Corporations Send Out Messages Constantly

Corporations send out messages constantly -- through ads, commercials, websites, quarterly and annual reports, job postings on Monster.com, memos tacked up on lunchroom bulletin boards. The audiences for these different messages are different from each other, which is one of the major reasons that traditionally companies have not worried about whether they are presenting a consistent message on all of these fronts. If the memos about how to file an expense report sent out to employees don't sound anything like the annual report filed with the SEC, well there was no reason that they should.

However, in the last few years companies have been moving more and more toward what is known as an integrated corporate communication system so that all of the messages coming from a company are in the same "language." The purpose of such an approach is to present a unified image of the company's goals and values, one aspect of the ongoing push in many companies to promote a unified brand. This research project examines the history of this style of corporate communication while asking questions about its effectiveness and -- even more importantly -- about what this push towards integrated corporate communication can tell us about the culture of commerce today.

Traditionally there was a distinct division between the ways in which those at the top of a corporate hierarchy communicated with those inside their company and those outside of it. This makes intuitive sense: Employees are different from stockholders, and even more different from people who purchase a company's products or services. Customers and stockholders both have to be persuaded that the company has something worth buying, while employees are concerned with their jobs and salaries and how these are related to the company's performance and their own work. In some ways, a company's communication with its employees is like talking to family members while its communication with potential customers and stockholders is like talking to guests at a dinner party.

In real life, we talk very differently to these two audiences of family members and party guests, and the fact that companies have also chosen to communicate with insiders and outsiders differently reflects this basic pattern in human communication. In other words, corporate communication traditionally followed general communication strategies used in other situations such as families, with different styles of communication -- really, different dialects -- used in different contexts. This is the same sort of rule that tells us to talk one way to our grandparents and another way to our friends.

The shift to an integrated system of corporate communication can be seen as a violation of this common-sense distinction in which who one is talking to determines in large measure how one talks. This is not to say that there are not good arguments for an integrated corporate communication strategy for the reasons touched on above: Such a strategy can be extremely helpful in terms of building up brand and a coherent corporate identity to the public. In an era of ever-increasing globalization, such a strategy might seem (and may well be) vital to a company as it stretches across the planet. Assessing the effectiveness of integrated communication systems is the core of this research project.

However, there is another compelling issue to be here, which is what such an integrated corporate strategy says about larger issues of how corporations function in the 21st century. One of the implications of this new form of corporate communication, and one that has not been systematically examined, is that corporations speak to their employees in much the same way that they speak to the rest of the world because employees are no longer seen as a part of the corporate family to whom the company owes ongoing loyalty.

Executive Summary

This research examines the ways in which corporations have over the last several years shifted increasingly to an integrated approach to their communication strategy so that all of the stakeholders with which a company's leaders communicate on a regular basis hear the same message spoken in the same "language." The primary reason that company managers give for this shift is that it is an effective marketing tool, especially in the sense that it helps provide a focused image and definition for its brand. This is true -- in the sense that it accurately reflects what corporate managers and officers think. It is probably also true in that it is does tend to produce a more tightly defined brand, something that is increasingly important in a globalized marketplace in which it is all too easy for a company to see its brand suffer from dilution.

However, while this paper addresses the above issue, and especially how it applies to two large corporations (the New York Times and Coca-Cola), it is more focused on what can be seen as the cultural and social reasons behind these changes in corporate communication styles and strategies. Marketing (and its more modern form of branding) have been central to companies for decades without such a shift toward an integrated communication strategy; therefore, there is something in the current business climate that has created this shift.

Some of what has changed is the technology of communication. While vital, this is sociologically the least interesting of the changes. Of greater analytical interest (and so of greater focus in this paper) are globalization and changing relations between management and labor.

Aims and Objectives

In examining the current trend towards increased integration in corporate communication strategy, this thesis covers the pragmatics of corporate communications as they have changed over the last decade, examining why corporations have begun to shift their strategies. There are three -- or at least two-and-a-half -- primary reasons for this. The first is that there has been a substantial change in the nature of communication itself over the last decade. While communication styles and media have been shifting since the Internet began to move communication from the personal (face-to-face, or written) to the electronic.

