Perfil Profissional

EDUCAÇÃO
· Mestrado em Administração de Relações Públicas – Leeds Metropolitan University – Inglaterra – 2005-2006.
Disciplinas desenvolvidas: Estratégia Corporativa para posicionamento de marca, Gerenciamento em empresas multinacionais (responsabilidade social), Comunicação e Marketing.
· MBA em Marketing – EPGE – Fundação Getúlio Vargas – Passo Fundo - Brasil – 1999-2000.
Disciplinas desenvolvidas: Negócios Internacionais, Pesquisa de mercado e Comunicação Corporativa.
· Bacharel em Relações Públicas – UFRGS – Porto Alegre – Brasil – 1992-1996
Disciplinas desenvolvidas: Planejamento em Comunicação Corporativa, Escrita Criativa, Relacionamento com diferentes públicos.
· Idioma inglês fluente, obtendo o First Certificate de Língua Inglesa na Universidade de Cambridge/Londres – 2001.
· Idioma espanhol intermediário, obtendo certificado de Língua Espanhola pelo Instituto Cervantes/Barcelona –1999.

RESUMO DE QUALIFICAÇÕES

Vivência internacional de três anos na Inglaterra (2000/2002 e 2005-2006). Convivência com diversas culturas e conclusão de Mestrado na área de Comunicação Estratégica.

Profissional voltada para a área de desenvolvimento de gestão estratégica com experiência em Comunicação Corporativa, tendo atuado junto a empresas de expressão no mercado.

Pró-ativa, com capacidade de autodesenvolvimento, automotivação e busca constante de conhecimento. Perseverança para trabalhar por resultados. Facilidade para trabalhar em equipe.








EXPERIÊNCIA PROFISSIONAL


VIVO - PORTO ALEGRE - BRASIL
de 12/2004 a 08/2005
Compradora Plena para área de Marketing e Publicidade.

· Realização de compras programadas estabelecendo comunicação com as demais compradoras de outros Estados, buscando, através de fornecedores nacionais, atingir melhores preços.
· Negociação com fornecedores de vários produtos de publicidade e propaganda como backlights, outdoors, além de produção de anúncios para tv e spots.


EPTC - EMPRESA PÚBLICA DE TRANSPORTE E CIRCULAÇÃO – PORTO ALEGRE/BANRISUL - BRASIL de 06/2002 a 12/2004
Coordenadora de Comunicação

· Planejamento e execução de projetos de comunicação de nível interno e externo.
· Gerenciamento de canais de comunicação com públicos-chave da empresa: mídia, comunidade em geral, comunidade escolar, colaboradores.
· Gerenciamento de pesquisa de clima organizacional e divulgação dos resultados junto ao público interno.
· Coordenação de campanhas para posicionamento de marca junto a assessoria de marketing.
· Produção e coordenação de instrumentos de comunicação interna, como panfletos, banners, jornal interno.
· Coordenação de trabalho de educação para o trânsito junto a comunidades carentes de Porto Alegre
· Organização de campanhas publicitárias, bem como eventos visando a estabelecer comunicação efetiva com os diferentes stakeholders.

· Colaboradora no Programa de Voluntariado das empresas.


VIAGEM INTERNACIONAL PARA DESENVOLVIMENTO DA LÍNGUA INGLESA – LONDRES de 02/2000 a 05/2002

· Atendimento ao público em um restaurante em uma rede hoteleira
· Estudante de língua em escolas de Londres
· Trabalho de tradução junto a uma empresa de aconselhamento financeiro para brasileiros.


COCA-COLA COMPANY – FRANCHISING PASSO FUNDO – BRASIL
de 03/1999 a 01/2000
Assistente de Marketing

· Planejamento e distribuição de ações promocionais envolvendo estratégias de marketing de acordo com a realidade do mercado local.
· Negociação com fornecedores e pontos-de-venda para a viabilização de compra de materiais para merchandising.
· Monitoria de vendas, suporte para atingimento de metas.


UNIVERSIDADE DE PASSO FUNDO – BRASIL
de 03/1997 A 03/1999
Relações Públicas

· Coordenação de eventos e de cerimônias de formatura.
· Coordenação do Cerimonial e Protocolo de eventos com a presença de autoridades estaduais.
· Desenvolvimento de canais de comunicação com empregados, professores e alunos.
· Assessoria de imprensa.
· Participação voluntária na parceria da Universidade com o Governo, desenvolvendo e ministrando classes para profissionalização da comunidade.
· Contato com agências de publicidade para definição de planejamento e campanhas publicitárias.


TRABALHO VOLUNTÁRIO

· Produção de vídeo institucional. A produção deste vídeo foi premiada em um concurso universitário (SET Universitário), promovido pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul. Este vídeo teve como objetivo auxiliar na comunicação para empresários, visando sensibiliza-los para a causa da instituição SOS Casas de Acolhida – ONG instituição de apoio a crianças vítimas de maus tratos e abuso sexual.
· Trabalho voluntário na instituição SOS Casas de Acolhida de 1994 a 1996.

Hotelaria - Comunicação de Marketing - planejamento de ações

LEEDS METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF BUSINESS & LAW
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY







PARK PLAZA HOTEL – TWO YEARS STRATEGIC MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PLAN FOR BRANCHES AT UNITED KINGDOM





Master Level



Tutor: Graham Hughes

Student: Erica Machado

CONTENTS





INTRODUCTION/CONTEXT ANALYSIS

PROMOTIONAL OBJECTIVES

STRATEGIC OPTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

COMMUNICATIONS ACTIVITIES/TACTICS

BUDGETS AND TIMING SCHEDULES

REFERENCES


INTRODUCTION
This academy paper has been developed in order to complete the second requirement for Marketing Communications module. We had to choose a company and then prepare a Strategic Marketing Communications Plan covering two years - 2005 and 2006. The company chosen was Park Plaza HotelS & Resorts, which has branches worldwide. However, for time and access data reasons I will concentrate just on UK Marketing.
The project was built using primary and secondary research. The primary information has been obtained through interview (by e-mail) and discussions with Park Plaza Hotel professionals. The Marketing Communications book, written by Chris Fill was utilised as academic source. Furthermore, a secondary research has been developed regarding the International Travel and Tourism industry, concentrating on United Kingdom Market. The main secondary research tool was Mintel, a market research database. The context analysis (CA) will begin the plan. The CA will follow a structure suggested by Graham Hughes, module leader and tutor.

CONTEXT ANALYSIS

1) The Business Context
Park Plaza Hotels and Resorts
The brand is part of Carlson Hospitality Worldwide whose other operations include Regent International Hotels, Radisson Hotels & Resorts, Country Inns & Suites by Carlson, Park Inn hotels, Radisson Seven Seas Cruises, T.G.I. Friday’s, Pick Up Stix and Provisions. It had tremendous growth in its market segment since becoming part of Carlson in July 2000. The main company’s objective is to grow the Park Plaza brand through a focused franchise development and acquisition program with strong emphasis on aggressive development, enhanced brand definition and improved quality. The company has two key successes designed to move the company forward:
ü To increase the brand's share of room nights for business travelers. The business travel market represents the largest opportunity for room night growth. Park Plaza is reaching out to this valued market segment with the introduction of a Worldwide Hospitality Program, promoting the brand to 328,000 Look To Book travel agents, increasing Park Rewards membership numbers and building relationships with key travel consortia.
To build a globally recognized brand. The company is increasing its brand awareness through a variety of consumer promotions, starting at the hotel level and continuing on to include national and global campaigns.
Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts aim the mid-scale to up-scale segment, having some important companies as competitors. Up market hotel sector deals with niche and boutique sector. Niche players are set to do particularly well with new brands such as Marriott International's Bulgari and Sol Meliá’s. In UK these up scale hotels develop their business through expansion in core cities centres. Malmaison Hotels, for example, has planned to double the size of its chain to 15 by 2008. The hotel is targeting areas in the South of the country including Guildford, Bristol, Cambridge, Southampton and West London.
The move by Thistle Hotels towards the four to five-star sector from its current three to four-star positioning is another example of the perceived potential of the up scale sector. The hotel group aims to upgrade and rebrand its hotel chain to become more similar to the Radisson Edwardian (other brand from Carlson Hotels Worldwide) and Malmaison hotels.
The Park Plaza chain provides a welcome worldwide, with 4-star hotels offering superior service, luxury guestrooms, modern meetings facilities and fine restaurants, catering to leisure and business travelers. The corporate and marketing strategies shows that through quality and technology, Park Plaza Hotels will search their goals. Furthermore, the company has started an expansion movement in UK. It has opened 7 branches in UK in less than 6 years and it has plans for new projects.
In UK Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts have 7 stylishly decorated 4 star modern hotels, whereby each hotel is dedicated to a famous contemporary artist. The art’otels are well known for their ‘art’rageous ’service.


The 7 branches are in: Cardiff, Belfast, Leeds, Nottingham and three in London – Riverbank, Sherlock Holmes and Victoria. The latest to be opened was Riverbank Park Plaza, which is located just overlooking the river Thames. Searching the aim of modernity its executive rooms and suites come with first class facilities such as flat screen televisions, CD/DVD players, up-to-the-minute technology, high-speed wireless Internet and stunning en-suite bathroom with bath and separate walk-in power shower. The all seven hotels in UK are established and equipped with the high technology. They are contemporary new-build hotels that also houses award-winning restaurants and bars. In Park Plaza Hotels in Nottingham and Leeds, there is Chino Latino - a modern winner restaurant that offers sumptuous Asian cuisine alongside with selections of Mediterranean favorites.
The Park Plaza Europe set to become the largest hotel operator on London’s south bank with the planned opening of 2 new hotels, in 2008 and 2010. These new hotels are being developed and owned in partnership with Galliard and Frogmore Property Company Limited.
The hotel sites are both located on the south side of the River Thames, the first to open will be the 4-star deluxe County Hall Park Plaza - in Addington Street, just minutes from Waterloo International station and famous London landmarks such as the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey. The hotel will boast 395 luxury guestrooms, suites and penthouses of which more than half will have fully equipped kitchens. The individually designed, fully air-conditioned guestrooms and suites will include high technology’s equipments and contemporary furniture.
The second hotel, opening in 2010, will be one of the largest conference hotels to open in London for several decades - Westminster Bridge Park Plaza. The 4-star deluxe is set to become one of the key players in the London conference scene, offering a wide range of meetings and events facilities including the main ballroom which will be able to seat up to 1,000 delegates for dinner, rivalling the capacity of some London’s 5-star hotels. With these two additions to its hotel portfolio, Park Plaza Hotels Europe will operate more than 2,200 guestrooms in central London.

2) The Customer Context

Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts have as target segment the mid and up-scale segment. Regarding the market share the brand aims to increase the brand's share of room nights for business travelers. The business travel market represents the largest opportunity for room night growth. The World Tourism Organization’s definition of a tourist includes those traveling for professional reasons. The business travel market, a target segment for Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts, includes a wide spectrum of activity and can be sub-divide into four basic sub-segments:
conventions and corporate business meetings;
trade fairs;
incentive trips, seminars, and training programs;
individual business trips.
Most urban hotels, especially those managed by the major chains, such as Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts, are expanding and developing new projects. Regarding the target audience, the industry has experienced a major change in the leader group. Since 2001, Business Travellers had spent more time in hotels than Leisure Travellers. They account for over 50% of the client base of European hotels on the top four European economies - Germany, the UK, France and Italy.
We will use the Mintel’s research (2004) in order to reveal characteristics about customers for Plaza Hotel. According to the survey consumer, AB social grade (up-scale segment) is the public who has the highest penetration of hotel usage. Since these consumers are generally the most affluent, it is not surprising that they are also the most likely to go on holiday or business travel. The age of customers found in the research was between 25-54.
A significant proportion of hotel customers simply expected certain facilities while others were prepared to pay a premium for them.


While tea and coffee-making facilities were the most welcomed facility by 75% of business users and 78% of leisure users, 60% of business users looked for a range of restaurants and bars and 44% looked for added facilities such as hairdryers and trouser presses. Whereas the main activities of a hotel are to provide accommodation, food and drink to guests, Park Plaza Hotels also provide leisure facilities, conference, banqueting facilities and business services.
Interestingly, Mintel’s research showed that the highest concern amongst all adults was towards price. However, for those that had stayed in a hotel, top response was towards being prepared to pay more for higher quality for a special occasion.
For the first time, in 2001 the UK earned more from business than leisure arrivals. In 2002, business trips in the UK made up 15.9% of total tourist trips (13.9% of the domestic total and 29.7% of the incoming total). Spending on business travel in the UK accounted for 23.7% of the total tourism expenditure in 2002 (20.8% of total domestic tourism spending and 30.4% of total incoming receipts). These figures underline the importance of business travel for the incoming sector and in fact, incoming from business travellers exceeded those from holidaymakers in 2001 and 2000, and equalled 96% of holiday spending in 2002.

3) The Internal Context

The recent development of the budget hotel sector has led to some 40,000 new rooms being added to the sector between 1996 and 2002, providing core facilities only at a fixed price. The market, however, is somewhat polarising with much growth and many changes also occurring in the upscale sector of the market.
In the last decade the big growth has been the explosion in branded budget hotel capacity, which has more than trebled in the UK since 1996, reaching a level of 57,300 rooms by 2002, thus representing well more than one-third of British branded capacity. This expansion is projected to continue for the future. Budget hotels continue to be highly dependent on business travelers. When we first look this economic scene, budget hotels can be a threat for Park Plaza marketing. However, they have different target audience in terms of income. Even though the budget hotels are developing fast and targeting the same audience (business travelers), budget hotel is situated in another scale and does not compete in the same market segment as Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts.
One possible financial constraint is that chain expansion has slowed over the last couple of years (2002-2003), the immediate causes being war, terrorism, epidemic and economic weakness, and this has provoked severe cutbacks in business travel expenditure. The strength of the Euro against the Dollar has had a further negative impact on chain hotel performance. Nonetheless, UK is the second largest tourism generator in Europe, but also the fourth most popular destination. Total tourism (including domestic) sustains some 2.1 million jobs in the UK, representing 7.1% of total employment and approximately 160,000 of these positions are self-employed. In 2001 there were 127,000 VAT-based tourism-related enterprises in the UK and 77% of these were small firms generating a turnover of £250,000 or less. In London, tourism is the city's second largest industry. It generates 8% of the city's GDP and employs 275,000 people.
The Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts are brand hotels of a world-class organization that has a proven record in marketing expertise and uses the latest in reservation technology. From secondary research we could detach the organization identity:
“Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts are positioned in the mid-scale to upscale segment of the full-service category. These hotels are generally 150 rooms or larger and in downtown, suburban and airport commercial locations. With restaurants, meeting rooms, catering, suite and recreational facilities, the hotels serve the travel needs of business guests, meeting attendees and weekend leisure guests.” Bjorn Gullaksen, Executive Vice President-Brand Leader Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts.
Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts’ culture, values and beliefs are focused on engaging all members of the Park Plaza family: employees, owners and management companies.



4) The External Context/Stakeholder Context

4.1) External Context

UK has several attributes, which favor chain development. Close cultural and linguistic ties with America have undoubtedly facilitated the acquisition by British entities of three major international hotel brands – Holiday Inn, Intercontinental and Hilton – which were founded and developed in the USA. Bass, the predecessor of InterContinental Hotels Group, purchased Holiday Inn, probably the most widely recognized hotel brand in the world, in 1988. Bass subsequently purchased the Intercontinental chain from Saison, a financially troubled Japanese retailer, in 1998. Hilton International, which has the right to exploit the Hilton brand outside the USA, was acquired in 1987 by Ladbroke, which already owned 63 hotels. Whitbread, the large leisure and hospitality conglomerate, also became the master-franchisee for Marriott hotels in the UK in 1996.
The outlook for this market is looking healthier again, with financial markets indicating that the worse of Europe’s downwards-economic cycle has passed. Growth rates should begin to strengthen again with a moderate rise in interest rates expected.
Strong capital markets and a well-established equity culture have been important factors for financing the development of several medium-sized UK hotel chains, such as Thistle, DeVere, Jarvis, and MacDonald Hotels. Current expenditure on business travel and tourism in the UK is estimated by the WTTC to be running at about US$32 billion annually. This figure is expected to increase by 65% over the next ten years (2013), bringing the level of UK business travel expenditure to over US$52 billion.
Deloitte & Touche, in its UK budget hotel survey (2003), predicted the beginning of a second wave of growth for the sector. The first wave of growth, which peaked in 1998 when almost 8,000 new rooms were added, was characterized by the following:
the wave was led by the utilisation of land banks by the four main players: Travel Inn, Travelodge, Premier Lodge and Express by Holiday Inn, which all belonged to substantial pub/restaurant groups;
towards the end of the phase new entrants such as Days Inn started to grow faster than the established players;
from 1998-2002, the major players refocused their attention on standalone sites, especially city centres;
Deloitte & Touche believes that the second wave of growth will be characterized by:
a wider variety of players sharing in the growth;
some exclusively domestic players attempting to expand in continental Europe;
possibly more product segmentation, as already widely practised in France and the USA.


