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This article draws on a decade of research in strategic communication and especially on the contributions in this special issue to propose a new and more comprehensive definition of strategic communication. We argue that strategic communication encompasses all communication that is substantial for the survival and sustained success of an entity. Specifically, strategic communication is the purposeful use of communication by an entity to engage in conversations of strategic significance to its goals. Entity includes all kind of organizations (e.g., corporations, governments, or non-profits), as well as social movements and known individuals in the public sphere. Communication can play a distinctive role for the formulation, revision, presentation, execution, implementation, and operationalization of strategies. While there are many ways to investigate these research objects, strategic communication as a discipline takes the perspective of the focal organization/entity and its calculus to achieve specific goals by means of communication under conditions of limited resources and uncertainty. The article takes a critical look at the current state of the field and outlines several requirements that will help scholars and practitioners alike to build a unique body of knowledge in strategic communication.try to pursue their individual goals in an optimal way, while business administration and management science incorporates a broader research perspective, taking into account multiple and bounded rationalities as well as the need to handle economic challenges, as well as legal, ethical, ecological, and psychological problems, to name just a few dimensions of company life.Along this line, strategic communication can only flourish as a research field if it has specific research objects and a specific research perspective, along with institutional manifestations (publication outlets, conferences, study programs, research projects) that create an accumulated body of knowledge (theories, concepts and frameworks, empirical insights).These core assets will allow the discipline to enact a distinct role in the overall concert of knowledge production and disciplinary discourses. To this end, strategic communication needs to draw on other disciplines as well. As an applied science, it requires an interdisciplinary approach that integrates-but also limits itself to-any knowledge that helps to expand knowledge about the designated object and perspective of research (Szostak, 2013;. This article is devoted to outlining such an approach. We begin by exploring the various understandings of strategic communication that have organically emerged over the last decade.After reviewing currently co-existing approaches, we attempt a more precise and focused definition of strategic communication by offering answers to five key questions that have emerged as central to the strategic communications debate. We then shift focus from the reality of practice to the academic discipline. Our question here centers on how strategic communication research ...

Purpose-Since employees are considered to be one of the most important sources for innovation, the purpose of this study is to create a change management framework for implementing an innovation culture by means of internal communication. Design/methodology/approach-First, an interdisciplinary model was derived from research and existing literature. It was then tested in a case study with qualitative expert interviews and a quantitative online survey among all employees of a sample firm. Findings-Instead of a linear change, as implied by the theoretical model, different identification levels existed simultaneously within the firm's culture. A typology summed up the corresponding perceptions of the innovation culture: innovation culture, innovation pioneers, mediocrity, standstill, and refusal. Significant correlations between identification and internal media (r ¼ 0:405), as well as identification and action (r ¼ 0:158) underlined the importance of internal communication. Research limitations/implications-This study only explores the topic from a communication science perspective. However, examining its link to other important factors like organisational structure would provide further insight. Also, research in different countries and fields is needed, since the results of this case study cannot be considered representative. Practical implications-The goal of communication managers should be to lead employees through the phases of identification by specifically targeting their identification levels and using the appropriate media to address the findings. Originality/value-The developed framework helps as a management tool for assessing how employees perceive messages of an innovation philosophy and internal media. By linking the internal, innovation, and change communication, it identifies new essential aspects for creating a communication mix and specifically communicating with the target-group.

Strategic communication, in contrast to everyday public relations, concentrates on the core drivers of organizational success. It also expands the traditional set of institutionalized communication measures in order to manage meaning in all kinds of interactions with internal and external stakeholders. Along this line, this article argues that communication should play a new role in promoting innovation management as a crucial process in today's society, and that this can be achieved by a new understanding of leadership communication. Theoretical concepts and empirical findings can be integrated into a wheel of leadership communication on innovations that combines the social, cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions of a new role in the innovation process supported by communication management.

Purpose -When comparing the annotated relevance and the actual application of social media, enormous discrepancies show. This paper aims to introduce the concept of "Social Media Governance" as a means to accelerate the establishment of social media in communication practices and seeks to analyse its status quo in German organizations. Design/methodology/approach -The data presented here stem from a quantitative online survey among communication professionals that was carried out in Germany. Findings -The results indicate that although many organizations claim to have strategies for social media communications, nine out of ten had no explicit regulatory frameworks. Strategic pillars, such as managerial commitment and a participative corporate culture, were reported by one third of the organizations. This is crucial, because correlation analyses have revealed that the presence of such structures has a positive effect on skill levels, strategies and the level of activity. Research limitations/implications -In terms of theory, the concept of governance may be used in order to analyze the dynamics of introducing new modes of online communication. Practical implications -According to structuration theory, the actions of individual agents will only succeed if everyone involved can resort to structures in the sense of a common stock of (informal) rules and resources. This research indicates that public relations (PR) practices should focus on developing basic structures for social media communications and should not be limited to communications activities. Originality/value -While previous studies have focused on single aspects of social media governance, e.g. guidelines, very little research has been done on the overall concept. Also, the interconnection of strategic and structural aspects of social media communication has been neglected as a research topic so far.