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The aim of this conceptual paper is to review Bernstein’s communication wheel to make it a tool that can be used in the selection of a corporate communication mix.

A critical analysis of Bernstein’s communication wheel shows it to be a checklist, a starting point in the examination of corporate communication mix, but it is not as such of great help to the decision maker.

The findings of reviewing literature highlight that the principle of a clear distinction between strategic decisions and operational decisions is applicable also in the field of corporate communication. For each stakeholder relationship, the authors’ framework suggests typical combinations of activities and means to be used. These combinations are useful to experiment with expert systems which are functional to the choices of corporate communication mix.

The analysis of communication gaps gives directions for formulating strategic decisions. In this framework, tactical decisions concern the components of the communication mix architecture (or communication chain): activities, means and vehicles of communication. On the contrary, Bernstein’s communication wheel includes only generic channels (or media) and gives no indications as to the architecture of the communication mix.

This study illustrates the hierarchy of decisions relating to corporate communication mix, the communication wheel could also be useful in communication planning. If this assumption is held to be true it then becomes possible to lay out a framework for a progressive decision-making path that means making sequential choices (first strategic, then tactical). In the stakeholder approach, the aim of strategic decisions is to choose the stakeholder groups on which a firm has to focus its corporate communication activities.

The purpose of this study is to refine and expand an emerging US government communication model, the government communication decision wheel, by testing the differences between the communication practices of US public sector communicators working for non‐elected officials versus those employed by elected officials.

Drawing from surveys of 781 US government communicators, the study compares the communication practices and influences of government communicators working for elected officials versus non‐elected officials.

The study identifies four significant differences and five similarities in how the public sector environment affects non‐elected and elected officials’ communicators’ public relations practices.

While the study and underlying model focus on US government communication, this study provides valuable theoretical insights. It supports the model's underlying premise that the public sector is unique from the private sector while also further refining the significant differences within the US government sector.

This study helps US government communicators identify unique environmental attributes that affect communication activities in the public sector. It helps identify how these attributes affect communication practices within individual and collaborative contexts. Finally, it helps non‐governmental communicators and communicators outside of the US to understand how the attributes may affect communication practices when they collaborate with government communicators from the four levels of US government as well as with those who work for elected and non‐elected officials.

Despite the critical importance of communication in the public sector, very little research focuses specifically on government communication outside of political communication. The findings provide valuable insights for practitioners and contribute to public relations theory development for the under‐researched public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an in-depth understanding of the effectiveness, evolution and dynamism of the current health communication media used in Ghana.

This paper uses a multi-method approach which utilizes a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. In-depth interviews are conducted with health promotion professionals in Ghana and 150 members of the general public were surveyed.

The paper finds that the general public sees social media as an effective place for health professionals to share health-related messages. They also view health-related messages on social media seriously. Health professionals see social media as an effective tool for sending health-related messages to the public and are concerned about the fact that traditional media are losing their effectiveness as means to share health-related messages.

This study was conducted in Ghana. Future studies should be conducted across multiple countries to examine the conclusions developed in this paper and the possibility of multiple perspectives regarding the use of social media for sending health messages.

The results inform public health officials on developments in health communication and suggest prescriptions on how to adjust to the new media.

Health messaging is an area that has been relatively ignored in the literature and almost no research focusses on the effectiveness of social media and other health messaging technologies, particularly in developing countries. Although the study was conducted in Ghana, health professionals worldwide can use the findings to help improve their health messaging strategies.

Email communication is indispensable for US state agencies to respond to citizen requests and engage with constituents, contributing to building trust in local governments. While prior studies examine the responsiveness of elected officials, the quality of virtual interactions between government organizations and citizens is often overlooked. This study aims to investigate how US government agencies capitalize on the potential of online interactions with constituents to manage generic queries and introduce the response engagement index (REI) consisting of response time, reactive transparency and message interactivity to evaluate levels of communicative engagement.

The authors conducted a field experiment encompassing emailing a request to 547 state agencies based in the five largest states and one small state. A total of 377 organizational responses were manually analyzed to reveal the usages of six communicative engagement strategies.

The results show the potential of online communication is underutilized as the average score of response engagement remains low. Human responses are less engaging than auto-reply messages and require a one-day waiting period, if not longer. Response types and gender of government communicators significantly differ in response time and engagement strategies. The findings identify divergent patterns of response engagement and provide practical implications for facilitating citizen engagement.

This research fills a critical gap by investigating the quality of online interactions between US government agencies and citizens. The authors develop a theory-grounded tool of response engagement to identify three features: response speed, reactive transparency and interactivity. The findings can improve the quality of email communication in state agencies, enhancing governance quality. The REI proposed here addresses what Pfau (2008) deemed problematic for communication scholarship: research is sparse on “functional issues” that examine the communication process. Pfau argued for research that provides knowledge of interest across disciplines so as to “cross-fertilize” ideas between political communication and public relations; this study sought to bridge that gap with a theoretical and practical tool for building public trust in governments.

To support the evaluation of transparent and responsive governments, reliable and valid measurements are needed. The proposed REI provides practitioners with a theory-grounded tool to identify areas of engagement quality in government responses. The findings can be used to improve the quality of email communication in state agencies, enhancing governance quality.

Citizens seek reciprocal dialogue through prompt, open and interactive communication. US state agencies should leverage the engagement features for increasing citizen trust – response time, reactive transparency and interactivity – when responding to public inquiries. Ultimately, trust in government agencies' interests in serving stakeholders cannot be strengthened without prompt and engaging responses to meet the public's needs.

