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Corporate Communication Revisited: Integrating Business Strategy and Strategic Communication

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Public Relations Research

Abstract

Communication is omnipresent in our economic life. Every day sees significant sums invested in public relations, investor relations, and communication with employees and customers. Everywhere, integrated communication is looked on as a factor in economic success. And yet the question of how to portray, specifically from a management point of view, the need for communication and its contribution to value-creation is one which has hitherto been only marginally addressed by researchers. This chapter sketches out an interdisciplinary theory of corporate communication. It takes as point of departure the role played by the company per se in both market and wider society, and identifies various different approaches to the issue of value-creation. The concept of “integration,” often so labile, thus acquires a new, multi-dimensional significance — as normative basis, functional process, and strategic necessity of communication.

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Ansgar Zerfass Betteke van Ruler Krishnamurthy Sriramesh

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Zerfass, A. (2008). Corporate Communication Revisited: Integrating Business Strategy and Strategic Communication. In: Zerfass, A., van Ruler, B., Sriramesh, K. (eds) Public Relations Research. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-90918-9_5

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