However, the early days of the Internet changed communication relatively little for the majority of the population, even for the majority of the educated population. Access was limited and interest even more so, as the Internet offered relatively little that was compelling to most people. Even as email became more and more commonly used, the Internet was still confined to the minority of the population. This has become increasingly less true, in part because people have simply become more and more used to the email and so more and more trusting of it.

However at least as important has been the expansion of texting and social media in terms of software and cultural practice and smart phones in terms of hardware. As communicating electronically has become easier and more varied, communication in all realms has been affected. Companies have been affected by this shift in preferred forms of communication, and this has tended to push companies toward the end of integrated communication. Communication produced to be disseminated electronically is easier to create in an integrated form in a purely formal, technological sense.

Also, a greater reliance on computers in general and on electronic communication in particular has tended to serve as a centripetal force in corporate organization, which is allied to (if not clearly causative of) greater integration in communication strategies. As other aspects of corporate organization have become increasingly integrated, it would be puzzling if communication functions did not follow the same path.

The second major reason that corporate communication has shifted toward a more integrated form is that corporations have become increasingly global. The converse of this is also true: It is the companies that have become the most globalized that have tended to be the most enthusiastic of users of integrated corporate communication strategies. That is why this research focuses on two companies with a global reach: Both The New York Times and the Coca-Cola Corporation are international companies.

The following summarizes some of the key dynamics involved in the Janus-headed push toward integrated corporate communication (in the inward direction) and globalization (in the outward direction). One can see the modern large-scale corporation as being pulled in both directions, toward greater internal stresses and centralization and greater outward demands.

The following analysis of corporate communications argues (and this seems to be a very strong argument) that an integrated corporate communication system imposes a needed "discipline" (which in this sense translates to an integrated, seamless communication style and underlying intention). Such an integration, or close-to-complete-uniformity) helps to create "satisfactory exchanges with consumers and customers." Integrated communication programs are key to creating such a level of satisfaction because without such integration it is impossible either create or to maintain "positive two-way relationships with other publics who could impact organizational performance."

These different "publics" are also sometimes referred to as stakeholders. Both terms are appropriate, although neither fully captures the range of individuals who are affected by and who participate in communication with a company (including both internal and external communications). Each of these publics "impact corporate performance."

The analysis cited above continues to describe the ways in which corporate "life" (in the sense of how many different individuals and entities are vital to the running of a corporation in the current climate):

Businesses today must be consumer, profit, and publicly oriented. Only a few years ago, the first two would have sufficed. But, in support of our dualistic argument regarding the marketing concept, that is -- creating exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives more effectively and efficiently than the competition -- Philip Kotler (2000) has labelled marketing as inappropriate in a world of environmental deterioration, population expansion, world hunger and poverty, and neglected, under-funded, and business-like social services. Thus, marketing as exchange has been augmented by the need to preserve or enhance consumer and societal well being, too. Increasingly, this extends beyond 'seeming' to the needed 'substance' of corporate social responsibility.

The above touches on both dynamics of communications strategies as well as the larger (but fundamentally connected) issue of social responsibility in a company. This latter point will be discussed later, especially in the context of the very different perspectives on this issue pursued by the New York Times and Coca-Cola.

So far we have touched on the importance of technological changes in communication as well as the globalization of corporate organization, reach, sales, and branding. There is one more key element that has contributed to the push of companies towards integrated corporate communication. This element has been generally overlooked but is, I argue, a fundamentally important aspect of this shift in communication strategy.

The factors described so far have to do with the relationship of the company to the outside world, either to the general state of technology in the twenty-first century, or to the general state of corporate globalization in the twenty-first century. The last major dynamic that will be examined in this paper has to do with the relationship of a company to itself, and specifically to its employees. One of the major shifts that has occurred in the last generation in terms of corporate structure and strategy (although it had been building before this for at least another generation) is that large corporations have become increasingly less loyal to their employees.

Stephen Gill, in his blog on the dynamics of the corporate workplace, describes the ways in which the relationship between employer and employee has unraveled. He suggests that the current relationship between most large companies and most of their employees has become less and less based on commitment and loyalty and more one of temporary convenience at best, and something like guarded antagonism much of the time.

