Strategic Communication and the Stakeholder Concept: Merging Marketing Communication and PR

Corporate communication is a strategic endeavour of two major directions; market and non-market communication. Within this differentiation, marketing and communication/Public Relations usually operate separately with a major focus on stakeholder communication since scholars’ research provides evidence for its sustainable advantage. But with regard to different stakeholders’ requirements, the differentiation between market and non-market-related communication has diminished and a number of objectives have become both disciplines’ targets. This paper suggests an extension for the notion communication and introduces a strategic model merging both disciplines under the new function of Strategic Communication. Key Words: Corporate communication, strategic communication, stakeholder concept, unitary perception

Talking to the Empowered Consumer Dealing with the Shift of Power

The concept of the empowered consumer cannot be considered as a field of exact scientific research yet. Nevertheless, it has become part of scholars’ interest and gains more and more importance in the research of organisational relationships with customers. It is suggested that two influencing criteria are especially at the forefront: The emergence of the Internet, which effected that barriers to collect and to disseminate information across boundaries were decisively reduced. As a consequence consumers could organise globally and collect and exchange information and experiences about organisations and their products. Furthermore, flexible interactivity between companies and consumers, but particularly from consumers to consumers enable direct interaction changing many previously established rules of doing business. Due to these new opportunities new business models developed and the proposition is that intangible values such as reputation gained even more importance and influence tangible outcomes. Suggestions are that 1.), this concept links communication, corporate behaviour and legitimacy of activities influencing reputation as a driver of value. 2.), reputation as a corporate asset can be managed but it is beyond the pure control of an organisation. 3.), reputation is part of public perception, which an organisation has to build, maintain and expand depending on communicative abilities and willingness to accept consumers as a centre of power. The following discussion will present Grunig et al.’s communication model explaining changed organisational challenges. It is put forward as a framework for marketing for times in which online opportunities added to the earlier b2b and b2c models c2c and P2P considerations and architectures. The annual studies of the market research institute puls undertaking regular representative research among German consumers since November 2005 will present evidence for the relationship of improved prices, which may be achieved, and the perception a firm possesses. This paper deals mostly with German examples and data, but the hypothesis is that a) the general situation in other Western countries is alike, but needs b) specific additional research, since cultural differences are expected to have a considerable influence, especially when criteria such as individualist and collectivist organisation of society and high and low context communication styles are involved. Hence, the results of the same study in different countries are therefore expected to present some variation. Additionally, the Cluetrain Manifesto challenges corporate behaviour of those companies still believing to have the ability to control information disseminated by and written about it. Examples provided will support the hypothesis that powerful consumers may have significant impact on organisational behaviour, decision-making and outcomes. Keywords: Empowered Consumer Concept, Symmetric Two-way communication, Reputation, c2c, P2

Management & Leadership in the Environment of Disruptive Innovation

Long-term research in various industries (Abernathy et al. 1983, Utterback. 1997, Christensen. 2003, Christensen et al. 2003, 2004) offers evidence as to why established organisations are able to deal with incremental innovation and why their failure rate increases when innovation becomes radical or disruptive. In a Schumpeterian understanding, disruptive innovation simultaneously destroys existing and creates new industries (the wind of creative destruction), e.g., typewriter vs. computer or VHS vs. DVD. Other industries, e.g., computer and the camera industry, are confronted with radical innovation, e.g., by convergent technologies, causing major shifts in the macro and microenvironment. Employing two theories, the disruptive innovation theory and resources, process, and values theory, the paper sets out to explain underlying reasons for such adaptive failure and identify the challenges for both management and leadership in such turbulent environments. The proposition is that the more radical an innovation becomes, the impact of both technologies and market linkages may result in threats for an industry to become obsolete. Management and leadership need to reflect then on adopting either end-game strategies in a disruptive (Harrigan. 2003, 1980, Harrigan et al. 1983) or change strategies in a radical environment (Balogun et al. 2004, Johnson et al. 2008, Trott. 2008, Tidd et al. 2005). Such challenges in the environment require management and leadership styles, which embrace organisational learning and future orientation to improve an enterprise’s position in its permanent struggle for survival (Helfer et al. 2006). Key words: Management and leadership, disruptive innovation, radical innovation, change

The Home Entertainment Industry & the Hyper-consumer: Consumption with or without Industrial Participation

