The articles in this special issue, Impacts of Strategic Communication: Beyond Organization-Centric Goals, represent some of the strongest contributions from the ICA 2024 Preconference, Impacts of Strategic Communication in an Interconnected World, held at the School of Communication, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, on 16–17 June 2024. This introduction provides the background of the special issue, outlines the themes derived from the articles and suggests future research directions.
In developing the theme for the preconference, our objective was to highlight the social impact of strategic communication practices. Current literature has characterized strategic communication as a form of organizational communication aimed at achieving institutional goals (Hallahan et al., 2007; Zerfass et al., 2018). However, with increasing scholarly attention to the social role of business and the legitimacy of organizations within society (e.g. John et al., 2020), it has become essential for strategic communication research to move beyond an organization-centric paradigm and examine both the positive and negative impacts of strategic communication on society and on publics within that society.
We were pleased that this theme resonated widely, attracting more than 250 public relations, strategic communication and organizational communication scholars from over 30 countries, who engaged in rich discussions employing diverse theoretical approaches, disciplinary perspectives and methodological frameworks in the 20 panels with different themes relevant to strategic communication. All the accepted manuscripts for this special issue underwent rigorous double-blind review. We greatly appreciate the time and effort of all the reviewers in providing constructive comments and suggestions.
These articles reflect the following themes and trends of research.
Employees as agents of social change
Hung-Baesecke and Delmo (2025) argue that internal stakeholders (e.g. employees) can serve as strategic agents of change, enabling organizations to engage with society and address social issues. Employees no longer simply perform their tasks passively; rather, it has become increasingly common for employees to voice their views and concerns when they perceive that their employers' behaviors or actions conflict with their values. In addition, employees are more committed to contributing to society and feel a sense of responsibility to make a difference (Cook et al., 2023).
Ravazzani et al.’s (2026) cross-cultural research in this special issue identified different forms of employee activism in Italy (predominantly internally directed and aligned with corporate activism) and the United States (more adversarial and externally directed actions). The authors also advocate proactive approaches such as fostering dialogic communication, managing dissent and aligning organizational purpose to nurture positive societal change.
Ma and Chen's (2026) research highlights that employees can be organizational partners in corporate volunteerism to create social impact. Using expectancy theory, their study compares state-owned enterprise (SOE) and private enterprise (PE) employees in China in terms of communication strategies for motivating participation in corporate volunteering. Although different motivations were identified between SOE and PE employees, holistic engagement in life emerged as a common driver for involvement in volunteering activities. Their research also identifies distinct communication approaches for encouraging participation: emphasizing the Communist Party of China's principle of serving the people for SOE employees and highlighting dialog, storytelling and public recognition of positive volunteering outcomes for PE employees.
Strategic communication in global South contexts: social change, inclusivity and cultural adaptation
Three of the special issue articles focus on the different strategic communication contexts and strategies in Global South countries. Joshi's (2026) research in India explored how strategic communication can enhance community development outcomes in social change initiatives. He identified five strategic communication functions – goal setting, message strategy, media/channel selection, stakeholder engagement and evaluation – as essential in the process. In addition, there should be a balance between top-down institutional strategies and bottom-up community-driven initiatives and the role of communication should be embedded within social change processes. Similar to Ma and Chen's (2026) research, Joshi's (2026) findings also shed light that internal and external stakeholder participation in social change projects is crucial for project success and effectiveness.
Ciszek and Tuli (2026) challenged the Western-centric strategic communication theories by demonstrating how LGBTQ-inclusive corporate communication work in India. The authors took the postcolonial perspective that critically examined the historical, cultural and geopolitical context in discussing how marginalized LBGTQ publics perceived and interpreted corporate messages in engaging with LGBTQ issues. What should be underscored in the research is LGBTQ-focused CSR initiatives should be authentic and should avoid being superficial, profit-driven and commodifying marginalized publics without addressing systemic inequities. Furthermore, inclusion hiring should bring meaningful workplace integration and career advancement opportunities for LGBTQ employees.
A similar finding to Ciszek and Tuli's (2026) research appears in Wolf et al.’s (2026) study. Drawing on cross-cultural comparisons of case studies in Australia, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, these scholars explored the role of strategic influencer leaders (SILs) on social media in health communication campaigns. Moving away from the Western approach with the commercially driven focus on social media, the SILs in these regions emphasized community engagement and crafted audience-centric messages by incorporating cultural and social expectations when communicating COVID-related information. These included humor in Indonesia, participation-based health promotion in Dubai and real-time engagement and visibility in Western Australia.
