March 2003 - Kommunikationsforum

IKEA has faced a number of important issues since the 1980s. It started off when Greenpeace leaned on companies, including IKEA, to stop using PVC. One large issue has been allegations that IKEA suppliers employ underage workers. The issue first occurred in 1992 when a Swedish documentary showed children in a factory in Pakistan. The contract was terminated and a clause that forbad child labour was build into all supply contracts. On the advice of Save the Children in Stockholm, a company was hired to monitor suppliers in the region. But over the next years IKEA faced new allegations. Executives sought out advice from UNICEF, the International Labour Organization and unions. In 2000, IKEA settled a donation plan with UNICEF to donate half a million dollars to fight child labour in the carpet belt of India by setting up schools and other programs in 200 villages. By that, their strategy changed to fight child labour by means of attacking root causes, like poverty and lack of education, as UNICEF proposes. Another issue has been suppliers’ general working conditions. Nordic woodworkers threatened in 1998 to organize a boycott over reports of dismal working conditions at IKEA’s Romanian suppliers. IKEA agreed to apply ILO standards for working conditions. Then a joint team from IKEA and the union went on an inspection tour of suppliers in Eastern Europe and Asia. During that round, IKEA dropped a Thai supplier after it refused to rehire a man fired for trying to organize workers. The boycott never materialized.Internally, IKEA has also faced multicultural issues. In Denmark and Sweden there has been an intense media discussion about the wearing of particular clothing on the job, like Muslim women wearing headscarfs. IKEA quickly responded that they did not oppose traditional headgear. In May 2002, IKEA decided to terminate supply contracts with the company Trayton, that operates under the Danish “Tvind imperium”, which has been alleged of severe tax omission in Denmark. In another tax issue in 1999, IKEA was criticised in Belgium for tax omission in an affair with the Belgium railway company, SNCB. Another major issue for IKEA is wood supplies. Much IKEA furniture is fabricated in wood and the company receives worldwide supply. Recently, IKEA has forged alliances with Greenpeace on environmental matters. Now it demands that all suppliers guarantee that the wood does not originate in ancient forests IKEA also places emphasis on environmental issues in their warehouses in terms of construction and waste management. Approximately 75 pct. of all waste from warehouses are sent to recycling. Of the more rare issues, community relations can be mentioned. Several rich New York suburbs rose up last year to block the construction of an IKEA store, because they feared that the Swedish retailer would wreck the neighbourhood. In that category you can also mention critical voices from Jewish communities, because the company’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad, now honorary chairman at 75, admits he attended Nazi gatherings after World War 2. Many of the issues that Grundfos has been involved in are related to the local community. The main part of Grundfos’ growth takes place outside Denmark, which has led to insecurity in terms of fear of reductions in the Danish work force. During a period of 5-7 years, one third of the production has moved abroad. Nevertheless, employee loyalty is extremely high, and in the press, dismissed workers have expressed understanding with company decisions. Grundfos often engages in political debates relating to especially infrastructure and local politics. The company has long lobbied for the construction of a new Danish airport near Bjerringbro.Grundfos sponsors many events near Bjerringbro, like the local first division handball club and the construction of a new library. It also provides funds to research projects and put pressure on the Danish government to increase expenses on research and education. Grundfos reserves a certain percentage of its positions for disabled persons. On the contrary, the company has few non-Danish employees in high profile jobs and it has been criticised for not employing more people from this group. Grundfos holds that fluency in the Danish language is indispensable in engineering positions where close collaboration with co-workers prevails. In 1971, Grundfos continued exports to the former Rhodesia despite the international embargo, which led to fierce opposition by some parts of the public. Today, the company policy is to respect international trade sanctions. Nevertheless, Grundfos has declared that it does not want to “participate in formulating Denmark’s foreign policy” and does not want to refuse commercial activities in specific countries because of political matters. As Grundfos has production units in China, the company has been mentioned in relation to criticism of China’s violation of human rights. Grundfos markets its products worldwide, which include a large number of markets with unstable political situations like various African countries and the Middle East. Being an industrial company with large production units, there is much focus on the company’s environmental responsibility both in Denmark and abroad. Grundfos publishes an environmental report that monitors its performance in terms of environmental factors. The company recently received an award for its environmental audits. Also, through its production of water saving pumps, Grundfos strives to appear as a “green” company. Lately, the choice of suppliers has become more important for Grundfos and in relation to the Shell’s Brent Spar issue, Grundfos was criticised for using Shell as a supplier. Another issue of concern to Grundfos is allegations of monopolistic market situations. Recently, the EU has investigated Grundfos and acquisitions abroad have become more troublesome. In addition, Grundfos often faces resistance from local communities when it takes over companies abroad. It started off in the Danish medias by the end of May last year. A New Zealand lawyer, Maui Solomon, representing three Maori tribes accused Lego of using sacred names of gods and value terms from the Maori culture and religion and threatened to take legal action. Nevertheless, Lego had legal affairs on their side because Lego never trademark registered the individual figure names. Until late in the debate, Lego refused to comment the issue before it had been contacted directly by the Maoris, which led to criticism in the press. In one article, Lego was accused of “culturally narrow-minded arrogance and ignorance.” There was a clear disagreement in New Zealand whether Lego had offended the Maoris but the issue fell in a hot spot because there had been intense discussions about Maori vs. Western culture in New Zealand and elsewhere. Robbie Williams had been criticised for bearing a Maori symbol as a tattoo and when Spice Girls performed a religious Maori dance in a hotel it also led to immediate disapproval. Danish experts came forward in the press and expressed their opinions and most newspapers agreed that Lego was caught in “a global cultural fight.” Finally, Lego reacted by sending a letter to Maui Solomon explaining the company’s respect for the Maori culture. The same day, Bionicle was introduced on the American market. According to the Maoris, Lego refused dialogue in the letter and they threatened to organise a network of original inhabitants around the world against Lego. New Zealand’s prime minister also criticised Lego’s attitude in New Zealand medias and the New Zealand government proposed a law giving Maoris a veto right to refuse trademarks using cultural and religious names. During the autumn 2002, Lego decided to take up dialogue with the Maoris and in October it signed a contract saying it will not use Maori myths and names in commercial affairs. Eventually, Lego also went into cooperation with the Maoris under the umbrella of a UN forum for the use of trademarks. Another so-called moral issue appeared because the instruction book for a toy called Alpha Team showed pictures that could be connected to the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. Lego decided to take the toy off the shelves just after the attacks. At the same time, an American manager was fired for not complying with Lego values. Some felt that Lego overreacted because children should have the possibility to play with things that provoke different kind of feelings. Lego argued for its decision with respect to a moral and ethical standpoint and the protection of Lego values. Simultaneously, another toy producer, Mattel, withdraw a toy showing the World Trade Centre in fire. A much debated issue lately in the Danish and international press has been “access to medicine” for the world’s poor populations. Different parties have criticised pharmaceutical companies for keeping up prices by the use of patents, thereby blocking production of less expensive generic products. The issue escalated in the winter/spring 2001 when 39 international medical companies decided to press charges in South African to prevent the government from legalising cheap generic medicine for patients suffering from aids. The Danish press followed up the story by questioning whether Novo Nordisk blocks access to diabetes medicine by the use of patents. During the next month, Novo Nordisk came under immense media coverage in Denmark and 3000 activists demonstrated in front of Novo Nordisk’s headquarter. Many prominent NGOs came forward with criticism of Novo Nordisk’s patent strategy. The general issue of access to medicine achieved great attention from medias around the world. Novo Nordisk has approached the issue proactively by creating the so-called LEAD initiative (Leadership for Education and Access to Diabetes care) that incorporates the WHO’s four recommendations to focus areas for improving access to healthcare in developing countries. In March 2002, Novo Nordisk established an international foundation, the WDF (World Diabetes Foundation), with the purpose of supporting projects that will improve diabetes care in developing countries. The organisation consists of diabetes specialists and representatives from Novo Nordisk. In 1996, Novo Nordisk was involved in a legal case about 89 Danish patients suffering from haemophilia that had been treated with HIV-infected blood in the late 1970s. Novo Nordisk was found not guilty in the case that went on for a long period of time. In 1996, Novo Nordisk was involved in a legal case about 89 Danish patients suffering from haemophilia that had been treated with HIV-infected blood in the late 1970s. Novo Nordisk was found not guilty in the case that went on for a long period of time. As Lego, Novo. diabetes care in developing countries. The organisation consists of diabetes specialists and representatives from Novo Nordisk. In 1996, Novo Nordisk was involved in a legal case about 89 Danish patients suffering from haemophilia that had been treated with HIV-infected blood in the late 1970s. Novo Nordisk was found not guilty in the case that went on for a long period of time. In 1996, Novo Nordisk was involved in a legal case about 89 Danish patients suffering from haemophilia that had been treated with HIV-infected blood in the late 1970s. Novo Nordisk was found not guilty in the case that went on for a long period of time. As Lego, Novo. diabetes care in developing countries. The organisation consists of diabetes specialists and representatives from Novo Nordisk In 1996 Novo Nordisk was involved in a legal case about 89 Danish patients suffering from

Ikea child labour probe (Nottingham Evening

Post, January 1999)

“Companies forced into Foreign policy”.

(Ugebrevet Mandag Morgen. September 2001)

Enormous bill to Novo Nordisk after tax issue in Japan.

(Ugebrevet Mandag Morgen. September 1999)

Child labour: Tobacco company to meet with

criticisers. (Politiken. March 2001).

SAS: Industrial giants attack bonus system.

(Jyllandsposten. August 2001)

South Africa issue only a symptom: Businesses are loosing too activists. (Ugebrevet Mandag Morgen. April 2001)

SHELL-SHOCKED; HOW OIL GIANT'S NORTH SEA STRATEGY TURNED DRAMA INTO A PR NIGHTMARE, (Mail on Sunday. June 1995)

New

Zeal

and M

aoris

decla

re gl

obal

war

agai

nst

Lego

. (Pol

itike

n. No

vem

ber 1

997)

WHY IKEA IS A TARGET OF TERROR BOMBERS (The

Scottsman, Decem

ber 2002)

Hangings put Shell in dock over Nigeria (The

Independent, November 1995)

Ethical risks in half of ATP’s largest foreign

investments. (Ugebrevet Mandag Morgen. June 2001)

Shell stunned by Brent Spar anger (Financial Times. June

1997)

FURIOUS NATIVE NEW ZEALANDERS CLAIM ACTION TOYS

ARE 'CULTURAL PIRACY‘. (Sunday Express. June 2001)

Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

By Lena Sørensen

Master Thesis CMICopenhagen Business School March 2003Supervisor: Kristian Eiberg

Toys to children sparkling with

chemicals. (Politiken. November

1997)

To be a known brand..........

