Corporate Communication Importance of External Corporate

Question: Discuss about the Corporate Communication for Importance of External Corporate. Answer: Introduction In the recent times, it has been observed that companies are increasingly dedicating their time and resources to promote their public relations initiatives. Corporate communication managers and executives have a wide array of media channels at their disposal. These maybe used to communicate their corporate social responsibility CSR credentials. In fact, businesses are continuously being scrutinized by the declaration of the CSR activities in Annual reports, social media and word of mouth. The external corporate communication is not only driven by unprecedented ideological construct for a change in the society but also the financial return which can be obtained from the various types of endeavors related to corporate social responsibility. Hence, CSR communication is produced, translated and integrated according to the companys requirements (Cornelissen 2014). Companies use broadcast advertising, including TV and radio commercials for the purpose of corporate communication. Several profit-making firms could also utilize print media such as newspapers and magazines to disseminate their message to their target audience. It has been observed that newspaper articles often reflect corporate ideologies of various types of social responsibilities and assumptions stating public expectations and react here with what they perceive as the same. The companies are also seen using various types of outdoor advertisements such as billboards and signage on brick and mortar premises (Colleoni 2013). External corporate communication The external communicators of CSR such as consumer forums, monitoring groups, customers and the media is often observed to emphasize more control of the message of CSR communication by different participants of value chain. The members of the value chain include employees and different types of channel members while the customers and monitoring groups are not considered as a part of the value chain. In order to draw a trade-off between the credibility and controllability of CSR it has been observed that less controllable is the communicator more reliable and credible is its CSR communication to its stakeholders and vice versa (Argenti 2015). According to Hameed et al.(2016), consumer are observed to react more positively to a companys CSR policies when they learn about the fact that such communications are coming from a neutral source which are unbiased evaluations of corporate activities. External corporate communication mainly focuses on companys engagement in different types of social causes. The commitment is based on three key aspects namely the amount of input, the consistency in the input and the durability of the Association. The communication strategy has further provided an insight in the stakeholders analysis such as customers, investors, employees. CSR has been observed with unique ability to endeavor future stakeholder relationships (Amini and Bienstock 2014). Unlike the different types of other marketing information, the external communication to CSR flips a companys character and reviews the attributions of the motives of shareholders thereby underlining crucial activities of the shareholders. The primary elements of both internal and external communication outcomes are shown below with the diagram as follows: Figure 1: Framework of external corporate communication (Source: Conference-board.org. 2016) Use of annual report for corporate communication At present, the most common form of communicating sustainability issues to stakeholders is done through the website of the respective companies although, the next best alternative is via annual report, which encompasses on variety of social responsibility issues. Some of the most prominent companies addressing their CSR activities through annual report are Coca-Cola, IBM, Deutsche Post DHL, Celanese and Unilever. According to a report published by the conference board nearly 35.2% of participants are known to release stand alone annual report for CSR communication. Figure 2: Depiction of companies using annual report to encompass sustainability issues (Source: Conferenceboard.ca. 2016) Use of newspaper for corporate communication As stated by Asemah et al. (2013), CSR communication via news media plays a significant role due to its potential to reach a large audience and in many cases, it is perceived to be more credible than the internal communicators of the company. Some of the major elements addressed the sustainability issues include the relevance to the respective campaigns, mentioning of companys activities, nature of publication and association with CSR campaign. The newspaper media not only reaches to a large number of stakeholders but it also increases the possibility of the company to gain the trust of several other potential consumers. The newspaper media also plays an important role in enhancing the existing sustainability policies by knowing about the efficiency of the present activities (Utz, Schultz, and Glocka 2013). Influence of word-of-mouth for corporate communication Although word-of-mouth is informal medium of external communication, yet it is considered one of the most credible channels to reach among other stakeholder groups. In order to address the several issues related to sustainability issues, companies should not underrate the power and reach of the employees as a medium of external communication. The employees are known to have a wider reach among the different types of stakeholder groups through their social ties and hence companies should often look forward to tune up the internal communication strategy in order to find ways to engage employees and convert them for an effective external corporate communication (Cornelissen 2014). As stated by Kim, Sung, and Kang (2014), the power of word-of-mouth has been seen in form of social media (such as Twitter, Facebook), blogs and several other social media platforms. The use of this has been seen in companies like Stonyfield Farm, which has witnessed consumer ambassadors to deliver their corporate social responsibilities (Gauthereaugroup.com. 2016). Conclusion The importance of external corporate communication is seen in maintaining a more positive reaction of consumers and providing unbiased evaluations of the companys activity. The communication media such as newspaper, word of mouth and annual report only focuses on one-to-one communication between the producer and the consumer of the message translated. To avoid this, external communicators should become proficient in the use of digital media in addition to traditional media to increase their impact of their corporate communication. This is evident by the fact that Internet has completely reshaped corporate communication at different levels. With the advent of Internet peer had been emergence of new participatory public sphere which is mainly based on many to many communication channel where public collaborate in not only listening to the communication but also in the creation of content. Reference List Amini, M. and Bienstock, C.C., 2014. Corporate sustainability: an integrative definition and framework to evaluate corporate practice and guide academic research. Journal of Cleaner Production, 76, pp.12-19. Argenti, P.A., 2015. Corporate communication. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Asemah, E.S., Okpanachi, R.A. and Olumuji, E.O., 2013. Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility Performance of Organisations: A Key to Winning Stakeholders Goodwill. AFRREV IJAH: An International Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2(4), pp.27-54. Colleoni, E., 2013. CSR communication strategies for organizational legitimacy in social media. Corporate Communications: an international journal, 18(2), pp.228-248. Conferenceboard.ca. 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