Tài liệu Corporate Reputations, Branding and People Management 29 docx

The social context we have already described as identified that good leaders and managers use in promoting their change initiatives: ■ Initiating conversations that are used to get the c

the outcomes of ‘Orange on the Inside’ or the Renaissance pro-ject in Denmark and elsewhere

Strategy and communications as a

narrative of change

The other way of analysing this case is to see it as a compelling, novel and credible strategic narrative for change This approach

Table 8.1

Changing corporate communications

Traditional corporate 21st century corporate communications communications

Basis and direction Everything is outbound, Dialogue and interactivity

of communication reflecting needs of among stakeholders

corporation Channels Specialist people and Focus on ‘customer’

departments using a needs and integration plan–develop–implement of functions using a sense–

Focus of communications Need to address Need to address global

national markets markets Content of communications Focus on how well Focus on how well

corporation is corporation is employing employing tangible intangible assets, e.g assets, e.g finance, values, brands, people, plant etc knowledge, CSR Basis of differentiation Products and services Customer value or

unique selling propositions customer captivity Structural drivers Communications Communications reflect

reflect corporate alliances, partners and

communications communications as communications as a

optional core strategic driver Importance of Corporate brand as Corporate brand as a corporate message optional key strategic aim

Source: Based on Schultz and Kitchen, 2004

to corporate communications is based on the so-called post-modern or ‘linguistic turn’ in management studies during the 1990s; a turn helped by companies such as GE, whose reported dissatisfaction with planning and hard analysis in strategic man-agement was well documented during the 1980s Instead, num-bers and positioning gave way to ‘strategy as perspective’ This involved looking into the heads of strategists, their values and aspirations, for the ‘vision thing’ and the search for the

‘organi-zation’s soul’ (Mintzberg et al., 2004) More of this in the final

two chapters; the point to note for now is that this turn has cer-tainly added to our understanding of the links between HR, cor-porate reputations and branding Strategy as perspective, or as

we prefer to call it, ‘strategy as communications’, is basically

con-cerned with strategists telling and selling a compelling, novel and credible story to different audiences (Barry and Elmes, 1997) If

you reflect on your organization’s public pronouncements, these are the essential qualities and functions of all good vision, values and mission statements; they are also essential elements of how effective and ethical leadership relates to followership, and

to the change processes underpinning reputation and brand-building (see Chapter 9) Such stories have to be new or refreshed

to inspire followers; they have to incorporate a compelling, aspirational view of the future; and they also have to be credible

in relation to the history and context of the organization, and the lived experience of employees (Boje, 2006) Successful change management also incorporates these qualities: we can think of few cases where these were not part of what effective leaders did in ‘theorizing the need for change’ through aspira-tional and credible stories (Martin and Beaumont, 2001), as we shall see later in this chapter The Orange experience in Denmark embodies all of the elements of a successful narrative for change, which could have formed a leitmotif for how they approached the Mobilix acquisition

In the field of reputation management, Cees Van Reil (2003), who works with Charles Fombrun at the Reputation Institute, is the writer most associated with this perspective He has described corporate communications as the ‘orchestration of all the instru-ments in the field of organizational identity (communications, symbols and the behavior of organization’s members) in such

an attractive and realistic manner as to create or maintain a

positive reputation for groups with which the organization has

a dependent relationship’ (p 163) Such communications, as

he points out, can be of three types:

■ Management communication, which focuses on how leadership communicates externally and internally, and how they bring about a positive communications climate

■ Marketing communication, which focuses on advertis-ing, personal sales, sponsorship, direct mail, sales sup-port, etc., and

■ Organizational communication, including public rela-tions, investor relarela-tions, environmental communica-tion, corporate advertising and internal employee communications

For Van Riel, the critical points are that all such types need to

be coordinated to create positive reputations in the sense that they need to have a common starting point, but, most import-antly, they need to be based on a sustainable corporate story (SCS) The idea of an SCS is an interesting one which we have incorporated into our model in Figure 8.1 The four key cri-teria against which an SCS should be judged reflect the narra-tive perspecnarra-tive on strategy These are as follows:

1 Realism: all stakeholders see it as typical of their organ-ization as a whole and as differentiating it from others

2 Relevance, to all members’ interests

3 Responsiveness: the style of narrative and communica-tions should be part of an ongoing, dynamic conversa-tion between internal and external stakeholders, and

4 Sustainability: reconciling the competing demands

of stakeholders and organizational members over time Sustainability, however, is difficult to achieve in practice Research

in this field has shown that stories that adopt a ‘single voice’, even one that has ‘buy in’ from the majority of employees, quickly become the object of less flattering narratives and the object of a dynamic process of refinement (Bjoe, 2006) This dynamic nature of sustainability needs to be taken into account by HR and communications specialists, a point to which we shall return later

in this chapter

Change as communications narrative

As we noted in the introduction to this chapter, we developed a model of strategic change, based on extensive research into the problems of change and change agents in multinational organ-izations (Martin and Beaumont, 2001) This earlier model, drawing on communications narratives and the idea of strategy

as a perspective, can be adapted to incorporate the ideas of Van Riel and some of the consulting work in this field to provide a new, comprehensive framework for ‘strategic change through communications’ (see Figure 8.1) The initial model set out the relationships between a complex set of events, activities, lan-guage practices, emotions and reactions that help explain two key questions in change management:

■ What is needed for sustainable strategic HR change to occur in organizations? and

■ Why is it that most strategic HR change initiatives are rarely successful in creating sustainable change in organizations?