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The dissertation takes its point of departure in the observation that larger European companies are acting in multicultural stakeholder environments. They are confronted with a range of expectations and demands and some are only peripherally related to the company’s core business. Companies are involved in an increasing number of issues, which risk maturing into crises in the public sphere. The dissertation focuses on the discipline within public relations concerned with the identification and analysis of issues and prevention of crises: “Issues Management”. The dissertation aspires to unveil the problem: “How should companies manage issues in multicultural stakeholder environ-ments in order to prevent crises?” The research question is enlightened through a theoretical inter-disciplinary analysis and an empirical analysis of issues management practices in six European companies: Grundfos, Ikea, Lego, Novo Nordisk, SAS and Shell Europe. Two tables in the empiri-cal analysis recap issues management practices in the six case companies. The dissertation argues that in order for companies to manage issues involving culturally different stakeholders - to understand their reactions and arguments correctly and respond efficiently - the issues management practice must rely on “cultural awareness and mindfulness” and be integrated with stakeholder analysis and dialogue. On a conceptual level, the dissertation demonstrates that issues are not detached matters in the public sphere. Issues are anchored in stakeholders’ and companies’ subjective opinion formation about proper corporate behaviour. The parties’ cultural context influences this opinion formation and the cultural attachment then significantly impacts which issues or aspects of an issue they focus on and how they act in relation to that issue. The larger the cultural differences there are between stakeholders, the more complex the issue becomes and the management of it. The dis-sertation elaborates on how cultural differences are expressed in issues and which effect it has on company-stakeholder relations. On an operational level, the dissertation recommends that through a structured issues manage-ment process, companies should seek to identify and analyse issues as early as possible and find solutions to them that are mutually satisfactory to the most important parties. Solutions to issues may be to create understanding of corporate behaviour through internal or external communication or to change business practices. The dissertation suggests that the issues management process is divided into four phases: Identification, Analysis, Response and Evaluation. Nevertheless, it is only possible to attain the objectives of issues management if more technical activities in each phase rely on cultural awareness and mindfulness. Communication practitioners should be competent to step beyond their own opinion formation and understand opinion formations rooted in other cultural contexts. In addition, stakeholder analysis and dialogue should support the entire issues manage-ment process. The dissertation goes into details about how cultural competences and stakeholder dialogue must be utilised and wherein the benefits lie. The dissertation concludes that companies, which share this conceptual understanding and have the right operational issues management set-up in place, are equipped to lessen the risk that is-sues mature into crises. The risk that issues undermine the company legitimacy and deteriorates its reputation is reduced accordingly. Two models encapsulate the fundamental conclusions: 1) A conceptual model for issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. 2) An operational model to structure and specify the issues management process. It is recommended that companies develop an individual model containing the defined phases and those activities most relevant to them.

RESUME

Specialet tager udgangspunkt i den iagttagelse, at større europæiske virksomheder agerer i multi-kulturelle stakeholder-miljøer og konfronteres med mange forskelligartede forventninger og krav, hvor nogle kun er perifert relateret til virksomhedens egentlige forretning. Virksomheder involveres i et stigende antal komplekse debatsager, som risikerer at udvikle sig til kriser i den offentlige sfære. Rapporten fokuserer på det område inden for public relations, som vedrører identifikation og analy-se af debatsager (”issues”) og forebyggelse af kriser: ”Issues Management”. Specialet søger at afdække problemstillingen: ”Hvordan kan virksomheder håndtere debatsager i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer for at forebygge kriser?” Gennem en teoretisk analyse samt en empirisk analy-se af seks europæiske virksomheders issues management-praksis, Grundfos, Ikea, Lego, Novo Nordisk, SAS og Shell Europe, belyses denne problemstilling. Specialet konkluderer, at for at virksomheder kan håndtere debatsager, som involverer kulturelt forskellige stakeholdere, forstå deres reaktioner og argumenter korrekt og reagere effektivt, skal issues management-praksis bygge på kulturel opmærksomhed (”awareness”) og sensitivitet (”mindfulness”) samt integreres med stakeholder-analyse og -dialog. På det begrebsmæssige plan påviser specialet, at debatsager ikke er løsrevne emner i offentlighe-den. Debatsager er forankret i stakeholderes og virksomhedens subjektive meningsdannelse om, hvordan virksomheden bør handle. Aktørernes kulturelle kontekst påvirker denne meningsdannel-se, og dermed får den kulturelle forankring betydning for, hvilke debatsager eller aspekter af en debatsag, de fokuserer på, og hvordan de handler i forhold til sagen. Jo større kulturel forskel, der er mellem stakeholdere, jo mere komplekse bliver debatsagen og håndteringen af den. Specialet går i dybden med, hvordan kulturforskelle kommer til udtryk i debatsager og hvilken betydning, det har for forholdet mellem virksomheder og deres stakeholdere. På det operationelle plan anbefaler specialet, at virksomheder gennem en struktureret issues ma-nagement-proces søger at identificere og analysere debatsager så tidligt som muligt og finde løs-ninger på dem, som er gensidigt tilfredsstillende for de vigtigste parter. Løsninger kan enten være gennem intern eller ekstern kommunikation at skabe forståelse for virksomhedens handlinger eller at ændre forretningsmetoder. Specialet foreslår at processen inddeles i fire faser: Identifikation, Analyse, Svar/kommunikation, Evaluering. Issues management-processens mål kan dog kun op-nås, såfremt de mere tekniske issues management-aktiviteter bygger på kulturel opmærksomhed og sensitivitet. Virksomhedens kommunikatører skal kunne sætte sig ud over egen meningsdan-nelse og forstå meningsdannelser, som har rod i en anden kulturel kontekst. Stakeholder-analyse og -dialog bør desuden understøtte hele issues management-processen. Specialet uddyber, hvor-dan den kulturelle kompetence og stakeholder-dialog skal udmøntes, og hvori fordelene består. Det er specialets konklusion, at virksomheder, som har denne begrebsmæssige forståelse samt det korrekte operationelle issues management set-up, vil være i stand til at mindske risikoen for, at debatsager udvikler sig til kriser. Dermed begrænses risikoen for, at kritiske debatsager undermi-nerer virksomhedens legitimitet og forringer dens offentlige omdømme. Specialet har udviklet to modeller, som sammenfatter de vigtigste konklusioner: 1) En begrebsmæssig model for debatsa-ger i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer. 2) En operationel model, hvormed virksomheden kan struk-turere og konkretisere issues management-processen. Specialet anbefaler, at virksomheder udvik-ler en individuel model bestående af de nævnte faser og de aktiviteter, som er mest relevante. (En samlet konklusion på dansk findes i specialets appendiks)

PREFACE

|

PREFACE

Issues management has not achieved the attention it deserves by European communication spe-cialists and researchers. While issues management is practiced by many larger organisations in Europe, academic research and publishing is to a large extent American. This dissertation attempts to develop the issues management thinking in a European contemporary context. The objective will be to rethink issues management principles in the perspective of European companies’ multistake-holder and multicultural environment. Part 1, page 3 through to 24 set the stage for this intercultural issues management focus. Key terms are defined and epistemological considerations are explained. Next, page 25 to 52 attempt to draw a conceptual skeleton by bridging theories of issues management with knowledge from inter-cultural communication theory and stakeholder relations. A central model encapsulates key find-ings from this theoretical analysis. From there, part 2 moves to the operational level: Page 53 to page 74 take the reader through a re-examination of the four steps in the issues management process: identify, analyse, respond and evaluate. A process model is drawn hereafter. The final part of the dissertation, from page 76 to 110, is devoted to empirical research. During the summer 2002, issues management practitioners at 6 major companies participated in personal interviews. The interviews provide evidence to test normative conclusions from the theoretical analysis. In addition, they are tentative examples of contemporary European issues management practice. Summaries of the interviews are enclosed in the end of the dissertation. With this dissertation I aspire to indicate ways to practice systematised and effective issues man-agement. Also, I attempt to present some new perspectives to current issues management thinking on an academic level. I would like to thank the corporations who were willing to devote time for interviews and subsequent questions and advice. These corporations are Lego, SAS, Novo Nordisk, Shell Europe, Ikea and Grundfos. The knowledge I obtained in these endeavours is greatly appreciated. Thanks to my supervisor Kristian Eiberg for valuable insights and critical comments at important times in the process. My colleagues at Monday Morning merit recognition for providing me with a solid under-standing of communication, intelligence, and journalism in its practical forms. Finally thanks to my fellow students at Copenhagen Business School.

Lena Sørensen

TABLE OF CONTENT

| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

TABLE OF CONTENT

PREFACE..........................................................................................................................................I

PART 1

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 3 RESEARCH QUESTION ....................................................................................................................................... 5 OUTLINE ............................................................................................................................................................ 6

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGY .............................................................. 7 META-THEORETICAL PARADIGM ........................................................................................................................ 7 KEY CONCEPTS................................................................................................................................................. 8 REFINED RESEARCH QUESTION ...................................................................................................................... 16 THE NORMATIVE STUDY TYPE ......................................................................................................................... 17 GENERIC PRINCIPLES ...................................................................................................................................... 18 EPISTEMOLOGY ............................................................................................................................................... 18

PART 2

INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORETICAL ANALYSIS......................................................... 25

EXISTING THEORETICAL FOUNDATION .............................................................................. 26

STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT ................................................ 28 ISSUE HOLDERS............................................................................................................................................... 28 UNDERLYING INTERESTS................................................................................................................................. 29 PRIORITISATION BETWEEN ISSUES.................................................................................................................. 29 UNIFIED AND CONFLICTING OPINIONS ............................................................................................................. 30 STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT ....................................................................................... 31 SUMMING UP.................................................................................................................................................... 32

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT ................................. 34 BASICS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION................................................................................................ 36 CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTION............................................................................................. 37 DEGREES OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY ................................................................................................................ 41 CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE COMMUNICATION ...................................................................................... 42 HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION MODEL ................................................................ 43 CULTURAL MINDFULNESS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT ........................................................................................ 45 SUMMING UP.................................................................................................................................................... 48

PROPOSING A CONCEPTUAL MODEL ................................................................................. 52

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS ............................................ 53 IDENTIFICATION ............................................................................................................................................... 55 ANALYSIS......................................................................................................................................................... 58 RESPONSE....................................................................................................................................................... 63 EVALUATION .................................................................................................................................................... 67

