The nexus between strategic communication and corporate governance

Human interactions with each other depend on communication, which can either be verbal or non-verbal. Communication approaches are different from one individual to the other, and from an organisation to another. We all have objectives of communicating to an audience, basic of which is to negotiate for better deals or to convince one another. This is the reason successful organisations adopt strategic communication in their operations. The term strategic has been most often used in the context of management and decision-making exercises. Strategic communication can be described as the purposeful use of communication by an organisation to achieve its vision and fulfil its mission. The key concepts of strategic communication include audience analysis, goal setting, and message dissemination strategy.

Corporate governance is the system by which companies are directed and controlled by boards of directors (BOD). Boards of Directors are responsible for the governance of their companies. The shareholders’ roles in corporate governance include to appoint the directors and the auditors, and to satisfy themselves that an appropriate corporate governance structure is put in place. The four (4) P’s of corporate governance are: people, process, performance and purpose. Examples of good corporate governance practices include: corporate social responsibilities, calculation of the company’s carbon footprint, respect for human rights in the company, transparency of executive conducts, salaries, rewards, awards, human capacity development, staff welfare and implementation of a code of conduct for employees, etc.

Most corporate organisations do not publicly communicate their corporate governance approaches and achievements, do not think employees should know about the corporate governance goals of the organisation and are not strategic in communicating their corporate governance goals. This is because corporate governance goals are ethical requirements in most African countries and not statutory. In a survey carried out on the impact of corporate governance on business performance by Fame Oyster & Co. Nigeria in 2021, some senior executives claimed they do not believe being ethical can improve their corporate performances. All believed awards, rewards and improved welfare packages can motivate their workers but the degree of impact and whether it will be value-addition in terms of turnover is shrouded in mystery. Small to medium enterprises do not have corporate governance structures in place.

Strategic communication of a corporation is required by the members of the public, shareholders, members of staff and customers’ reactions. Strategic communication can increase stakeholders’ support for governance reform objectives and spending, influencing public opinion, attitude and behaviour change among stakeholders. Strategic communication studies the requirements of different stakeholders and designs a way of interacting optimally with these stakeholders. It also appreciates the fact that different parties have different ways of reacting to issues and that parties are interested to hear or see what interests them. The major force behind strategic communication is innovation and creativeness. Organisation must research and find out the best way to communicate to different stakeholders at different times of the year.

Sustainable corporate culture is a way of ensuring strategic communication of a corporate is efficient as well as being ethical. In the early seventies and up to late eighties in Nigeria, fashion materials, especially shoes and underwear, made in England were perceived to be “of high quality” and buyers were ready to pay a premium on them. They were ‘self-marketing’. Electronic products from Germany were referred to as “German machines” and they were everlasting. Strategic communications can be held responsible for achieving three main outcomes, all of which are measurable: raising awareness of an effort, exercise or event; changing attitudes of stakeholders and motivating shareholders to take positive actions. The features of good strategic communication are: target audience/s, context, intended outcome, key messages, appropriate medium and preferred messenger/s.

According to Robert L. Health and Winni Johansen in “The International Encyclopedia of Strategic Communication” published in 2018 by Wiley Blackwell, the term “strategic communication” traditionally has been understood as referring to external corporate communication, such as public relations, marketing communication, and advertising, with insufficient consideration beyond its role as a tool of persuasive influence. In recent years, however, the field of strategic communication has evolved to be more holistic in its approach and its role within socio-cultural contexts. Articles, textbooks, and handbooks have attempted to define the scope, purpose, and nature of the concept of strategic communication. Most of these works touch the subject from different perspectives.

In a competitive age that we have found ourselves, organisations must know the importance of strategic communication in corporate governance. There must be laid-down objectives of organisations and how to achieve these objectives. These objectives must be communicated to all stakeholders in a strategic way. While the shareholders will be interested in the profit and dividends of an organisation, the employees will be more interested in the staff emoluments and welfare. Government and the public will be interested in the amount to be paid as tax, ethical compliance, especially the quality of products and corporate social responsibilities that will be rendered by the corporate. Corporate, therefore, look for ways of communicating these messages in an effective way.

The corporate governance best practices of conducting periodic board and workers evaluations and retreats have recently been adopted by many boards. Board evaluations and retreats are most effectively designed and administered by external corporate governance experts. There are organisations that are specialists in corporate governance training. They organise annual or periodic retreat for strategic planning of organisations goals and also evaluate the performance of boards and workers so as to ensure that boards and workers are on track towards achieving the set goals. The goals and objectives of board evaluations typically include an assessment of directors’ knowledge, skills and competencies, including business and financial acumen, industry knowledge, socio-political knowledge and fundamental legal knowledge and understanding, which will typically vary by a particular company’s type and its board’s organisational maturity.

In a competitive economy, strategic communication of corporate governance goals of organisations is very important and can only be handled by experts who are specialists in this field. The results will be noticed in organisations’ performances using goodwill, sales turnover, profit, employees’ satisfaction and increase in share value as indices.