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The success of any modern business today depends increasingly on what customers and stakeholders think about the company and what it is doing. This has given added impetus and importance to the role of corporate communications.
Communication competence is set to become a critical success factor for businesses in the future, but this requires a broad understanding of communications. All too often, corporate communications is still understood simply in terms of press releases and media relations, or staff presentation and negotiation skills.
Indeed, it is important that communications is viewed more broadly and seen as a function that cuts through and involves the whole organization, as comprising both internal communications within the organization and communications with stakeholders and other groups outside the organization. More and more businesses today depend for their success on communications, on interaction with customers, sponsors, partners and other stakeholders.
This paper advocates an understanding of communications as an intangible organizational asset - as communication capital. It develops a new model of communication capital which addresses the current challenges of corporate communications within the framework of intellectual capital research ([7] Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; [22] Roos et al. , 1997; [23] Stewart, 2003; [24] Sveiby, 1997).
The plot is straightforward. The article begins with a background discussion of intellectual capital, including some critical remarks. The purpose is to lay bare the essential character and meaning of intangible assets such as intellectual capital, to find out how they can be understood and to establish what kinds of tools are needed to manage and develop intangible assets in business organizations. Then, the article moves on to its main point: communications as an organizational asset.
The article develops a new model and concept of communication capital. The proposed model supports the closer integration of various dimensions of corporate communication. The article also seeks to answer three main questions: What exactly is meant by intellectual capital in a business environment? How can intellectual capital be approached from a communications perspective? And how can communications be managed and developed as an intangible organizational asset?
The emergence of intangible business
Although the current wave of discussion about intangible business assets and intellectual capital is relatively recent, the phenomenon itself is far from novel. Economists have been exchanging views...