be inconsistent with the corporate strategy or even impede it. Exxon Corp.’s decision in 1989 to remain silent for days after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, AT&T Corp.’s decision to permanently lay off 40,000 employees on the first business day of 1996, a CFO’s decision to avoid notifying senior managers about a downgrade of the company’s stock by a major investment bank and, more recently, Merck & Co. Inc.’s decision to wait until pressured to pull Vioxx, its arthritis and acute pain medication, from the market are all examples of communications being used tactically as part of a short-term legal or financial orientation. However, the dearth of both academic and practitioner emphasis on the strategic nature of communications, coupled with recent legal and regulatory responses to corporate scandals (such as enactment of Regulation Fair Disclosure and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002), has created a strategic communication imperative — an i
You might also like

Your Successful Project Management Career
Authors: Ronald B. Cagle    189    0



Engaged Knowledge Management: Engagement With New Realities
Authors: Kevin C. Desouza , Yukika Awazu    152    0


Knowledge Management And Problem Solving
Authors: Gray P.H.    137    0


Marketing Management: Millennium Edition
Authors: Philip Kotler    168    0


Critical Chain Project Management
Authors: Lawrence P. Leach    194    0


The Management Bible
Authors: Bob Nelson , Peter Economy    186    0


The Project Management Communications Toolkit
Authors: Carl Pritchard    199    0


Range Breakout Trading In Treasury Bonds
Authors: Saitta A.    153    0


Steidlmayer On Markets. A New Approach To Trading
Authors: J. Peter Steidlmayer    156    0