Deloitte & Touche’s analysis show that the second wave will be important for the Park Plaza Hotel & Resorts as the corporate and marketing strategic plans are the expansion in Europe, and also worldwide. Park Plaza Hotels have already branches in UK (seven), Belgium, Germany (seven branches), Hungary and Netherlands (3 branches), besides companies in United States, Brazil, Canada, China, India, South Africa and Israel. Another important point of the analyse is that the second wave will search for more product segmentation, where different services and facilities can be found in the hotel either for using of the tourists or for using of local people interested in utilizing these facilities.




4.2) Stakeholders Context

Park Plaza Hotels in order to develop a good relationship with main stakeholders, such as: customers, tourism associations, travel agencies and community in general, have developed several activities.
Carlson Hotels Worldwide is a member and supports the work of the International Tourism Partnership, part of the London-based International Business Leaders Forum. The International Tourism partnership provides global leadership for responsible business practices in the hotel, travel and tourism industries. It includes the International Hotels Environmental Initiative, which encourages the continual improvement of environmental performance by the hotel industry.
Carlson Hotels Worldwide celebrates and seeks diversity in all aspects of its business. Under the leadership of a diversity officer, Carlson is reaching out with programs in business development, employment, vendor sourcing, philanthropy and marketing to insure that its business operations reflect the diverse community of the world in which we operate. Carlson operates with a stated diversity and inclusion policy, which guides the conduct of employees and managers pertaining to issues of diversity.
Besides the corporate responsibility activities, Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts also have a good relationship with key stakeholders, such as: employees, franchisees and clients.
To create brand consistency and a sense of pride within the employees, the Park Plaza Hotels & Resort has established a two-way symmetrical communication, where the inputs of employees are respected and valorized in the daily basis. As a result, employees are engaged in their work and understand the importance of delivering the brand promise to each guest they serve. The core of this initiative is the Park Pride employee’s development and recognition program. The program, which stands for Personal, Responsibility, Integrity and Dedication to Excellence, is a tool to motivate and engage employees in their work, as well as empower them to deliver the best customer service possible.
The franchisees receive great importance by Plaza Plaza Hotels & Resorts. They are assisted individually in their financial maters. As a result, members of the Franchise Services Team are dedicated to providing the hotels access and insight into the brand's marketing programs, tools and resources. The team provides advice and expertise on implementing local and regional sales tactics as well as methods for improving the overall quality of the hotel.
We do not have an accurate brand perception from the consumers. However, from Mintel’s survey we gather important information that enables us to make some assumptions. Mintel’s research (2004) reveals that significant number of consumers look for main facilities, such as tea and coffee-making, but 60% of business users looked for a range of restaurants and bars and 44% looked for added facilities such as hairdryers and trouser presses. Whereas, the main activities of a hotel are to provide accommodation, food and drink to guests, Park Plaza Hotels also provide leisure facilities, conference, banqueting facilities and business services. Regarding the brand awareness the research shows that the majority of clients prefer to book hotels that are associated with a brand name. They affirm that the connection with a brand chain will guarantee quality and superior service.
Furthermore, we gather from secondary research that the brand positioning, designed by the company, is: a world-class organization that has a proven record in marketing expertise and uses the latest in reservation technology. In order to equal the brand’s perception, Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts’ management has developed tools and strategies. First of all, the management team works with its sister brands to fully optimize the business-building tools and resources of Carlson Hospitality Worldwide.


These resources include engagement participation in the company's customer relationship management (CRM) strategy; access to Curtis-C, the company's award winning global reservation system; membership in the patented Look To Book program, the industry's most recognized travel agent reward program; participation in Park Rewards, the guest loyalty program. The corporate and marketing strategies shows that through quality and technology, Park Plaza Hotels will search their goals of brand positioning.

PROMOTIONAL OBJECTIVES
The promotional objectives were built considering, as suggested by Chris Fill (p.350), three main elements: corporate objectives, marketing objectives and at last the marketing communication objectives.

Build awareness and recognition of the brand Park Plaza Hotel in UK. Focus on strengthen the image of globally recognised brand;
Help the increase of market share night for business travellers;
Spread widely in UK the image of contemporary/technological hotel, linking the 7 branches with communication and programs;
Inform customers of company’s achievements and developments;
Reinforce the guest loyalty program and build long term relationship;
Publicize social programs that the company participates in UK (corporate responsibility), as well as awards received;
Inform employees with internal tools and programs about company’s development.


STRATEGIC OPTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Before starting to present the communication activities and tactics that will enable us to achieve our communication goals, we have to decide which will be the communication strategy. As we have stated in our promotional objectives, the communication plan will interact with different segments. For that reason our recommendation is that we should use the three marketing communication strategies: Push, Pull and Profile.
It is clearly that the brand awareness’ increase can be achieved through a Profile strategy, which uses several tools, such as Public Relations, promotions, in order to reach different stakeholders, communicating with them in different ways in order to develop the image of the company. The Profile strategy is important because is linked with corporate image. The public in general as well as main stakeholders must be informed about everything that happens regarding the company. It is important, because the information provided help the construction of corporate image. Furthermore, the opportunity of stakeholders’ feedback enables the company to know the expectations of customers, employees, franchisees and suppliers.
When we talk about establishing direct communication with old customers or potential ones, e.g. business travelers, we have to choose Pull strategy, utilizing tools such as TV’s advertisements, magazines or web sites. However, some times we utilize channels (e.g. Look To Book travel agents). In this case we are using Push strategy in order to achieve our target audience. Basically, the Pull strategy will be developed when we try to communicate directly to our target segment. In this case we use our tools of communication through different media that will reach directly our stakeholder, the customer. On the other hand, sometimes it is easier to reach the customer via retailer (Travel Agency) or other intermediaries (flight book sites, Tourism Association or companies events). When we process the communication through different channels until reaching the consumer we are utilizing the Push Strategy. Sometimes In order to support each Strategy that we have recommended, we will develop and discuss the communication mix implementation in the next section.


COMMUNICATIONS ACTIVITIES/TACTICS
It is important to bear in mind that, whichever strategy is used we should take into account the media’s influence. Minte’s research in 2001 revealed that holiday television programmes have the highest potential of impacting on holidaymakers. It is possible then that these holidaymakers may have been influenced by what was featured on these programmes prior to booking the holiday. Data also revealed that newspaper supplements, travel magazines and travel advertising have the least impact on the holiday patterns of consumers. However, the same marketing survey has shown that travel and tourism industry ad expenditure was (2000/2001) 193 million pounds on press and 95 million pounds on TV. It is important to say, that even though just 10% of the consumers surveyed used newspaper for travel information, it is still widely used, because the advertisement spend in press is fairly inexpensive, thus affordable for any type of company. Nonetheless, we must have in mind that 44% utilised holiday programmes on television in order to have the holiday choices.
Regarding the new trends for advertising, Mintel’s research states that, gradually the travel and tourism products would be sold via different technologies. It also detaches that in the next years (2002-2004), the industry would see a growth in alliances between magazines, guides and brochures producers with Internet, interactive television channels and mobile phone networks. This means that this “mixture media” will enable consumers to be closer to the industry, via the technology most convenient or familiar.
From the information provided we will develop some activities and tactics that we think can help the company to achieve corporate and marketing objectives. At this point we will try to tie the message/media to the strategic orientation.

MIX MEDIA – CONSUMER (PULL) STRATEGY

1) The method will be advertisement in magazines and daily newspapers. Period: 6 months. Monthly in the magazine. Financial Times – publicizing days should be discussed with the publicity agents and Marketing department. We suggest at least once a week and weekends.
As we have stated above, the newspaper is still more utilised by Tourism industry than TV, because it is cheaper. Furthermore, our target segment, business travellers, gets information, during the travel or breakfast, reading newspaper and magazines. This will be an ad campaign, which will be publicized during 6 months than will be analysed. The main concept to be disseminated is the luxury worldwide brand. Ads should detach the London great developments (2008 and 2010). They will highlight that with those developments Park Plaza Hotels Europe will operate more than 2,200 guestrooms in central London and also that one project will be the largest conference hotel to open in London for several decades - Westminster Bridge Park Plaza.
Our suggestions are Financial Times and Condé Nast Traveller/CNTraveller magazine. The Financial Times and Condé Nast Traveller are publicized worldwide and the magazine has editorial contents to luxury travel, where every aspect involving travel is presented. This includes items on fashion, food and drink, accommodation, and luxury goods such as watches or cars.
2) Monthly Newsletter addressed to clients (participants of the guest loyalty programme). Period: 2 years. Once monthly.
The material will send just to those who have guest loyalty, because the cost will be less than to send to the client’s mailing list. These clients will be encouraged to invite friends to stay in the hotel (contributing with the market share increase), through incentive campaign that will be discussed with Marketing Department. The newsletter contents will be about achievements, developments and social programs of the company.
3) Electronic Newsletter to all clients. Period: Once monthly during two years.
We believe that a paper Newsletter well designed with contemporary’s concepts will have more impact. However, the cost will be far more expensive than Electronic Newsletter. In order to low the cost, we will have an Electronic Newsletter version, which will be sent monthly to the clients that are not participants of the guest loyalty programme.



MIX MEDIA – TRADE (PUSH) STRATEGY

4) Advertisements on the Web Sites. Period: 2 years.

Nowadays, it is common that business travelers and tourist utilized related industries in order to find and book their hotels. We suggest some web sites that can be used by Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts:

- British Tourism Association
- Travel Agencies (previously chosen by target segment)
- Flight book
- London Development Agency
- Business Association

5) Leaflets to be distribute in target places. Period: 2 years. Suggestion: Park Plaza should participate in different fairs, once each three months

Park Plaza Hotel & Resorts will develop a leaflet in association with chosen Travel Agencies. They will submit important and valid information in the material. This material will be hand out in the Travel Agency, business fair and tourism fair.

MIX MEDIA – STAKEHOLDERS (PROFILE) STRATEGY

6) Press-releases. Period: During two years, whenever is necessary.
It is important to inform stakeholders of the developments and actions of the company. The corporate responsibility is an important issue in the business scenario. The developments and campaigns that Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts are engaged should be sent to the press as well as developments, expansion and great achievements.
7) Development of Employees newspaper. Period: 2 years – Distribution once monthly.
Before sending news to the press, it is important to inform the intern public. Besides that will make them feel valorized it will also be useful as a marketing strategy. Employees with information about the company will be a potential sales advisor to potential clients.
8) Participation in UK strategic Events. Period: 2 years. Once each three months, that should be different from participation at Business and Tourism fairs.
In order to develop its brand awareness it is important that the company be in evidence. For this reason we suggest that Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts participate in events that can help to strengthen the global image and also help in the positioning process. Events suggestion:
8.1) Hotels Environment Action Month (HEAM)
· Set up by the International Hotels Environment Initiative (IHEI) in 2003, Hotels Environment Action Month (HEAM) consists of a programme of events taking place in hotels across the globe in a bid to raise environmental awareness among guests, staff and communities. According to IHEI, the primary objective of HEAM is to build awareness of environmental and social issues that face each region. HEAM is organised and co-ordinated by the International Tourism Partnership (ITP). Furthermore the project can create opportunity for periodic environmental initiatives. Some examples of activities suggested by HEAM are: Recycling Forum for employees and community, Tree-planting action, Energy saving programme. All these initiatives, besides helping the environment also will detach the Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts brand in the local media.



· In 2004 World Travel Market re-branded its ‘Environmental Awareness Day’ to ‘Responsible Tourism Day’ and hosted the first Responsible Tourism Awards, organised by responsibletravel.com in association with The Times, the World Travel Market and Geographical Magazine. The awards aim to recognise companies and organisations in the travel industry that are making a significant commitment to responsible tourism. Over 700 nominations were received from tourists (readers of The Times, Geographical Magazine and responsibletravel.com as well as other members of the general public) who were asked to identify holidays and tourism organisations that provided an enjoyable and responsible travel experience.
8.2) Development Tourism Initiatives
As suggestion we can detach the London Tourist Board campaign in 2004. This was an activity in conjunction with hotels, airlines companies, London Development Agency and British Tourism Authority, searching the increase of tourism in England. The Park Plaza’s participation in events and campaigns, promoted by significant institutions, is important in order to strengthen relationship and promote the brands’ name.


BUDGETS AND TIMING SCHEDULES
Media Costs
Advertising rates are more stable for print media than broadcast media largely because print media can adjust the number of advertising pages on an issue-to-issue basis while broadcast media have a fixed amount of daily programming hours. Thus, demand by advertisers has a stronger impact on the rates for broadcast time. Newspaper space is usually sold according to rate cards; buyers of large volumes get discounted rates. Magazine space is sold similarly. Advertising rates for radio and television are normally determined through negotiation and often vary by the time of day. A 30-second spot on network television costs the most in prime time (8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.) and the least during daytime (10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) Furthermore, a television campaign for 1 or 2 months cannot be run for less than 1.5 million pounds.
Our Strategic Marketing Communications plan, covering two years, will spend circa 1.2 million pounds, 600 thousand each year. This amount will help Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts to achieve its corporate and marketing objectives. In order to make the plan work efficiently bringing effective results, we will utilize some instruments for measuring and evaluating ours results and perceptions from different publics.
See on the next page the timing schedules and budget charts.




MEASURES FOR EVALUATION
q Build awareness and recognition of the brand Park Plaza Hotel in UK. Focus on Business Travellers;
q Strengthen the image of globally recognised brand;
q Help the increase of market share night for business travellers;
q Spread widely in UK the image of contemporary/technological hotel, linking the 7 branches with communication and programs;
q Inform customers of company’s achievements and developments;
q Reinforce the guest loyalty program and build long term relationship;
q Publicize social programs that the company participates in UK (corporate responsibility), as well as awards received;
q Inform employees with internal tools and programs about company’s development
Those items are our promotional objectives. The tools and instruments of evaluation will help Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts to discover whether the marketing communications strategies and projects are achieving the objectives and targets or not. The time available for this is stated on the time schedule chart. Our suggestion examinations are:
ü The Marketing Agency will develop a research with target audience about the awareness of advertisement on the web sites, newspaper and magazine;
ü Clipping of relevant articles and news on press media, radio and TV;
ü Opinion form – In each event or fairs Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts will distribute questionnaires with questions about the hotel (it is known, the image brand);
ü The employee’s newspaper will have a section for opinions. This will be a great opportunity to discover the closest client’s opinion about the company;
ü Questionnaire form: this instrument will be delivery during the check in for all clients. The questions will be similar to fair and events’ opinion form;
Finally it is important to say that the evaluation instruments are efficient tools for measuring the Strategic Communications Plan’s success. They also are important to show if the company is getting the right way, with right Marketing Communications tools, or if it is time to cease and design new and effective instruments.


REFERENCES
q Fill, Chris. (2005). Marketing communications: strategies and planning – Chapter 12 and Marketing Communications: objectives and positioning. – Chapter 13. In: Fill, Chris, Fourth Edition. Marketing Communications – Engagement, Strategies and practice. England, Prentice Hall, pp. 331-385.
q Bly, Robert W. (1998). Business to business direct marketing: proven direct response methods to generate more leads and sales. 2nd ed. Lincolnwood, Business Books.
q Landau, Howard. (2005). A good advertising campaign only works when accompanied by a strong PR push [Internet], Nation’s Restaurant News, Vol. 39 Issue 45, pp.24-26 [EBSCO – Business Source Premier]. Available from: <http://www.athensams.net>[Accessed 30th December 2005].
q Park Plaza Web Site. [Internet]. Available from: <http://www.parkplaza.com/aboutus/home >[Accessed 1st January 2006].
q Media costs evaluation. [Internet]. Available from: <http://www.pprune.org/adver <http://www.admedia.org> [Accessed 10th January 2006]
q Mintel Reports [Internet], Travel and Tourism Analyst: International. Titles accessed: -European Hotel Chain Expansion - May 2004
-European Business Travel – Special Length Focus – Europe – December 2003 (Deloitte & Touche chart)
-Hotels – UK – August - 2004
-Impact of media on travel – UK – December 2001
-Outbound Travel – Europe – September 2004 (UK)
-Retail Advertising – UK – September 2003
-Sustainable Tourism in the Travel Industry International – February 2005
-Travel and Tourism – UK – April 2003

Prefeitura de Leeds - campanha para tornar Leeds uma cidade estratégica para empresários europeus.

LEEDS METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF BUSINESS & LAW
ETHICAL COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT




CASE STUDY
Explanation, Analyse, Evaluation and Criticism

New Planning and Execution Process







Master Level – MA PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGEMENT – 2005-2006

Module Leader: Gerard Choo

Lecturers: Liz Yeomans, Gerard Choo

Student: Erica Machado

INTRODUCTION

The Public Relations campaign Leeds, Live it, Love it will be the case study analysed in this assignment.
The aim of the essay is to contribute with analysis, evaluation, criticism, and a new proposal plan to the campaign that has been launched September last year. During the module Ethical Communication Management, lecturers were presenting the different stages of planning a campaign, considering the ethical approach, which should be an integral part of any project. Different stages such as analysis of environment, objectives, public, messages, strategy, tactics, and evaluation were conceptualised in the light of different approaches and theories. The main background come from American and English scholars, as they were the mains sources available in the subject.
During the module many authors have been consulted and explored in order to bring a vary framework for planning theory. Among them – Cutlip etc all, Effective of Public Relations, ninth edition, 2006 (American scholars) and Anne Gregory, Planning and Managing Public Relations, second edition, 2000 (English). Furthermore consultation was developed in the web sites, releases and other materials about the campaign. Before continuing, it is important to say that the task of analysing and criticising is a hard exercise, especially with the constraints of limited sources about the process background. Nonetheless, this assignment will bring some points that will try to contribute, even in a small scale, to the effectiveness of “Leeds, Live it, Love it”. The criticism was conducted with the framework theory applied in the context of campaign’s summary research and releases of the subject. From press releases (outside view) and material of campaign (inside view) was possible to bring references and issues to be analysed and further criticised. The review will be organised in the follow way:



Part I:
- Explanation and Analysis of the case
- Evaluation and Critique

Part II:

- Proposed plan – based in the comments and theories developed before in the first part.


PART I
- Explanation and Analysis of the case
- Evaluation and critique

From the power point presentation (see Appendix section) it is possible to gather main ideas and steps of Leeds, Live it, Love it campaign. The campaign has followed some important steps that were found in the planning literature. While building this first part, after analysing each stage developed, an evaluation and then a critical process was designed in order to bring different approach. In order to explain, analyse, evaluate, and criticise the campaign was utilised Anne Gregory’s book. Bering in mind the theoretical framework the starting point of planning process would be making five key questions:

What do I want to achieve?
Who do I want to talk to?
What do I want to say?
How shall I say it?
How do I know I’ve got it right?

What do I want to achieve?

This moment in the planning is after research analysis, which leads to objectives. At this point it is possible to build some concerns about the way that “Leeds, Live it, Love it” was conducted. The answers of the first question for practitioners, who direct the campaign, were raise profile, inform and enhance perceptions and maximize economic impact. Furthermore, in the campaign resume it is stated that they aimed to see results in increased number of business and leisure visitors, whilst sustaining the city’s position as the most popular student destination in UK, basing the campaign focus on national and international image of Leeds.
Naturally, the answer for the first question was based in the information from research. Nonetheless, there are some points to be reconsidered. Firstly it is important to say that the campaign is leading by a partnership between private (Chamber or Commerce) and public (Leeds City Council) sectors. Once we have this information we should concern about the objectives in order to interact with the key public, that would be the most interested in the development of the city: people who live in Leeds and pay taxes. The objectives should be aligned with the population ideas and profile. Corroborating with this idea, the launch film was presented with ambassadors, famous and ordinary people who loves Leeds. Ordinary people were successful business people, all of them of white colour. This would be a good start if the population wasn’t mainly constituted of Asian, Black and mixed race (85%). Those numbers should be considered in order to raise objectives to be attained, even more because of the importance of local key stakeholders.
The literature review of planning process brings the acronym SMART in order to characterise the way that objectives should be constructed. The word stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable and Time bound. In none of the three objectives specificity and measurement were considered. From experience and theory it is possible to state that the existence of them is crucial in order to be effective. The more specific the more practical and straightforward the way of getting what is desired. Furthermore, the time bound is not stated in different opportunities. These will be a particularly constraints that will be analysed later in the fifth question: How do I know I’ve got it right?
The campaign has started in order to extend the perception that people (residents) have about the city, improving the British-based and nearby European countries’ view. Again this objective, even though achievable, is not specific and measurable. And do they consider whether this is realistic? Residents have already a good perception of their city, whilst the objective of enhancing the British and European’s view goes beyond the first and second level of objectives effects. The theory shows that objectives of each campaign have three levels:

* Awareness – also conceptualised as cognitive. Keep people aware of a campaign or action;
* Attitude and opinions (affective)– getting the target public to form a particular attitude about the campaign;
* Behaviour – getting the target public to act in a desired way. Conative objectives.

From the literature review it is possible to say that the first and second level are easier to be achieved than get someone to act in favour of any case. Thus, it is important to create objectives that would be achievable and reasonable in a considering time bound, rather than just saying that want to maximise economic impact, or enhancing the British and European’ view of the city, without saying how this would be achievable if you don’t change any behaviour of specific key stakeholders.
These considerations of objectives were left behind and should be clarified in order to have more ideal and right strategies. It is important to quantify as much as possible as well as being precise and specific, and allied with the organisational goals. In this campaign a special situation of enrolling a private and public institutions could be problematic while setting the objectives. However, this would be a constraint to be analysed in other section.


Who do I want to talk to?

The campaign has target the British-based and nearby European countries as main public to be achieved. The communication tactics utilised in the Internet were clear and efficient designed. The division by public targets: visitors, residents, student, and business is straightforward and facilitate the research, bringing more objectivity while the person is browsing. However, some concerns rose whilst searching the information.
It is known that the campaign aims to enhance perceptions of the British-based and nearby European countries. In order to be recognised nationally and internationally, firstly the campaign should maintain a two-way communication with the principal’s publics. In the website there is a “contact us” link. Nonetheless, a suggestion would be a more open approach. In the system theory approach, where organisations are dynamic systems that should be aware of movements of both inputs and outputs adaptive to the changing environment, the two-way communication is well developed and turns to be quite useful for effectiveness. Corroborating with James Grunig, American scholar, who developed the two-way symmetrical communication concept, if a company has a effective and open channel of informing and also receiving information from different publics, the company will benefit from it rather than been damaged.
Even though, some practitioners and lecturers believe that the two-way symmetrical approach is a utopia, it is a powerful way of getting an ethical and effective communication process. Channels as conferences, meeting and debates are important channels to be developed by campaign’s organiser, getting support from networks as industry associations, and community groups.
Leeds, Live it, Love it, as it is stated in the website is simple memorable line based on the pride people have for Leeds and our philosophy of communicating with the wider audience - try it and you'll buy it!” However, from secondary research, was discovered that the brand didn’t get approval from the most important people in this campaign: local media and residents – the people who is pride of Leeds. The brand was criticised for its simplicity and similarity with other campaign of Hong Kong tourism board. Despite the fact of being criticising the marketing agency supported the brand saying that they were aware of the Hong Kong campaign and that the Leeds brand was the result of research studies that culminate as the expression of levels of satisfaction and the passion the people of Leeds feel for their city in the phrase - Leeds, Live it, Love it. There is no doubt; they have good intention. Nonetheless, the main point was missed out. How to represent the people without asking them their opinion or even talking about the real people? As an example we could bring some opinions in the press. Malcolm Allan, director of a company called “Placebrands”, says that Leeds authorities’ efforts instead of creating value were wasting money. I disagree with his opinion, as I believe that the brands, as well as Public Relations campaign are important vectors in order to achieve the awareness and enhance City’s profile, culminating with accomplishment of desires. Especially when the communication has a unique and powerful place in the political, social and economical environment. But, it is still important to highlight some ethical concerns.
Firstly, the campaign claims that Leeds, Live it, Love it is representative of satisfaction and passion of Leeds people. Leafing the colourful, good quality and well-designed lifestyle magazine was possible to figure out that at least 80% of Leeds population is white, wealth and famous people. Where are the 55% of ordinary Asian, 18% of Black and 17% of mixed race population? And the 82% representatives of service sector employees as well as 12% employed in manufacturing? There is a huge consideration to be drawn regarding ethics issues, especially when the campaign says that represents the Leeds’ people, who are not there.
Other ethical consideration about public is the discussion about the brand. People could say that Marketing Leeds is a company responsible for reinforce the awareness focus on national and international basis, and the population could just see the benefits of an efficient and profit campaign, which aims to bring business, development to the local economy. This argument could be valid in the case that City Council wasn’t one of the partners. The amount of money spent in the brand and other activities of the campaign came from the same population, which pay taxes and other services in order to have some rights and benefits. Taking the ethical approach neither the “utilitarian” nor “deontological” would approve the way that was made the approach with the local residents. Cutlip etc all, in the book Effective Public Relations, explains that Utilitarian philosophy emphasizes the serving the public good or the majority in society. If we analyse the ethics in the context of Utilitarian approach the creation of a brand in order to represent the passion of people, who haven’t been even questioned about approval, would be a disaster. However, if the John Stuart Mill approach was left aside and we bring the Kant’s Deontological Philosophy the result would be even worse. The continuity with a campaign, that doesn’t maintain an open and respectful relationship with local public, seems to be wrong in its origin, rather than “doing the right thing” (statement representative of Deontology).

What do I want to say? How shall I say it?

The third and fourth basic questions in planning, suggested by Anne Gregory in the book Planning and Managing Public Relations campaigns is driven by the analysis and objectives stages that have been stated before. Actually, the whole planning process is developed in an inter-connection of states from the beginning, and instead of being a linear work is a coming-and-going process that should depend on each stage.
Regarding the campaign Leeds, Live it, Love it messages are concentrated and directed to enhance the positive side of city. The highlight message is that Leeds is an important national and international business opportunity space, as well as education, leisure, culture, sport, retail and nightlife centres.
The strategy utilised is a direct way that enhance and promote the success of the city. Many celebrities and other local businesses have participated in order to communicate the reasons why we should “Love it”. The information that was found in the Internet, the main source for getting the messages, was straightforward and representative of different sectors of importance in the city. The business messages and opportunities were clarified briefly in the link for “Business people”. Useful links were displayed for people who would be interested. Residents, students and visitor links also have an important link with business information. However, the messages through these spaces were more concentrated in Leeds as an important shopping centre, with representative stores, as well as good bargain places. The two universities, leisure spaces and other events and festivals were allocated in order to show the diversity of activities in the city.
Messages utilised were useful as same as attractive, combined with modern design. Other strategies utilised to get the message through are partnership with relevant marketing representatives. As an example messages endorsing the importance of Leeds were utilised, e.g. Lonely Planet edition for Britain. This important tourism guide stated in one edition that Leeds was the Knightsbridge of the North. Knightsbridge is a famous area in London with charming and expensive brands and stores. The statement was showed in different materials produced and publicised about the campaign.
Basically, the Internet communication and messages could be characterised as straight and easy to get for people, who would have access to computers, materials or events.
The channels of publicising the information that were found in the research were generally more sophisticated media. Even though, the event of brand launch was in the city centre, people who participated were people who got invitation. The lifestyle magazines, an insert on The Times (March 2006) are some examples of selected medium and message in order to get specific target public.
Nonetheless, Marketing Leeds also has been involved in more popular events in partnership with other representatives, e.g. the sport event “Great Student Run”, organised in partnership with Leeds Metropolitan University, that was held on April 30 2006 and involved residents, students and their families. Other partnerships were developed in order to achieve a broader audience.
Overall messages are connected with the publics and objectives to be achieved. Straightforward information, and different links that could explain further some concepts that were briefly presented in the Leeds Marketing site, especially concerning business opportunities. Regarding the mechanisms utilised, would be necessary different tools that would reach a broader audience, and also enable publics to have a more two-way-communication approach.


How do I know I’ve got it right?

The answer for this question as the campaign is designed so far would be: I don’t know. The measurement mechanisms and evaluation process have not been designed. The process would be more complicated as the objectives aren’t quantified, causing difficulties to measure the results and feedback of the campaign. However, the Marketing Leeds has stated that they would have a regular dialogue with key stakeholders. The way they should keep this channel of communication is not listed, but the idea of maintaining a regular way of dialogue is an important step towards the evaluation and review of the entire process.
Other point to be highlighted is that until 2008 the campaign has a budget guarantee to be managed. The planning campaign should then provide evaluation as it would focus effort in budget allocation, demonstrate efficiency and effectiveness, and facilitate the accountability. The accountability issue also is a moral response to the City Council’s investment, which deals with public money. Furthermore, the reputation of a campaign could be enhanced with scientific and precise ways of measurement, from first inputs until the final process that would culminate with outputs and outcomes evaluation.
Why is important that Leeds Marketing campaign had developed an evaluation process from the beginning?
The theory of planning shows that the macro model of evaluation (from starting until the final activity) is a useful tool in order to re-directed when is necessary. As an example, we could take the brand issue. The issue was massive criticised in the media, and also by local authorities and ordinary people. In the light of this event, the evaluation method would realise a necessity of changing strategies, in order to keep aligned with objectives stated. The evaluation techniques would be extended to the entire planning, bringing more accuracy and confidence that the Leeds, Live it, Love it was following the right way towards the aim to increase awareness, national and internationally, as a city for investment and leisure.
The first part of this essay tries to analyse and evaluate the different stages of a planning campaign process. After analysing the data gathered, web sites and different releases was possible to have a broad view of the situation and environment research that culminated in the campaigns objectives, target publics, messages and strategies developed since the brand’s launch in September 2005 until end of April with the advent of “Great Student Run” sport event.
Positive achievements as well as negative effects have been produced. Different routes would certainly get different outcomes from activities. In the second part of this assignment the same campaign will be proposed with different approach. The campaign process will start from the analysis environment and then proposal of objectives and further steps. The “new campaign” will be a mixture of positive points, and adaptation of issues that had produced negative comments in the development of critical approach in the first part.
PART II:

Proposed plan – based in the comments and theories developed in the first part

The second step of our assignment will begin with the analyse process that will lead us to create our objectives and than chosing the target publics. Analyse is a pivotal stage for planning a campaign, and the results will direct the objectives, strategies and tactics.
The environmental observation includes main drivers that can affect organisations in different ways. PEST analysis is a common model used in business, which divided the environmental in four areas: Political, Economic, Social and Technological. PEST is valid and useful to get answers that will contribute to evaluate and preview tendencies and important opportunities. A practical approach to utilised the information gathered in the PEST analysis is split it up into a SWOT analysis. The Strengths and Weaknesses (first two elements) are responsible to identify the internally driven, i.e. the points that already exist that can enhance or not the awareness of Leeds as a national and international business, education and leisure centres. The last two – Opportunities and Threats – are external issues that must be developed, in the first case, or stopped in the case that could damage the objectives and projects of Leeds, Live it, Love it.
In order to procedure with the planning process we have developed a SWOT matrix based in information given in the summary research of Leeds City.


SWOT ANALYSIS
STRENGHTS

• Positive attitude locally and regionally – pride in their city – 94% agreed
• Quality of life –91% of residents satisfied/very satisfied
• Major education centre – two important universities
• Last 20 years – create more employee jobs than any major city outside London
• 1981-2002- employee growth higher than any other major city


WEAKNESSES

• Low awareness of the city – national and international basis
• Lack of communication channels with local people
• Behind Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool in the research about UK representative business and leisure cities
• Budget smaller than other City’s campaigns
OPPORTUNITIES

• Easy access to major European cities – airport/train station
• Allocated ordinary people as “Champions”, through associations partnerships
• Promote graduate campaigns in partnership with Universities
• Expand manufacturing industry – exportation – utilising R&D in partnership with University projects



THREATS

• 40% of Asian population has no qualification (Asians represent 55% of all population)
• 82% of all employment on the hand of service industry
• Lack of connection between real Leed’s people and people who represents the campaign



“SMART” OBJECTIVES AND KEY STAKEHOLDERS

In the first part of this essay analyses and context theories were provided in order to specify the objectives that would drive the whole campaign. As the main evaluation and theory has stated before, the objectives for Leeds, Live it, Love it weren’t SMART, therefore could not contribute with efficiency and effectiveness for the development of the campaign. In the second stage, different approach will be proposed connecting objectives with results from SWOT analysis.

· In two years time, from September 2005, increase in 9% the perception of UK residents that Leeds in a great place to live, allocating the city in the third place with 13% of comments
· In 2007 Leeds should have 7% of preference by tourists among UK cities to visit
· In 2007 Leeds should be seen by 10% of International Business people as a major business center
· In 2008 Leeds should achieve 15% of business people perception as a Major European Business Center
· In 2008 – 91% or more should be satisfied/very satisfied with the city
· In 2008 – the manufacturing industry should be responsible for 24% of commercial transactions, including exportation
· From 2006 City Council should improve in 10% the channels of communication with populations. In 2008 this percentage should have achieved 30%
· In 2008 a decrease of half percent in the amount of no qualified Asian people, reaching 20%


According to theory background as was explained in the first part, the effects of changing behaviour are the most difficult to be achieved among objectives levels. Fortunately the main objectives that the campaign aims are allocated in the first and second level, awareness and attitudes/ opinions changing respectively. Furthermore, the city has a different profile from visitors, business people and locally people. The research numbers revealed that a potential for more investment and challenge exists, especially with the major support of its residents.

Towards the stakeholders we will draw a classification of public types define by Grunig, found in Anne’s Gregory book:

- Non-publics: people that neither are affected by nor affect the Leeds campaign. It is difficult to classify non-public in Leeds campaign, as any representative of any country could be a potential visitor or business people.
- Latent public – residents, visitors, students and businesses that are not aware of the campaign.
- Aware public – business, residents, visitors and students that are aware of the campaign, but don’t get involved in the main activities and events.
- Active public – all four key stakeholders that are partners or have involvement with different events or production to promote the campaign. The media and City Council as well as Chamber of Commerce (represented by businesses) are also active publics that should be well informed and also questioned about their opinions in controversial subjects, as was the creation and launch of Brand’s campaign.

MESSAGES

The negative perception has been detected among visitors and business people, who have a low awareness percentage of Leeds as an important centre to visit or invest. On the other hand, the perception of local and regional people is quite high and also the student community sees Leeds as a great place. Furthermore, a research has showed that Leeds has high levels of employment, and important economical figures. This message should be publicised in many different sources of information, which we would state later. The persuasion messages can be gathered from research data and events and achievements of the city.
Messages should be sent to media frequently. It is important to find new facts and relevant issues in order to attain the media coverage. All messages should be regarding objectives to be achieved and directed to our active public. The messages should also leave a space for an open dialogue, through publicizing e-mails and ways of getting in contact. Other form of getting public to participate should be a divulgation of monthly schedule of events and activities.

STRATEGY
- Create an open channel of communication with local communities
- Create a effective media relation, with easy channels of communication
- Mount networks with local and international tourism boards and international business association
- Mount relationship with local union associations
- Create closer approach to industry associations
- Develop education program in partnership with Universities


TACTICS

The tactics will allocate the strategies in a practical way. Any different campaign, event or other activities to be successful depend on a great deal to the tactics chosen to operate the strategy. The creativity and the ability to deal with budget are main skills that Public Relations must have in order to create efficient and effective programs.
The financial resources available are 2 million per year lasting three years (from September 2005 until 2008). During this period some techniques are suggested with different frequency and intensity as follow:

- Major yearly event gathering celebrities and ordinary people. At this opportunity will be revealed the figures spent in the campaign and also will be launched the Annual Report
- Debate with local media and community. Seminar promoted by Marketing Leeds that will gather local people, media and businesses. Twice a year.
- Weekly approach to media – Each week, practitioners should raise an important issue in order to create a fact and send a press release to local, national and international media as appropriated.
- Partnership with national and international business associations. The experience will be a responsibility of both sides with targets and objectives to be achieved. Every three months, one partnership campaign should be launched with support of important events or fairs in the respectively industries.
- Participation in events that could show the achievements and objectives of Campaign. The technique would be a mobile stand with furniture, leaflets and promotion film. The frequency will depend on Marketing Leeds availability and relevancy of event in order to achieve the campaign’s objectives. The union and industry associations will be contacted in order to persuade their associates to participate.

- Promotion of qualification courses in partnership with Universities. Each month a course would be provided and sponsored by Marketing Leeds brand. At this opportunity, brochures and leaflets will be distributed. A mailing of participants also will be created in order to send e-mail to the database.
- Keep up-to-date the website information with the four main stakeholders: visitors, business, students and residents. Create a special channel with interesting facts and issues to be access by journalists.
- Continuation of partnership and events in different areas of leisure: culture, nightlife, music and sports.

EVALUATION OF MARKETING LEEDS PROGRAMME

The evaluation process as was suggested in the first part is a continuing activity that should be developed throughout the process. While searching the literature we found Mcnamara’s macro model of evaluation that sound quite practical and useful. From Anne Gregory’s we also found the conceptualization of important terms in evaluation as follow:

Input – the nomenclature derives from system theory and, in the particular case analyses, is activity that is created, developed and promoted by a Public Relations.
Output – also from system theory, means the measurement of people - visitors, students, businesses and residents - that have read the news, or have participated in different events promoted and sponsored by Leeds, Live it, Love it campaign.
Outcomes – the outcomes are the effects that an event or activity has produced. Outcomes can be measured in three different levels of changing, which were conceptualised before: awareness, attitude or opinion, and behaviour. We can classify at this level people who got information and was affected by it, changing opinion towards the perception of Leeds city.
Out-take – this is an intermediate level between an output and an outcome. This term classifies people who have assimilate the main message of Leeds been a great business center, but, even though, still don’t change their perception.


The Macnamara’s macro model of evaluation distributes the three terms in a pyramid scale. As we have developed quantified and specific objectives the task of evaluation will be easier developed:

* Number of article that are positive in daily media coverage
* Number of participants in each event
Participation of people in the qualification courses
* Participation of ordinary people in the Annual Report’s event


* Quality of relationship with media- local and internationally
* Quality and veracity of research interpretation and SWOT analysis
Objective achieved
* Numbers and percentages of awareness achieved by visitors, businesses
* Positive numbers awareness of students and local people kept high
*Improvement of Asian people qualification


Results
Outcome





Outputs


Inputs




REFERENCES


Cutlip, S. M., Center, A. H. & Broom, G. M. 2006. Effective Public Relations. 9th ed. New Jersey, Pearson.

Gregory, Anne. 2000. Planning and Managing Public Relations Campaigns. 2nd ed. London/IPR/Kogan Page.

Grunig, James E. (2001) Chapter 1 – Two-way Symmetrical Public Relations: Past, Present, and Future in Handbook of Public Relation, Heath Robert (editor), London, SAGE.

Green, A. 2001. Creativity in Public Relations. 2nd ed. London/IPR/Kogan Page.

Marketing Leeds [Online]. Available: http://www.marketingleeds.com
[14th May 2006]

Leeds, Live it, Love it [Online]. Available: http://www.leedsliveitloveit.com [16th May 2006]

Choo, G. (g.choo@leedsmet.ac.uk), 7th April 2006. Email to E. Machado (emachado5428@student.leedsmet.ac.uk

Leeds – focus report (2006). The Times, Thursday, 9th March.

Marketing Leeds – Special Supplement (2005) – Yorkshire Evening Post, Tuesday, 27th September.

Leeds Live it Love it magazine (2005), Annually edition, 1st ed.

Uma visão: comunicação interna - Brasil.

Leeds Metropolitan University
Faculty of Business & Law
Postgraduate Course – Masters Public Relations Management


Internal Communication – The Theory into Practice in a Multinational Company in Brazil


Supervisor: Rudiger Theilmann

Student: Erica Machado – 33113435


September, 2005-2006

ABSTRACT

The dissertation objective is to reveal to which extent the theory about Internal Communication (IC) process is a real achievement in practice in the company analysed. The research was conducted in a parent Brazilian company, owned by a Spanish and Portuguese joint venture. The internal communication has received attention from different scholars and starts to be a strategic function in a competitive market, where employees are seen as company’s core competence. For this reason the communication process with this strategic public plays a relevant role in the industry, which turns to be a worth study for Public Relations professionals. In order to conceptualise what IC represents, the observation was conducted with Grunig's theoretical background – four models of communication, and other relevant literature about organisational communication, focusing on employee relationship. After the literature review, the researcher aimed to develop a semi-structured interview with the head of the internal communication division. Due to access constraints the semi-structured interview was not completed and only the theoretical framework were utilized in order to construct a questionnaire that was submitted on-line to a sample of 80 employees directly employed by the subsidiary analysed. This information were analysed with statistics tools and then the author related it with the literature studied. This comparison showed that even though, the open-channels of communication exist in the company analysed, enabling the employee’s to have their opinions analysed, the most ethical two-way symmetrical model is still not practicing in the Internal Communication flow of information.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

LITERATURE REVIEW

Internal Communication

IC – Public Relations, Human Resources, or Marketing role? Searching the roots of
IC

Internal Communication – Lenses of
Communication Scholars

Company Profile and Structure

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

STATEMENT OF RESULTS


ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION


The aim of this research is to study the process of Internal Communication (IC) in a multinational company in Brazil. From 1990’s this function of Corporate Communication (CC) has been receiving attention from different scholars and also from different departments in the corporation world. From the literature review it is possible to perceive that the contemporaneous organisational environment has seen the internal stakeholders (employees) as core competence advantages (Ridder, 2004). The employees as a competitive advantage seem to be a new trend (Miller and Skidmore, 2004) in corporations. On the one hand, employees are core competences that have to be respected and observed as individuals. On the other hand, they develop relationships in the corporate world, through communication processes. If the company wouldn’t survive without the participation of the internal stakeholders, neither would it survive without establishing communication and getting feedback from those who are the core competence of vanguard business. If the study of individuals and work relationship is a useful subject to be studied by Human Resources and Psychology scholars, the employee’s participation through open and effective communication is the topic to be observed in this dissertation for a conclusion of Public Relations Management.
Following the trend of centralising employees, the researcher will search to understand the corporate internal communication (IC) process in her home country, Brazil. Because of financial and time constraints the research will be limited to one multinational corporation. The company chosen is a telecommunication company (the largest provider of mobile telephone services in South America). The main rational basis is its economic relevance in the Brazilian market, the idea that mobile telecommunications are high-technological industries that should be aligned to the communication vanguard trends (employees having the central role in its communication process); and the fact that the author worked there and will have easy access to information.
Even though the research will be concentrated in the South holding company (there are six holding companies in the country), it is believed that this work will be an important contribution as a first step. In fact, this is a first attempt towards the understanding of the process and the new position required for the organisational environment, where employees are seen as central in the company’s development.
Many authors and scholars have acknowledged the importance that an open communication process has for the internal stakeholders, who in return will be motivated and loyal to the company (Lewis, 1994; Therkelsen, 2003; Martin, 2005). Furthermore, different studies of CC (we will define the concept later) have developed theories and ways of communication that would enable a trustful and effective process. As a well-known example, we have the four models of communication developed in 1984 by James Grunig. The work states that there are two “one-way communication” models and also a two-way asymmetrical (where the receiver has some participation in the construction of the message), and also a two-way symmetrical model (that is seen as the most ethical and which provide a open dialogue between the people involved in the communication process).
According to Grunig's research “the development of theory suggested that organizations could practice each of the models under certain contingent conditions and contribute to organizational effectiveness” (2001, p. 12). However, the author affirms that the process of communication with employees must develop a two-way symmetrical approach in order to be effective.
Nonetheless the reality differs from theory, even though the practitioners say the opposite. In the work of Arceo (2004) it was found that 81.18% of communication managers in companies defend the symmetrical model. However, the author questions: “how can they support a two-way model (symmetrical or asymmetrical) without having conducted research before planning and launching a campaign or a program?” (p. 299). His research shows that there is no tradition to determine the goals and objectives through formal research for communication campaigns and projects, including employee communication.
Grunig’s four models of communication will be utilised as a theoretical framework for communication, together with other important information about Internal Communication that will be discussed later in the literature review. The aim of this research is to discover if the company analysed is following the ethical and most effective process in order to inform and keep an honest dialogue and relationship with the internal public, i.e. the two-way symmetrical model (Grunig 1992).
From organisational side the researcher aims to have a telephone interview with the head of IC department. The interview will be focused on the strategy and tactics that the company utilised in order to inform its employees. Some important points will be analysed during the conversation:
- Channels of communication – (both directions – upward and downward)
- Strategy and tactics of communicating important news (such as changes)
- Hierarchy of the company – structural view (dominant coalition, Grunig, 1992)
- How the company measures the feedback and effectiveness of the communicative process.
- Two-way communication model – is there participation of all levels (directly involved) in the decision-making process?
After gathering the information, a questionnaire will be distributed (via e-mail) in the regional subsidiary in the city of Porto Alegre. As commented before, the company’s choice was a combination of economical relevance and particular interest, as the researcher worked there. The universe will be a frame sample of the total number of direct employees. The sample will be limited to the culture of only one holding company that constitutes the joint venture (there are six different holding companies that operate in the telecommunication market in Brazil). This can be a barrier in seeking to understand the communication and the perceptions of employees. Johnson and Scholes (2006) suggest that even in a single organisation we are likely to find different subcultures and perceptions related directly to the structure of organisation. Nonetheless, for the purpose of our study, we will concentrate only in Porto Alegre as we agree with Stage that states:
“In parent-subsidiary the organizational rules or “ways of doing thing” are established in the parent country and then exported to the subsidiary location where they define the work environment for employees” (1999, p.246)
The data results and theoretical framework will be compared and then analysed and discussed in the respective sections. The researcher believes that the analysis and conclusion will be a useful framework in the internal communication of this company. The results and conclusions are expected to help to improve the reputation and importance of IC in the company.
Finally it is important to say that the researcher believes that an open and no manipulative process of internal communication will only be set if the two-way symmetrical communication is established. As suggested by Grunig’s theory there are two two-way models: asymmetrical, which benefits the organisation utilising communication to persuade the public to behave in the way the organisation wants; and the symmetrical, which uses research and dialogue to bring about symbiotic changes in the ideas, attitudes, and behaviours of both their organisations and public. In the research case study the only possible and ethical way is the two-way symmetrical model, where the employees are heard, aiming at the construction of a trustful and ethical form of communication.
In the following sections the literature review will construct the framework utilised, which will later be compared with the data from questionnaires answered by employees in the South subsidiary. The research methodology will establish the steps taken in order to build a method based on accurate and valid techniques. Moreover, the statement of results will be analysed and then the conclusion will suggest the steps and actions to be taken.

LITERATURE REVIEW

“Communication is not simply a facilitating mechanism for managers: in so many ways, it is what management is”. (Richard Varey)

1)Internal Communication – Overview
2) IC - Public Relations, Human Resources or Marketing role? Searching the roots of IC
3) Internal Communication –Lenses of Communication Scholars
4) Company Profile and Structure

Internal Communication - Overview

The literature review started searching to understand the different approaches and ways of seeing Internal Communication (IC) in a company; therefore the researcher developed a theoretical observation of communication in organisations.
The work of Argenti (1996) classifies IC as an important function of corporate communication. The author, who represents the business management school, defines corporate communication as an essential management activity in the relationship with different stakeholders. The author states that CC has its roots in the 1960’s. Originally the companies created the function in a “tentative to keep journalist away from inner company affair” (p. 75). As the main reason of having a CC was to keep the press informed, the natural path was that the earlier practitioners were former journalists, since at the beginning good writing skills was all that was necessary.
The American researcher also highlights that by the 1970’s the market had started to draw a new CC, where the function was responsible for other areas of relationship rather than just media relations. The evolution of business and society required other ways of communication and then the professional called “Public Relations or Public Affairs became responsible for other activities related to corporate communication” (p.78). In 1996 the author conceptualised Internal Communication as one sub-function of CC that was responsible for keeping employees informed and motivated. “Companies today must explain complicated health and benefit packages, changes in laws that affect employees, and changes in the marketplace that might affect the company in the future. Increasingly, they must boost the morale of employees after downsizing and reengineering” (1996, p.80).