Applying the situational theory of problem-solving to health communication: audience segmentation and misinformation management
The situational theory of problem-solving (STOPS) by Kim and Grunig (2011) has been applied to examine publics' behaviors in controversial sociopolitical issues, such as the Trump presidency, gender and racial issues and gun control (Shi, 2025; Tao et al., 2021); public health crises (Chon and Park, 2021) and how people choose to speak up in challenging social situations (Lee et al., 2014), among others. To understand various audience responses to organizational information and to inform the tailoring of communication approaches across different cultural and linguistic contexts, Kim and Grunig (2011) and Chen et al. (2017) contended that it is essential to segment publics and audiences based on how they seek and interpret important information, which results in varying levels of motivation and communicative behaviors. This segmentation is central to the scholarship of public relations and strategic communication. The present special issue highlights research using the STOPS in health communication, particularly in addressing misinformation on social media and on how publics acquire information on the COVID-19 vaccine.
Tang (2026), a PhD candidate from the University of Minnesota, employed STOPS in two surveys to examine the extent to which problem-recognition messages and cues-to-action influence public's motivation to correct misinformation on social media. Her findings indicated that combating health misinformation can be more effective when efforts are coordinated between a trusted authoritative source, such as a government health department, and grassroots engagement by laypersons. Additionally, the research suggests that subtle and empowering messages can enhance public's problem recognition and encourage their participation in corrective actions related to misinformation management.
When applying STOPS to raise public's problem-solving awareness and promote communicative behaviors, it is also significant to consider the channels through which the public acquire information. Dam and Basaran (2026) explored this issue in the context of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, examining how the use of different media types (traditional media versus social media) affected the public's problem recognition, constraint recognition and involvement recognition and how these factors shaped public's situational motivation to accept or reject sharing vaccine information. Based on their findings, the authors concluded that traditional media was more effective than social media in predicting publics' problem recognition. These insights underscore that understanding varying levels of problem recognition among publics can enable health communicators to develop more targeted and effective messages for different audience segments.
Strategic communication in geopolitical crisis and its vulnerabilities: information vacuums and communication hijacking
Identifying key audiences and crafting effective communication messages via suitable communication platforms has been essential not only in daily strategic communication practices but also in critical crisis contexts. By incorporating the concept of information vacuum (IV) (Pang, 2013), in this special issue, Lim et al. (2026) investigated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's communication strategy in the first 100 days of the conflict with Russia. IV referred to a period of time when sustained stakeholders and media attention was coupled with knowledge gaps between the emergence of questions following a crisis and the organization's formal response to that crisis context (Pang, 2013). Hence, it is critical for an organization to survive in the crisis situation by providing credible, transparent and adequate information in a timely manner. The researchers' findings indicated that, during the IV period, Zelenskyy was effective in identifying targeted audiences, saturating the information he would like the audience to be aware of via multiple media platforms and reducing countervailing narratives from Russia.
Finally, a special focus within this topic highlighted the dark side of strategic communication driven by malicious intentions. Hautala et al. (2026) discussed the harmful purposes behind the use of digital strategic communication by theorizing the communication hijacking triad, which consisted of three factors: involuntary, co-opting and actions against the original purpose. Through a comprehensive literature review, in-depth interviews with industry experts and examining three cases in Finland, the authors confirmed their theorization of communication hijacking. The cases discussed in this research demonstrated that communication hijacks could occur at different levels and in various contexts, such as hashtags, media platforms, narratives and situations where organizations were vulnerable during crises. In this polarized information era, when technological advancements have become convenient tools for exploiting the effects of strategic communication for harmful and malicious purposes that damage public trust, organizations should proactively monitor information ecosystems, maintain strong and ethical brand identities and strategize effective crisis communication responses to mitigate risks associated with such hijacking.
Future research directions
So, where do we go from here? From the insights of these articles, the editors see a number of directions for future research for further exploring the impacts of strategic communication.
