The Co-Presence of Clarity and Ambiguity in Strategic Corporate Communication – An Exploratory Study

Ib T Gulbrandsen

doi:10.1080/1553118x.2019.1575222

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to examine the co-presence of clarity and ambiguity in the formulation, interpretation and implementation of corporate communication strategies. Following a growing scholarly interest in how ambiguity can be seen as a productive strategic resource in strategy work, this article focuses on the interdependency of clarity and ambiguity in corporate communication strategies. Through an exploratory study, using interpretive discourse analysis of interviews with employees at a corporate communication department, the present article analyses how the employees perceived the writing, reading, and enactment of their organisation’s new corporate communication strategy. The analysis reveals that the employees sometimes use shared understandings to produce ambiguity in relation to engagement and responsibility, and how they use ambiguity to create a shared understanding of objectives and practices. Though this co-presence might cause the members to feel a lack of ownership, it does not impede the department’s ability to execute strategy-work.

Highlights

The majority of strategic corporate communication (SCC) literature defines its domain as one in which clarity is present and ambiguity is absent
Following a growing scholarly interest in how ambiguity can be seen as a productive strategic resource in strategy work, this article focuses on the interdependency of clarity and ambiguity in corporate communication strategies
The analysis reveals that the employees sometimes use shared understandings to produce ambiguity in relation to engagement and responsibility, and how they use ambiguity to create a shared understanding on objectives and practices

Summary

Introduction

The majority of strategic corporate communication (SCC) literature defines its domain as one in which clarity is present and ambiguity is absent. Though she says “a piece of paper” told her to focus on politicians, by saying that she would have made the choice regardless, she indirectly points to this being an objective that (would have) derived from her anyways, and confirms that the objective is not based on analysis, but gut This shared understanding, or what Spee and Jarzabkowski (2017) would call “joint account”, of the objectives is interesting when considering the ambiguous role the department assigns the text during the writing of it. None of the employees seem to find this too problematic though, because, as earlier pointed out, they do not necessarily tie the enactment to the text For this concrete corporate communication department, the analysis depicts SCC as an activity in which clarity and ambiguity are co-present. The ambiguous role given to the text allows for the different members to individually decide on its impact, and, when enacting the strategy, collectively cope with its relatively minor role in orchestrating their day to day strategy-work

Conclusion and discussion

Limitations and implications