The way that Argenti conceptualises IC is a typical classification of the era of “persuading employees”, classified by Dover in the work of Murgolo-Poore and Pitt (2001), when the employees were informed of important issues and persuaded to accept the new management styles and rules of the competitive business environment.
The work of Murgolo-Poore and Pitt also brings other trends in the market regarding managing employee communication: “entertaining employees” (1940’s), “informing employees” (1950’s), “persuading employees”(1960’s), and then “talking to employees” (1970’s and 1980’s). According to them, the 1970’s brings a new way of managing organisational communication, which has its roots in the work of Grunig and Hull: symmetrical communication. The evolution of IC coherently follows the development of organisational communication, and more specifically the Public Relations models developed by Grunig (1992). The author carried out a 17-year research that revealed important assumptions about organisation communication in United States, focusing on Public Relations role as responsible for corporate communication. Even though the research is limited to American culture, the four models of communication are developed and accepted as basis for theoretical framework for Public Relations worldwide. (Sriramesh, Grunig, Gregory, 2006)
The four models were found and classified as:
Press agentry/Publicity – calls attention to the company (one-way)
Public Information – disseminates favourable information (one-way)
Two-way asymmetrical model - involves research from the environment (in our case the internal relationship), but uses the information in a way that persuades the public (employees) to behave in the way that the organisation wants.
Two-way symmetrical model – conducts a real dialogue in order to bring about symbiotic changes in the ideas and attitudes of both: organisation and employee.
Grunig, in his work about excellence in communication (1992), defends the two-way symmetrical model as the most ethical and effective in achieving IC objectives. According to him “the two-way symmetrical model avoids the problem of ethical relativism because it defines ethics as a process of public relations rather than an outcome” (p. 308). However, companies still develop the other ways of communication, even in IC relations. The author borrowed from Sociology the concept of power-control theory in order to explain the reason why companies still do not practice a two-way symmetrical model. The concept argues that the organisation does what it does because of the influence of the most powerful people in the organisation – the dominant coalition. “Most organisations do not use the open-system (two-way symmetrical model) because they believe that it can maintain its power more easily through a closed-system approach (concurrently, the dominant coalition typically believes that an open symmetrical system threatens its power)”, (1992, p. 299-300).
The work of Poole and Conrad (1998) helps to understand the influence of power in corporate communication process. The authors bring different concepts that show how the power relationship is established and legitimated in a company. As the relationship of power is established, through major knowledge or hierarchical position, the person who is seen as powerful gains the right to influence people because of their position and belongs to the dominant group. Therefore, different companies have the influence of different people who are in power, and in return they (dominant group) develop the culture (structure) of an organisation, that in response influences the people who gain power. (Grunig, 1992).
Consequently, it is possible to conclude that the company structure will influence the model of IC development, which is influenced by those people who belongs to the “dominant coalition”. Therefore, one of the main concerns that Grunig and other scholars suggest (Quirke, 1995; Conrad & Poole, 1998, Gregory, 2006, Yeomans, 2006) is that in order to build an effective and efficient IC, the professional responsible for it should belong to the coalition that has power of decision in the company.
Later in this chapter we will see that Internal Communication is still a new subject of organisational studies. Perhaps that is the reason why different departments develop the role of IC. At first sight, IC was seen as an activity under the umbrella of Public Relations. However, since the 1990’s the role of Internal Communication has increased the interest of scholars from other sciences as Marketing and Human Resources (Varey, 1999, Gummesson, 2000, Ballantyne 2000, Aurand – Gorchels - Bishop 2005). In fact, there are different approaches that companies can develop to manage their communication with internal stakeholders. The IC as a strategic communication function has been restricted to Public Relations professionals, whereas Marketing representatives (Gummesson, Varey, Lewis, Barnes & Dunne, 2000) have developed concepts and interpretations of the activity as a powerful function of marketing activity. In the next section a comparison will be made and some concepts of each view will be described.




IC - Public Relations, Human Resources or Marketing role? Searching the roots of IC.

Comes from the end of the 1990’s the first handbook of Internal Communication that was found in our research. The handbook of Internal Communication (1997) has provided some case studies that enabled us to situate the IC as a “core management skill”. The article written by White is about the IC relationship with British companies’ competitiveness. Among other factors that were highlighted as a way of improving competitiveness, internal communication appears “as crucial to competitive performance”. However, a report published in the Financial Times (14th June 1993, p.7) noted that British employees were the most dissatisfied of all employees interviewed in a special survey. The article concludes that besides Britain, other countries surveyed also confirmed that to improve the management of organisational communication was necessary. Furthermore, as a way of developing the business in a hyper competitive environment, the companies that will survive will be those that are able to establish a good and trustful relationship with all stakeholders, where communication figures as an important skill to be attained by managers in general.
Therefore, it is possible to characterize IC as an important function for improvement of effective corporate development. While doing our literature review we found IC many times entitled as a CC function. However, it is still not clear where the responsibility of IC function would be situated: Human Resources (HR), Public Relations (PR) or Marketing. Aurand, Gorchels, Bishop (2005) and Davis (2001) suggest an integration of the HR and Marketing departments in order to provide the efficiency and effectiveness of IC. Aurand et all state that a brand identity should be firstly a process of commitment of employees, that through an efficient IC would deliver a good image of their company to customers. Davis (2001) classifies IC as an internal marketing (IM) and divides the different management styles in four different approaches depending on the company culture:
a) IM following Directive controlling - priorities set at the top and just passed down to the hierarchy. Little information shared.
b) IM following Persuasive Selling style – a little different from the Directive Controlling approach, having as the main difference that the manager puts efforts on planning and executing, feels responsible and is enthusiastic about the programmes and objectives of the company.
c) IM following Consultative marketing – research done to uncover the employee’s preferences. Although they get inputs from low-level employees, the final decision is mainly a senior management task.
d) IM following Relationship Marketing - process where the company gets the employee's involvement, consensus and motivation through a trustful relationship. The long-term relationship with employees is considered important.
These four approaches are clearly similar to the conceptualisation of Grunig’s four models of communication, where the communication process should be treated as a management function with effective participation of employees. These similarities in concepts could bring the idea that, even though different sciences work with different nomenclatures, in fact what is in the scene is the importance of having the employee as a fundamental public that should be treated as a strategic stakeholder, who should be informed and seen as a pivotal part of searching excellence and productivity in the companies (Robson & Tourish, 2005).
Dunne & Barnes (2000) conceptualise IM as “being a holistic management strategy that focuses on developing customer-conscious employees” (p. 1999). Varey, in the same book, suggests that an efficient form of IM should be a major fundamental re-orientation of many corporations. The author declares that the micro-marketing's view of 4Ps, which is product-orientated, must be substituted by a new macro-marketing orientation, where the main targets are key stakeholders, the communication and interaction with them. In other article, Varey (1998) conceptualises communication as an act that demands interaction between publics: “you communicate when you take into account the total behaviour, values, ways of interpretation of the two or more people engaged in the process of interaction” (p. 221).
Briefly, from our research literature, it was possible to conclude that, even though marketing scholars did not emphasize the communication department as a important part of IM, favouring the holistic orientation between marketing and HR representatives, it is clear that it is impossible to dissociate the communication act from IM process. The suggestion that IM does not exist without communication is evident in other sources of literature. Kalla (2005) in an IM study in a finance company affirms that the multidisciplinary nature of integrated internal marketing is a “consequence of effective cross-functional communication and interaction in the company” (p. 303). Robson and Tourish affirm that Internal Communication helps an organisation to be successful, improves productivity and reduces absenteeism. Grönroos (2004) also registers that a planned communication process is one vital area for supporting the development and enhancement of relationship marketing (p. 100). Moreover, Hillman et all (1990) conclude that feedback, i.e. the process of interaction and mutual understanding among actors involved in a communication process, has an important role in establishing a work environment in which staff are motivated to perform to their maximum potential.
There was an interesting article about dissemination of information in a specific project in the field of corporate communication (Goczol & Scoubeau, 2003). The authors have used the theoretical definition of Van Riel that classifies three dimensions of CC:
Marketing Communication – generally used to support sales of goods and services, concentrated in customer-
Organisational Communication – concerns public relations, public affairs, labour market and internal communication;
Management Communication – tries to persuade individual subordinates that the goals of the organisation are desirable. “Its specific purpose is to transmit the authority and to achieve cooperation with the organization and more precisely: developing a shared vision of the company, maintaining trust in the organisation leadership, managing the change process, and motivating employees”, (2003, pp. 61-62).
At first sight these dimensions appear as different approaches that have established borders dividing them according to the company orientation. However, as we have suggested with our different sources of information from Marketing/Human Resources and Public Relations studies, borders, rather than helping the effectiveness of a good company system, are barriers that delay the process of evolution. In fact the best way of optimising the corporation’s role would be a unified corporate strategy, where different departments would work together searching to reach the ideal cross-functional interaction, enabling the increase of competitiveness (Sutherland & Makin, 1995, Asif, Sargeant, Adrian, 2000).
In spite of the importance of IC in the development of corporations, very little attention is still paid to Internal Communication and there isn’t homogeneity in the departments responsible for its role, (Yeomans and Tench, 2006). Their book shows a survey of 115 internal communication professionals in the UK, Europe and North America market which found that around one-third of them reported to the public relations or corporate communications function. In Britain, 35% of internal communication functions reported to human resources and 24% of non-UK practitioners were reporting to the CEO and 26% reporting to the board chair (Yeomans, 2006, p.338). The uncertainty and heterogeneous classification of IC in different companies can be the result of a hybrid professional side of CC (Argenti, 1996). These departments were started with the heterogeneous background of different professionals (journalists, business professionals).
The heterogeneous background could be responsible for the variety of theories and assumptions about the importance of getting employees informed/involved about any company’s processes, being them a change management, launch of a new product or simply the announcement of the annual report.
Varey and Lewis (1999) have an article that brings a review of internal marketing literature. The work says that internal marketing is at embryonic stage. In fact the concept of internal marketing is the most recent concept for the IC function and traditionally is operated by the marketing department with some partnership of Human Resources (Davis, 2001). The concepts of internal marketing can be questioned, because the employee is seen as a “customer” to be satisfied rather than a participative and active person in the process.
Recent studies (Hutton, 2005) have tried to explain the difference between Public Relations and Marketing in the role of communication in the companies. Depending on the area of study different assumptions are created regarding the subject. Hutton utilised the Kotler and Mindak (1978) five possible relationship models: 1) Marketing and PR – independent functions, 2) overlapping functions, 3) Marketing as a subset of Public Relations, 4) PR as a subset of Marketing, 5) Marketing and PR as the same function. In the same article Hutton disagrees that PR is a tool of Marketing, and sees them as independent functions. Moreover, the author states that Integrated Marketing Communications is a way for Marketing (not just Advertising) scholars and practitioners to obscure the trend that is far more important to the future of Public Relations. According to her “marketing practitioners and scholars are methodically redefining the field of marketing as public relations. Employee communication is now internal marketing (Grönroos 1981), and virtually the whole of “Public Relations” is now “relationship marketing” (pp.210-211).
This model of relationship is a more traditional comparison between these departments. More recently, other scholars have accepted the importance of seeing Marketing and Communication as important common functions in the company structure:
“It is perhaps ironic that the field of marketing, with its emphasis on exchange and communication, has not been in close contact with the field of communication. A cogenerative relationship between these domains of knowledge can bring the premises of marketing theory and practice into a more contemporary form”, (Varey, 2000, p.289). This suggestion is a confirmation of a new approach for those two company’s representatives. In fact Varey suggests the importance of participation of cross-functional enterprises (e.g. Marketing and Public Relations), in a tentative of breaking the barriers and privileges of a hierarchical departmental structure that centralises the power of decision.
In fact we cannot find a single interpretation and allocation for the IC department that is also seen as a function of Human Resources Management (Doukakis, 2002; Yeomans, 2006). Doukakis affirms that there is evidence to suggest that Human Resources is perceived by some academics as an alternative way of traditional communication practice. Moreover, in her work she quotes Stauss & Hoffmann (2000), who affirm that the traditional methods of IC do not meet the requirements towards quality and that the HR strategy is the only effective way of developing a good customer-oriented relationship and of motivating employees to respond to the competitive market (2002, p.63).
After all these different concepts, it is possible to talk about IC, independently of its allocation in the company, as a strategic function of vanguard corporations. The concepts developed show the necessity of a two-way symmetrical process, which is the only way of building open, trusting, and credible relationships with strategic employee constituencies (Grunig, 1992, p. 559). But some points still remained unanswered:

a) Is it real that internal communication is tracing the path of a good and effective communication process (that, according to our view, should use the two-way symmetrical model)?
b) Is it real that employee feedback in decision-making process is seen as a pivotal step towards the success of effective communication?

Even though the departments have different concepts for IC, the researcher has concluded that Marketing, Public Relations or Human Resources work towards reaching the same goals. These goals aim at making employees informed and at keeping a good feedback-relationship (pro and pos activities) with them, high levels of job satisfaction and effectiveness of the corporate goals. Nonetheless, the only way of achieving this synchronicity is through a real companies’ commitment to develop an employee-real-participation process (this concept will be define later).
Up to this point the literature research has brought to light different approaches to a new position in the corporation for a key stakeholder: employees. The work does not have the aim to criticise the idea of Internal Marketing’s aligned only with Human Resources department. But, the approach that will be taken in the analysis and discussion of the company research’s results will be IC process-oriented according to the concepts of communication scholars. The communication theories will be used to observe and to criticise the Internal Communication process and the importance that the company analysed gives to employee-real-participation. Following this chapter, there is a communication background that corroborates with Grunig’s models and will construct the framework for our comparison with the survey results.

Internal Communication – Lenses of Communication Scholars

Internal Communication far from being just an information process is a result of different relations of power and political environments that have to be constructed daily in order to establish a net-communication. The net-communication is a tool for disseminating ideas, projects, and overall for building a real commitment of employees. Nonetheless, the net-communication will only be effective when companies establish an ethical approach of the two-way symmetrical model. Earlier in this section we mentioned that the idea of an employee-real-participation (ERP) process should be conceptualised in this work. The ERP is an adaptation of the two-way symmetrical model’s definition. Employee-real-participation, for the purpose of this work, will be defined as an opportunity that employees have to participate in a decision-making process. Participation in the decision-making process is visualised in this work as a chance of having their inputs taken in the power coalition decisions (regarding communication matters) and getting their contribution used during the construction of strategies for delivering communication to different levels in the corporation. Briefly, ERP is seen when the power coalition asks for a feedback, before putting a project in practice, from those outside the power coalition (see figure 1) and from their inputs redesigns the ways of communicating and processing information.
According to Grunig, people who are in the power coalition are affected by the culture and environment of the organisation, but the power holders, in turn, enact the culture and environment. Therefore, “organizations are effective – the organizational effectiveness variable increases – when their structure, culture, and environment are in harmony. Employees, a key constituency in the internal environment of an organization is a critical outcome of the structure-communication system of the organization and a critical link to organizational effectiveness” (p.566)
The author utilised a graphic model in order to build the relationship power-model of organisational communication (figure 1). The power coalition is responsible for the policies and rules, but in return the job satisfaction and, consequently, the organisational effectiveness will be only possible once the employees have participation and power in the decision-making process (Abbot, 2002), i.e. have representatives in the dominant coalition structure. Even though this seems to be a utopia at first sight, the literature research has found a successful implementation of the two-way symmetrical model. Holtzhausen (2002) has implemented a process of structural change in the IC function in a large company. The re-structure turned the centralised and one-way communication process into a decentralised process of communication: “the Public Relations function, especially in the internal communication activity, should be decentralised to the lowest level where organisational decisions are made, even if those decisions are more operational than strategic” (p. 327). The research concludes that an open two-way symmetrical communication is significant for companies’ effectiveness and contributes to the change communication behaviour in the organisation. Another experience was the use of strategic employee communication to facilitate major changes. Barret (2002) concluded that if companies would insist in change management without a strategic and effective employee-real-participation communication the transformation efforts will still fail (p. 219). The IC will be responsible for the link of company’s strategy and operation, enabling then the possibility of a successful application of major changes.
Moreover, several authors agree with the statement that the employees are the first public to be contacted and need to be well informed about the strategies and actions of the company (Abbot, 2002; Pfeil, Settemberg, O’Rourke IV, 2003). From the systems theory the social researchers borrow the concept of dynamic systems that should be aware of inputs and outputs movements adaptive to the changing environment (Stroh and Jaatinen, 2001), which corroborate with our idea of aligning the communication process with employee-real-participation. In other words, it is to say that changing is a concerned matter for organisations and should be well administrated by directors, managers and employees. In other words, the internal and external environments change regularly. In our case study, the perceptions of employees should be periodically analysed in order to have a real vision of their perceptions and necessities (Rienstra & Power, 1999). One of the main trends of the new management style is the more open and participative process of employees - the empowerment (Grunig, 1992, Ballantyne, 2000). Even though “communications within an organisation have tended to be unidirectional (Asif, Sargeant, Adrian, 2000, p. 303), literature suggests that the empowerment process has changed this scenario and the tendency of participation of employees from low level in the decision-making process is pointing out as a new management way (with a two-way communication)." (Hogg & Carter, 2000, Daly, Teague, Kitchen, 2003).



