36 research outputs found
Strategic communication and the entrepreneurial role of the corporate communication officer
Considering the recent evolution of the communication/PR profession in large
organizations both private and public, many scholars agree that a process of
institutionalization is occurring. In other words, communicationâs importance
has been growing, reaching in recent years a strategic position as a lever for
companiesâ governance.
A first objective of this chapter is to describe, looking at management and
communication/PR literature, how and to what extent communication has
become strategic. The main hypothesis is that communication has become
strategic within companiesâ governance in order to help each organization
to develop consistently â mainly in terms of values â within its environment.
A second objective is to describe, looking at the entrepreneurial organization
theory and communication/PR literature, another side of the strategic
evolution of communication, which is to help each organization to develop â
mainly in terms of services, products and reputation â as a different, or preferably
unique, entity as compared to the other organizations.
The evolution of the strategic contribution of communication/PR within
organizationsâ decision-making has a strong impact on the role that corporate
communication officers (CCOs) play in organizations both on the isomorphic
and on the entrepreneurialâinnovative sides of the communicational activity
they carry out to support the evolution of their organizations
Negotiating the Meaning of Team Expertise: A Firefighter TeamâĂĂ´s Epistemic Denial
In this case study, we report how a team of firefighters critiqued one of its memberâs decisions to facilitate learning and process improvement. The study is supported by 500+ hr of ethnographic observations, documents, and 11 retrospective interviews, which captured how the teamâs talk about the memberâs decision shaped their interpretations of their own and othersâ expertiseâinterpretations that ironically undermined learning. Constant comparative analysis revealed that these firefighters positioned themselves as experts by crediting either personal experience or technical knowledge and then discrediting the alternative way of knowing. We labeled this process epistemic denial. The process of epistemic denial was rooted in identity concern; specifically, veteran team members relied on personal experience and newer members relied on technical information gained from training to assert their expertise, and to devalue othersâ expertise. The article concludes with recommendations for avoiding problems associated with epistemic denial in high-reliability teams.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline