John Balmer and Edmund Gray: Corporate Identity and Corporate Communications
In this article the authors articulate the strategic importance of corporate identity and corporate communications. They point out that effective corporate communications can ensure organizations a competitive advantage. Additionally, they highlight the relevance of ongoing environmental trends that have blurred the images of many companies and increased the need to reposition.
In my opinion, an important contribution of this writing is its articulation of what the writers call "Total Corporate Communication" consisting of primary, secondary and tertiary communication. Raimo Lovio and Mika Kuisma deal in their chapter "Miten hyvä ympäristönsuojelun taso muutetaan ympäristökilpailukyvyksi?" with one of the environmental trends mentioned by Balmer and Gray, the growing need for corporate social responsiveness. Lovio and Kuisma state that when changing an organisation's environmental performance to environmental competitiveness, one must consider that stakeholders get most of their information from third parties like the media.
A caduceus
English: National Research Foundation Corporate Id...
English: Corporate Identity of Hotel Rural Costa S...In this case the emphasize shifts to what Balmer and Gray refer to as tertiary communication.
In Balmer and Gray's article, no attention is paid to the fact that an organization cannot control all the elements of its image. According to Lovio and Kuisma, on the other hand, there can be a gap between the environmental performance and environmental competitiveness of an organization due to how different individuals stress different elements of the environmental performance. Also van Riel emphasizes these, sometimes irrational ways that stakeholders select signals. Both articles, however, stress the effectiveness of communications as a tool of creating a competitive advantage.
Cees B. M. van Riel: Principles of Corporate Communication
In his "Principles of Corporate Communication" chapter, van Riel devides corporate communication into marketing communication, organizational communication and management communication. He points out that the wide range of internal communication 'sources' can lead to a fragmented picture...