He notes that until the most recent generations of workers, "loyalty was the cornerstone of that relationship" between workers and employers. And while employers now tend to criticize workers for their lack of loyalty, historically employers have been (in general) the first to break the implied contract between themselves and their workers. While previous generations of workers could count on lifetime employment at a company if they chose this option, that is no longer true.

While turnover was once seen as "dysfunctional," it is now the absolute norm, so much so that many workers (and their managers) probably could not imagine a workplace culture in which workers (and sometimes even fairly high-level managers) can be at their desks one day, deeply immersed in the business of the company, and the next day their desks have been cleared out.

High turnover is one of the most significant causes of low morale, which in turn tends to accelerate the amount of turnover.

If a company has a high turnover rate, finding and eliminating the cause might reduce that turnover rate. Low morale rates and high turnover rates indicate problems within a company…. Morale is the driving force behind a company. High morale pushes the company forward and keeps employee turnover low. Low morale slows things down, reduces productivity, and accelerates employee turnover.

While there are many causes of turnover and there is no single solution to the problem of high turnover (in no small part because often the causes of high turnover arise from macro-economic conditions over which an individual company has no power), one possible way of addressing the problem of low morale is to improve internal corporate communication.

There are different ways in which to improve communication (a point that will be developed further in the next section), but a case can be made that increasing the degree of integration in communication style and strategy is one of them. This shift from previous intra-company dynamics, as described below. By creating an integrated system of communication, managers can help to create a sense of shared culture and shared goals.

What kind of a contract can employers and employees make with each other? The central idea is both simple and powerful: the job or position is a shared situation. Employers and employees face market and financial conditions together, and the longevity of the partnership depends on how well the for-profit or not-for-profit continues to meet the needs of customers and constituencies. Neither employer nor employee has a future obligation to the other. Organizations train people. Employees develop the kind of security they really need -- skills, knowledge and capabilities that enhance future employability.

Without the traditional (albeit slightly noblesse-oblige) traditions of employer loyalty, employees have begun to feel more and more like outsiders to their own firms. This is a significant shift from a company style that endured for generations after the onset of the Industrial Revolution, in which a quasi-familial dynamic ruled in companies.

In a corporate culture in which employees were seen as (almost) a part of the family, the communication between the managers or owners of a company and the employees was marked by a different tone, even a different dialect than that which was used for communications with the external world. Now, with the ties that hold workers to their companies growing even more tenuous, managers have begun to communicate with their employees more and more as if they were stakeholders as temporary as customers.

Thus the model outlined above -- in which this dynamic was set up as different from the other two in that it referred to an internal dynamic -- must actually be modified. Companies once promised that they would be there for their employees, as well as their customers and communities. Those loyalties are now all too often seen as quaintly anachronistic. This is likely to be all-the-more so in the absence of an integrated communication system. (Although, as will be developed below, it is also possible that in some situations an inept implementation of an integrated communication system can actually damage a sense of cohesion and shared goals.)

When communication systems create a sense of shared goals between workers and managers, the company is likely to perform better.

In 1996, when Walnut Creek, California, personnel expert Ethan Winning surveyed 742 employees in six different industries, from high-tech to insurance, a staggering 67% told him their loyalty had decreased. "There's no doubt that loyalty is in trouble…. Managers could scarcely expect other results…. It should come as no surprise to management that employees feel unconnected to companies that have seemingly shown little regard for their well-being.

This article actually goes on to argue that employee loyalty is not so much dead as simply transformed, and this is a point that has some validity. However, while certainly many employees do feel some loyalty to their employers, this is far less true in general of employees in larger corporations than in smaller companies. Moreover, the degree of loyalty felt by employees is diminished (and is only likely to be further diminished) by a corporate communication strategy that increasingly treats (that is, talks to) employees as if they were outside stakeholders.

This research examines the relative strength and importance of these different forces vis-a-vis the shift in corporate communications strategies and style, describing in brief the historical precedents, examining the future state of the field, and making some predictions about the (near) future of corporate communications and the consequences of each of these for both the nature of the corporation itself and its relationship with all of its varied stakeholders.

