The Perils and Opportunities of Communicating Corporate Ethics

This paper examines critical success factors for ethics-related corporate communication with a view to helping companies communicate their ethical stance more effectively. We analyze this communication process from the company's point of view and discuss the implications of source credibility, attitude formation, audience involvement and media choice for image management. We argue that the ideal relationship between corporate ethics, corporate communication, and corporate image is a sequence of activities, with companies adjusting their messages as they change their business conduct. In this way, public perceptions are a fair reflection of corporate behaviour. This process should be a continuous, upward moving cycle that stops when the company's public image matches its desired image. We also point out the dangers inherent in communicating corporate ethics, including public cynicism and elevated stakeholder expectations.     

Involving Stakeholders in Developing Corporate Brands: the Communication Dimension

Those involved in corporate branding recognise that interactions with stakeholders are crucial. Surprisingly therefore, the author found that there is relatively little in the literature or in the study of practice that indicates how the range of stakeholders can be actively engaged in developing the corporate brand. Stakeholders are usually regarded as targets rather than partners in its development. This is reflected in the planning models, which, although often denoting stakeholders as integral to the process, are not explicit about how or to what extent they should be involved.

In this paper a process describing the contribution that stakeholders can make based on the concept of a 'negotiated brand' is proposed. The author then goes on to outline four different practical communication strategies that can be used to involve stakeholders in corporate brand development depending on the nature of their relationship with the organisation.     

Does Political PR Enhance or Trivialise Democracy? The UK General Election 2001 as Contest between Presentation and Substance

Modern UK general election campaigns cannot be fully understood without assessing the role of political public relations by the major parties. They seek voter attention and commitment through the three 'P's of policy, personality and presentation. But presentation carries a health risk for democracy: does it illuminate or obscure policy and personality?

Monitoring and content analysis of the 2001 election suggests mixed benefits from political PR for politicians, voters and media but one firm conclusion for the latter two groups: making elections an informed and rational choice requires continuous scrutiny to see through the presentational trellis of political PR. Of all PR forms, political PR is the most influential because of its proximity to state and regulatory power: even so, its use in general elections cannot reverse declining electoral participation.     

'Integration' in Communication Management: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations

The pervasive notion of 'integration' has found wide acceptance in writings across the disciplines of marketing-communications, public relations and corporate identity management but has to date not been subjected to systematic empirical research. The paper develops systematic measures and propositions in regard to 'integration' for further empirical research.     

An Exploration of the Advertising Ambitions and Strategies of the 2001 British General Election

This paper reports on one element of our wider study investigating the 2001 British General Election national advertising, and the attitudes and perceptions of the young British electorate to the campaigns. The discussion presented here explores the strategies and ambitions of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats' 2001 national advertising campaigns. Our analysis is based on indepth interviews with key members of the three parties advertising agencies; content analysis of the national posters, press and party election broadcasts; and secondary source information e.g. coverage in the marketing and advertising press, newspaper, radio and TV reporting. A number of issues emerge including the key role of the advertising in agenda setting and agenda control, evidence of media misrepresentation of the central advertising themes, the poor use of the Internet, and the rather limited ambitions for the advertising itself.     

Entrepreneurial Marketing in the Public Sector: The Lessons of Headteachers as Entrepreneurs

This article argues that headteachers of primary schools have been at the forefront of the marketing/entrepreneurship interface since attempts to introduce competitive market forces into the maintained education system. It examines primary school headteachers' marketing strategies and compares them to those of owner managers of small firms. Case studies of ten schools illustrative of a variety of provision and market conditions provided the empirical data over a five year period. The headteachers shared many of the marketing problems of owner-managers of small firms. Headteachers found that the most effective marketing strategies consisted of: i) marketing to improve relationships with existing parents, staff and governors as an essential precursor to any external marketing effort; ii) parental involvement in the school which improved the likelihood of word of mouth recommendations; and iii) influencing such recommendations by marketing to improve parental and other involvement in the school. As word of mouth is also the most important source of new business for small firms, there are opportunities for lessons from the public to the private sector.     

Product Attribute-Based Voter Segmentation and Resource Advantage Theory

Political parties have long since targeted the marginal constituency and floating voters using demographic segmentation approaches and the use of market segmentation techniques in general election campaigns is now well-documented (see Johnson 1971; Ahmed and Jackson 1979; Yorke and Meehan 1986; Baines et al. 2003). The actual practice of segmentation as undertaken by political parties and its relation to theory is less well-considered. This paper represents a serious attempt to outline how political parties targeted a priori segments of the electorate including gender, age and lifecycle in the 2005 British General Election when they should have been adopting a product attributed-based approach. Selected MORI surveys from April 2005 were analysed, using logistic regression to indicate the most important factors in determining how Britons vote. Principal components analysis provides an indication of how the three main British political parties are perceived. The paper discusses, using resource-advantage theory (Hunt 1995; Hunt and Arnett 2004) how political parties might use their party and leader image, and policies to build their popularity in an election campaign.     

Service Design in the NHS: Collaboration or Conflict?

Continuous new service design / redesign is a key contributor to organisational performance. The NSD literature, originally evolving from new product development studies, often emphasised a sequential, linear process. More recently, however, the role of culture, internal politics and social dynamics in the NSD process has been highlighted. The potential for an enhanced role for political behaviour and stakeholder conflict within public sector organisations is apparent. In view of the increasing importance of consumer opinion as both an input into, and evaluation of, the design of public sector services, the need to understand the process of new service formation and its impact on consumer perceived service quality is of major importance. This study examines the design process for three mental health resource centres. Through interviews with a range of stakeholders, the role of conflict within complex, multi-organisational decision making is highlighted and the impact on the final consumer is assessed.     

Interdependencies between Marketing and Public Relations Disciplines as Correlates of Communication Organisation

The academic literature on corporate and marketing communication organisation is characterized by a comparatively large amount of conceptual work, with little detailed empirical analysis to support the theoretical perspectives offered. Following an established line of inquiry in organisational research; an information-processing perspective on organisational structure and design, the article develops and tests the hypothesis that interdependencies between marketing and public relations disciplines are correlated with choices for organisational arrangements. The findings of an exploratory analysis of organisations in the UK suggest, however, that in the majority of cases there is a lack of fit between information processing requirements brought about by the interdependencies between the marketing and public relations disciplines and the information processing capacity accompanying the actual design choices and organisational arrangements made. The practical implications of these findings for practitioners are discussed, and recommendations for further research are made.