Tài liệu Corporate Reputations, Branding and People Management 29 docx

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
264 Corporate Reputations, Branding and People Management
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–
model adapt–respond model
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
monolith context
Importance of Corporate Corporate

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
Chapter 8 Corporate communications and the employment relationship 265
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 relations, 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 perspective 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.
266 Corporate Reputations, Branding and People Management
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.
Chapter 8 Corporate communications and the employment relationship 267
Box 8.2 Strategic discourses and change conversations
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
268 Corporate Reputations, Branding and People Management
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
Contexts
CONCEPTION STAGE
(Conception of need
for change in reputation/brand image
and new implementation approach)
TRANSITION STAGE
EMBEDDING STAGE
(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
Stages and time frames in the change process
Effective ‘theorizing’ by HQ
and/or subsidiary champion(s)
drawing on successful
initiating and understanding
conversations
A SUSTAINABLE CORPORATE STORY
SOCIAL CONTEXTS
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 Mar
tin 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
270 Corporate Reputations, Branding and People Management
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.
Chapter 8 Corporate communications and the employment relationship 271
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.
272 Corporate Reputations, Branding and People Management
Chapter 8 Corporate communications and the employment relationship 273
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