Literature Review:

The Technological Cart Before the Horse

In this section, I will examine the work that has been done in the area of integrated corporate communication, focusing on the three areas of this discipline that were examined in the previous section. The first of these is what can be referred to with the shorthand of technical innovations, which I am using to refer to the entire range of electronic communication forms that are at the center of our world in the twenty-first century. As noted above, while this technically includes the range of all computer hardware and software applications, certain forms of electronic communication are the most important in having shifted the dynamic of company communication. These include the social media (including LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter) but most especially email.

Such forms of communication could not have been developed without the framework and foundation of the larger innovations in computer technology that have occurred over the past half-century. This is true not simply in the sense that email would (of course) not be possible to send email without a computer, but in the larger, essentially epistemological sense that the idea that individuals and the groups to which they belong can and even should be linked instantly to each other. We are so accustomed to talking about a computer network that we no longer see the word "network" in its original sense, of a net of connections that tie individuals together in numerous permutations. (The same is true of the word "web" in the sense of world wide web: We no longer pay attention to what the word meant or why this particular metaphor was chosen.)

Computers create connections. And having given us the capacity to make numerous, complex, and essentially instantaneous communication, we feel under a certain obligation to do so. (We are all familiar with this concept in terms of cell phones and how nearly impossible it can feel to avoid answering a call or a text, no matter what else we are doing at the time.) Thus it is important to note that one of the most important impetuses for an integrated (that is, centralized) communication system is that every company now has the capacity to do so.

There has always been a tension in human society between using technology appropriately and letting technology get the upper hand and climb hell-for-leather into the driver's seat. This tension certainly exists within the context of the ways in which corporations communicate with both internal and external stakeholders. It is even more extreme when one looks with a slightly wider focus and considers the tension between the technologies that are employed at large within the corporate world and the stresses that can arise from them within the larger society.

Integrated corporate communication systems can be seen as a merger of integrated marketing systems, which are a method through which the marketing that a company is engaged in is assessed and analyzed. This can be seen as one of the disciplinary aspects of an integrated communication system and is linked to the larger practice of integrated corporate communication in that it helps to connect those stakeholders inside a company to those outside of it. One company that specializes in helping to create "a wide variety of analytics, business processes, channels, deliverables, teaming practices and technology solutions with software as a service."

The above description makes it clear that an integrated communication system (of which an integrated marketing system is a particular example) one of the most important aspects of such integration: It does not arise simply in an ex post facto fashion but also serves in a formative manner. This is another way of stating the point made above: The technology that we have available to us determines the options that we have available to us, or at least the options that are the most easily seized upon.

In this sense, the technology itself can push policy rather than serving it, which can be problematic. It will not necessarily result in poor policy, in no small part because of the high quality of much of the pre-packaged software that is available today for these purposes. However, as a point of general policy, technology should not be the driver of policy since each company's policies should be guided by the specifics of its structure, needs, and products and services.

Such a level of specificity can be accommodated by any number of software programs if IT departments (or their analogues) tailor their software as closely as possibly to their needs. However, and this is an enormous caveat, albeit one that can only be explored briefly here, that presumes that corporations do in fact want to differentiate themselves from each other. The most immediate response to this is likely to be an incredulous: "Well, of course they do, because branding is based on differentiation."

Depending on which economic theory that one adheres to, the above statement is either patently true or absurdly false. One argument holds that all consumerism promotes all other consumerism. This might well be seen in the fact that companies often sell products back and forth among their own different divisions. An alternate explanation for the reason that the communication strategies of large companies tend to resemble each other is that these communication designs reflect the same larger cultural and economic forces, a fact that tends to work in the same way that the same physical environment selects for organisms that look the same.

Communication Integration v. Communication Homogenization

The same company cited above that stresses the importance of a centralized marketing language to provide a company's impetus in its consulting practice is on the verge of falling into the trap of getting the cart ahead of the horse. The following description of the services that they offer their clients suggests that they are guided by the potential of the software at least as much as by the needs of their clients.

Mobility is clearly a driving force today because end users have more choices as to when, where and how they engage with brands, products, services and people. Further, online conversations and tones (vs. sales pitches) are becoming more influential in the marketing mix. This requires a shift in how marketers think, collaborate and measure performance across teams, disciplines and touchpoints to best engage and respond to target audiences throughout relationship life cycles. If any of this seems a little confusing or overwhelming, you're not alone. Shifts of this nature often require organizational adjustments, education and simply breaking down issues into intuitive topics and scalable best practices.

The injunction that "organizational adjustments" must be made to accommodate changes in technology is striking and reflects the tendency (a very general one indeed, and not one that is in any way confined to this particular company) of people to be dazzled by new technologies. Humans faced with new software or hardware in many cases react like a magpie who has spotted something shiny in the next field.

In terms of the technical/technological aspects of integrated corporate communication there are two distinct elements that must be considered. The one that I have been focusing on here is the one that tends to be downplayed, which is the fact that technological advances can push communication policy. There is also the issue of having a centralized message. This is no less important: Indeed, most communications professionals would argue that this is the most salient and vital aspect of integrated communication systems.

However, simply because the fact that integrated systems can allow for an integrated message is the stated reason for preferring such a strategy does not mean that this is indeed the driving force behind this strategy.

There are other pushes towards homogenization that are relevant to the current discussion. While they are being discussed separately in this paper (at least in some measure), it is important, indeed imperative, that it be clear that they are not in fact separate from each other, either historically or culturally. The rise of the multinational/global corporation has been enabled by the same computer technologies that I have been describing above: Companies could not have become so integrated and extended across international borders if they did not have access to modern electronic technology.

The types of decisions that have to be made on a continual and constant basis to ensure that a large company can run smoothly cannot be made at the needed rate without computer technology, at least once that company has spread across the globe in terms of product research and development, production, marketing, and distribution. Thus a company like Nike could not exist in its current structure without the same technology that allows for new forms of communication. But it would be inaccurate to assume, therefore, that expanding computer technology was the push that created the global marketplace.

Rather, new forms of computer technology helped companies begin to expand globally, which in turn prompted (and rewarded) further multinational expansion, which in turn created new opportunities for computer technology, and so on and on, like a medieval painting with mirrors endlessly reflecting themselves. Of course, there were other factors that were at least as important in the rise of the modern multinational corporation.

Globalization and Integrated Corporate Communication

Politics and economics are often viewed as separate vectors, separate dynamics within the larger society. However, in examining the rise of the multinational corporation and the globalization of national (and even regional) economies, there is no useful or accurate way in which to divide these two aspects. The philosophy behind globalization (to the extent to which one can posit anything like a unified philosophy behind such a vast social change) has been a push by economic interests to increase wealth. These economic interests include both private interests (that is, companies as well as individual entrepreneurs) as well as state interests.

The push behind globalization has been an expansion (on a dramatic level) of the most basic processes of industrialization, or even, arguably, of human society. Globalization depends on a division of labor, which is the heart of all successful industrial processes. The difference that has occurred with globalization is that the division of labor is spread not across a single factory or even a single town but across the entire globe.

The result has been either a distinct increase in the efficiency of the world economy or at best a near-disastrous change that imperils both worker safety and the environment. This paper does not take up this particular issue, which is really one of politics more than either business or economics. However, it is essential to note these two different models of globalization, because each does inform the way in which corporations have shifted their communication strategies over the period during which globalization has been occurring.

A useful first step in assessing globalization and its effects on the ways in which businesses are run (including the ways in which they communicate internally and externally) is to provide at least the briefest of histories of globalization. While its current incarnation is quite recent, its importance as a major force in human society is centuries old:

Globalization is a not a new phenomenon. Capitalism has been of a global character since the time Europeans began setting up colonies in the 1400s. Colonial economies were organized to suit the needs of the core countries of the capitalist world system Although the principles of globalization have been around for the "long duree," there are nonetheless several elements of globalization that are widely accepted as representing the current phase of global capitalist development. The increasing interconnectedness of markets, finances, goods and services, and the growing stature of transnational corporate networks heavily influence the economic, political, and cultural processes of globalization today Cvetkovich, et. al. (1997) notes that this influence involves creating a new world market, new transnational political organizations and a new global culture. This process of globalization is not linear, but rather involves a dialectical relationship between its economic, political, and cultural dimensions that often appears contradictory and chaotic.

To parse fully the above description of globalization would take us too far afield, but it is worth noting that part of this new culture is a trend toward forms of communication that are more homogenized, less differentiated.

The adjectives used to describe the new styles of communication are important. "Integrated" has a positive sense, and tends to be used by people in business themselves -- and (of course) especially by those who work as communication consultants. Integration implies a focus on efficiency and even elegance, and this is not necessarily inaccurate.

However, it is equally accurate to call the new ways in which corporations communicate both internally and externally "homogenized," a generally less positive term. Focusing on homogenization rather than integration is to focus on the ways in which new forms of communication can be seen to be careless and even slipshod. There are also distinctly moral aspects to a characterization of globalization as homogenization because this focus emphasizes the push of multinational corporations to characterize all individuals as ultimately consumers.

An important part of the integrated corporate communication perspective (although one that tends to remain tacit) is that it arises from an economic perspective that focuses on consumption rather than production. It is because of this perspective that corporations can communicate with their workers in the same way that they can communicate with their customers. Moreover, globalization (and thus the continuing financial success of multinational corporations) requires that the world be united through the functions of those companies.

This ideology of consumerism is promoted through a global communication network that provides both content and conduit for international flows of information, news and entertainment. This mass media is primarily controlled through multinational corporations-based within the core capitalist economies.

Core nations are the modern industrialized nations such as the United States, Germany, or Japan. China is currently teetering on the edge of core economic status; so long as its economy remains as centrally controlled as it currently is it will remain sufficiently differentiated from the core capitalist countries so as to occupy a different economic space.

A major function of globalization, at least according to the model that is being examined here, is to increase the flow of products across national borders. This push has distinct economic advantages for multinational corporations:

Within the context of neoliberalism, consumerism promotes the impression that capitalism and Western values result uniformly in glamour and wealth. The promotion of consumerism is intended to increase demand for services and goods that are produced by the international elite, such as fashion, music, and film. In general, consumerism glorifies the lifestyle of the "middle-class," which is fundamental for the reproduction of global capitalism as it is currently structured. Consequently, the values of consumerism imply that "conspicuous consumption" is more important than using local products to satisfy human needs.

Our current economic system is driven by a push to define the world in ever more purely economic terms rather than political or cultural ones. This is one of the reasons for increasing corporate reliance on integrated communication.

Not only do large corporations push increasingly towards more integrated communication systems within their own domains, but there is greater integration (or homogenization) of communication within the corporate world as a whole. As companies grow (and especially as they absorb other companies), they tend to become more and more like each other.

The changing dynamics of global capitalism since the 1970s illustrate that the most powerful actors of the suprastatal sector are multinational corporations. These firms reflect the interests of the international elite, and the global institutions of the suprastatal sector are intended to legitimate these interests. The dominant value of globalization, which is consumerism, is propagated through the global media culture, itself a product of several multinational corporations. Accordingly, the interests of media and cultural product corporations converge with the general multinational corporate objectives and policies (Schiller, 1996). Yet the dynamics of the suprastatal sector presuppose the global world-system of nation-states.

An historical caveat is necessary here. While throughout this paper I am using the term "globalization" to refer to the ways in which businesses have jumped across national borders over the past twenty years in large measure because of the ways computers have changed the way in which business is done. These changes have also been prompted by changes in the international political sphere: These political changes are not as directly related to new communication technologies as are the changes in business strategy, but they are keyed to it.

The major changes that have occurred in international politics that have pushed business (along with other sectors of society) towards greater globalization have been the breakdown of the Soviet Union and its satellites and the creation of the Eurozone, or Europe as an integrated economic (and to a lesser extent political and cultural) zone. To some extent, political and economic power can be seen as a zero-sum game in which economic interests have gained power at the expense of political ones. As noted above, some economic interests are public ones, but most are private.

To summarize the above, economic power as evidenced in the form of the rise of multinational corporations has in many ways become more important and more central to modern society than the power of the nation-state, which had been the predominant force in human society since the seventeenth century (bearing in mind that the nation-state had its ascendency at different historical moments in different geographical areas). One of the greatest strengths of political power is also one of its greatest limitations: Communication is not integrated across national (and sometimes even regional) borders.

