A Framework for Strategic Communication Research: A Call for Synthesis and Consilience

102

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the discussion concerning the present position and future directions of strategic communication by looking into the past and offering some proposals and a vision of how to develop and advance the field further. Research in strategic communication has mostly focused on communication professionals working in communication departments or agencies as primary agents of communication. However, this reflects a limited comprehension of organizations. The article addresses the need to focus not only on communicators, but also on managers and coworkers as key actors when trying to understand and theorize the practice of strategic communication.Theoretical approach-broadening the understanding of strategic communicationIn this section, we present a theoretical framework that broadens the understanding of strategic communication. First, there is a need to challenge the traditional understanding of communication and its relation to organizations. It is quite astonishing that our research community sometimes takes communication for granted. One could expect that researchers who have expertise in communication theory, should frequently try to understand and explain different phenomena from a communication perspective and also reflect on communication per se. For the purpose of reflecting on communication and its vital importance for the existence of organizations, we proclaim the use of the CCO perspective. Second, there is also a need to challenge the often taken-for-granted understanding of strategy. For that purpose we use the strategy as practice tradition that is related to the practice turn in strategic communication (cf. Aggerholm & Asmuß, 2016). Finally, to reach a more realistic understanding of the complex organizational realities, we have consulted literature within the organizational paradox and contradiction movement.The CCO perspective has its roots and primary advocators within the discipline of organizational communication. However, we believe that the CCO approach goes hand-in-hand with the basic tenets of strategic communication and that it could enrich our field. It should be noted that CCO is how research could go beyond a more traditional way of approaching and studying strategic communication. We believe that it is difficult to embrace all aspects of strategic communication within a single research project, such as multiple perspectives and theories, but we would like to see more perspectives, also critical, on an aggregated level. In the research that is presented below, we have primarily included communication professionals, managers and coworkers, and we have used both quantitative and qualitative empirical material. Method and materialThe empirical material in this part of the article comes from a three-year-research project, "The Communicative Organization" (2014)(2015)(2016)(2017). The purpose of the project is to increase knowledge about how communication creates value and contributes to organizational goal attainment. A distinguishing characteristic o...

Section: Concluding Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Concluding Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding the Scope of Strategic Communication: Towards a Holistic Understanding of Organizational Complexity

Heide

Platen

Simonsson

et al. 2018

102

“…With the exception of Nothhaft (2016), to date only Greenwood (2010) has explicitly linked evolutionary theory with public relations theory. Although her final conclusion was grounded on Dobzhansky's (1973) famous saying that "nothing in public relations makes sense except in the light of evolution" (Greenwood, 2010, p. 471), her contribution is rather to be read as a call for theoretical open-mindedness towards a unifying theory than as the development of a specific research program informed by evolutionary thinking.…”

Section: Evolutionary Thinking In Public Relations and Strategic Commmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, the bulk of research is not concerned with the study of the psychological underpinnings of strategic communication. But the argument brought forward by Nothhaft (2016) goes deeper, because his call for consilience aims at a consistent vertical integration of interdisciplinary knowledge. The message that authors like Fawkes (2015), Seiffert-Brockmann andThummes (2017), or Trayner (2017) convey is that it is necessary to reconcile the understanding of the human mind with theories of strategic communication.…”

Section: The Shortcomings Of Current Research In Strategic Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary Psychology: A Framework for Strategic Communication Research

Seiffert-Brockmann

2018

Evolutionary psychology suggests that the human mind consists of evolved cognitive mechanisms that developed through evolution by means of natural selection. These mechanisms evolved to solve long standing problems in the human ancestral environment. Cooperation in small foraging tribal communities of hunters and gatherers, and its use to gain reproductive advantages, was one of the problems the human mind has adapted to. Thus, this article argues that adopting evolutionary psychology as a framework for strategic communication research can improve understanding of why strategic communication exists in human societies and how it works. The idea of the modularity of mind suggests that separate modules inside the mind evolved during our evolutionary history to solve ancestral challenges. Some of these modules embody human fundamental motives, which can by triggered by strategic communication. By tapping into fundamental motives such as the longing for status, affiliation, and kin-care, strategic communication is able to exploit ancestral stimuli in today's information society. Thus, a research program based on evolutionary psychology could be a valuable contribution to the field's growing body of knowledge. Recently, Nothhaft called for a consilient synthesis in the field of strategic communication, i.e., "to reconnect strategic communication research to the rapidly progressing and highly relevant hybrid disciplines such as cognitive science and evolutionary psychology"

“…There is a basic level of theory-building that can be addressed in absence of methodology: the issue of consilience in a narrow sense, of hard-to-vary explanations in a wider. Based on the case made by EdwardWilson (1998), Nothhaft (2016 and others argue that theory in strategic communication must be compatible, i.e., consilient, with the mind sciences. The argument draws ultimately on DavidDeutsch's (2009) exposition that scientific explanations are characterized by the quality of being "hard to vary."…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic Communication: Reflections on an Elusive Concept

Nothhaft

Werder

Verčič

et al. 2018

Self Cite

The article explores how strategic communication successfully established itself as an academic discipline despite (or perhaps because of) being centered on an elusive concept. Drawing on ideas about the evolution of academic disciplines proposed by Alexander M. Shneider, we argue that strategic communication is currently caught in a cycle of constant reinvention obscured by a discourse of emergence. Although the discipline is undoubtedly becoming more sophisticated, it is doubtful whether there is genuine progress. The authors examine facets of strategic communication that contribute to the current state of affairs. Although clearer conceptualization and a more realistic understanding of the discipline are identified as a prerequisite for maturation, progress-as opposed to sophistication-ultimately depends on the development of discipline-specific, unique, and robust methods.