TABLE OF CONTENT

|

PROPOSING A PROCESS MODEL ......................................................................................... 69

CONCLUSION PART 2................................................................................................................ 70

PART 3

INTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ............................................................... 76

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIES.................................................... 77 PROPOSITION 1: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT............................................................................................. 77 PROPOSITION 2: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS.............................................. 83 PROPOSITION 3: THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS ...................................................... 94

CONCLUSION PART 3.............................................................................................................. 105

PART 4

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 111

PERSPECTIVES FOR ADDITIONAL RESEARCH .............................................................. 115

APPENDICES.............................................................................................................................. 118 APPENDIX 1: CAUSAL RELATIONS IN THE STUDY.......................................................................................... 118 APPENDIX 2: MEDIA SOURCES IN THE IDENTIFICATION PROCESS................................................................ 119 APPENDIX 3: LIFECYCLE CURVES ................................................................................................................. 120 APPENDIX 4: CONCLUSION IN DANISH.......................................................................................................... 121

LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 125 INTERVIEW SUMMARIES………………………………………………………………………………….x

TABLE OF CONTENT

| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

TABLE OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: THE LEGITIMACY GAP FIGURE 2: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS FIGURE 3: DEVELOPMENT OF ISSUES FIGURE 4: THE CULTURAL CONTEXT FIGURE 5: CULTURAL DIVERSITY OF STAKEHOLDERS FIGURE 6: THEORETICAL DISCIPLINES FIGURE 7: LITERATURE ABOUT ISSUES MANAGEMENT AND CULTURE FIGURE 8: LITERATURE ABOUT PUBLIC RELATIONS AND CULTURE FIGURE 9: STAKEHOLDER GROUPS FIGURE 10: STAKEHOLDER INTERESTS FIGURE 11: THE AIM OF STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE FIGURE 12: THE INTERNAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT OF ISSUES MANAGEMENT FIGURE 13: INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION FIGURE 14: THE INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE MODEL FIGURE 15: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS – SMALL MODEL FIGURE 16: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS – LARGE MODEL FIGURE 17: TRADITIONAL MODEL AND NEW MODEL FOR EVALUATING OUTSIDE PRESSURE FIGURE 18: PUBLIC RELATIONS MODELS FIGURE 19: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS - SMALL MODEL FIGURE 20: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS – LARGE MODEL FIGURE 21: COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY FIGURE 22: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN 6 COMPANIES FIGURE 23: PERSPECTIVES IN THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS FIGURE 24: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS MODEL REFINED FIGURE 25: STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE IN THE 6 COMPANIES FIGURE 26: CONCLUSION: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS FIGURE 27: CONCLUSION: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS

INTRODUCTION

2| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

PART 1

INTRODUCTION

Part 1 | 3

INTRODUCTION

With this dissertation, I study how companies manage responses to issues that affect the business organisation through exposure in the public sphere. First, I take a short look at the dynamics that have made this topic imperative. The rationalist market-oriented approach traditionally perceived companies as isolated units with the societal function of economic production and distribution (Wartick & Wood 1998: 68). In the late 1970s, critique of industrial products and the lack of companies’ environmental concern as well as the general rise of activism became eminent. During the past 30 years, ethical, social, political, and environmental corporate responsibility has been added to the company function in society (Cheney and Christensen 2001: 237). A more direct link between the broader needs of society and company obligations has been created. Up to today, that link has been reinforced and edges between the surrounding society and the company realm are becoming blurred. Companies have a significant stake in its environment and stakeholders expect companies to fulfil the societal roles. This is far from saying that all companies have social awareness programs or take their social responsibility serious, but the public has some expectations about acceptable corporate behaviour. After a crisis over enfant milk formula in developing countries, Nestlé said:

“For business, the cost of social awareness programs are great, but the cost of ignoring the outside world is even greater.” (Nielsen 2000: 18).

This climate has a tremendous impact on companies’ communication activities. As the business environment becomes politicised it is less clear how the company must react communication vice. One of the founders of public relations, Arthur W. Page, said:

“All business in a democratic country begins with the public’s permission and exists by the public approval” (Clark 2000: 364).

Public relations practitioners approach the organisation from a public angle - an outside-in perspec-tive. It is a strategic boundary between the organisation and the public arena (Culbertson and Chin 1996: 13) and is concerned with the inclusiveness of the company in the public and the phenom-ena of legitimacy (Vercic 2001: 382). Companies’ legitimacy is closely linked with their ability to respond to issues. Many larger organisations have been faced, in recent past, with an issue, which had the potential to explode into the public arena with serious consequences for the reputation and credibility of the organisation, to its products, services, shareholders and employees. We all know the more spectacular issues of Shell and the Brent Spar oil platform or Den Danske Bank’s implica-tions in the Faeroe Island Bank scandal. The SEPTember model in Wartick and Wood groups the origin of issues into social, ecological, economic, political and technological matters (1998: 13). Issues can arise from any of these areas. It is extremely important, history shows, that companies are able to manage those issues efficiently (Gaunt & Ollenbruger 1995: 200). If they are not, and crises occur, the company image will be damaged and the company legitimacy in the public sphere slowly undermined. Thus, this dissertation focus on how companies can identify, analyse and re-spond to issues before they turn into crises in the public sphere and negatively affect the company legitimacy or mature into legislative or regulatory constraints.

INTRODUCTION


Now, a second perspective narrows down my research. Many larger companies are confronted with stakeholders, like employees, customers, interest groups and governmental bodies to mention a few, representing a variety of nationalities and cultures. Today, European companies’ stake-holder environment is very often multicultural. Thus, stakeholder relations are increasingly intercul-tural. The interesting point is that as stakeholder relations become intercultural so do issues (Nigh and Cochran, 1994). Traditionally, large companies have more or less successfully been able to manage issues in an isolated manner. Chances have been limited that conflicts, let us say between a company and an environmental group, would get widespread public attention. If issues reached the public agenda, they were often kept within certain forums or the specialised press, like research reports or newsletters. Even when issues caught attention from the national press, they rarely es-calated beyond the national boundary. That picture is under transformation because public communication has changed significantly. The speed with which information travels and the scope of that information are connecting events and people from all different arenas and geographical locations. You may call it the global scope of information, in the sense that globalisation, in the words of Giddens, can be defined as:

….the intensification of world-wide social relations, which link distant local locali-ties in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa. (Giddens 1990: 64).1

About this global information flow, Wakefield writes:

“….the global media have helped to integrate publics and issues worldwide. In-terest groups are using the media to create issues and achieve their goals. They stage events such as protests, boycotts and even violent demonstrations. Media cover these dramatic events, which ensures audiences for activist ide-ologies. As a result, interest groups are influencing the opinions of policy mak-ers around the world.” (Wakefield in Culbertson & Chin 1996: 26).

One concern is that different critical stakeholders can unify through modern communication chan-nels like the Internet and become more powerful. Activist groups widely employ that method, which has been witnessed in the anti-globalisation demonstrations in France last year that included vio-lent attacks on McDonald outlets and other American icons. Another consequence is that the po-tential scope of issues is greater and thus the influence issues may have on the company. Oppo-nents now have access to a larger amount of sources and can reach publisher or journalists more easily. Consequently, a problem of little concern in a small corner of a company’s activities may threaten to turn into a damaging case for the whole company on its entire markets and for all its stakeholder relations. This was the case for Shell, when it decided to dump the Brent Spar oil plat-form in the sea. It is less clear for a large company to know how to respond to issues in the new information reality. Suddenly, in order to avoid global crises in the public sphere, it must be able to confront a culturally

1 This is a so-called multidimensional theory of globalisation also represented by authors like Robertson, Bauman, Sennett and Castells.

INTRODUCTION

Part 1 | 5

very diverse set of stakeholders not from a local, but from a unified position. Today, larger Euro-pean companies are not manoeuvring in a single cultural sphere, involving parties that share cul-tural traits with the company itself. The large European firm finds itself in a multicultural environ-ment, where public issues must be managed across cultural boundaries. From my point of view, many companies have found it difficult to see through the public debate when it moves from the intracultural to the intercultural level. A general trait about many of the is-sues that have been on the public agenda recently, is, I believe, that companies debate from a single cultural perspective. They find it difficult to understand why their actions are criticised. From their own cultural line of thought, their actions are legitimate. A study has shown that many public relations practitioners overlook the implication of cultural diversity or do not consider it important (Banks 1995: 2). In addition, research and theory that link public relations to cultural diversity is scarce. Clearly, there is a need for a better understanding of cultural diversity in stakeholder envi-ronments and what it implies for companies’ management of issues in the public sphere.

RESEARCH QUESTION To resume: Rising public expectation about corporate social responsibility and the global scope of information have increased the number and complexity of crises for the business organisation. Therefore, I wish to investigate how companies can improve their ability to avoid crises by effec-tively managing issues with stakeholders that represent a variety of cultural backgrounds. That leads me to the research question:

How should companies manage issues in multicultural stakeholder envi-ronments in order to prevent crises?

Now, I stand in front of a number of choices involving the paradigm behind the research (meta-theory), the nature of the key concepts (ontology), their relation to other concepts (axiology), and how to conduct my research (epistemology). The subsequent chapters will clarify those questions. Hereby, I wish to explicitly define and assess my own role in the study process and justify the as-sumptions and choices that guide any research project. When the key concepts are defined, the research question will be refined on page 16. First, let me create an overview of the dissertation by summarising the outline.

INTRODUCTION


OUTLINE The figure below illustrates the outline. Individual questions are answered in each part: ! What are the problematic aspects in managing issues in a multicultural stakeholder environ-

ment? Which theoretical concepts should I address and in which way should they be studied? This is answered in part I

! To what extent does existing theory conceptualise principles for companies’ management of issues in a multicultural stakeholder environment? In which ways can other academic fields contribute towards that end? That will be the aim of part II.

! How do the identified principles apply to practice? Do issues management practitioners find them valid? This will be explored in part III.

! On the basis of the theoretical analysis and the empirical study, which generic principles can be identified for companies’ management of issues in a multicultural stakeholder environment? Part IV provides an answer to the research question.

Conceptual framework

-

Empirical analysis of propositions

Conclusion

Knowledge base

Critical assessment and perspectives

Interdisciplinary theoretical analysis

Conclusion part II

Refinement of interdisciplinary approach

Stakeholder theory

Intercultural com. theory

Empirical data: interviews with 6 European companies

Conclusion part III

PART I

PART II

PART III

PART IV

Problem identification and research question

Issues management

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGY

Part 1| 7


META-THEORETICAL PARADIGM The dissertation makes use of a hermeneutic paradigm2. It examines issues - their arousal, evolu-tion and eventual resolution – as a sense making process by companies and stakeholders. In line with the hermeneutic paradigm, people’s actions, or the sum of a group of people’s actions, and the outcomes of those actions, are considered as making sense (meaning, content) because they are expressions of those people’s intentions (assumptions, objectives, reasons). Consequently, the dissertation will study “public issues” by looking at the meaning that different actors attach to those issue, the difference between their meaning ascriptions and what intentions that drive them. Theo-retically, the objective in the hermeneutic paradigm is to get insight into people’s own interpreta-tions of their context (Jensen & Løngreen: 28). In opposition to the hermeneutic paradigm stands positivism. Within positivism, we find the struc-tural functionalist tradition that believes phenomena are organised in a sort of structured organism where everything interacts. Thus, it is possible to predict future outcomes. In positivism, research aims to find fixed correlations between phenomena and establish a set of universal laws. Had I employed a positive paradigm to my research, I could have mapped stakeholders by identifying different attributes, like cultural characteristics, and this way predicted each stakeholder’s eventual position in a public debate along some parameters. I find that positivism has evident limitations when it comes to study human actions. It is impossible to foresee - in a rationale manner - that certain stakeholders that are part of a specific culture will react in a definite way. This is because issues are a social construct. People actively interpret their social environment. Accordingly, in a public debate about an issue, people do not act mechanically but out of their cognition of that issue. Drawing on communication theory, public debates about issues must be seen as a dialogical, symmetrical process: The receiver’s interpretation (decoding) of the sender’s message influence the communication process as much as the sender’s encoding of that message. Also, interaction between debaters is not “a linear, mechanical process of mes-sage transmission and response in sequence” (Banks 1995: 110). It is an emergent, dialogic proc-ess of forming opinion. Issues are not couched in the different opponents in the public debate, but exist in the relation between opponents. In staying true to the hermeneutic tradition, the dissertation aspires to propose ways that compa-nies can understand issue debates in multicultural stakeholder environments rather that ways they can predict actions and control the debate.

2 A meta-theoretical paradigm is a set of assumptions that a researcher has towards the study and methodology. Such assumptions constitute the natural way we observe phenomena, answer questions and reach conclusions – our so-called world-views.



KEY CONCEPTS

ISSUES What are issues? In the public relations literature, issues are defined as “a point of matter of dis-cussion, debate, or dispute” (Nielsen 2000: 29). An issue must have at least two different possible resolutions and there must be a dispute about which of the alternatives that will prevail (Renfro 1993: 14). Issues should not be confused with trends, which is a broad term for changes in the company environment. Lieberson says that in social theory, researchers should isolate the basic causes of the phenome-non under investigation (1985). So let me clarify the basic causes behind issues. In the introduc-tion, we saw that issues are linked to companies’ corporate social responsibility and may arise from ecological, economic, political and technological matters in the business environment. I described that public relations is about managing legitimacy in the public sphere. Legitimacy is

“…. a measure of the adequacy of societal perceptions of corporate behavior compared to societal expectations for corporate activity.” (Näsi & Näsi 1997: 300)

Subsequently, issues arise when there is a legitimacy gap between, on the one side, company interests and performance and, on the other, stakeholders’ interests and expectations.

The gap may arise because companies and publics do not have the same level of knowledge about facts to sustain their actions and considerations. It may also be, that they judge actions from different policies or values. Heath says:

“An issue is a contestable point, a difference of opinion regarding fact, value or policy the resolution of which has consequences for the organisation’s strategic plan.” (1997: 84).

In accordance with the hermeneutic paradigm, Heath points out that people’s individual interests lead them to support or attack specific company actions or policies (1997: 85). Consequently, in-terests are key to understand issues and why they arise.

Company X Public A

Business Perform-ance Activities Policies

Expectations of corporate social re-sponsibility

GAP

Figure 1: The Legitimacy Gap. Source: adopted from Heath 1997: 8

Bases of gap: ! Differences of fact ! Differences of value ! Differences of policy


Part 1 | 9

THE PUBLIC SPHERE It is one thing that an issue arises, another that it may develop into the public sphere and eventu-ally into a crisis. The objective in this dissertation is not to describe the dynamics by which issues develop in the public sphere but how companies manage issues. Consequently, let me just explain what is meant by “the public sphere”. For that purpose I look at theory for agenda setting3. The public sphere should be considered in opposition to the private sphere. For a company, it com-prises everything that takes place outside the business organisation. Nielsen (2000) shows that issues generally penetrate the public sphere through different agendas: 1) The media agenda where an issue gets attention by journalists from national newspapers,

television, radio, academic revues etc. Researchers may seek to measure an issue on the me-dia agenda by counting articles and news shots, or to conduct a content analysis of these.

2) The public agenda where individual people pay attention to an issue. They may discuss it with

friends, relatives, over lunch, in the streets etc. Or just express an opinion about it. Issues on the public agenda are measured through opinion pools where its significance is determined relative to other issues.

3) The political agenda where politicians and public officials work with an issue, discuss it and

eventually set laws or policies in relation to it. A research of the political agenda could try to de-tect such laws or how much time politicians debate the issue in parliament.

To that I would like to add boundary-spanning agendas between the public and non-public sphere like academic agendas (seminars, debate forums) and the Internet. I find it complicated to draw the line between the public and non-public sphere. If an activist group publishes its opinion about an issue on the Internet or in a newsletter is it then public? I believe that the jumping point here is how many people get exposed to the issue, if these people have a stake in the company and to what extent they find the issue worth paying attention to.

ISSUES MANAGEMENT During my research, I began by investigating if there was any approach within the public relations literature that could provide answers to the research question. I found that the discipline, “Issues Management”, had many interesting and central consideration to add to my research. Issues management seeks to uncover issues that may play an influential role in the relationship between an organisation and its stakeholders. For companies, the goal is to detect issues as early as possible and ideally before they enter the public sphere through any of the agendas described before. Thereby, the issues management theory says, companies can more easily influence the issue’s development in a positive way. If an issue has negative consequences for the company, the organisation may try to reach a resolution with its opponents before the issue becomes subject to public attention.

3 For further studies into agenda setting, refer to the interesting work by Mie Femø Nielsen (2000).



While issues are a gap between company actions and stakeholder expectations, issues manage-ment is the process used to close that gap4. Issues management is a “strategic use of issues analysis and strategic response to help organizations make adaptations needed to achieve har-mony and foster mutual interests with the communities in which they operate” (Heath 1997: 3). The focal point is to achieve harmony between the company and its environment5. In broad terms, the gap can be closed if companies adjust to expectations and modify operations or if public expecta-tions are changed through communication expertise. Most often, it is by a combination of these strategies. There are risks that issues management can be perceived as spin doctoring or defensive delay activities to suppress criticisers. Indeed, this is the fault of some parts of the issues management literature that present issues management as a mean for controlling opponent voices in the public. Instead, the true potential of issues management should be to add value externally in terms of im-proving stakeholder relations through open dialogue that allay conflicts and lead to win/win solu-tions that comprise the stances and goals of all parties having a stake in the issue. Issues man-agement may also deconstruct barriers to entry on new markets and operations constraints. Issues management should equally add value internally by reducing surprises and uncertainty with re-duced liability for directors and managers and by avoiding crises. A large amount of definitions of issues management exist and no definition has achieved consen-sus. Foremost, I find it important to distinguish between issues management as a program and issues management as a process (Signitzer in Moss 1997: 122). The program focus investigates issues management in an organisational perspective. It discusses coordination with other organisational functions and how intelligence is processed internally. Within the multinational companies, the program focus investigates the coordination of issues manage-ment activities between headquarters and subsidiaries (Wakefiled 2000: 68.). The essential con-clusion is that issues management is a strategic discipline and that issues management practitio-ners are not only communication technicians but must be given strategic management clout. For further discussion about the program focus see for example Heath 1997: 9ff or Jablin 2001: 205ff. My research takes a process focus that treats communicative aspects of issues management. Consequently, I choose to define issues management as the effort to:

“Identify emerging issues and respond to them before they become public knowledge.” (Jones & Chase in Gaunt & Ollenburger 1995: 201).

A later but similar definition by Coates, Coates, Jarrat and Heinz is more detailed and will be my working definition:

“Issues management is the organized activity of identifying emerging trends, concerns or issues likely to affect an organization in the next few years and de-

4 From the Issues Management Council’s website www.issuesmanagement.org 5 This line of thinking in issues management draws on system theory, where companies and stakeholders are seen as individual systems that pull in different directions but also seek internal and external equilibrium with other systems. It also has roots in the “fit school” in strategic management.


Part 1 | 11

veloping a wider and more positive range of organizational responses toward that future. Business and industry, in adopting issues management, seek to formulate creative alternatives to constraints, regulations, or confrontation. Of-ten in the past, the awareness of a trend, a new development, or the possibility of new constraints came too late to frame anything but a reactive response.” (1986: ix)

The definition says that issues management must be an organised activity. Secondly, it states that issues must affect the organisation. This is important because the organisational impact ultimately differentiates issues from non-issues. Thirdly, it defines issues management as being proactive rather that reactive. And finally, it sees issues management as a process involving identification and response development. In terms of the process model, the literature explores a number of different issues management techniques that vary from 3 to 10 phases. No models are conclusive because it will vary according to each company’s specific needs. The primary purpose of using a model is to illustrate that the process is a structured effort to put issues management into practice - to gather accurate and timely intelligence from the environment about issues. In the model below, I synthesise different standard process models in the issues management literature (Buchholz, Chase & Jones, Heath, Nigh & Cochran, Nielsen and Wartick & Wood). The heart of each step in the model is companies’ interaction with the surrounding society and the push and pull effect between stakeholders and companies. The process is to some extent circular and is often programmed into the general company planning with specific tasks carried out monthly or quarterly (Heath 1997: 91). Nevertheless, as I indicate with the arrows in the middle, the phases may overlap in reality.

Identify Scan

Evaluate

AnalyseMonitor

Evaluate Prioritise

RespondChange options

Figure 2: Issues management process model. Source: own



Issues management is different from “crisis management” in that it strives to deal with issues before they become subject to public outrage. It is proactive, while crisis management is reactive (Gaunt & Ollenburger 1995: 202). Is-sues management can also take its offset in old crises. Figure 3 shows the distinction between the two disciplines. As the model indicates, effective issues management prevents crises in the public sphere, i.e. on any of the agen-das mentioned earlier. Finally, let me briefly comment on issues management with regard to public relations. Miller dem-onstrated that issues management is a multidisciplinary approach with (ideally) connections into most organisational functions (1999: 5). But it is often situated within a broader public relations or external communication function in the company, eventually by virtue of inter-departmental issues teams, with the public relations department serving as coordinator and strategist. In the public relations literature, there has been an intense discussion about what constitute public relations. In that discussion, it is most relevant to focus on how public relations describes and ex-plains the organisation differently from other disciplines like marketing, strategic management and human resource management. In contrast to marketing, public relations do not seek to attract and satisfy customers through the exchange of goods and values but strive to establish and maintain positive beneficial relations to all stakeholders (Cheney & Christensen in Jablin & Putnam 2001: 238). In short, it manages the relation between the organisation and the public sphere:

“Public relations is the management function that identifies, establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and the various publics on whom its successor failure depends.” (Cutlip, Center, and Broom 1985: 4)

I consciously use the term “public relations” instead of “public affairs”. This is simply because defi-nitions of public affairs are very diffuse and that public relations is the most general term. Most Danish companies have renamed their public relations function communication departments. This is mirrored in the fact that the “Dansk Public Relations Forening” changed its name to “Dansk Kommunikationsforening”. Nevertheless, that shift has more to do with a negative connotation at-tached to the public relations term than a change in practitioners’ actual work. Now, I have conceptualised what causes issues to arise, how issues may penetrate into the public sphere, and I have introduced a theoretic field within the broader frame of public relations, issues management. In short, issues management describes the process by which companies should identify, evaluate and respond to issues. Now, relating back to the research question, I should go on to what makes issues management special in multicultural stakeholder environments.

Time

Issues Management

Crisis

Post-crisis

No crisis

Figure 4: Development of issues. Source: Gonzáles & Pratt 1995: 27.


Part 1 | 13

STAKEHOLDERS The stakeholder theory of the firm suggests that businesses are answerable to a number of groups when pursuing stated aims and objectives. These groups have traditionally been stockholders, customers and employees. Recently this neo-classical assumption has come into question since these three groups are directly involved with the organisation. Currently stakeholders are defined as all groups affected by a corporation’s decisions, policies and operations. Consumer groups, customers and competitors, suppliers, special interest groups, local communities, judiciary and lawmakers, journalists, public authorities, as well as scientists and researchers all have expecta-tions to the company. These are all stakeholders. Freeman was the first to systemise a way of thinking about stakeholders and defined stakeholders as:

“…any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the firm’s objectives.” (Wartick & Wood 1998: 96).

The dissertation mainly draws on stakeholder relation theory by Wartick & Wood (1998). Wartick & Wood synthesises the most important theorists within stakeholder relations and redesign it within an international business context.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY Most large European firms are confronted with stakeholders that are very diverse in terms of their cultural background. At the SPRØK programme, we have worked intensively with culture and its affect upon communication, management, strategy, and organisations. This dissertation will not contain a complete discussion of different ways to define and understand culture. In very broad lines, public relations’ and issues management’s approach to culture falls within two traditions: a structural functionalist approach and an interpretive, critical approach. Structural functionalism understands culture as embedded in the individual as a sort of cultural programming, which determines the individual’s patterns of action. Cultures are homogenic, de-lineated groups that share characteristics. Methodologically, structural functionalism seeks to re-duce cultures to a set of characteristics like religion, world-view, the relation between sexes etc. One of the most applied theorists is Hofstede that operates with five cultural dimensions. On the basis of retrieved characteristics, structural functionalism establishes taxonomies for how people belonging to a specific cultural group act or think. It does not distinguish between society and cul-ture and most often take the national culture as the point of reference. On the contrary, the interpretive, critical approach holds that culture is not embedded in the individ-ual but must be found in the relation between people. Culture and society are interconnected but in dynamic ways where the individual’s culture both shapes and is shaped by the surrounding society. Consequently, culture is not a stable set of characteristics but constantly open for new interpreta-tions and constructions. The interpretive, critical approach says that culture cannot be analysed by use of pre-defined dimensions – it can only be grasped on the basis of its own values (cultural rela-tivism) and in relation to a specific context. Methodologically, it uses what Clifford Geertz termed “thick descriptions” through interviews and field research. I argue that the interpretive, critical approach is most relevant for issues management. It respects the dissertation’s hermeneutic paradigm that enables us to consider issues as social constructs of



which stakeholders and companies do not hold fixed opinions. Their opinions are influenced by each other and factors surrounding the debate. In addition, structural functionalism has evident limitations when it comes to analyse culture in a society where people are constantly subject to various cultural influences from a global media and where many issues are transnational (Wartick & Wood 1998: 80). Gudykunst is a key contemporary theorist within cultural theory, who can be classified within the interpretive, critical approach. (Gudykunst 1998). He explains that we have different filters by which we interpret things and form opinion. These filters constitute a “system of knowledge”. The content of each filter is not a set of fixed characteristics, but constantly open for redefinition. He illustrates the filters in the following manner6: I will elaborate on how Gudykunst describes the different filters in part 2. For now, I should just explain what it signifies that the stakeholder environment is multicultural. From Gudykunst we learn that if refers to the fact that stakeholders have different “systems of knowledge”. The boundary of a culture is groups of people that share “systems of knowledge”. Gudykunst agrees with the interpre-tive, critical approach that “systems of knowledge” are constructivist. I do not believe we should entirely abandon the fact that our culture is shaped by the nation-state, because we live within an institutional system that influences our behaviour significantly. I argue for a more moderate interpretive, critical approach. Most often, national diversity also signifies cultural diversity because national differences influence our way of seeing and interpreting things (Banks 1995: 101). On the contrary, cultural diversity also exists within one nation-state, for example be-tween different ethnic or occupational groups. Gudykunst introduces the concept of the “stranger” as a broad term referring to any type of cultural diversity. He chooses this concept in order to find a common general concept referring to cultural diversity both in terms of national culture, race, ethnicity etc. I find that the term is very useful in grouping the different forms of culturally diversity that companies will experience between stake-holders.

6 There is a problem in Gudykunst’s model in that it assumes that the socio-culture always exist within the national culture. Global activist, for example, may share “systems of knowledge” that are totally detached from the national culture and truly supranational. This is why I draw dotted lines between the different layers.

Environment Environment

Gen. culture

Socioculture

Psychoculture

Figure 4: The cultural context. Source: Gudykunst 1992

System of knowledge


Part 1 | 15

Nevertheless, I should be even more precise about how to define cultural diversity in issues man-agement. By studying different cases, literature and articles I come to the conclusion that issues involve multicultural stakeholders when: ! Stakeholders from different national cultures are involved in the issue ! Stakeholders from different subcultures like ethnic, religious, racial or regional groups

are involved in the issue ! Stakeholders from a non-managerial business culture are involved in the issue: 1)

Stakeholders from different work groups, occupations etc. 2) Stakeholders from dif-ferent community relations (organisations in the local community like women rights groups, political parties, etc.). 3) Stakeholders from different NGOs like environmental groups, consumer groups etc. 4) Other stakeholder groups representing a non-managerial business culture.

With the model, I strive to illustrate the layers of cultural diversity that may be represented in the business environment. A Danish company may have to deal with an environmental group from South Africa, a Muslim women rights group from Saudi Arabia or a trade union from Denmark. Any of these represent degrees of strangeness to the company. The stranger concept is also useful because it explains that cultural diversity varies in degree ac-cording to the point of familiarity of strangeness we feel towards another person or group. Diversity is not a stigmatised difference but very variable. A Danish company is likely to feel more estranged towards the Muslim women rights group than towards the Danish trade union while both are cultur-ally different from the company. Banks (1995: 16) draws our attention to the fact that cultural diversity can be perceived as a differ-ence, meaning that people identify themselves with one group and perceive other cultures as devi-ance from the normal. Instead, Banks ague that we should understand diversity as variance. By seeing other cultures as variance of the normal, you become more open for fundamental modifica-

Subcultures

National cultures

National cultures

Subcultures

Work groups NGOs Community Other relations

Company

Non-managerial business culture

Figure 5: Cultural diversity of stakeholders. Source: Own with Inspiration from Banks 1995



tions to your own culture. Diversity is not only a barrier to overcome but can serve as inspiration for changes.

OTHER PERSPECTIVES A number of other theoretical perspectives could have been added to my research. Most impor-tantly, the corporate social responsibility literature could have been relevant because it shares simi-lar objectives with public relations: to enhance the quality of relationships of an organisation among key stakeholders. But the corporate social responsibility thinking only provides a tool for encapsu-lating the business environment and lacks effective communication methods. (Clark 2000). As con-crete methods for communication practice are necessary to enlighten how companies can prevent public relations crises, this perspective will not be treated here.

REFINED RESEARCH QUESTION The research question was originally stated as: How should companies in multicultural stakeholder environments manage issues in order to prevent crises? The conceptual framework drawn above enables me to refine the research question in the following manner:

Which generic principles for issues management in multicultural stake-holder environments should companies follow in order to prevent crises?

To define such principles, my research must aspire conclusions on two levels: 1. The first objective is to provide a more profound understanding of issues in multicul-

tural stakeholder environments, i.e. to identify generic principles for intercultural issues management on a conceptual level

2. The second objective is to assert how cultural diversity in the stakeholder environment

inflicts upon the issues management practice, i.e. to identify generic principles for in-tercultural issues management on an operational level.

This research question will guide the following pages of the dissertation at hand. In appendix 1, causal relations in the study are illustrated. For clearness, let me sum up the key concepts here: An issue “is a contestable point, a difference of opinion regarding fact, value or policy the resolution of which has consequences for the organisation’s strategic plan” (Heath 1997: 84). It originates from a legitimacy gap between stakeholder expectations and company performance. The public sphere comprises everything that takes place outside the business organisation. Issues generally penetrate the public sphere through the media, the public, and the political agendas. Issues Management is a proactive organised business activity that seeks to manage issues by formulating creative alternatives to constraints, regulations, or confrontation. It seeks to manage issues as early as possible by the use of a methodological process that comprises identification, analysis, response development and evaluation. Issues management builds on strategic planning and control and is implemented by communication activities.


Part 1 | 17

A stakeholder is any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the firm’s objectives. Cultural diversity signifies variance in people or group’s “system of knowledge”. The “system of knowledge” is the way specific people or groups interpret and ascribe meaning to what they ex-perience. It is shaped by one’s cultural norms, values and rules, socioculture as well as psychocul-ture. The boundaries of cultures are dynamic depending on the context. The company environment is multicultural if it comprises stakeholders that are part of different non-managerial business cul-tures, different subcultures or foreign national cultures. While the previous chapters have described the concepts individually, they have not explained their dynamics. However, before attempting this analysis, some epistemological comments are indis-pensable.

THE NORMATIVE STUDY TYPE The dissertation leads towards a normative study. Normative studies describe how things should be done or an activity carried out. In contrast, a positive study explains how and why things are actually done. The normative approach sets some directions for my research:

“In developing a normative theory, theorists have no obligation to show that an activity actually is conducted in the way the theory describes. They must show only that if an activity were to be conducted as the theory describes, it would be effective.” (Vercic in Culbertson & Chin 1996: 33)

It follows that my starting point must be to develop an ideal model of how to conduct issues man-agement in a multicultural stakeholder environment. A normative study may provide guidelines that are logical and sustained but are not practical in the sense that they could not be implemented in an actual situation. For instance, it could be the case if my solutions were very costly or time-consuming for a company to follow. In fact, nothing would be wrong about that theory in a scientific sense. But in addition to being normative, the dissertation has a strategic imperative. I hope to indicate ways to improve issues management practice. Therefore, my conclusions should be rele-vant for those companies. That is in line with good scientific research in public relations. Massy and Weitz have revealed: “Useful normative theory should prove solutions under typical conditions in actual practice.” (Vercic in Culbertson & Chin 1996: 33). At this stage, I should draw a line back to the dissertation’s hermeneutic paradigm and the social constructivist nature of issues. Constructivism neglects that there is one recipe for how companies’ should react or issues be managed. Therefore, the normative objective of this dissertation is to equip companies’ to better understand issue debates and stakeholders reactions on the premises of each context, issue or stakeholder relation. That clearly disqualifies any clear-cut list of how to react in any situations in respect to all stakeholders.



GENERIC PRINCIPLES I could have chosen to research how issues management is conducted in different regions of the world or towards specific stakeholders. Instead, I want to propose some generic principles for is-sues management across cultural differences. I can explain the difference between the two studies this way: Cross-cultural issues management would explain the difference between how issues management is conducted in one culture in comparison to another. Intercultural issues manage-ment investigates how issues management is conducted between people or groups from different cultures. Obviously, I investigate intercultural issues management. I essentially research an approach between cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. A cultural rela-tive theory would say that issues management must be conducted differently towards each cultural grouping of stakeholders. Contrarily, an ethnocentric approach would maintain that one single ap-proach is applicable even though it is couched in the cultural values of its origin. I do not deny that different forms of issues management can be found in different locations. But I maintain that all of these forms of practice will not be effective in helping companies to manage issues (Vercic, Grunig and Grunig in Culbertson and Chin 1996: 34). Companies need a way to identify and analyse is-sues globally without loosing sight of the cultural differences that will affect the response of different stakeholders and how issues develop. Therefore, in searching for generic principles, I explore tran-scendent elements for excellent issues management across cultures rather than specific elements for issues management in specific cultures. The issues management literature has developed a number of generic principles for excellent is-sues management. I must essentially investigate in which ways these generic principles, and their premises and logic, change when practice takes place in a multicultural stakeholder environment in comparison to a stakeholder environment where less cultural diversity exist. Or in theoretical terms, when issues management moves to an intercultural context.

EPISTEMOLOGY The scientific objective of the dissertation guides my epistemological approach7. The scientific ob-jective is to conceptualise generic principles for issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments. Furthermore, as the hermeneutic paradigm indicates, I must focus on providing companies with an understanding of issues (legitimacy gaps) in the interface between their actions and the expectations by a multicultural set of stakeholders.

THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS In order to be able to study specific aspects of public relations and issues management it is neces-sary to first obtain an overall understanding. Andersen describes that only by an understanding of the entire field can we make a qualified analysis of the selected aspects of that field (1997: 250). That reflects the scientific process I have been through in my research, because I have studied a very large extent of more or les well-founded articles, books and reports about public relations, crisis management, issues management and culture before narrowing down my research focus.

7 This chapter draws on Andersen 1997.


Part 1 | 19

I do not work with specific hypotheses. This is because research into intercultural aspects of issues management is very scarce. Contrarily, my research is aimed at finding such hypotheses through a theoretical as well as empirical analysis. The scientific process has to a large extent been explor-ative. The dissertation will follow a deductive process - the point of departure will be a theoretical analy-sis. I then test the deduced propositions on empirical case studies. When that is said, it is evident that no research follows a pure inductive or deductive epistemology. Both deliberately and uncon-sciously, the theoretical focus has been shaped by my empirical observations. But my approach is predominantly deductive, which needs some further argumentation that I present below.

THEORY It is striking how an overwhelming amount of authors have criticised public relations and issues management for its lack of grounded theory and academic knowledge (Banks 1995: 3, Culbertson & Chin, 1996, Hultbrugge 2001: 105, Ihator 2001: 38). They have argued that this negatively influ-ences the professionalisation of the field. The lack of a solid theoretical foundation is especially true in respect to international and intercultural aspects of public relations and issues management. Banks says:

“Practitioners need more information about the nature of diversity and a clearer theoretical understanding of cultural variability and what it implies for public rela-tions communication.” (Banks 1995: 3).

Culbertson and Chin have directed one of the better books about international public relations and state:

“What is needed is a foundation of principles and assumptions that come from scholarly research and theory building on what comprises effective practice in international public relations” (1996: 19). “…most articles on international public relations have been anecdotal or descriptive.”(…..) ”..scientifically non-serious sources.” (1996: 18).

In reviews of curricula in public relations studies, Tooth (1999) as well as Taylor (2001) have pointed out that more attention must be directed to multiculturalism and international perspectives. From my own research, I can only agree with these opinions. At least half of the books and articles I have been through have been too weak to provide anything but entertainment. Much literature is focused on practical guides often ending with an uncritical conclusion or a list of 10 golden rules. From the remaining half of the literature, maybe 10 pct. passes the test as being theoretically sound. Many public relations practitioners have considered theory too longhaired but such a statement reflects a lack of understanding of what constitutes theory. Theory is a set of more or less system-atic and empirically tested experiences. Actually, much of the published material about issues management and public relations is very interesting and based on genuine experiences but it suf-



fers from a systematic account of the corner stones in good theory: What are the causes of the phenomena under investigation, what are their affect and under which conditions do they prevail? On that basis, I feel there is a need for a thorough and academically profound analysis of theories that can contribute towards answering my research question. In the theoretical loophole, my scien-tific contribution is to produce new knowledge about issues management in multicultural stake-holder environments. I have chosen to do this in two ways: One, by taking a deep dig into the vari-ety of issues management literature to identify parts that focus on the intercultural aspect. And two, investigate theories from related fields and apply them to issues management situations. The dissertation will draw on a number of different theorists. Nevertheless, some literature will be predominant in the writing of the interdisciplinary theoretical analysis. Within issues management, I mainly draw on Robert L. Heath combined with Chase & Jones and Crabble & Vibbert as concerns specific issues management techniques. Gudykunst’s framework of cultural theory and intercultural communication will be used and complemented with Ting-Toomey. And finally, Wartick & Wood will be central to the parts focusing on stakeholder relation theory. The dissertation’s theoretical orien-tation is illustrated below: Corneliussen says that there are three ways we can think of theory linked to practice in issues management: Instrumental, where we find concrete solutions to problems by extensive empirical research. Conceptual, where we find general frames, views and concepts that practitioners use to form their world-views. Or translational, where the practitioner translates theory, reinterpret it and assigns it new meaning. My contribution must be a conceptual approach. From the conclusions in this dissertation, issues managers may, I hope, enlarge their world-views of the complexity that comprises issues management in a multicultural stakeholder environment.

EMPIRICAL RESEARCH Following the theoretical analysis, I will conduct an empirical study. Let me clarify how the empirical study is linked to my research: Andersen reminds us that there are different ways to utilize empirical data. We can gather data and seek to explain or interpret it from existing theory. We can try to find data that can elaborate on and extend theories. Or we can use empirical data to modify or discard theory. In this dissertation, the empirical data will primarily serve to test the generic principles that I inferred from the theoretical analysis, which is the last of the above examples. It is important to underline that I do not seek to make a survey of how companies generally perform issues management

Issues management

(Heath)

Int. cult. Com. (Gudykunst)

Stakeholderrelations

(Wartick & wood)

Interdisciplinary theoretical analysis

Figure 6: Theoretical disciplines


Part 1 | 21

across cultural boundaries and/or evaluate their efforts. In accordance with what I stated in the description of “the normative study”:

The empirical research seeks to fulfil the objective of testing normative conclu-sions in real life practice.

I acknowledge that my subjective research approach leads me, inevitably, to classify certain obser-vations as information and others as exformation. Exformation is the information that I, on an in-stinctive level or voluntarily, do not pay attention to. Therefore, the empirical study therefore not only addresses whether conclusions from the theoretical analysis are valid. It also investigates whether I have addressed the right questions in the theoretical analysis in the first place. Conse-quently, I remain open to new generic principles during the empirical research. Empirical data are different from theory in that it is new and unsystematised experiential observa-tions. A part of the analysis will be supplemented by secondary data, primarily from articles in pro-fessional journals. Nevertheless, the far most significant part of the analysis will be based on per-sonal interviews with 6 large European corporations. Andersen shows that if the scientific objective is interpretive, it compels a qualitative study because I need to get insight into people’s own interpretations. As a result, all empirical data are qualitative.

PERSONAL INTERVIEWS I have selected 6 companies with whom I conducted personal interviews during a period of two weeks. In order to obtain a high degree of relevance, the selection criteria have been the following: a) The company has subsidiaries in multiple countries b) The corporate communication/public relations department must deal with international issues c) The interview must be with a representative from the headquarter 6 very interesting companies both in terms of experience and excellence in communication and in terms of presence in the Danish and international public sphere participated in interviews. The companies are Lego, IKEA, SAS, Shell, Novo Nordisk and Grundfos. All interviewees work directly with communication/public relations activities. I deliberately chose to speak to daily practitioners of issues management or communication, rather than with the head of department. My assumption was that on the basis of their hands-on experiences, they would be most qualified to critically evaluate conclusions from the theoretical analysis. The interviews have been what Andersen calls semi-structured. On beforehand, I defined a set of questions and thereby influenced (provided stimuli for) the answers. At the same time, I left much space for new perspectives put forward by the respondents during the interview, which becomes evident reading through the summaries. Such an approach must be considered appropriate in this dissertation in order to achieve a concrete and relevant validation of the theoretical conclusions from part 2. At the same time, I acknowledge that important aspects of reality might have been suppressed by this research technique. I noticed that many interesting comments were only put



forward after I had turned off the dictaphone. This underlines the fact that structured interviews inevitably limit respondents to a certain extent. I did not ask all respondents identical questions. It is very sensible for company representatives to speak about public issues. There was a great risk that simply questioning any sort of public issue would generate too superficial answers. Consequently, during the interviews I made reference to some concrete examples of issues that the company had been involved in lately. The intention was to make questions easier to relate to. This methodology explains some of the inconsistency in the interviews. In addition, the respondents often jumped ahead in my interview guide. It could have been overcome by, on beforehand, outlining the entire interview and interrupting if respondents went outside the plan. Nevertheless, many questions necessitated reflections and interpretations and I felt the best way to achieve such answers was to allow a large margin of freedom in the inter-view procedure. Moreover, it proved out to be challenging to get the respondents from a level of describing issues and issues management to a level of reflection. I did succeed to reach that level, but I feel that I could have been even more persistent in obtaining thoughtful answers. It is important to underline that only one interview was conducted in each company. In the analysis, it became clear that the respondents’ background influenced the answers. Obviously, it would have provided a greater degree of validity if I had interviewed several people in each organisation. Nev-ertheless, as one person was in charge of issues management in the companies, I am far from convinced that interviews with several people in each company would have provided new and valuable information. Also, the project plan did not leave time for such extensive empirical re-search. It can be questioned whether interviews with six companies are sufficient to evaluate my theoretical conclusions. A larger sample of interviews would have provided an even greater amount of data and perspectives. Nevertheless, the interviews do not function to validate the theoretical conclu-sions in a representative way. One respondent’s interpretation of issues management is valid even though the other respondents do not share that picture of reality. Consequently, a greater sample of respondents would not have increased the validity of my study. Also, it would have limited the possibilities to go into an in-depth analysis of the interviews, which I do in Part 3. Nevertheless, during my empirical research, I became very inspired by the people I spoke to and I feel that I would have gained even greater knowledge of issues management had I conducted more inter-views. I guess balancing time, resources and the envy to carry out in-depth research once capti-vated by a subject is every researcher’s dilemma.

ANALYSIS OF EMPIRICAL DATA I have found it challenging to analyse the empirical data. Interpretation is a creative process that demands structure and openness at the same time. Especially, it has been demanding to find the correct balance between viewing my interview persons as “experts” while critically assessing their comments in the light of their background and position. First I categorised information from the interviews on the basis of propositions deduced from the theoretical analysis. I extracted small entities in each interview that made sense on their own and sorted them according to these categories. Then, a second level of categorisation was made with subcategories within each proposition. It demands great effort in terms of not staying too blinded by


Part 1 | 23

the framework I had developed through the theoretical analysis. While reading through the inter-views over and over again, suddenly new perspectives were drawn to light. As intendedm this fi-nally enabled a critical assessment of the theoretical conclusions.

GENERAL VALIDITY My objective is to go a step further than other literature about issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments. I seek to outline a new framework; both on a theoretical research agenda but also the possibilities it has in practice. That is a serious objective and I am conscious that my contribution towards that end has to be of a somewhat limited character. A six-month study that the SPRØK program assigns to the dissertation writing does not leave resources for an exhaustive analysis. Nevertheless, I do not think that the objective is too ambitious. Firstly, I will be able to question the applicability of existing issues man-agement principles in multicultural stakeholder environments. Secondly, I can propose how other theoretical fields can supplement existing issues management literature in areas where it demon-strates deficiencies. And thirdly, I can speak to companies that have experience with issues man-agement in intercultural contexts in order to validate my conclusions. I leave it to the individual reader to determine whether I have succeeded. But I would like to outline some of the validity crite-ria that I should be judged from. I draw some theories and their concepts together that, normally, are not treated in relation. I take the concepts out of their habitual context and put them into a new with the objective to enlighten a problem, that there is no unequivocal answer to. Consequently, it is of supreme importance that there is coherence between the concepts and how I use them both on a theoretical and empirical level. This is the first criterion. Next, I must be able to say something new about the concepts and the problem from my analysis. I have to stimulate my knowledge so that a new reality occurs that can lead towards further generation of knowledge. This should be a second criterion.


PART 2

INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORETICAL ANALYSIS

Part 2 | 25

INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORETICAL ANALYSIS

Part 1 has set the scene for the following pages of this dissertation. It demonstrated which key concepts should shape the research and it described them individually. Part 1 concluded that in order to answer the research question, I should investigate in which ways the generic principles behind issues management, and their premises and logic, change when practice moves to a multi-cultural stakeholder environment. Part 2 will work towards that end. First, part 2 takes a look at existing literature. Then, it moves on to describe what stakeholder the-ory and intercultural communication can add to issues management. These two chapters will pro-vide a more profound understanding of intercultural issues management on a conceptual level, stated as the dissertation’s first aspiration in the research question. (Refer page 16). The remaining section of part 2 will focus on the second aspiration. I take the reader through a critical analysis of issues management practices and tools and assess their applicability in multicultural stakeholder environments.

EXISTING THEORETICAL FOUNDATION



Existing literature that deals with the interplay between culture and issues management employs different methodologies and draws on different theoretical traditions. Below, I have conceptualised the literature in a matrix on the basis of how the authors approach the concept of “culture”. On the horizontal axes I divide the literature into their type of study: 1. Intracultural studies. (Study of one culture’s influence on issues management practice) 2. Cross-cultural studies. (Comparison of two cultures’ issues management practice) 3. Intercultural studies. (Study of issues management practice between different cultures) On the vertical axes I divide the literature into their theoretical approach8: a. A structural functionalist culture approach b. An interpretive, critical approach Part 1 explained that I make an intercultural study and that I should approach “culture” from an interpretive, critical angle. Thus, literature that appears in the lower right side of the tables is most relevant. Nevertheless, contributions from the structural functionalist approach can be interesting if approached in a critical manner.

STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALIST INTERPRETIVE/ CRITICAL INTRA-CULTURAL

Heath: The company culture influences the perception of issues.

CROSS-CULTURAL

Taylor: People respond differently to same issues in different cultures.

Winter & Steger: Actions legitimate in one social environment may be illegitimate in another. Stakeholders have different importance in different social environments.

INTER-CULTURAL

Nigh & Cochran: International issues management is different from national issues management because its premises change.

Banks: Issues management with multicultural activists must be based on an interactive communication model and they should seek common ground of reference through genuine dialogue. Heath: Differences between activists and companies are based on cultures, which are “zones-of-meaning”. Dialogue makes the boundaries of “zones-of-meaning” constructivist. Compatible and incompatible zones-of-meaning” are at the basis of legitimacy gaps. Wilson: To function well internationally, we must redesign issues management within the context of “strategic cooperative communi-ties”. That term refers to forums organised around an issue where companies and stakeholders meet in order to discuss and reach compromises between their opinions. (in Culbertson & Chin)

Figure 7: Literature about issues management and culture

Below I draw a second table containing literature that focus on public relations and culture. Some of the general conclusions from public relations may be interesting in issues management as well.

8 In the prior chapter “Cultural Diversity” the reader may find an introduction to these two theoretical traditions.


Part 2 | 27

STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALIST INTERPRETIVE/ CRITICAL

INTRA-CULTURAL

Kent & Taylor: Public relations literature is based on American as-sumptions. Taylor: Cultures influence public relations communication. Taylor and Vasquez: Principles for excellent public relations mirror American values. Vercic et all.: European definition of public relations does not distin-guish between relations and communication as do Americans.

CROSS-CULTURAL

Coombs: Some parts of public relations are different in Norway, Austria and the US. Culbertson and Chin: Public relations practice varies across nation-alities. Grunig, Grunig, Sriramesh & Lyra: Principles for excellent public relations are also valid in India, Taiwan and Greece but need some adaptation. Grunig, Grunig and Vercic: Same as above in Slovenia.

INTER-CULTURAL

Leichty and Warner: People have different world-views to which are attached different cultural topoi. That can help to understand value-based debates. Companies need to move beyond ethnocentrism. Ihator: Knowledge of cross-applicable dimensions of culture, like those identified by Hofstede or Hall, is necessary to lead effective public relations between cultures. Vercic 1996: To be excellent, public relations share some generic principles across cultures but needs a culture-specific implementa-tion. Zaharna 2000: Communication-related activities of international public relations can be seen as a form of intercultural communica-tion, but public relations also functions in an institutional frame. Zaharna 2001: Each public relations activity represents a higher level or complex pattern of several culturally mediated behaviours. Hidden cultural assumptions leads to ineffective public relations.

Banks: 8 propositions for a social-interpretive theory of public rela-tions in international, activist, employee and community rela-tions. Concerns, and those that advocate them, will keep chang-ing and activism varies multicul-turally. Consequently, the effec-tive relationship for identifying and managing issues is based on interactivity rather than proactivity or reactivity. It sees stakeholders as collaborators and engages the company in dialogue wit its envi-ronment.

Figure 8: Literature about public relations and culture

First of all, figure X and x illustrate that few texts actually deal with issues management and culture at all. In addition, none of them investigates, as their primary objective, the relationship between culture and issues management. Culture appears as a secondary perspective among many other perspectives in these publications. Heath makes the most important conclusion about culture and issues management by saying that issues may arise because companies and stakeholders are part of different “zones of meaning”. Each text has some interesting conclusions but the tables clearly demonstrate that the literature seems more that a little chaotic and random. For sure, they do not fully equip issues managers to manage issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. I can conclude that no existing theory or exhaustive study provides a satisfactory answer to this dissertation’s research question. Conse-quently, I will search a satisfactory answer by looking at other theoretical fields. Issues management is already an interdisciplinary discipline that draws on three academic under-pinnings: system theory, rhetoric and social exchange (Heath 1997: x). My contribution will be to introduce two new theoretical fields that I find equally relevant when we study issues management in an intercultural context: Stakeholder relations and intercultural communication theory.

STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT



The “legitimacy gap” figure on page 8 showed that issues arise from a conflict between parties. Earlier, I identified companies’ stakeholders as anyone or any organisation with a stake in the company. In the following, I research in which ways knowledge from stakeholder theory may sup-port issues management.