One of the most important narratives in wartime is that of the attempt of each side to break the codes of the other side: This is an example of the polar opposite of integrated communication. Nations, which centralize power within a certain physical location and around cultural and linguistic connections, are essentially insular, making alliances as necessary while seeking to maintain the primacy of sovereignty. Nations help to ensure their own power by making it at least somewhat difficult for their citizens and institutions to communicate outside of their own country.

Businesses, however, tend to increase their power through the process of breaking down the exact barriers that nations put into place.

Thus the process of globalization within our more-or-less post-modern, post-industrialized economy runs a course counter to that followed by nationalism and nation-states during the Industrial Revolution:

Looking at country cases in this century, it would seem logical to conclude that nationalism is a driving force behind industrialization. Japan, India, and Russia have all industrialized under the banner of nationalism. In each of these cases, industrialization made the government more legitimate and strong. However, the increasingly connected world of today requires a loss of state power, and despite misgivings by many people regarding the overarching power of globalization, countries are conforming to the global standard because it is economically ruinous not to do so.

The above assessment of the process of globalization is a rosy one in that the author argues that not only is economic globalization inevitable but that it is also in general a good thing.

While many scholars (along with businesspeople and people in any number of other professions) would agree with the former statement, many would disagree with such a sanguine view of the process. The above-cited author should certainly be considered to be an all-out cheerleader for economic globalization:

It may be true that nationalism was a prime motivating factor in the past, but today's world is very different than the world even ten years ago. In Thomas Friedman's words, globalization "is not just some passing trend… it is the overarching international system shaping the domestic politics and foreign relations of virtually every country" (Friedman 7). The rules of the game have changed, and nationalization is no longer viable. The names of the game today are "world trade" and "globalization." Globalization is brutally non-discriminatory, and governed by no one but market forces [and i]ndividual countries lose power in this process.

This is undeniably true, and has had numerous extensive effects on the business world as well as on the political sphere.

In both spheres there are now different ways of communicating, with corporate communications in some large measure taking over the place that national political communications once held. It should be clear that there is a centripetal dynamic to this process that tends to unify and integrate communications strategies.

While nation-states have at least at times motivation to honor diversity in its broadest senses, corporations do not have the same incentive to support or encourage differences of perspective, except in the narrowest sense. Corporations have a much more limited brief than do nations: While some companies have a social conscience, the primary function of a company is quite simply to make money. There is no comparable single function of nations.

We can see one concise description of the incredible range of functions that a modern nation-state is supposed to fulfill in the words of the United States's founding document: The Constitution notes that nations must do everything from provide for the common defense to promoting the general welfare to secure the blessings of liberty and prosperity. It's hard to imagine a single, integrated form of communication that could possibly cover all of these different goals.

One of the shifts in the ways in which the current new world order has affected the ways in which corporations communicate with all of their stakeholders is the ever-increasing power of transnational institutions. When international organizations govern business in ways that nation-states do not, there is an important push toward a more homogeneous style of communication.

The suprastatal sector encompasses global institutional forces such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations. These institutions are directly or indirectly controlled by, and represent the interests of, an international elite who promote liberalization, comparative advantage and market-oriented economics. The majority of the international elites and the institutions of global governance promote an ideology of neoliberalism and increased consumerism and individualism.

These authors are here touching on a point already discussed in this paper: Globalization pushes companies, and along with them their workers and customers, towards a philosophy in which individuals are atomized, separated from each other, and made into (to some extent) interchangeable parts.

One of the reasons that corporations are capable of having integrated corporation communication systems is that they are playing to an audience that does not have to be catered to.

Companies are in the position under our current political and economic systems to be able to talk to customers and workers with a certain rather high degree of disregard for the ways in which both workers and customers may consider themselves to be different from each other in important ways.

One of the most obvious of these is the widespread (and ever more widespread) use of lingua francas, which may be viewed as one of the earliest forms (and indeed still one of the most effective forms) of integrated communication. For companies to be able to put out an integrated, cohesive message, the most important initial consideration is in what language that message will be phrased.