Figure 1 – Adaptation of Power-control model of organisational communication and structure (from Grunig, 1992, p.566)


Good news for IC managers is the book of Miller and Skidmore (2004). A survey with business leaders in Britain suggests that the tendency in the coming two years is that the companies will be more able to operate in less hierarchical settings, and therefore the authors enquire if this is a tendency of increasing the subject of employee participation decision. This is a question that remains and only the environment and the development of society will be able to confirm. However, it is important to highlight the idea of Thomas Malone that sees a work revolution in the way that the employee will be involved in setting the strategy of their employers:
“We are at the early stages of …a revolution in business… the result will be a world in which people have more freedom…. A world in which more and more people are at the centre of their own organisations.”(Miller and Skidmore, 2004, p.35).
Up to now the literature review has brought to attention many points about strategies and ways of communicating with employees. Some are core points that are highlighted by different scholars (Grunig, 1992, Varey, 1997, White, 1997, Stage, 1999, Skidmore & Miller, 2004):
1) From the early 1990’s business environment has changed dramatically, forcing IC to have a different role and to be treated as a strategic management activity, which would necessarily be aligned with the values and strategic options of the core business;
2) Human scale value has increased its importance (customer-oriented relationship rather than product central role); therefore IC (that deals with internal customer) starts to be seen as a strategic role. The professional responsible for IC management contacts directly with the board of directors;
3) Flexibility and open-two way communication with effective participation in decision-making process from employees, i.e. Employee-Real-Participation. The employees gained the right to get involved in the dominant coalition and are consulted about their opinions during new implementations or major changes.

The purpose of this research is to discover whether this new core module of communication management is applied in the company that will be observed. The steps that were followed in order to construct the research methodology will be explained later. Before that, at the end of this chapter, a summary of the company’s profile and organisational chart will be presented. The main objective of this background is to highlight the corporate situation and the main structure of the company that will be analysed.

Company Profile and Structure

According to the information provided in the web site (May 2006) the company is the largest provider of mobile telephony services in South America, with more than 30 million clients in Brazil. The company is leader both in the consumer and corporate markets, with 33,7% market share in the country. Positive operating cash flow is 435.8 millions reais (103.76 millions pounds)
The company provides mobile telecommunication services in Brazil through 6 subsidiary companies. One subsidiary holds a market share of 67% in the State of São Paulo and has more than 6 million customers. In the State of Rio Grande do Sul (the subsidiary that will be analysed) the joint venture (Portugal and Spain) took over a public telephony company during the privatisation process in the country (1998).
The corporation has 6.350 direct employees and maintains a strong focus on the personal and professional development of human resources. Using a Human Development System which focuses on leadership and teamwork, the company implements actions that have as objectives: Alignment (to fine-tune the work performed by employees to its strategies and goals), Engagement (spending energy and efforts in the achievement of goals, while providing the necessary preparation for this in a dynamic and stimulating environment) and Assessment (interpretation of results in order to improve them). The average age of the employees are 33 and 59% of them having a university degree. The average time employee’s work for the company is five years. In 2004, 46% of its employees were women and 54%, men. The organisational chart suggests a centralised structure, where the decision-making process is established through board of director’s participation (Figure 2).





Figure 2

In Figure 2 it is possible to perceive the lines that are representative of information flow. On the one hand, there is the Internal Communication division that is subordinated to the Human Resources Director, who has a direct contact with CEO. On the other hand there is the South Region Director (the South Communication representatives are inside the Region Directory), who is responsible for the decision-making in this subsidiary and reports to the Executive Operations Vice-President (one level below the CEO position). Besides been in the Region Directory, the South Communication department reports directly to the Internal Communication Division (which is in São Paulo), but is also subordinated to the Marketing Region South Division (represented by the last level and connected with red line in the chart), which is based in Porto Alegre, holding to be observed).
This dependence of two hierarchical levels (Regional Marketing Division and Human Resources Directory) is responsible for many constraints of regional internal communication activities. The strategies are centralised in São Paulo’s Division and then the regional representatives implement the tactics in their respective holding company. Even though the Regional Subsidiary does not participate in planning the strategies designed by Corporative Internal Communication, this is not a major problem for the efficiency of the communication process as a whole. We will try to explain our view. Having the strategies centralised could be an indicative of centralised communication process, which differs from our understanding of ethical and effective process (two-way symmetrical model or more specific about internal public: Employee-Real-Participation). However, it is not a definitive conclusion. The author will try to reveal the inner strategy plan process in her research, trying to perceive whether the Internal Communication Division has a major participation from different hold companies. Searching to discover the development process, the researcher will apply an open-ended questionnaire to the two representatives of Internal Communication in the South subsidiary.
The brief observation of the organisational chart will be further discussed in Analysis and Discussion chapter, aligned with information gathered from the South internal communication representatives, questionnaires with employees, and the secondary data gathered from Internet.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

From theory the researcher has constructed her position about which kind of communication process should be practised in an efficient and effective IC, i.e. two-way symmetrical communication (conceptualised by James Grunig (1984). In this model the employee should have a real dialogue in order to bring about symbiotic changes in the ideas and attitudes of both: organisation and employee. In other words, communication channels should have a two-way direction – upward and downward – where the opinion and position of employees are analysed and taken into account in the communication process in the corporation. As we have cited before in the Literature Review, the inputs of environment, in this case the internal environment, are analysed and then utilised in order to bring outputs that will reflect the real necessities and position of employees in the relationship that they establish with the company they work for. Consequently, the company has the knowledge to understand and develop a trustful relationship with them. The feedback should be a positive process of interaction and mutual understanding, not just after activity, but a real dialogue commitment before planning and executing activities, in order to promote real employee participation. However, what really happens, as the work of Arceo (2004) suggests, is not exactly like that. According to his work, most communication managers support a two-way symmetrical model without having conducted research before planning and launching a campaign or a program. His research shows that there is no tradition in setting the goals and objectives through formal research for communication campaigns and projects, including employee communication. In different companies the most common model of feedback is the asymmetrical choice, where the inputs are used to persuade the employees to defend the goals and objectives of the organisation, rather than to promote a real opportunity of participation. Therefore, even though some organisations do develop a feedback processes, it is still not known whether the two-way model is a reality or not.
In the questionnaire, before directly asking if there was a two-way symmetrical model, the researcher asked the employees about the existence of feedback. In the first research question the author didn’t specify the type of feedback, considering it either an effective collaboration in constructing internal communicational strategies or just a way of getting information from employees, in a persuasive intention. The principal research aim was to discover the existence of channels of participation:


Does the Internal Communication department draw channels of
participation for the employees?


According to our conceptual framework, it is stated that the only way of establishing an ethical and effective communication is the two-way symmetrical model. There is a question that needs to be answered: what do we believe to be ethical and effective in this particular case? Once more, our literature review has the basis for it. In this study, ethical communication is seen in accordance with Botan's concept, which, in the work of Bussy et all (2003), differentiates it between monological communication (the currently predominant but ethically very dangerous mode) and the dialogical communication (ethically and practically superior). In comparison withGrunig's two-way symmetrical model it is possible to conclude that communication is ethical when the employee has participative role and involvement in decision-making process. A second question emerges:

Is there an ethical communication process in the company, i.e. does the Internal Communication department establish a two-way symmetrical relationship?


The third hypothesis is derived from this second assumption. It refers to the importance of the employee as a key constituency (Grunig, 2002). From HR literature and Grunig's workwe develop the concept of empowerment. Empowerment is usually a form of management where hierarchical levels give place to a more flat organisational structure, where employees have effective participation in decision-making processes. However, this flat construction will alsoenable them to work integrated, aiming to reach synergy and effectiveness through an efficient cross-functional partnership. Therefore it is possible to ask:
Does the theoretical cross-functional synergic system exist in the corporation analysed?

It is important to bring to light that those questions are all related to the literature review. It means that the development of our data collection will try to confirm whether the theory has been put into practice in the company. However, the positive or negative correlation will not be determinant of the company's success or failure. The prior aim of this research is to point out the power that an open dialogue and employee's participation have in the process of constructing successful companies with motivated and loyal employees. Finally, after designing the IC frame of this company and stating the results, the researcher will analyse and discuss them, searching to draw conclusions that will try to help the multinational to be eligible to become a company in the vanguard of business environment, i.e. a company which centralises and prioritises the open and trustful communication process with the public that, like trends suggest, will be classified as core competence: internal stakeholders.
In order to build a valid method for accessing the data, the research utilised a mixture of different methods. As a first step, the author searched to confirm the organisation phenomenon, suggested by the Literature Review, that the employees will be a core competence in the future. According to the words of Thomas Malone, cited earlier in this work, "we are presenting a revolution in business, a world in which more people will be the centre of their own organisations" (p. 35). Utilising the idea borrowed from Yin (1994) the author decided to work with case study methodology searching to access the data in order to confirm or not our research questions.

The methodology follows the steps proposed by Yin in the development of research design, which are as follows:1) Study questions – questionnaire applied to the company’s employee;
2) Its propositions – to establish an academic framework in IC, from literature review;
3) Units of analysis – IC Division as well as its subsidiary in South Brazil and general employees (based in Porto Alegre), documents and organisational chart;4) Interpretation of results – link the data (literature review and questionnaires) to the propositions and criteria for interpreting the findings, i.e. correlation to Literature Review and answers from questionnaires;
5) Criteria for interpreting the findings - Literature Review
The first attempt of establishing the valid methods was a combination of case study, qualitative (telephone and e-mail) and quantitative data collection (on-line), as well as observation of documents, resulting in a mixture of inductive and deductive methods, which were applied to explain how the theory is put into practice in IC. The company chosen for the case study observation was a telecommunication company. While considering the company to be chosen, the researcher took into account the fact that she had worked there and therefore would have easier access. Moreover, the company is a representative of successful enterprises, having an economic relevance and seeing as vanguard of business in Brazil. In fact, the case study methodology was undertaken because of its importance as a significant trend of observing the complexity of organisational phenomena. The case study enables the researcher to have a more in depth view of environment rather than the observation of different companies, that would enable a broader view, but will lack in depth investigation of holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events (Yin, 1994).
Meanwhile, the author was considering the sample population’s choice. She had decided to work with a purposeful sample (Daymon and Holloway, 2002), representative of the Communication Division. The method would be a semi-structured interview with the head office and subsidiary division. The purposeful sample was chosen in order to highlight the position of power coalition in the communication company. Moreover, it was assumed that the semi-structured interview would help to understand the importance that the Internal Communication Division has in the organisational hierarchy. Searching to complete our perception from the corporate view, the researcher also analysed documents and the organisational chart posted on the web site. Unfortunately, the departmental semi-structure interview didn’t happen. The author had many attempts to contact (by telephone and e-mail) the Internal Communication's representatives. The South subsidiary answered the researcher that they wouldn’t participate, because they were just operational and not responsible for the Internal Communication strategic process. Briefly stating, the representatives answered that the Internal Communication department was submitted to Human Resources, and they, who still belong Communication Department, were just responsible for writing texts (see Appendix 4 for details). This information would reveal a tendency of having a centralised strategic decision. Moreover, the answer “they were just responsible for writing text” brings the idea that the work of communication department in the subsidiary was limited to Public Information – disseminates favourable information (one-way asymmetrical model) – which is not the most effective and ethical model that our Literature Review suggests for Internal Communication. Nonetheless, the researcher still tried to contact the Head Office of IC in São Paulo. After many attempts (by telephone and e-mail) the coordinator returned that she wouldn’t have any problems in answering the questions via e-mail. The author then sent the semi-structured interview to her (see Appendix 5). In ten days' time, while trying to contact the responsible for her answers, the author was surprised by the information (via e-mail) that it would be necessary to talk by phone. On the telephone conversation, the company’s representative said that she was leaving the institution, and, for that reason, wouldn’t feel comfortable to answer questions on behalf of it.
Even though this was a serious constraint, the researcher does not believe that this situation brought major complications for the whole work. However, the researcher recognises that this negative attempt could have been overcome if the researcher had had more time and opportunities to explain the main reasons for this research. The constraints of time and access, as the author was situated in other country, were evaluated as complications that limited the understanding of the company context. But, the analysis of the organisational chart and other documents has helped the author to discuss a broad picture of the Internal Communication position in the organisation.
Following the methodology, the quantitative questionnaires were the main source of data to be analysed. The questionnaires were applied by e-mail. The random technique was utilised in order to construct the sample population. According to Daymon and Holloway, the sample is constituted of "members that generally share certain characteristics and experiences which are important for the development of the study". (p. 159). In the beginning of this research it was stated that the purpose was to answer the research questions comparing the practice with the effective theoretical communication model, which is conceptualised as the two-way symmetrical model. The questionnaires were submitted to 80 direct internal stakeholders in the South Subsidiary. The South Subsidiary has 420 employees distributed in different departments. The questionnaires were sent by e-mail to two contacts in the company. These two people distributed 80 questionnaires to a random sample, explaining the purpose of the survey (see copy of the e-mail in Appendix 6). In the introduction of the questionnaire (see Appendix 8), the confidentiality and anonymity of participants were guaranteed, and the purpose of the research was clarified. Those issues were highlighted in order to corroborate with ethical issues of participation and publication of results.
Before submitting the questionnaires, a pre-test was applied to two participants (see Appendix 7). The answers of the questionnaire and also the inputs of the supervisor enabled the author to find some errors in the survey and redesign it prior to the real distribution. Searching to protect the validity of the project, several possible theoretical interpretations for IC were provided. Moreover, the combination of two methodologies, qualitative (document analysis) and quantitative (questionnaire analysis), searches to construct the “methodological triangulation”, which ensures the quality of the research. In the book of Daymon and Holloway, the methodological triangulation is “when you use two or more methods in the same study, such as observations, interviews, documents and questionnaires”, (p.99). Therefore, the general employees’ answers and analysis of documents were interpreted in order to provide the authenticity and trustworthiness of the research.
The main source of information for the Statement of Results and Analysis and Discussion sections was the data gathered from survey. There were 10 questions concentrated in the communication process and its flow. For the purpose of this research, communication process was conceptualised as a way of exchanging information in a two-way symmetrical model. The concept of process in the case study was framed in the flow of information that comes from IC Division. The analyses were also focused on how the company's hierarchy is designed (the theory of power-control coalition). Moreover, the questions tried to discover the employees' opinion about IC division’s strategies/tactics and their participation in decision-making process. The main reason for gathering information about decision-making participation is to understand to which extent the employees are empowered in the company analysed. Empowerment was one of the concepts that the Literature Review brought in the characterization of companies of the future. Even though empowerment is briefly discussed, as our main research question is communication process, it is important to connect the power-coalition strategies and tactics, as they are reflex of the company’s culture and have effect in the communication process.
Employees had to give their opinion in three different questions:


a) How do they see the importance of their opinion in decision-making in projects that involve them?

b) Do they have the right of participation in the strategic decisions that will contribute for the development of the company?

c) How do they perceive the structure of the company in decision-making process?
Actually, the questions’ purpose was to find out whether the practice is equal to the theory from employees' response rate. The quantitative research method does not have an “agreed-upon standard for a minimum acceptable response rate” (Fowler, 2002). On the one hand, according to Fowler, academic survey organisations often are able to achieve response rates for designated adults in the 75% range with general household samples. On the other hand, he states that rates of response for surveys of central city samples or using-random-digit telephone samples are likely to be lower – often much lower. In our case study 80 questionnaires were distributed to six different departments, by e-mail on a random basis, trying to bring a representative view of the whole company. From 80 questionnaires, the response rate was 26.25%. The respondents who sent out questionnaires answered the 10 main questions. Even though the researcher is aware of the sample’s limitation and the bias from low response rates, the results still can be seen as representative. It is important to explain why. The research’s objective was to describe whether a two-way symmetrical model exists in the IC process. The target of the research was the employees' flow (downward and upward) process. The independent variables were: channels of communication, open communication’s flow, effective participation in decision-making process; whereas the dependent variables were the existence of two-way symmetrical model. Once those variables were measured and the results stated, it was possible to draw a company’s image from the sample surveyed. Their perceptions were correlated with theoretical background and then analysis and discussion were drawn. From this comparison, assumptions were designed in order to outline suggestions for optimising the IC process towards an excellence of this function as strategic tool of organisation communication.




STATEMENT OF RESULTS

The research methodology chapter set out the methods that were chosen to achieve our aims. This chapter will report the findings from the questions. As the research’s objective is to describe whether or not a two-way symmetrical model exists in the IC process, the three independent variables – channels of communication, open communication’s flow and effective participation in decision-making process – will explain and predict whether there is a two-way symmetrical model (the dependent variable) in the company’s case study. Before drawing the analysis, it is important to explain the findings and to highlight significant aspects of them. This chapter will show the statistical data and relate the answers to our literature review information as well as the research questions.

1) Which department do you belong to in the company?
2) Do you have a supervisor function?
Which in your job occupation?


Firstly, the first and second questions aimed to bring a broad frame. In fact, the department’s classification was done searching to highlight that there was a response rate representative of many departments in the company. Secondly, the question two had a purposive aim. The classification in supervisor and non-supervisor functions was useful for interpretation of results. The comparison was done utilising the function’s hierarchy and correlating it with questions 6, 7, and 9. In this specific comparison, question two was an independent variable that predicted an outcome from the questions stated above. This interpretation was useful in order to discover whether there is a different view of company’s hierarchy, flow of communication process and employees’ participation or not, related to position’s level. In this particular observation the independent variable (level of hierarchy) was a prediction (or not) for the specific questions results highlighted before (dependent variables).
Before going further it is important to say that the percentage in statistical response rate in question 2 is a true design of the company’s hierarchy, where there are more employees without supervisor’s activity than employees in charge of departments. The job occupation question was suppressed from the response rate, as some people haven’t answered it. However, the research objective wasn’t hindered as the main question (hierarchical level) was answered in every questionnaire returned.

3) Are you aware of strategic corporate decisions (e.g. technological changes, acquisitions of new companies? ( ) Yes ( ) No
3.1) If your answer is “yes” how do you keep yourself informed:



The awareness of corporate decisions is a positive finding of employees’ level of information. The response rate was 71%, which shows an important flow of information about strategic corporate decisions. It is a comfortable situation because, as it was revealed in our literature review, the awareness of the company’s actions is fundamental in order to keep loyal and motivated internal stakeholders. Nonetheless, 29% say that they are not aware of the company’s decisions. This is negative information that should be further questioned. Perhaps the reason why they are not aware is because they do not feel motivated or interested to search information from media available. The purpose of this research does not go further in order to find out why 29% are not informed of the company’s initiatives. However, this could be an important question for business research, especially because we are witness of a corporation environment where information is an essential core competence for business. Therefore, the researcher believes that a forward step could be done in another moment, which could focus on the reasons why corporations’ tools of information are not a matter of interest for their internal public.
From the 71% positive response rate, the majority of people get information from Intranet (37%). The company’s magazine is source of information for 17% of participants, which is the same rate of people that utilise “other” sources. Among those “other” sources are included the Human Resources notices, Director meetings and local media, including newspapers and radio. Two of the interviewees highlighted that they only know about changes and other decisions when the situation is of public dominium through mass media. Another curious finding is that an important percentage of 25% know about corporate decisions when they hear about them from colleagues. It is important to draw attention to this situation. The research question is to understand the practice of IC process in the company. If on the one hand, 59% out of 71% are aware of the company’s activity through formal channels of company’s communication (Intranet+Magazine), on the other hand 25% only know about the changes because someone else tells them about them. On top of it, 29% of participants are not aware of the company’s decision, totalising 54% that do not utilise the IC’s channels of communication, i.e. they do not see IC as a main source of interaction with the company. This situation could reveal a tendency of IC process drawn in a one-way downward flow, where press agentry and public information are the most used models of communication, instead of the effective model suggested in this work. Further in this statement of results the chart for question 8 will be explained and that will show how employees classify the models of IC organisational process.



Findings of question 4, 6 and 9




These three questions rather than being just related to flow of communication through departments are also a way of observing the power-control coalition. As conceptualised earlier, Grunig’s power-control coalition theory works with the idea that the people who are in the high hierarchical level try to keep the decision's power away from those who are not, trying to remain as the only ones to have power and to belong to the power-control coalition. In the question 4 the employees were asked if they perceive their opinions as important in the decision-making process. The majority (80%) rated their opinions as important. This question is responsible for biased conclusion. The original question aimed to find out whether there was a division of power-decision in each respective department, where each person was seen (by supervisors) as the main source of opinion. The researcher recognises that these answers had ambiguous meaning, because interviewees could also have interpreted this as their particular view. In this case this question 4 will be valid if the following questions 6 and 9, which are also related to power-control coalition, are related with this first result.
Question 6 is more specific about how the hierarchy is established in the company analysed. The researcher clearly stated the following question: Your company has a low-level hierarchy, enabling the empowerment of different levels of employees getting involved in the decision-making process. How would you evaluate this affirmation in your company case? After the question, the employees should classify the information according to their idea: totally disagree, disagree, neither disagree nor agree, agree and totally disagree. The statistical results showed that 55% chose disagree, saying that the company has a high hierarchical level, whereas 40% agreed that the company has a flat organisational chart. From this response rate was possible to conclude that in question 4, the answers rather than being the employee’s view of company’s evaluation was their particular opinion. Furthermore, the question analysed can be observed as a dependent variable, where the independent variable were a supervisor and non-supervisor function. Not surprisingly, the supervisors represent just 18% out of the 55% of participants that say that the company has a high hierarchical level. However, they represent 37,5% - almost the total amount - of the people who believe that the company has a low level of hierarchy enabling the employees to be empowered and involved in the decision-making process. This is a well-drawn picture of a traditional power-coalition hierarchy. Those who have the power believe that they are developing a good employee’s feedback and that the employees are satisfied with the level of information and participation they have. Furthermore, there is no interest in changing the formal hierarchical division, as they believe that the high hierarchy will enable them to keep their power.


In addition, question 9 was also analysed through the independent and dependent variables. The question aimed to discover which the most common way of exchanging information was practised by employees. The researcher directed the question formulation towards an employee’s perception of their own way of communicating with different departments. The majority of respondents (57%) classify that they communicate through an informal procedure, where they report directly to the same level colleague that is participating in the initiative. Their preference is for a same-level communication where all people have the same hierarchy and chance of participation. Again the phenomenon of trying to keep the power-control coalition appears in the company’s culture. Among the participants that believe that a same-level flow of exchanging information is the ideal, only 16% were supervisors. On the other hand, the supervisors are the majority of people – 60% - who believe that a downward process of communication is the valid one and more effective.
These similarities and differences are pictures of the company’s reality, which call our attention to an important finding. As stated before in the theoretical framework, the net-communication will only be effective when companies establish an ethical approach to the two-way symmetrical model. Earlier in this section we mentioned that it was important to understand the employee-real-participation (ERP) process concept.
Briefly, ERP happens when the power coalition asks for a feedback from those outside the power coalition and from their inputs redesigns the ways of processing information. The questions 6 and 9 just drew results that went to the opposite way of this concept. Moreover, the question 4 shows the employee’s value for having their opinion analysed, revealing the view of the corporative attitude, which they believe to be the most effective for the company's development. In this question, 80% of the audience believes that their opinion should be considered as important in the decision-making process. The main assumption is that employees highly regard the action of being empowered in the company studied. In fact, they consider that they must have the right of been empowered in the processes that they participated. Empowerment is briefly discussed in this work, since our main research question is communication process. Nonetheless, it is important to connect the empowerment concept with the power-coalition strategies and tactics, which are reflex of the company’s culture and have effect in the IC communication and flow of information. The empowerment is a new trend in the Human Resources literature and important for the purpose of this work. The importance of employee’s opinion is a matter to be considered also in the power-coalition, responsible for the decisions in the company that consequently, should have more people involved, including the representatives of IC strategies.



Question 5



Aiming to narrow down the employee’s opinion about their view of IC department, the researcher asked the particular opinion of each person about the way the strategies and activities are planned in the communication sector. In this case, there is a positive rate of 66%, which agrees that the communication department promotes employee participation through researches and integration events. Meanwhile, 29% disagree, 5% neither disagree nor agree, and nobody has chosen totally agree or totally disagree. Some assumptions can be made in this question. First of all, it is clear that the IC department promotes a common participation, trying to get feedback through different tools. Nonetheless, it is not clear what is done with the feedback, subject that is of interest of question 8. However, the use of stakeholders’ opinion is still not known, it is important to highlight that there is an effective recognition of a formal channel of institutional communication, i.e. 66% of the employees interviewed agreed with IC existence. On top of it, from this response rate, only 28,57% represents the supervisors' opinion and 71,43%, the non-supervisor participants'. It means that whereas 71,43% acknowledge IC department initiatives to promote feedback and integration, just a minority of 29% says the opposite.
From those figures it is possible to state that the first hypothesis, which asks about the existence of channels of communication for employees, is confirmed. This is a particular confirmation of specific IC channels. But, it is not possible to make a direct classification of this research question to Grunig’s models of communication. The reason for that is that it is still not known whether this model of communication is a two-way symmetrical model or a first attempt of involving stakeholders, solely seeking some knowledge of ideas and issues, configuring a two-way asymmetrical model. In this case, information will be used for a particular company’s interest, rather than used for finding a synergy and common point of both sides: employees and company. This issue will be clarified later in question 8.


Question 7
Question 8



In these two charts, the figures are important answers to the hypothesis of the existence of an ethical communication process in the company, i.e. the existence of a two-way symmetrical relationship in the decision-making process.
Earlier, in question 5, it was revealed that employees believe in IC department's attempt to promote integration and open dialogue with the internal public. In question 7, the existence of a process of participation was duplicated. When asked to evaluate the affirmation of open-communication process with employee participation, again the sample population chose the positive classification with 71%. Out of this figure, the non-supervisors make a participation of 73,33%, corroborating with the statistical number for question 2, where they appear as the majority. From the 24% response rate for disagree and totally disagree, supervisors represented 20% of the population. Through questions 5 and 7, the research has found the existence of company’s concern with constructing channels of communication for its internal public. Nonetheless, the question mark remained regarding the existence of an effective ethical process, which for the purpose of this work, was correlated with Grunig’s two-way symmetrical model.
This is valid information that directs to the question 8 findings. After the confirmation of a communication feedback process, the researcher tried to discover which of the four models were utilised in the IC process. Before explaining question 8 table it is recommended to go back to the literature review findings. In Grunig's work (1992), there is a preference for practicing the two-way symmetrical model as the most ethical and effective in achieving IC objectives. However, he recognises that, depending on the situation, the companies still develop the other three ways that his research defines: Press agentry/Publicity – calls attention to the company (one-way); Public Information – disseminates favourable information (one-way); Two-way asymmetrical model - involves research from the environment (in our case the internal relationship), but uses the information in a way that persuades the public (employees) to behave in the way that the organisation wants.
With this information in mind, the author of the present dissertation formulated the question 8 in order to find out whether the company effectively promotes one of the mentioned models or is one ethical example of the fourth classification: two-way symmetrical model – conducts a real dialogue in order to bring about symbiotic changes in the ideas and attitudes of both organisation and employee.
The question stated the conceptualisation to each model, suppressing the nomenclatures, as the sample was not aware of the existence of the theoretical background (See Appendix for details). The model’s definition was presented and the researcher asked the respondents to mark the statement which best described communication in the company, advising the participants to choose just one of them. The massive responses (80%) classified the company as a one-way practitioner, being 50% press agentry and 30% public information representatives. The two-way models (symmetrical and asymmetrical) appeared with 10% each.
Question 8 does not confirm the hypothesis that our organisation is a representative of an effective and ethical communication model. Nonetheless, the employees believe that the company has communication channels and feedback. But, when they were asked about the type of communication practiced by IC, they classified the initiatives as promotion of a positive image, through activities that bring up the public interest, and dissemination of information to the media. It is worthy bringing to light the possibility that employees could have chosen the existence of feedback because they have some chance of participation. A further step could be taken in this case, trying to discover the real connection with this assumption, but this could be subject for another research. For the purpose of our work there are some issues to clarify: is it possible that when answering questions 5 and 7 they assume a position of spectators who are sometimes asked about their opinions about specific issues, but not relevant ones? Another possibility concerns a connection between those two questions and the importance that the employees give to having a participation in decision-making before putting the activities into practice. Perhaps they believe they have participation, because there are opinion polls after implementation and activity. However, the company still reserves to the power-coalition the chance of communicating and creating ways and tools for informing and getting across relevant decisions, i.e. the right of having real participation in setting strategic goals and objectives
Even though these are important question marks that still remain, for the purpose of this work is important to point out that the company analysed is seen as a company that has channels of communication with its different publics and establishes a traditional communication in a way that disseminates positive information to the external public, leaving the internal channels for collecting some kind of inputs from the internal stakeholders. It is still not clear, though, to which extent this participation is effective and real towards a construction of a symbiotic change in the ideas and attitudes of both organisation and employee.

Question 10

Finally, the researcher presented a question about channels for measuring the feedback of activities from employees. From the population surveyed 33% cited the Periodical Surveys and 42% Intranet. Both these channels can be joined in just one as they represent the survey and polls, totalling 75% who affirmed that these are the two channels utilised by IC department. The traditional and formal Reader’s View in the institutional magazines were chosen by 10%, whereas other 10% just specified Other and 5% believe that there is no tool of feedback to assist the employees. Summarising these findings, this question is a compilation and confirmation of employees’ principal view. Since surveys and opinion polls are always applied in the attempt of having the public’s perception, feedback evaluation is a pos-activity, configuring more a monologue process than a real and effective dialogue with inputs from both sides. According to our definition of communication, the major difference between ethical and unethical is that the former acknowledges the necessity of dialogical communication existence, whereas the latter, the most common one, proceeds in a monological way.
Therefore, it is possible to conclude that even though the company has important channels of communication, as acknowledged by our sample, there is still space for exploring these formal channels, in an attempt of promoting a real IC process. In our opinion the communication process should receive inputs of employee’s opinions, not only as a source of information, but as a source of positive changes towards a construction of symbiotic organisational communication process, where both parts are respected as effective decision-making representatives.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

The main aim of this work was to understand and then compare theory to real practice of Internal Communication process in a multinational company in Brazil. Taking information from survey (primary data) and also from documents and organisational structure (secondary data) the author searched to draw a picture of the object analysed. Before carrying out the survey, the author had set a theoretical framework, which helped to better understand and classify the findings.
Bearing in mind that mobile telecommunication is a high-technological industry, that therefore should be aligned to the communication vanguard trends, the researcher, who had previously worked in the company analysed, focused her dissertation on the internal communication process in a telecommunication company. The work aimed to understand the flow of information, examining whether practice was aligned with the most recommended of Grunig’s four models of communication, i.e. checking if the information was executed in a two-way symmetrical model. This particular model was classified in this work as the most ethical and efficient way of communicating with employees in our contemporaneous environment, where more and more human resources are seen as a pivotal core competence of business. The findings of the quantitative research were stated earlier in the Statement of Results chapter. The objective of this section is to analyse and discuss the primary and secondary data in order to compare the similarities and differences of this dissertation to others previous studies about this function of corporate communication. This chapter will submit the principal question marks and then explain to what extent internal communication in the company is following the ethical model of communication suggest by the framework designed in the body of this dissertation.

Channels of communication – (both directions – upward and downward)

The channels of communication are related to questions 3, 5, 7, 9 and 10.
In a nutshell, it is possible to say that the channels of communication that are built by IC department are constructions that are recognised by employees and also explored by them. The principal channel utilised by them is the Intranet, a well-known tool of informing employees in the companies. From the sample population 71% affirms that they are aware of the company's strategic decisions, which is a relevant statistics for the purpose of this dissertation. The communication does circulate in the organisation, and a percentage of 54% are informed through formal channels of IC department. It seems that the company is following the trends in corporate communication, where more and more people are trying to communicate through technological channels of communication. The article of Murgolo-Poore and Pitt (2000) clarify that in a new-economy environment, knowledge-based era, the Intranet is an important tool of CC that has helped the companies to spread the news and inform their internal public. The findings of question 3.1 (37% get informed through the internal access web site) confirm that the Intranet is a powerful tool for getting through employees and disseminate objectives, ideas and strategies.
Even though there is a positive amount of people that utilise formal channels of communication, there are 25% that keep informed by their colleagues, using “word of mouth” process. They are a significant stratification that prefers an informal way of getting news instead of utilising the formal ways of participating of corporate culture. This is a relationship that should be further studied and analysed, and since it is a subject that could be observed in other opportunity, it will not receive major attention in this work.
The existence of formal channels of communication is also stated in question 10, which asked the employees about the presence of channels of feedback. The majority confirmed the previous result saying that the company provided a feedback system through Surveys and Intranet researches, totalising 75% of surveyed who believe that they have the opportunity of giving their opinions about the communication activities promoted by the company.
These significant statistics are a confirmation that, as the theoretical background suggests, the organizations strive to communicate the companies values, searching to encourage staff working in all levels to be informed about their role and company’s movements (Asif, Sargeant, 2000). In questions 5 and 7 more information was found related to flow of communication. It is clear, by the findings, that there is an open-communication process where internal public have the right to participate either in planning corporate communication or in choosing ways of communicating and processing information in the constructions to be designed. This open participation is an excellent opportunity to empower the employees in order to persuade them to agree with the company’s power coalition decisions (Grunig, 1992). In fact, what these primary perceptions confirm is that the organisational internal communication does have channels of listening to the public. However, it is still not known if there is a two-way symmetrical or just a two-way asymmetrical communication, which is not the most recommended for employee’s communication, and is related with Grunig’s denomination of “survey for later persuade”, instead of having a true dialogue with employees.
The channels of communication are also revealed and clarified in question 9. The existence of channels is duplicated in different questions. But, the author tried to understand which kind of flows are most used in different situations. Utilising the stratification of non-supervisors and supervisors the researcher revealed that among supervisors the preferred way of communication is through a formal downward way, whereas the employees without supervision position mostly communicate in a same level structure. This shows a lot about the organisation's culture. According to Smythe (1996) the predominant style of relationship, which exists in an organisation between management and employees, is the most tangible experience that employees will have of that organisation’s culture. In turn those employees will shape their own belief in the company, through day-to-day relationship, up, down and crosswards. In fact this is another way of visualising the power coalition influence into the company’s culture and the way of solving and organising things. Depending on the kind of relationship that the power coalition establishes with different levels, the company will have different employees’ positions about communication and also about the way they see and value their role in the company. Therefore, this question brings an important reality that should, from our point of view, be reexamined. If employees see same level communication as the most efficient and valid way of communication that they will utilise, why do supervisors insist in having a downward flow of communication? Instead of following the flow of employees' suggestions, supervisors opt for having the power of decision and distributing information from top to bottom levels, just enabling employees to get informed when they decide to do so, through a downward flow. It is known by literature review that the power coalition people strive to keep their power strictly to themselves, in order to maintain the power of decision and be above of others in the company (Grunig, 1992).
However, the same theoretical background brings that this is an old way of having employment relationship. Miller and Skidmore's book (2004) brings Thomas Malone’s idea that recognises that we are leaving the first stages of a revolution in business, where the tendency is more freedom for employees to have the right of participating in decision-making process. From these assumptions we could conclude that, in our case study, supervisors as well as the company’s structural hierarchy should be more flat and have other decision-making flow. According to the Literature Review, the most ethical and evident way of proceeding with communication flow should be a really open and same-level way, which, as the primary data suggest, does not exist in the case of flow from management to bottom level employees. The independent variables (supervisors and non-supervisors) are responsible for the dependent outcome of flow of communication, i.e. when employees have to communicate they go through same level and flat hierarchy process, whereas supervisors prefer to proceed in a hierarchical level, which will in turn enable them to stay with the power of decision. Further secondary data analysis can help to explain the principal reason for this way of power’s flow. In figure 2 (p. 20), there is a chart that is related with levels of hierarchy are divided in the organisation. The hierarchical stratification does exist and the IC department is under Human Resources Directory. This director has direct communication with the president in the parent company. However, the person responsible for IC in the subsidiary surveyed (South Brazil) has to communicate and get authorization from IC central department, which in turn creates strategies and tactics and just passes onto the subsidiaries, without getting their inputs. This hierarchical flow is confirmed by an e-mail received from the south subsidiary IC administrators. They clearly stated that they just have operational participation and do not interfere in the centralised administration of IC. Below there is a translation of the answer received, as the person has answered in Portuguese:
“The IC process since last year has passed through a transition period. In fact, IC is below the Human Resources area. Previously, it was associated to Corporate Communication department, when I had the opportunity to know the work developed. Nowadays, we still participate in the IC process, merely as journalists for writing texts and sending them to the media. However, we believe that IC is broader, as they promote employees' campaigns, and other activities.”
This e-mail shows that IC is a centralised function that does not enable the subsidiary to have participation. This could suggest that even though there are channels of communication the hierarchical way of administration still keeps power into the hands of those that are constituents of power-coalition. Another major constraint of the open-flow of IC process is that besides being under HR directory, the IC department in the South has also to get authorization from the Marketing South Division, that communicates with the IC department. Therefore, the subsidiary does not participate in strategies and also is subordinate to two other hierarchical divisions.

Ethical Decision-Making process - two-way relationship and Flow of Communication cross-departmental

As suggested so far, it is possible to conclude that the company studied has some similarity with the ideal model recommended in this work, but is more similar to the traditional way of proceeding with relationship with employees. The channels of communication are established and recognised by employees. This is a positive relationship in vanguard of business representatives. Nonetheless, it reveals a centralised hierarchical structure, which limits the participation of the South Subsidiary. Decentralisation would be a real participation process and could also help to better understand the culture and behaviours of each subsidiary, but it is not practiced in the company that is subject of our study. On top of it, low-level communication is the flow preferred by employees in general, but supervisors promoted a downward flow, enabling them to stay with the power control. Moreover, the high structural company’s chart suggests a major concern for maintaining the structure where the power-coalition is responsible for the rules and strategies of departments. It is known that IC enabled the general internal public to have their inputs, through surveys, about different subjects. Nonetheless, the way of processing with those inputs could suggest a negative interpretation. Actually, what is negative it is the fact that the strategies and tactics are concentrated into the hands of the Internal Communication Division, relegating the work of subsidiaries departments to development of operational application of activities planned by the central division.
Question 6 shows similarities with our observations. When asked whether there was a low level structure in their company, not surprisingly the supervisor represents just 18% of 55% participants that say that the company has a high hierarchical level; whereas they represent 37,5% - almost the total amount – of the people who believe that the company has a low level of hierarchy, enabling the employees to be empowered and involved in the decision-making process. This is again a well-drawn picture of a traditional company power-coalition hierarchy. It seems, from supervisors' point of view, that there is no interest in changing the formal hierarchical division, as they believe that high hierarchy would contribute to keep their power. But from non-supervisors representatives the opinion goes in a divergent way.
Briefly, it is possible to conclude that to great extent the theoretical approach that evaluates the importance of employees for the company’s benefit should be followed for major contemporaneous successful enterprises. But, the primary data research does not confirm the existence of the most ethical way of internal communication. Question 8 directly asked the sample's opinion about the company’s model of communication with public. The answers showed that 80% believe that the organisation practises the most traditional ways of getting the public informed: the two examples of one-way asymmetrical communication. What these contributions revealed is that “press-agentry” and “public information” are still the most common models of communication. These findings go towards previous researchers cited in this work (Yeomans, 2006, Arceo, 2004). Those authors recognised the importance of having a two-way symmetrical model, but the research developed by them does not confirm its existence. In our case study the situation is alike. The theoretical framework and the researcher background are witness to a necessity of valuing the employees’ participation in an effective manner, with a pro-active dialogue. But the answers of the research go in an opposite way, confirming that, even though the representative sample is a high-technological company, the vanguard of communication business is still not practised in internal communication process.
Nonetheless, the researcher found documents that suggest the real importance of Human Resources department. According to these documents the corporation maintains a strong focus on the personal and professional development of human resources. Using a Human Development System, which focuses on leadership and teamwork, the company implements actions that have as objectives: Alignment (to fine-tune the work performed by employees to its strategies and goals), Engagement (spending energy and efforts in the achievement of goals, while providing the necessary preparation for this in a dynamic and stimulating environment) and Assessment (interpretation of results in order to improve them).
Employee Real Participation (ERP) does exist while working with their productivity and development of business. However, while there is necessity of disseminating and creating a real flow of communication, the traditional one-way strategy is utilised, searching to keep the power-coalition aware of employees' idea and feedback, but, in turn, keeping them (employees) away of strategic decision-making process. The Human Development System is an indicative of the organisation’s perception of employees' value. As suggested by literature, the employees who have the right of participation are more motivated and loyal the company. There were assumptions, both from primary and secondary data that enabled us to conclude towards the existence of ERP. Nonetheless, while working with strategical decisions and communication environment, there is the possibility of designing a new way. The real dialogue, that would bring symbiotic changes in the ideas, attitudes, and behaviours of both, organisation and public, is still a utopia in our case study and should be further developed.
Briefly relating the results found with the three hypotheses stated in this work it is possible to highlight some points for interpretation:
- In fact the company is concerned about the importance of channels of communication. In different ways (Intranet, Surveys) there are chances of feedback from employees. From their side, the majority of employees are aware of those channels and participate with inputs;
- at the same time that is confirmed the existence of channels of communication is not confirmed the second hypothesis. The question 8 clearly states that 80% of interviewees see the IC model as one-way communication. It means that, even though, the company is worried about getting feedback, the outcome of the surveys is still not utilised for the power-coalition, who is responsible for the decisions and strategies. The most ethical and effective model of communication conceptualized by Grunig – two-way symmetrical model – is not the one who is practiced in our case study;
- regarding the cross-functional synergy there is a contradictory position between non-supervisors and supervisors. While non-supervisors believe in the importance of flat hierarchy with same level communication, the supervisors prefer the downward communication and do not promote a cross-functional synergy in their actions. This is a curious and relevant answer and should be further discussed, searching to develop a synergic and respectful position independent of the hierarchical level.

In a new era of business, where information is a powerful tool, and employees have broad knowledge, the persuasive way, instead of helping to construct a good communication system, would destroy the trustful and ethical relationship. This would bring major disadvantages to the whole business reputation, which could take decades to be overcome. In this case the next section will bring a summary that will try to bring the major issues highlighted in this work, aiming to point out some suggestions to help the company to enable the internal public to have a real participation in communication and power-coalition issues.

CONCLUSION

The whole work was developed searching to design a theoretical framework that would be the most recommended form of communicating with employees. In fact, the researcher, who had had broad practical experience in Internal Communication in Brazil, tried to understand the new trends of IC process and the role of employees in the contemporaneous business environment. Based on the theoretical issues discovered during the in-library research, it was possible to construct a framework of the environment and design hypotheses that would go towards the most effective way of developing IC. These main issues were the following:

- companies must have channels of communication with employees;
- employees should participate more in decision-making process. This participation would be more effective if the company had a low-level hierarchy;
- feedback rather than solely having a persuasive function, should be a way of establishing real-employee-participation, where dialogue would bring about symbiotic change in the ideas, attitudes, and behaviours of both: organisation and employees.
These are the basic hypotheses that were directly related to the most ethical and effective model of employee communication. These three points were representative of the evidence of practice of a two-way symmetrical model, which is a definition of James Grunig. The model is, in the word of Murgolo-Poore and Pitt (2000), representative of a new era in employee communication, which was developed by Grunig and Hunt and was based in a symmetrical relationship called “talking with employees”. Murgolo-Poore and Pitt chronologically situated this new generation of IC in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Moreover, from the 1990’s there was drastic change of business environment that forced IC to promote a different role in the companies. IC started to be treated as a strategic management activity aligned with organisation’s goals and valued. However, the recognition of employees as real participative assets still appears to be a theoretical issue. Many evidences of our primary and secondary data can be related with this affirmation, which will be explained in this conclusion.
Firstly, primary data collected by e-mail survey enabled us to conclude that the company analysed does have formal channels of communication. Different answers were positive towards the agreement of the existence of different forms of feedback. But, we could not gather from the answers which kind of feedback it was. Further, searching to understand real employee participation, the researcher conceptualised which kind of feedback was expected. In order to boost real two-way symmetrical communication, this feedback should be a process of interaction and mutual understanding among actors (in our case: employees and power-coalition decision) involved in communication. This mutual understanding will only be established with dialogical communication, when the total behaviour, values, ways of interpretation of the two or more people engaged in the process of interaction are taken into account (Varey, 1998, Hillman, 1990). Therefore, the researcher concluded that even though there was a formal channel of communication, the most ethical feedback wasn’t practised.
From question 8 and observation of other documents it was possible to conclude that ERP was limited to listening to them, but not having their inputs in the end-processes. From quantitative research it was revealed that 80% recognised the feedback channels as press agentry and public information model. These two models are constituents of Grunig’s classification:
Press agentry/Publicity – calls attention to the company (one-way)
Public Information – disseminates favourable information (one-way)
In fact, employees believe that there were feedback tools, but primary data revealed that this process is not being practised in the decision-making, as they see the company’s communication as representative of one-way model, i.e. 50% believed that communication promotes a positive image, through activities that bring up the public interest, whereas 30% said that it disseminates information to the press, searching to build a positive image. The two-way symmetrical model are recognised by just 10% each (symmetrical and asymmetrical).
Moreover, the confirmation of the inexistence of two-way flow is possible through the South Subsidiary IC representatives’ contribution. When asked about their participation in the IC process, the regional supervisor clearly stated that their participation, since 2005, was restricted to producing texts to distribute to the media. They also said that in previous years they had more participation, but that nowadays IC was a broader process centralised in the Human Resources directory. Therefore, the existence of a decentralised two-way internal communication (Holtzhausen, 2002) is not being practised in our case study.
The work of Holtzhausen also suggested that internal communication should reach the lowest level where organisational decisions are made, even if those decisions are more operational than strategic. What her research suggested is a positive interaction among departments, promoting a more flat hierarchical structure. Other research also concluded that if companies insist in changing management without a strategic and effective employee-real-participation the efforts of communicating will still fail (Barret, 2002).
Summarising the literature findings, it is possible to realise that the telecommunication company surveyed has to follow further steps towards an excellent internal communication process. However, some important assets have already been reached. The existence of channels of communication is a positive step in order to value the importance of employees. Other evidence is a formal department of Human Resources and an Internal Communication Division, which have a strategic relationship with power-coalition constituents (the HR director has direct communication with the company’s president). In order to be aligned with the new trends of flexible open-two way communication with effective participation in decision-making processes, there are some suggestions:
- work more in a flat structure, where the empowerment of employees could be effective valued;
- promote a real two-way communication process with participation of different levels of employees, not just pos-activity, but also in a pro-active involvement.
At first sight this could be a utopia, difficult to be reached. However, the trends and other studies suggest that rather than being a utopia, this is an important change that will enable the companies to have success in their business, due to the high level of employees' satisfaction and commitment. Moreover, the high competitive business environment is always changing. Therefore, those who first have the initiative of proceeding with new paradigms, rather than have their reputation damaged, will have the highest rewards of entrepreneurship.
Finally, the author wants to detach that there are remaining questions that are not answered in this research. The work is only a contribution in order to reveal some relevant points in this important function of Corporate Communication. However, there are still some points regarding the practitioner’s behaviour, which should be further discussed.
Firstly, there is the concern about the practical activity that does not match with the theoretical view of the most ethical way of communication. The position of professionals is sometimes diverse of the ethical procedures and follows negative ways of establishing relationship with their different stakeholders, e.g. the company’s communication model. Why do they procedure in this way? Is it an influence of the environment? Or professionals are responsible for the construction of this environment? Another point to be further analysed is the difference between hierarchical levels.
The supervisors insist in having a downward flow of power/communication, whereas non-supervisors proceed in a same level attitude. The empowerment concept is a new HR trend that is well developed and has been producing good results for financial development for the industries. Further research could provoke dialogue about the motivations and companies’ cultural position that prioritise the old-fashion way of administration, rather than promoting mutual understanding and development of flat structure in the participation of decision-making processes.

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