ICT enabled the development of disruptive technologies, which – so the proposition – are having a potential that participants on various levels of the Home Entertainment Industry and its value chain may face discontinuous conditions due to shifting consumption preferences (Christensen et al. 2004, Chesbrough. 2006, Trott. 2008, Kusek et al. 2006, Tidd. 2005). ICT-technology allows consumers to exclude the established industry, which offers pre-recorded content, most times on media, whose content cannot be altered and forces consumers to purchase the content, which this industry has pre-selected, while download platforms offer a huge variety of content, which can be selected due to individual taste and preferences fuelling the experiential prosumer and community concepts of hyper-consumers (Lipovetsky. 2009, Antorini, 2009, Benghozi, 2006, Benghozi et al. 2000, 2005). Permanently decreasing sales quantities of pre-recorded content are confronted with increasing downloads and exchange quantities on c2c and P2P level (RIAA. 2006, 2006, IFPI. 2006, musik.woche, 2007). So far, legal barriers and copy protection have proved to be an obstacle, but unable to prevent consumers from developing different forms of business outside the established distribution paths (Eras, 2007, Renaud, 2007). At the same time industry’s love marks and customer relationships are decreasing and deteriorating due to corporate behaviour. This paper, based on primary and secondary research, studies different approaches suggesting some explanations and reasons, why the Home Entertainment Industry is increasingly set apart of content consumption and may put its existence on stake, unless a change of strategies may help to regain some of its lost territory. Key words: Hyper-consumer, P2P, c2c, discontinuous change, disruptive technologie

Segmentation & the Jobs-to-be-done theory: A Conceptual Approach to Explaining Product Failure

Based on Christensen et al.’s research the jobs-to-be-done theory tends to hold that (market) segmentation is a theory (2004, 2003, 2003). The criticism expressed is that companies frequently allocate their market segments close to attributes, which are easy to measure and just observe consumers’ behaviour for developing new products. There exists the phenomenon that the vast majority of new products fail within a short period of time after market entry. The jobs-to-be-done theory supports that it is more important to align R&D alongside jobs consumers need to get done, jobs, which facilitate their lives and for which they searched a solution historically. The proposition the jobs-to-be-done theory offers is the identification of such jobs needing solutions, which may lead to the creation of new markets or to the extension of existing ones, which do not provide good enough products. Scholars and academics put much emphasis on the process of segmentation – targeting – positioning, as an important tool to focus organisational resources and capabilities for the achievement of sustainable positioning in a challenging market environment. Therefore, this specific theory challenges what marketing theory considers as an important strategy for market success. The proposition is that both approaches established STP and the approach by the jobs-to-be-done theory need to be well considered within strategic organisational decision making, especially for R&D and product strategy. While the traditional STP-strategy seems salient within incremental product novelties, the jobs-to-be-done theory is suggested to offer assistance for more radical product developments. This way, organisations may find themselves in a dilemma to understand, where a borderline between incremental and more radical developments may be drawn, where it will be advantageous to rely on measuring consumer behaviour by classical market research and data and at which point it will be more promising to follow the propositions of the jobs-to-be-done theory for developing successful new products. The proposition of this paper is that suggestions established by scholars’ for a sound segmentation strategy need to be contrasted with the jobs-to-be-done theory in the understanding that there are market needs for incremental improvements and parallel to these, different markets are expecting more radical solutions to get jobs done, for which existing products are not good enough. The paper’s conclusion will result in propositions of framing both these macro markets and contrasting them against each other. Key Words: Jobs-to-be-done theory, segmentation, STP-strategy, new product developmen

Disruptive Technology: Approaches to Escape a Discontinuous Environment

Disruptive technologies have erased and continue to extinct previously successful industries. Scholars’ studies consider ICT as a major cause for various industries, as, e.g., analogue photography, typewriters, VHS-cassettes and so on. They have become obsolete as its effect. Despite the creation of new industries at the same time, the environment for old industries results frequently in obsolescence. Especially, as research tends to hold, impact on organisations increases, when new technologies effectuate an additional shift in consumer behaviour. Opportunities for established firms become likely discontinuous then. The replication industry of optical discs is a specific industry sector within the wider Home Entertain-ment Industry manufacturing the present dominant design of the physical mass product, DVD and CD. However, ICT-based dematerialised, virtual products threaten the replication industry’s future, which may become obsolete, since more and more consumers adopt virtual downloads as their preference. This paper studies the approaches of selected industry’s incumbents to be innovative themselves to escape their emergent disruptive environment. Based on primary and secondary research, it addresses their adopted opportunities of accessing new growth paths through extended technology management and the development of a future-oriented direction by additional technologies and augmented services to escape the environment of decline and exit. The purpose of the underlying long-term research is to study, how do replicators (as an example for declining industries) respond to the threat of disruptive innovation and whether their (strategic) behaviour may serve as a model for other industries facing similar scenarios. This research is undertaken qualitatively using a single case study from which excerpts are presented. The present findings provide evidence that after a long time of reluctance, replicators have started to develop further resources and capacities to identify new and additional ways supporting them in their struggle for survival. But these findings show as well a pattern that approaches to future orientation may not be sufficient, since 1. They do not resolve the dilemma of competing with products and services committed to the physical place against a shifting consumer behaviour pattern addressing the virtual space. 2. Constraints, like e.g., staff, physical facilities, skills and path-dependent reasons further marginal, or in Abernathy et al.s’ understanding regular innovation or re-engineering fighting against radical innovation by both, technological impact and market linkages (1983, 1984). 3. The established customer-supplier relationships may be of disadvantage, since hindering replicators to have direct access to the point of consumption. These indicators suggest that disruptive innovation will be stronger in the end and many present efforts may be in vain