English as the Electronic Lingua Franca

One of the effects of the Internet and its associated electronic forms of communication is that English is increasingly becoming that lingua franca, that language that is shared among a large community whose speakers do not share a primary language. More and more people speak English as a second language, and English has come to be the dominant language of the internet. This is likely to remain the case for a number of reasons, and the fact that so much of the "speech" that occurs online today (and especially of the commercially-based speech) is in English is fundamentally important to the idea of integrated communication.

As English has become more and more widely used as the language of electronic communication, companies have been able to increase their power by reducing the complexity of their messages: If a company need only communicated in a single language, then it is far easier to create that message in a simple, coherent form. One of the clear differences between the ways in which business is done in the current generation and the way it was done even a few decades ago is the rise of English as the dominant language of the electronic era.

English has achieved its current widespread use in part because the first major companies that spread electronic technology were American, and the technology that they created was based on English. But the rise of English as a lingua franca would not have been possible had the United States (along with Great Britain) been so powerful in political and cultural terms. (Of course, the fact that the first major computer companies were American is not distinct from the nation's political power.)

Globalization of the IT marketplace is accelerating the effect of English as a commodity. For decades English has dominated the IT industry, from research and development, to the design of hardware and software. In 2002, there were signs that the impact of China's interest in respecting international intellectual property rights heralded a new era of China-led technology standards which would slow down the monopoly of technologies made primarily for English speakers. A new culture of IT researchers had developed in China which was not built on U.S.-trained engineers. However, more recently, India, which once was very concerned about China's enthusiasm for changing standards in the IT industry, now sees the threat as fading - partly due to Indian businesses assuming that China will take a long time to catch up in English language proficiency, and India's dominance of the outsourcing industry which was won in large part because of their command of the English language.

All of these forces come together: Economics and politics and linguistics all influence the ways in which business is done and the ways in which companies communicate internally and externally. While the discourse surrounding integrated corporate communication tends to focus fairly narrowly on issues such as branding, all of the above broader social issues must be considered to provide an accurate sense of how corporate communicate styles have shifted in recent years.

The ways in which companies "talk" to themselves and to the world at large arise from highly complex factors.

The ways in which companies communicate are affected by the larger ways in which companies are structured, which are in turn affected by the larger ways in which money moves through a society, which are in turn affected by the larger ways in which political and cultural structures are created, supported, and changed.

This section has examined some of the larger issues involved beyond the narrow focus on integrated corporate communication as a strategy to promote branding. While branding is an essential task for a company, and an integrated communication strategy can certainly be a vital force for effective branding, this is only one fairly small part of the underlying dynamics. Corporations tend to style themselves (and this is hardly true of corporations alone, of course) as benign entities. It follows that they will style their forms of communication in the most benign terms.

It would be absurd to criticize corporations for seeking ways in which to increase their profits: Making money is the function of corporations. However, it would be (at least for many people) appropriate to criticize corporations for other reasons, such as damaging the environment or promoting consumerism in ways that diminish individuals' psychological health or cultural integrity. As has been discussed above, it is possible that corporate actions (guided and explained by their communication systems) do such real harm.

The following section examines the corporate communication systems of two large companies does so within the context of a fairly tight focus. That is, the larger issues that have been addressed in this literature review will be put to the side until the conclusion. This does not mean that these issues are not relevant, or even central, to the ways in which the following companies operate.

Corporate Communications at The New York Times

The New York Times has instituted a cohesive communication style over the past decade. The push for such integration had a number of sources, but among the most important was the fact that newspapers are in general struggling. The Times has not been immune to the financial problems that nearly every newspaper has been hit with, and one of the ways in which it has tried to combat the kinds of problems described below is through a more concerted branding effort. The kinds of woes described below have only gotten worse in the intervening couple of years.

Saddled with debts, crippled by the costs of the new building and of running one of the most expensive news operations on earth, some believe the Times is running on empty. It is facing all the same problems that other American newspapers are struggling with, as the internet steals subscribers and advertising dries up in the face of a deep recession. In a sign of the financial straits in which the industry finds itself, the Times broke one of its oldest rules last Monday and put an advert on its hitherto sacrosanct front page. But the move only reinforced the sense of turbulent times ahead.