From social impact to re-examine organizational purposes
It is clear from contemporary research that strategic communication needs to broaden beyond being a form of organizational communication aimed at achieving institutional goals (Andersson, 2025). We propose broadening the interpretation of institutional goals to include the role of organizations within society. In addition, in articulating the evolution of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, Carroll (2011) argued that organizations should go beyond philanthropic contributions. In this “age of responsibility” (p. 1269) in the second decade of the 21st century, organizations should include purpose as one of their fundamental priorities, ensuring inclusivity and engagement with all stakeholders.
Purpose, defined by Hung-Baesecke et al. (2025) as “the ethical reason and the guiding principle for an organization to accomplish its business goals while working on common goals with stakeholders that benefit society” (p. 2), should also be shared (Rey et al., 2019) and co-decided by organizational management and stakeholders (Hung-Baesecke et al., 2025). Hence, proposed research directions could include the following: how strategic communication is employed by organizations to establish shared purpose with stakeholders; how strategic communication contributes to carrying out organizational purposes with stakeholders who share similar values in creating positive societal impacts and, in a global environment, how multinational organizations can adopt strategic communication strategies to achieve positive social impacts across different cultural contexts. Internally, as the articles by Ma and Chen (2026) and Ravazzani et al. (2026) discussed employees' expectations and roles in societal issues, future research could explore how purpose-driven organizations motivate and engage employees to foster an organizational culture that contributes to a functioning society.
Ethics, amplification and contestation in digital strategic communication
Among the nine articles for this special issue, eight involved communication on digital or social platforms, even though the research contexts were not always situated on those platforms. For example, Tang (2026) and Dam and Basaran (2026) focused on engaging with publics and correcting misinformation related to health information on social media. Lim et al. (2026) investigated Zelenskyy's use of digital video press releases to reach global audiences during the IV period. Wolf et al.’s (2026) cross-cultural research examined SILs' engagement in health communication. Ma and Chen (2026) and Ravazzani et al. (2026) included digital platforms in their studies, such as organizations' voice policies on social media and the use of intranet for sharing corporate volunteerism information. Ciszek and Tuli (2026) explored how corporations engaged with social media and advocated for authentic engagement with the LGBTQ community and related issues in India. Hautala et al. (2026) demonstrated the malicious intentions behind the use of digital strategic communication.
Social and digital communication have become routine practices for strategic communicators. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and related tools, including chatbots, has emerged as a highly popular topic. Gregory and Smith (2025) summarized various AI-related issues and proposed investigating the ethics of different AI systems, such as “the algorithmic black box, privacy and data security, bias and discrimination, the loss of human agency, governance, accountability and issues of trust” (p. 123), as well as exploring application areas of AI use, including internal communication, CSR and crisis communication. We concur with these suggestions and consider that further research should be developed in this direction to identify ways and strategies for creating a healthy and ethical digital landscape in strategic communication.
Future research can continue to explore the intersection of strategic communication practice and the effects of the social media influencer economy (Cheng et al., 2024). As more studies focus on social media influencers in various strategic communication and public relations contexts (e.g. Chen et al., 2023), additional emergent topics may develop from this line of inquiry: What is the role of public relations as brand representatives that create relationships with influencers? This nexus remains understudied. More scholarly work on this area is essential in examining shifting expectations from communication practitioners as enablers of monetized relationships unfolding in the influencer economy. Recent research on children's social media influencers (Archer and Delmo, 2023; Archer and Mirandilla Delmo, 2025a, b, for example) highlights that there are ethical and legal issues that arise when the notions of play and labor, or playbour, overlap. How are brand contracts enacted in this influencer business model? Should public relations and/or communication practitioners clarify boundaries when children are used as talents, both direct and indirect, in promoting products and services online? How does the role of public relations that was formerly aligned with unpaid communication initiatives change when practitioners are now increasingly participating in paid endorsements via social media? Investigating these angles from both Global North and Global South contexts may reveal similarities and differences in influencer practices that enrich further understanding of what is considered legal or ethical when children are at the forefront of marketing initiatives.
