future visions of corporate communication · 2016-10-25 · future visions of corporate...

FUTURE VISIONS OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION

#CCCevents / @RSMErasmus


Prof. dr. Joep Cornelissen

Professor of Corporate Communication and Management at RSM

Welcome



Programme

Time Activity

13:00 – 13:30 Welcome

13:30 – 14:00 Session 1: The Measure of Change

14:00 – 14:30 Panel discussion

14:30 – 15:00 Session 2: The Social Communication Imperative

15:00 – 15:30 Panel discussion

15 45 – 16:00 Session 3: The CEO's View

16:00 – 16:30 Interview with Roger van Boxtel, CEO NS/Dutch Railways

16:30 – 17:00 Q&A

17:00 – 17:15 Wrap-up & adjourn

17:15 Drinks


Post Truth, Post Trust, Post PR The crisis of trust is a crisis of leadership

Robert Phillips

Jericho Chambers

@citizenrobert

October 20, 2016


The new normal can be pretty ugly


RichardWho can you trust?


Networks vs Hierarchies

“We are the 99%”


Vincent

The three myths of trust


Edward and Edward

Radical transparency rejects control


Public Leadership & Public Value• Public Leadership

— Activist— Co-Produced— Citizen-centric— Society-first

• Public Value— Common Good; purpose & profit— Accountability vs. Measurement— Wise crowds/ real people— Do the right thing


“Who do we f*ck today?”


Bullsh*t CSR is not the answer to greater trust


Communities, coalitions & co-production;

activism, vulnerability & dissent


Onora“More trust is a meaningless aim”


Charles and Katniss

(Workplace) revolutions


Public Leaders stand naked


Public Leadership & Public Value• Public Leadership

— Activist— Co-Produced— Citizen-centric— Society-first— Vulnerability & Dissent

• Public Value— Common Good; purpose & profit— Accountability vs. Measurement— Wise crowds/ real people— Do the right thing— Journeys, not solutions


Post PR: Seven Strategies of We

1. Accept chaos as reality

2. Radicalise honesty and transparency

3. Build coalitions

4. Take to the social dance floor

5. Be the Media

6. Love the citizen crowd

7. Communicate through actions not words


Post Truth, Post Trust, Post PR

The crisis of trust is a crisis of leadership

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University

Robert Phillips

@citizenrobert

October 20, 2016


Panel discussion

André Manning

VP Corporate Communication at Amcor

& former CCO at Philips and Booking.com

Robert Philips

Co-Founder & Strategy Consultant at Jericho Chambers

Bartho Boer

CCO at NS (Dutch Railways)

Mark Blok

CCO at IKEA Netherlands

& Owner at Blok Communicatie & Advies


#CCCevents

How firms can use communication to lead on grand societal challenges

Prof. dr. Joep Cornelissen

Professor of Corporate Communication and Management at RSM



A positively changing corporate landscape?

Trends in community relations

Trends in stakeholder relations

orientation relationship

Philanthropic approach

(pre-1980s) Charity approach

(pre-1980s) Transactional Asymmetrical

Community

involvement approach (1980-1990s)

Market-based approach (1980s-1990s)

Citizenship and cross-sector partnership

approach (early 2000s to present)

Collaboration and partnership approach

(early 2000s to present)

Strategic

Symmetrical

Burke (1999) Wicks et al. (2007)



• From a firm-centric and transactional logic to a partnership logic

— Crilly and Sloan (2012) dominant enterprise logic

Transactional: economic value capture

Relational: economic value creation

Partnership: social/joint value creation

• “Firms with these [social value creation] logics are more likely to be comfortablewith a measure of risk taking, seizing opportunities, and innovating in theirrelationships in ways that lead to new business models that reinforce both socialand economic performance” (Porter and Kramer, 2006: 1190)