This field experiment was one of the first to focus on US state agencies' responses to information requests. It introduces a new REI to assess communicative engagement in a government/citizen exchange.

Enthusiasm for hosting mega sport events has been dampened mainly due to the opposition of local communities. Although the use of public relations that aims for two-way communication to build mutual understanding and the long-term relationship could be an effective tool in diminishing the opposition, little research exists that interprets the social concern with public relations theoretical lens. In this light, the primary purpose of the present study was to conceptualise government-public relationships in the context of mega sport events and to develop a valid and psychometrically sound scale to measure the relationship quality between two entities.

An initial pool of 23 potential government-public relationship items was drawn through item generation processes, including research synthesis and content validity. Then, this study collected 254 respondents via online surveys and split the total sample into two sets for exploratory factor analysis and (n = 127) and confirmatory factor analysis (n = 127).

As a result, the scale of the government-public relationships consists of 17 items representing three dimensions: control mutuality, trust and satisfaction.

The developed government-public relationship scale furnishes event marketers and researchers with a solid framework and a measurement tool for empirical examinations. The current research reveals that the dimensionality, reliability and validity of the three latent government-public relationships dimensions are satisfactory while failing to meet the general consensus that commitment is an important dimension of the existing organisation-public relationships scale.

The role of metaphors in information management has generally been acknowledged owing to their ability to convey immediately huge amounts of information and richness. Their role is more and more important in the current digital context of communication and marketing activities, as the decision speed and accuracy are crucial. The purpose of this study is, thus, to analyze physical metaphors as tools for making sequential decisions to achieve effective integrated corporate communication (ICC).

The paper draws on the critical analysis of literature on corporate communication and stakeholder management as building blocks for implementing an integrated approach to corporate communications.

A revision of two well-known physical metaphors in the communication literature (the “wheel” and “umbrella”) has been proposed. It is argued that integrated communication within corporate communications is more complex than in marketing communications, as it involves a greater variety of elements to coordinate and harmonize. The proposed physical metaphors suggest an effective sequential decision-making as they allow a clear distinction between different decision levels.

The paper adds to the debate on the link between theory and practice of ICC. From a practical standpoint, the proposed metaphors as simple and concrete tools for handling complex information and ICC problems could aid novice practitioners and students of corporate communications courses.

The paper shows that while scholars have concurred that ICC is crucial for different type of organizations, the use of physical metaphors can be beneficial for the reality-based challenge of ICC.

This chapter examines different dimensions of leadership communication that promote creativity and innovativeness. It explores how leaders engage and inspire their subordinates on the one hand and how they motivate, challenge and encourage them on the other. The aim is to provide a multifaceted description of how leaders use communication to promote innovativeness in organisations. The chapter draws on the ‘wheel of leadership communication on innovations’ by Zerfass and Huck (2007). The wheel examines communication based on cognitive, affective, conative and social dimensions. The other key concepts of the study are transformational and communicative leadership. The approach is qualitative, and the data derive from interviews with leaders of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The findings suggest that to promote organisational innovativeness all four dimensions – cognitive, affective, conative and social – must be taken into account. Multidimensional skills are required of leaders who are expected to master different communicational roles and to act as enablers, engagers, motivators and supporters at the same time. This calls for emotional and social sensibility, flexibility and adaptability to different people and situations. Leadership communication is crucial for innovation management because creative thinking and commitment enable innovation. Therefore, in the business context, attention must be paid to how people are inspired, supported and motivated, as well as to open communication. The main limitations of the study are that it focuses only on SMEs and that it does not include the voices of personnel, which would have added value to the managerial perspectives.

This paper aims to present a conceptual model for public relations specific to museums.

Based on relevant literature, a contingency model is developed for the public relations practices of museums.

The model offers the market orientation level of the management and the interest level of the publics as the major factors that influence the effectiveness of the public relations programs in museums. The interest level of the publics is offered as a moderating variable.

The model suggests that the effectiveness of the public relations programs of museums depends on two major factors. Although the interest level of the publics may seem to be uncontrollable at first glance, its negative impact can be largely controllable by managers by changing their own market orientation level – by adapting the public relations strategy to the targeted public depending on the interest level of that public.

The model is specifically designed for museums. It can be accepted as the first public relations model specifically offered for museums. The model here recognises the relationship between marketing and public relations.

Marketing organisations increasingly talk about the importance of integrating their communications, of aligning symbols, messages, procedures and behaviours across formal organisational boundaries. Often this implies tighter central control over communications and other organisational processes. This paper sets out to discuss potential negative consequences of such tight control in terms of organisational incapability to react to market changes in increasingly fluid environments due to a loss of sufficient corporate complexity and diversity.

In response, a flexible integration approach that draws attention to the handling of difference and variety within the context of an integrated communications project is articulated. The paper proposes a framework that balances centralisation and decentralisation through attention to dimensions of endogenous control, tight and loose couplings, networks, and common process rules.

The paper demonstrated that, in order to integrate its communications, an organisation needs to embrace diversity and variety and to balance the wisdom of its many voices with the effort to secure clarity and consistency in its overall expression.

The flexible integration approach advanced in this paper opens new avenues of research, practice and pedagogy, encouraging scholars, practitioners and teachers to explore the following dimensions of integrated communications: reception, variability, organisation, voice, couplings and transferability.

The paper contributes to the literature on integrated communications and corporate communications by addressing the organisational dimensions of integration and suggesting a new avenue of integrated communications research that is far more sensitive to the organisational context in which projects of integration exist and unfold.