Sustainable change has been defined as when new ways of working and the attainment of improved outcomes become

the norm in organizations (Buchanan et al., 2005) Mirroring

Van Reil’s SCS, the value of this model lay in seeing strategy as

a convincing narrative or storyline that managers and employees often co-construct, ‘buy into’ and use to give a sense of mission and purpose to their organizational lives The notion of stra-tegic discourses and change conversations plays a major part in the model (see Box 8.2) and helps flesh out the idea of sustain-able corporate stories

A strategic discourse is a set of communicative practices that are closely linked to specific purposes of powerful groups Discursive practices

in management include strategic conversations that managers use

to promote change Four types of strategic conversations have been

One of the advantages of this framework over most of the com-munications approaches lies in locating the processes of change through communications in receptive contexts The model sets out four stages in the strategic change process – conception, tran-sition, embedding and feedback – in four levels of context for change In the case of Orange, for example, the social context, which refers to the social distances between the cultures and insti-tutions of the parent country and its subsidiaries (see Chapter 7), would be important in understanding the transfer of a ‘global’ Orange culture to countries such as Denmark

The key features and stages of the model are as follows:

1 Receptive contexts for change.These contexts are espe-cially important for successful HR change to become embedded in complex organizations We can identify four such levels of context: the social, the outer-organi-zational, the inner-organizational and the relational context The social context we have already described as

identified that good leaders and managers use in promoting their change initiatives:

■ Initiating conversations that are used to get the change process under way, which include assertions, directives, promises, etc that engage employees and outline what is needed

■ Understanding conversations to test the reality of the change propositions and to generate involvement These conversations focus on claims, evidence, ‘theories’ of cause and effect (if we do this, we shall achieve this …) to help employees understand what is needed and what will result for the organization and for them

■ Performance conversations, used to generate action, which focus

on conversations, promises and directives that are intended to pro-duce results

■ Closure conversations, which are assertions and declarations used

to signify the successful (or unsuccessful) completion and ‘celebra-tion’ of the change process

Source: Based on Ford and Ford, 1995

(Conception of need for change in reputation/brand image and new implementation approach)

(Emergence of positive reputation/brand image)

Corporate adoption and diffusion of new programme/process of change

Process seen as containing a novel, compelling and credible message by middle managers

Brand messages/EVPs become more widely shared among segments

of workforce

Durable penetration of brand messages/EVPs High levels of brand equity

as measured by psychological contracts, engagement etc Effective ‘theorizing’ by

brand champion(s) and middle level ‘converts’

using understanding and performance conversations

Positive internal monitoring/reading of the story by middle level managers

Early positive outcomes

Resistance diminishes

Employee segment advocacy through closure conversations

Effective ‘theorizing’ by HQ and/or subsidiary champion(s) drawing on successful initiating and understanding conversations

A SUSTAINABLE CORPORATE STORY

Institutional/cultural

distance between parent and

subsidiary, e.g.

Laws and financial system,

culture, education,

labour markets etc.

ORGANIZATIONAL

CONTEXT

Culture/organizational

identity of subsidiary company

Attitudes of employees and

managers to learning and

change

Compatibility of

practices with parent

RELATIONAL

CONTEXT

Attitudes of corporate HQ

managers to subsidiary

managers/employees

Dependence of subsidiary on

HQ for resources/brand

INDUSTRY CONTEXT

Industry and market

environment of HQ and

subsidiaries

Figure 8.1

Strategic change-through-communications in multinational/division organizations (based on Martin and Beaumont, 2003)

having an important influence on the process of strate-gic change However, the nature of the industry in a par-ticular locality or country and its environment is also potentially important For example, the relatively youth-ful and high-tech nature of the global mobile telecom-munications industry, other things being equal, was more likely to help the development of a global Orange culture than traditional telecommunications This industry has been dominated by major national players, such as BT and France Telecom, which may have had a tendency towards ethnocentricity in the past The inner-organizational context, which in a multinational envi-ronment refers to the differences in organizational cultures, attitudes to learning, change and compatibility

of practices between corporate headquarters and its subsidiaries, can have a great bearing on the effective-ness of change initiatives These intra-organizational dif-ferences are potentially relevant in explaining the success or failure of corporate-wide initiatives such as branding and culture change programmes Finally, the attitudes of local managers and their relative power in relation to the parent company or head office will shape the reception of change programmes Orange clearly understood this issue in working to help raise the pro-file of local Danish managers and incorporate them into the change process