From Managing OF to Managing FOR Stakeholders



Aligning Market and Non-Market Strategies

Corporate strategy

External (market) analysis

Strategy implementation

Formulating & evaluating

alternatives

Internal (organizational)

analysis

Sustainable competitive advantage

External (stakeholder)

analysis

Strategy implementation

Formulating & evaluating

alternatives

Internal (risk)

analysis

Capabilitydevelopment

Corporate positioning

Corporate governance

“We're the world's biggest NGO”



…but far from a walk in the park

Non-market strategy

Issues management

Public affairs management

Crisis management



The Challenge of Grand Challenges



Conventional Issues Management



• Reactive

— buffering: stonewalling the issue, denying there is an issue

— bridging: accommodating stakeholder concerns, often after pressure

• Proactive

— advocacy: offering an alternative framing and definition

— social innovation: creating social value for stakeholders

Classic Issue Management Responses



A Case Example of Social Innovation



• 1994: epiphany Ray Anderson

• Mission Zero: “our promise to eliminate any negative impact our company may have on the environment by the year 2020”

• Communicating the change process as “ a journey climbing mount sustainability”

• Mission ZERO combined with the seven fronts of “Mount Sustainability” (the strategic ways for achieving the mission)

• Number of smaller changes (e.g., Re-Entry 2.0: like-for-like recycling of carpet tiles) that together have led to deep, transformational change

• Based on “a culture of ‘successful failure’”, biomimicry and “open innovation”

• Inspired by Ray Anderson symbolized as a father figure that employees still don’t want to let down (although he passed away in 2011)

Purpose-led Change in Interface



• Ray Framed addressing Climate Change as:

— Social progress (a means of improving quality of life or solving problems, in a way that is in harmony with nature instead of mastering it)

— Economic sense (an economic investment; market benefit or risk; or a point of local, national or global competitiveness)

— Morality and ethics (a matter of the right thing to do; with respect for planetary limits, thresholds and boundaries)

— Pandora‘s box (a need for practical precaution or action in face of possible catastrophe and out-of-control consequences)

From an Either/Or to Both/And Framing



Ray Anderson: The Business Logic of Sustainability



• Climate change is complex, lacks immediate visible impact and is marked by politically polarized opinions

• Partisan identities, ideological positions, and motivated reasoning

— Motivated reasoning is a form of confirmation bias, defined as the “seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand” (Nickerson, 1998: 175).

— Alternative (self-reinforcing) vantage points, driven by the motivation to arrive at certain (directed) conclusions and sustain beliefs that reflect loyalty to important affinity groups

— “Expressively rational” at the individual level, because it conveys membership in and loyalty to groups (on whom one depends for material or social-psychological support) (Kahan, 2013)

• The question is how one can break through partisan identities and communication barriers of a human nature to create consensus in support of change (within organizations and in society)?

The Real Challenge with Climate Change



• “The tragedy of the science communications commons” (Kahan , 2013: 40)

— What might be characterized as the “expressive rationality” of ideologically motivatedreasoning is intrinsic to a collective action problem. When societal risks become suffusedwith antagonistic social meanings, it is (often if not always, and with respect to many ifnot all issues) individually rational for ordinary members of the public to attend toinformation in a manner that reliably connects them to the positions that predominate intheir identity-defining groups.

— Nevertheless, if ideologically diverse individuals all follow this strategy simultaneously,they will be collectively worse off, since under these conditions, democratic institutionsare less likely to converge, or to converge as rapidly as they otherwise would, on policiesthat reflect the best available evidence on how to protect everyone from harm.

— But because what any ordinary individual believes about policy will not make a difference,the collective irrationality of ideologically motivated reasoning does not by itself createany reliable pressure or mechanism to induce individuals to process information in adifferent, and morally and politically superior, way.

— Overcoming ideological polarization over societal risks and related facts thus demandscollective action specifically geared at dissolving this “tragedy of the sciencecommunications commons” (following Hardin, 1968).



