COMPONENTS OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION

COMPONENTS OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION

Corporate responsibility

Corporate responsibility (often referred to as corporate social responsibility), corporate citizenship, sustainability, and even conscious capitalism are some of the terms bandied about the news media and corporate marketing efforts as companies jockey to win the trust and loyalty of constituents. Corporate responsibility (CR) constitutes an organization’s respect for society’s interests, demonstrated by taking ownership of the effects its activities have on key constituencies including customers, employees, shareholders, communities, and the environment, in all parts of their operations. In short, CR prompts a corporation to look beyond its traditional bottom line, to the social implications of its business.

Corporate reputation

Reputations are overall assessments of organizations by their stakeholders. They are aggregate perceptions by stakeholders of an organization's ability to fulfill their expectations, whether these stakeholders are interested in buying the company's products, working for the company, or investing in the company's share.

Corporate and organizational identity

There are two approaches for identity:

Corporate identity is the reality and uniqueness of an organization, which is integrally related to its external and internal image and reputation through corporate communication.

Organizational identity comprises those characteristics of an organization that its members believe are central, distinctive and enduring. That is, organizational identity consists of those attributes that members feel are fundamental to (central) and uniquely descriptive of (distinctive) the organization and that persist within the organization over time (enduring).

Four types of identity can be distinguished;

Desired identity (also called ‘ideal’ identity): The idealized picture that top managers hold of what the organization could evolve into under their leadership.

Applied identity: The signals that an organization broadcasts both consciously and unconsciously through behaviors and initiatives at all levels within the organization.

Perceived identity: The collection of attributes that are seen as typical for the ‘continuity, centrality and uniqueness’ of the organization in the eyes of its members.

Projected identity: The self-presentations of the organization’s attributes manifested in the implicit and explicit signals which the organization broadcasts to internal and external target audiences through communication and symbols.

Corporate branding

A corporate brand is the perception of a company that unites a group of products or services for the public under a single name, a shared visual identity, and a common set of symbols. The process of corporate branding consists creating favorable associations and positive reputation with both internal and external stakeholders. The purpose of a corporate branding initiative is to generate a positive halo over the products and businesses of the company, imparting more favorable impressions of those products and businesses. In more general terms, research suggests that corporate branding is an appropriate strategy for companies to implement when, there is significant "information asymmetry" between a company and its clients.

 That is to say customers are much less informed about a company's products than the company itself is; customers perceive a high degree of risk in purchasing the products or services of the company, features of the company behind the brand would be relevant to the product or service a customer is considering purchasing.

            

By Mkula Dennis