Measuring and evaluating social impacts of strategic communication
Measurement and evaluation have long been important agendas in public relations and strategic communication research. Macnamara (2023) posited that many measurement and evaluation reports on public relations and strategic communication focused primarily on outputs and, more concerningly, algorithm-generated fake impact scores. In addition, he highlighted the flawed logic of using AVEs and media sentiment as part of communication evaluation measures. Hence, he advocated in this article that “the value of strategic communication exists in its outcomes and impacts. Outputs are the work of a cost centre” (p. 6). While evaluating communication outcomes includes different levels of engagement (awareness, attitude and behavioral changes), impact refers to what actually happens as a result of communication implementation, execution and feedback.
Furthermore, in a similar vein, when discussing societal impacts, a relevant term – value creation – has also been examined by strategic communication scholars (Andersson, 2025; Zerfass and Viertmann, 2017; Zerfass and Volk, 2020). Following the trend in recent measurement and evaluation literature, which has increasingly emphasized stakeholder and social impact (Buhmann and Volk, 2022; Macnamara, 2023), Andersson (2025) contended that it is essential to place stakeholder and societal needs at the center of the value creation process.
Going beyond traditional views on measurement and evaluation, Macnamara (2025), in discussing insights from the World Health Organization (WHO) case study, advocated for a new MEL approach – measurement, evaluation and learning. The learning element provides opportunities for organizations to train their communication professionals, not only in evaluation techniques but also in learning from evaluation to validate the value of strategic communication.
Combining these discussions, possible research directions may include developing indicators and measures of impact and value for specific strategic communication tasks, such as vaccine rollouts, environmental sustainability, community engagement, digital literacy and disinformation and misinformation prevention.
Strategic communication for social change in Global South contexts
One of the key contributions of this special issue is its emphasis on Global South contexts. Several articles, including those by Ciszek and Tuli (2026), Joshi (2026) and Wolf et al. (2026), incorporate Global South countries into their research. Notably, Ciszek and Tuli (2026) critique dominant communication research and employ a postcolonial lens to examine LGBTQ issues in India. Their work argues that neocolonialism perpetuates colonial patterns of control within economic and cultural structures of society. This concern resonates with broader scholarly debates: intercultural communication scholars have highlighted the persistent lack of visibility and representation of research originating from the Global South (R'boul, 2022). Similarly, Oliha (2012) contends that Western-centric communication theories “delimit the possibilities for nuanced theory building, scholarship, and teaching that may address the greatest challenge facing the world community” (p. 586). From a postcolonial perspective, it becomes essential to interrogate how global hierarchies of power are continually reorganized to accommodate evolving cultural and economic conditions (R'boul, 2022).
Possible future research directions include: How can postcolonial theory inform ethical frameworks for strategic communication in the context of social impact? In what ways do global hierarchies of power influence strategic communication practices in Global South contexts? How can strategy development in public relations, communication management and strategic communication – such as message design and stakeholder engagement – be structured to resist neocolonial patterns of control? How can voices from marginalized communities in the Global South be meaningfully included in strategic communication research and practice?
We are truly grateful to Professor Jesper Falkheimer, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Communication Management, for the encouragement and kindly accepting our proposal for a special issue in this journal. We are also very thankful for the tremendous support from Emerald Publishing, especially Dr Aggie Topolska and Mr. David Pakes, throughout this guest editing process.
Finally, this special issue would not have been possible without the tremendous efforts and valuable input from our reviewers. Many of us know how challenging it is today to find dedicated reviewers for journal article submissions. We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to the following reviewers from around the globe: Maureen Taylor (University of Technology Sydney, Australia), Linjuan Rita Men (University of Florida, USA), Brooke Weberling McKeever (University of Alabama, USA), Olga Oleinkova (University of Technology Sydney, Australia), Raja Sumayyah Raja Arif (University of Technology Sydney, Australia), Jesica Mwithia (University of Technology Sydney, Australia), Arunima Krishna (Boston University, USA), Lisa Tam (Queensland University of Technology, Australia), Katie Place (Quinnipiac University, USA), Sergei Samoilenko (George Mason University, USA), Nandini Bhalla (Texas State University, USA), Nipa Saha (Macquarie University, Australia), Cindy Ngai (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR), Marianne Sison (RMIT, Australia), Diana Kreemers (University of New South Wales, Australia), Myong Gi Chon (Auburn University, USA), Stefania Romenti (Università IULM, Italy), Lisa Xiaoqin Li (University of Macau, Macau, SAR), Lukas Parker (RMIT University, Australia) and Kim Johnston (Queensland University of Technology, Australia).