The Logical Framework Approach

Die Unternehmenskommunikation bedarf zum Erfolg zwingend einer Strategie. Dieses Postulat soll der Ausgangspunkt sein, den Logical Framework Approach als wichtiges strategisches Instrument vor zu stellen. Die Vielzahl relevanter Berichte lässt vermuten, dass einer Strategie in vielen Unter-nehmen nicht konsequent Rechnung getragen wird. Doch in Zeiten von struktureller Krise, u.a. bedingt durch stetigen Wandel und Hyper-Competition, bedarf es konsequenter Antworten, die jedoch im Bereich der Wirtschaft gerade erst erkannt werden. Eine davon ist der Logical Framework Approach, Logframes, oder LFA. Bezeichnungen für einen strategisch sehr effizienten Ansatz, Probleme zu erkennen, zu definieren und zu lösen

Innovation erfordert Innovation

Viele Untersuchungen beschäftigen sich derzeit mit der Erstellung mobilen Contents. Der folgende Beitrag möchte eine Diskussion bieten, welche implizite Aspekte aufzeigt, die auf Basis der Erkenntnisse der Innovationsforschung per se untrennbar mit der Marktentwicklung dafür verbunden sind. Dabei soll explizit darauf hingewiesen werden, dass dies weitaus weniger theoretisch ist, als es vielleicht zunächst den Anschein haben mag, wie zahlreiche Entwicklungen der Praxis vieler Industrien belegen. Zweck der Diskussion ist Anregungen zu bieten, wie Anbieter ihre Produkte erfolgreich gestalten und positionieren können, um schnell eine profitable Nachfrage zu erzeugen. In einer Zeit, in der sich die wirtschaftlichen Parameter stark verändern, sind konventionelle Antworten stark nachteilig und, wie im Verlaufe der Diskussion noch gezeigt wird, auch zunehmend anders geworden, da vordergründige Analysen sehr schnell zu falschen Antworten und dadurch Fehlschlägen führen

Erfordernisse eines erweiterten Kommunikationsverständnisses

Es darf davon ausgegangen werden, dass durch die hohe Ausprägung immer spezialisierterer Interventionen im Bereich der Public Relations und des Marketings deren Grenzen gleichzeitig immer stärker reduziert werden, so dass die Frage, wo PR beginnt und Marketing aufhört, zunehmend diffuser wird. Spätestens seit Kotler das Modell des Ganzheitlichen Marketings (2002) vorgestellt hat und die Wirkung integrierter Kommunikation untersucht und nachgewiesen wurde, stellt sich die Frage nach der Begrifflichkeit Kommunikation aufs neue. Dass dies keine reine akademische Frage ist, sondern dieses Verständnis tiefe praktische Konsequenzen hat, soll hier erörtert werden

Ein Rahmenwerk strategischer Kommunikation

Die Zunahme der Orientierung von Unternehmen in Richtung strategischer Kommunikation soll Anlass sein, den Begriff Strategie näher zu betrachten und ein aus zwei Hauptelementen bestehendes Rahmenwerk vorzustellen, das der Praxis gute Dienste leistet und brancheneunabhängig für alle Kommunikations-maßnahmen einsetzbar ist. Strategische Kommunikation ist ein wesentlicher Ansatz wertorientierter Ausrichtung und stellt dabei sicher, dass Kommunikation den Unternehmenszielen stringent zuarbeitet. Es scheint, ohne das KISS-Prinzip vernachlässigen zu wollen, jedoch, dass vielerorts die volle Wirkung guter Ansätze noch nicht erreicht wird, weil wesentliche Grundlagen der Strategie nicht angewendet werden