According to Podnar, this book was written specifically as a text book for students studying either marketing communication or public relations (PR) at the graduate or undergraduate level. The book takes a straightforward approach to communication by anchoring the development of the chapters in Lasswell's (1948) slightly abbreviated communication model; who says what to whom, through which channel, with what purpose and effect. The book starts with a relatively short chapter titled the Corporate Communication Framework. Here, Podnar gives a brief overview of the differences between communication disciplines, namely business communication, organizational communication, PR and marketing communication. There are important distinctions between these disciplines and their differences are not particularly well known by practitioners, so it is always a good idea to include this discussion. The chapter is short and succinct, concluding that corporate communication is an interdisciplinary view of communication where communication is a resource that “enables the existence, motivation and development” of an organization. According to Podnar, this is important as corporate communication sees organizations as a group of people coming together for a common purpose whereas PR and marketing communication view them as “independent social subjects.” The main focus of corporate communication is thus ensuring the integration of an organization's communication systems, as opposed to being concerned about specific-communication forms.
Chapter 2 on Corporate Identity talks about the Who in Lasswell's model, i.e. the organization. The discussion in this chapter has a tendency to mix the definition of organizational identity with corporate identity. Podnar defines corporate identity from a communication approach; the factors that define and project everything about an organization. The problem is that corporate identity is not clearly delineated from organizational identity, which comprises who and what the organization is, and thus is really the “who” of the model. What is communicated is not corporate identity but rather organizational identity. A clear understanding of who the organization is necessary before a communication strategy can be formulated.
Says What in Lasswell's model is covered in three chapters: Chapter 3 on Corporate Brand and Branding, Chapter 4 Employer Branding and Chapter 5 Ethical Branding and Social Responsibility. The three chapters give a basic lesson in branding and the importance of employees in the process. Readers are provided enough information to gain an understanding of the importance of a coordinated approach of how to present themselves, the mantra of corporate communication, and is illustrated by van Riel's (1995) common starting points (CSPs). Chapter 5 is a discussion of the ethics of branding with focus on a specific branding strategy, i.e. how organizations can use their social initiatives to build brand.
To Whom is covered by Chapter 6, a very short and concise take on Stakeholder Management and Communication. The author primarily uses the term stakeholder but gives reference to Grunig's (1992) division of stakeholders and publics. Grunig claims that stakeholders become publics once they have become aware and active. Stakeholder is generally accepted in management literature and Podnar mainly sticks to this term, which is less confusing.
Podnar has decided to approach Through what Channels in chapter 7 by looking at Corporate Storytelling in Times of Change and Crisis and Chapter 8 on Corporate Communication. According to the book, chapter 7 should provide a framework and structure for storytelling and discuss how storytelling plays a role in crises. The former is covered very briefly and again succinctly. However the part on crisis appears to be an extremely brief discussion of crisis management and image repair theory. Chapter 8 provides a number of examples of strategies organizations can use to communicate their identity, or the corporate story. These include leaders as spokespersons, celebrity endorsers and corporate advertising. The chapter also has a section on informal communication basically described as rumors, gossip and “urban legends.” Perhaps a better discussion here would have been returning to the role of employees as brand builders in their interactions with organizational stakeholders.
An added step in Lasswell's model is introduced by Podnar in the form of With What Purpose? covered by Chapter 9 on Corporate Associations; Identity Traits and Image and Chapter 10 Corporate Associations: Reputation and Trust. The core of these chapters is the perceptions held by individuals about an organization. Without explicitly stating it, the chapters give the impression that the purpose of corporate communication is creating image and building reputation. This way of thinking seems to clash with the last section on With What Effect elucidated by two chapters: 11 on Organizational Identification and 12 on Organizational Commitment and Social Acceptance. These chapters are about two specific consequences of corporate communication that are necessary for success: stakeholder identification and commitment. The discussion here raises two questions: Do we communicate to build reputation? Or do we use communication to build relationships with stakeholders the consequences of which are identification and commitment? Is there a difference between purpose and effect?
The European market is always looking for good academic books within the field from non-American authors. This book does an adequate job of covering the material, it is short and concise, and gives a sufficient overview of the subject. There are a number of issues, however, that need to be addressed. The first issue is the very first sentence in the introduction that states that “the phrase corporate communication, and company departments dealing with it”, emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century. Podnar equates the beginnings of corporate communication with the history of PR, which is recognized as growing out of the often bad behavior of firms at the turn of the twentieth century. He even gives Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays as historical figures in corporate communication in the first paragraph of the book. This possibly indicates that the author equates corporate communication with PRs, a view held by several academics. However, Lee and Bernays are solidly linked to PR not corporate communication, and most writers in the field would agree the term corporate communication really emerged in the 1980s-1990s.
The Lasswell communication model is one way to approach outlining the communication process, and in keeping with the brevity of the book it works. However, today the model is criticized as being simplistic and not a model of modern communication with its emphasis on sharing as opposed to transmitting. The book would have been better served with the author recognizing this and adding material on models reflecting more modern writing on communication. One example is the concept of transformation which focusses on communication's role in (co-)creating identity, meaning and knowledge (Deetz, 1992). This would be an interesting addition and would address concerns raised in the chapter on ethical branding.
Another weakness with the book is the lack of examples within the text of the chapters. While cases are provided at the end of each chapter, with the exception of a few interesting Slovenian cases, they tend to be standard cases such as Harley Davidson, Barilla, Domino's Pizza and Lego. Examples within the text would have helped the reader immensely in understanding and visualizing the concepts.
Lastly, the book suffers from poor editing. There are some instances of awkward English that can be overlooked, but the poor editing is most obvious in the reference list where the word “and” somehow was translated to the word “in.” Every instance where there are multiple authors they are separated by the word “in” instead of “and.”