It is also important to note that the process aspects

of the model (the various stages, patterns of events and language practices) are embedded in these changing contexts over time This is particularly relevant in the case of Orange and the ‘Orange on the Inside’ process For example, Orange sought to brand the changes as a dynamic, sustainable process rather than a programme with a fixed beginning and end

2 The conception stage. This is the stage during which new strategies and new strategic HR discourses are developed High-level corporate support, adoption and sponsorship of the change discourse and programmes are a necessary condition for further progress towards successful change, as was evident in the leadership

exercised by Monique Muller-Zetterstroem However, it was not a sufficient condition So, our process model allows for two-way development of the strategic changes,

in which the ideas are just as likely to come from middle managers, HR specialists and internal/external change consultants, which was also reflected in the Orange case This feature mirrors Van Riel’s important point about the need for a responsive, dynamic conversation between the organization and its stakeholders

3 The transition stage.For the key messages of change to progress to the transition stage, credible and novel organizational identity changes and HRM initiatives (occurring in, and through, effective communications) have to be read positively by all levels of management, including main board, subsidiary and middle-level oper-ational managers In a study we conducted on ABB,

it was evident the managers in certain subsidiaries of one of the company’s major divisions became ‘highly skilled’ at denying the need for change, using many examples of why such changes in culture were unnec-essary and difficult to implement in their specific cir-cumstances Chris Argyris (1993) has labelled this process of using skilled communications to deny

prob-lems as skilled incompetence This is one of the principal

reasons for organizational resistance to change, because managers, often for the first time in years, are asked to question the very assumptions on which they have

always operated Goss et al (1993) have argued that one

of the main reasons for the failure of many pro-grammes of change is because employees are subject to

a constant stream of unfinished managerial fads and fashions Employees become adept at ignoring these programmes of change, most of which have little impact and regularly fail to become embedded in the organi-zation However, incomplete programmes, often based

on fads and fashions in management, result in increased levels of cynicism towards future change initiatives and

to change ‘fatigue’ (Pate et al., 2000), again features of

typical change programmes that Orange in Denmark sought to avoid

4 The embedding stage. For the message of change to progress towards the embedding stage, in which a new strategic HR discourse of change has taken root, the communication of early positive outcomes, supported

by evidence of its benefits, is necessary to overcome continued resistance; or, as is often more likely, to overcome the ‘benign neglect’ by employees that can accompany change programmes, i.e hoping these changes will go away by ignoring them The notion of

‘early wins’ is one of the most important and enduring

in change management; it suggests that small-scale experiments and initiatives rather than wholesale, top-down programmes are the best way forward, as dis-cussed in the previous chapters One of the few near-certainties in business is that ‘big change invokes big opposition’, so it is critical to identify the groups that you ‘trial out’ We also refer to measures of just how deeply the messages of change are embedded in an organization Excellent examples of such ongoing measures are the state of psychological contracts over time and the extent of commitment, internalization, identification and psychological ownership of the changes, as discussed in Chapter 4

5 The feedback stage.This stage is critical for continuous change in the organization, during which the out-comes of strategic innovations are fed back into the organizational contexts – particularly new employee attitudes and behaviours, the capacity of employees to unlearn, change and innovate, and positive attitudes towards the ways in which changes were implemented Positive feedback is likely to set the tone for how future change initiatives will be received In a study we con-ducted of a Scottish-based textile company (Martin

et al., 1998), we noted how previously negative

experi-ences with change programmes had led employees to develop strong feelings of cynicism towards senior managers and their efforts to introduce continuous changes in work practices Such cynicism made future change initiatives almost impossible to implement

Using internal corporate

communications to tell a sustainable

corporate story to employees and

potential employees

In the preceding sections, we have outlined some general prin-ciples about effective corporate communications relevant to the

HR, reputation management, branding process In these next sections, let’s home in a little more closely on some of the current communications ideas that put the spotlight on employees – employer of choice initiatives and employer branding Both of these ideas have been incorporated into our strategic change-through-communications model, to which we shall return later

in this chapter

Employer of choice

As we have discussed in previous chapters, the importance of talent management has increased in proportion to the numbers

of people employed in knowledge-based and creative industries

in the developed world It is also likely to become critical to the economic development of countries such as China and India For example, a McKinsey report in October 2005 forecast huge shortages of graduates in China over the coming decade, which,

if not matched by an increasing supply, would hold back its progress Consequently, companies worldwide, including some Chinese and Indian companies, have turned to employer of choice programmes to attract and retain talented people How-ever, as we shall see, these programmes are not without their

critics (Huselid et al., 2005).

According to consultants such as Ahlrichs (2000) and Ashby and Pell (2001), becoming an employer of choice is a deliberate business strategy, which has driven some large, medium and small American and British employers to benchmark themselves against others in rankings such as the Best Place to Work,

pub-lished by Fortune magazine in the US, and The Sunday Times list of