• Combine social progress and economic frames: recasting climate change as an opportunity to grow the economy

— “innovative energy technology”

— “sustainable economic prosperity” (within planetary boundaries)

— “creating green jobs and fuelling economic recovery”

— Nordhaus & Schnellenberger (2007)

• Combine pandora’s box and economic frames: prize the risks and costs of future climate-change (extreme) events

— “economize (price) climate change efforts before it is too late” (e.g., end subsidies for fossil fuels, multiply energy efficiency efforts, improve mass public transport systems and accelerate the roll-out of electric cars)

— Stern report on climate change

• “...the logics held by different actors need not be coincident, but they have to adjust their frames sufficiently to tip the scales towards the emergence of field frames that can eventually lead to the construction of a hybrid commons logic” (Ansari et al., 2013: 211).

Discursive Changes in the Public Debate



• Field:

— those organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life:suppliers, consumers, firms, regulatory agencies, NGOs, social movement and others thatcome together around a set of services or products (cf. Di Maggio & Powell, 1983; 148’

• Frame:

— “To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in acommunicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causalinterpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described”(Entman, 1993: 52)

• Social skill in framing:

— “the basic problem for skilled social actors is to frame “stories” that help induce cooperation from people in their group that appeal to their identities and interests, while at the same time using those same stories to frame actions against various opponents. This is the general problem of framing that Goffman identifies” (Fligstein, 2001: 113).

• Settlement:

— truce between actors about common and legitimate framing for the field (Rao & Kenney, 2008)

A model of framing dynamics around grand societal issues



The Model in a Nutshell

As

sert

iven

ess

High Framing contests Bridging between frames

Negotiation of

frames

low Avoidance of

frames Frame

accommodation Low High Cooperativeness



• Coca-Cola advocated (via sponsored front groups and think tanks) a framing of obesity as not linked to diet and intake of sugars (calories) but more the result of a lack of an active life style

• NY Times exposé in 2015, leading to response by the CEO (Muhtar Kent) in the paper pledging to be more “open” about donations and support to scientific research.

• He is effectively trying to prime a move from contesting a negative framing of sugary drinks to the need for a more transparent and constructive dialogue (frame negotiation), recognizing the views of others (and their assertiveness) and inducing a bit more cooperation – and hopefully with that more understanding for Coca-Cola‘s position.

— “As we continue to learn, it is my hope that our critics will receive us with an open mind,” Mr. Kent wrote. “At times we will agree and at times we will passionately disagree.”

— “Our business will continue to evolve and respond to the needs of society – from product innovation to responsible marketing to our sponsorships and partnerships. And we will expand on the good things we are already doing so people may enjoy Coca-Cola products that have the calories and ingredients that fit their lifestyle. We will also continue our work to provide more choices, in smaller pack sizes, in more communities…”

• Clever framing of not either/or but both/and, creating a more encompassing picture of the company and its willingness to negotiate and concede points in the debate

Case example



• We are moving beyond singular issue episodes to dealing with “wicked” grand societal issues

• Communicators need to develop the skills to read the field and possible field dynamics around alternative frames:

1. Identify the willingness of other actors to cooperate and their assertiveness

2. Make the frames in the field explicit; can these be conceptually incorporated into a compromise frame (frame negotiation) or integrated frame (frame bridging)? What in terms of the distribution of interests might actors loose or gain?

3. From a corporate perspective, is there a way in which you can induce cooperation to set things in motion, and in the direction of a progressive solution for the field and for your organization/group?

Take-aways


Panel discussion

Raymond Giannotten

Director at Nederlandse Vereniging Frisdranken, Waters, Sappen

Dr. Mignon van Halderen

Associate Professor “Thought Leadership in a Society of Change” at Fontys University of Applied Sciences

Karen Dikken

Manager Internal Communication at FrieslandCampina


#CCCevents

Building Excellence in Reputation ManagementProf.dr. Cees B.M. van Riel

Professor of Corporate Communication & Founding Directorof RSM’s Executive Master of Science in Corporate Communication programme


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Live on-stage interview with Roger van BoxtelCEO, NS (Dutch Railways)


Wrap-up and Adjourn

future visions of corporate communication · 2016-10-25 · future visions of corporate...

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