ISSUE HOLDERS First of all, stakeholder theory can reveal to companies the variety of sources from which issues may arise and give these sources a name. That makes the identification of issues less random. Many companies tend to focus on a narrow set of stakeholders like customers, shareholders and employees. While these are important, it is only a small percentage of issues that arise in that inter-face. Examples could be falling stock prises or diversity in the workplace. But the majority of issues appear in other stakeholder relations. Stakeholder theory divides stakeholders into the transac-tional and contextual environment. Stakeholders in the transactional environment can influence companies through direct business relations while groups that belong to the contextual environ-ment have no direct market or business relations with companies and use other means of influ-ence. The two dimensions are shown below9.

Transactional environment Contextual environment Group Possible de-

mands Possible pressure tactics

Group Possible demands Possible pressure tactics

Customers Product quality, service, value

Purchasing deci-sions

Non-outside-pressure groups

Employees Security, com-pensation, job, satisfaction

Departure, negative publicity, reduced performance

Governments Taxes, employment, environmental pro-tection

Legislation, legal fines

Suppliers Regular pay-ments, continuity of business

Refusals to meet orders, supplying to competitors

Media Fair information Bad publicity

Sharehold-ers

Dividens, capital growth, safe investment

Voting and inspec-tion rights, buying and selling

Outside pressure groups

Creditors Interest, security capital

Refusing loans, calling in loans

Social activist groups

Employment, no discrimination, social justice

Publicising issues, lobbying, influenc-ing consumers

Insurances Safe operations, safe products

Refusing insurance coverage and can-celling contracts

Consumer organisations

Product quality, environmental pro-tection

Publicising issues, lobbying, influenc-ing consumers

Figure 9: Stakeholder groups. Source: Winter & Steger, 1998: 12.

Consequently, stakeholder theory adds the knowledge to issues management that obvious part-ners, like customers and shareholders, do not raise issues alone. Company performance also de-pends upon other stakeholders in society like governments and interest groups.

9 The figure cites far from all stakeholders and their possible demands and pressure tactics but it gives an impression about what some of those might be. Stakeholder theory says that each company must draw its individual map of stakeholders, their interest and pressure tactics.


Part 2 | 29

In addition, stakeholder theory points to the downfalls of overseeing important stakeholders in for-eign environments. Wartick and Wood explain that there are intercultural differences in stakeholder environments (1998: 107). Managers make mistakes if they assume that a domestic stakeholder map will tell them all they need to know about international stakeholder relations. Both the map itself and the importance of various stakeholders will differ from country to country. This way, stakeholder theory elaborates on the issues management literature by pointing to the international variance in which stakeholders may be involved in issues.

UNDERLYING INTERESTS Secondly, stakeholder theory can lead companies to better understand the interests that drive stakeholders to support or attack specific company actions or policies. In the introduction to issues, I stated that interests are key to understand issues and why they arise. Wartick & Wood identifies six stakeholder interests: Material int. Political int. Affiliative int. Informational Int Symbolic int. Spiritual int. Tangible or fungi-ble. Financial or non-financial

Distribution and uses of wealth and power be-tween company and public or in company.

Company fit with local community values. Desire to “belong” to same social group as people in com-pany

Greater transpar-ency. Search news, facts, opinions, data, research findings.

Broader concern with company’s image in commu-nity. Conformity with national or cultural values.

Deep-meanings, religious or phi-losophical values. Often underlie ethical conflicts.

Figure 10: Stakeholder interests. Source: Own with inspiration from Wartick & Wood 1998: 99.

Wartick and Wood say that stakeholder interests are as intricate and broad as human interests. A regular committed mistake by many companies is to debate an issue from a single or wrong per-spective – predictably, from the material side. Instead, stakeholders’ interests may be political or affiliative. This is illustrated in the Novo Nordisk case about access to medicine in third world coun-tries. In the beginning, Novo Nordisk focused their communication on protection of patent rights. Confronted with pictures of African children with AIDS in the television, many stakeholders put pressure on Novo Nordisk on the basis of political interests, notwithstanding that Novo Nordisk produces insulin and not AIDS medicine. Later, Novo Nordisk changed their argumentation. (Børsens Nyhedsmagasin 2001: 14). Consequently, this or similar lists from stakeholder theory describes the variety of underlying inter-ests that may lead stakeholders to come forward in an issue debate. By use of this knowledge, issues managers may be able to increase their understanding of different perspectives in issue debates.

PRIORITISATION BETWEEN ISSUES Thirdly, stakeholder theories can help issues managers to prioritise between issues. Some stake-holders are more important to the company that others and some have greater clout in the public debate. Companies cannot be everything to everybody – their approach has to be strategic. Mitchel, Agle and Wood (in Wartick and Wood 1997) have proposed a model that can help compa-



nies understand and predict if stakeholders become important. According to Mitchel, Agle and Wood, three attributes determine stakeholder action: ! The legitimacy of the group’s standing as a stakeholder or of its claim on the form ! The power of the stakeholder to influence behaviour ! The urgency of the stakeholder’s claim. If stakeholders possess all three attributes they are core stakeholders. Also, stakeholders are in-creasingly important the more they retain of each attribute, Mitchel, Agle and Wood say. That framework can also be valuable in issues management. An analysis of relative stakeholder importance will help issues managers to assess which stakeholder that are likely to put pressure on the organisation in public debates and consequently which issues that will attract most attention. This is very important for issues managers to acknowledge because it indicates that not only the nature of the issue itself decides whether it may mature into a public relations crises for the com-pany. The position of the issue holder – the stakeholder – is just, if not more, important. In many organisations, issues managers instinctively make such analyses. It is clear, that a claim coming from Greenpeace, a global and very influential environmental organisation, will achieve more attention by an issues manager than an issue raised by a local environmental organisation. But too often, for example when it comes to prioritise between shareholders and other stake-holders, the issues manager’s prioritisation is made on the basis of whom the company normally caters to (Winter & Steger 1998: 11). All the same, it is critical that proper analysis designs are lacking from issues management theories. Prioritisation between issues on the basis of relative stakeholder influence should take place on an explicit and structured level. In the end, this will in-crease issues managers’ possibility of effectively preventing public relations crisis.

UNIFIED AND CONFLICTING OPINIONS Knowledge about relations between stakeholders is another thing to draw from stakeholder theory. In some issues, different stakeholders will have competing interests that the company must bal-ance. When Nestlé was criticised because its infant milk formula proved to be harmful to babies in many third world countries, many competing interests were at play. Stakeholder expectations are often pulling in opposite directions. Thus, I propose that issues managers could manage issues more successfully if they not only communicate about the company position towards an issue but also informs about stakeholders’ competing interests. This may move focus from the company or at least create an understanding in the public for dilemmas the company faces. Additionally, stakeholders may come forward with competing demands simultaneously, in which case managers can give different attention to different side of issues. In other cases, stakeholders may unify to take a common stand against the company. This means that an issue raised by a rather insignificant stakeholder may need careful attention by the issues manager if the stakeholder is unified with some of the company’s most important stakeholders.


Part 2 | 31

Therefore, the analysis of issues should involve not only identification of the issue owners – the stakeholders – but also the web of relations that exist in the company’s entire stakeholder environ-ment. This is an important contribution from stakeholder relations theory to the issues management literature.

STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT I propose that the risk of global public relations conflicts and bad media coverage diminish if issues management seeks fruitful stakeholder dialogue and builds sustainable relations with stakeholders. This is even more essential when the stakeholder environment is multicultural. In that case, there is even greater need for close stakeholder relationships where companies and different stakeholders trough dialogue can reach mutual understanding of expectations and values that may be very di-verse. Laurie J. Wilson is one advocator for this argument. She writes:

“Undoubtedly, conflicts will arise. Even in a cooperative environment, partici-pants disagree. Nevertheless, when priority is placed on relationships, partici-pants are much more effective in developing compromises that benefit all com-munity members.” (Wilson in Culbertson & Chin 1996: 77)j

Wilson proposes a relationship model that she names “strategic cooperative communities”. Strate-gic cooperative communities are centred on a specific issue and involve parties having a stake in that particular issue. In the community, parties discuss and exchange information and viewpoints. Wilson lists a number of characteristics on which the community must be build in order to be suc-cessful (In Culbertson & Chin 1996: 76): ! Trust. Trust is a prerequisite for cooperation and a tangible result of relationships. Further,

credibility emanates from the fundamentals of trust. Trust and credibility must be maintained conscientiously and requires time and patience.

! Predictability. The degree to which a member’s actions can be predicted is an indicator of the relationship’s strength. Greater predictability provides better opportunities to cooperate for mu-tual benefit and thus to solve an issue to the benefit of all involved parties.

! Mutual interest. Communities must be organised around issues that typify interests. It is mean-

ingless to create communities with stakeholders not having a real interest in the central issue.

STAKEHOLDER A

COMPANY X Mutual understanding of issues

Figure 11: The aim of stakeholder dialogue. Source: Own



! Mutual gratification, or benefit. Issues managers must never try to manipulate the group for anything but a win-win situation. All participants must be benefactors as well as givers.

! Proximity. Members need to be able to access each other easily. Today, this is not necessarily

geographical but can be by use of modern information technology. Consequently, stakeholder theory proposes that companies build strategic cooperative communi-ties with stakeholders involved in a particular issue. The communities should be characterised by the five values listed above. The ultimate goal of such stakeholder relations and dialogue is to cre-ate mutual understanding between companies and stakeholders. A key attribute for issues man-agement will be the ability to early identify issues and closely monitor their development. In addi-tion, solutions to issues can often be found that satisfy all publics if people work together with a willingness to compromise for the benefit of the community. Thus, I hold that creation of strategic cooperative communities could enforce the issues management process both in the identification, analysis and response. This way, a company may be able to solve an eventual disagreement long before it penetrates the public sphere.

SUMMING UP Theory about stakeholder relations has much to offer to issues management. Issues management falls short in thoroughly defining which groups of people the company is dealing with. For that pur-pose the stakeholder concept is more precise. An issue may arise between a company and everyone or any organisation that have a stake in a company. Issues are not “islands” in the public sphere. They exist because individuals or organisa-tions bring them forward. Thus, through this chapter I have argued that issues should not be stud-ied isolated from the different parties in the debate and their interests – the issue holders or simply the stakeholders. Company-stakeholder relations are more complex and difficult but also richer and potentially more rewarding in multicultural contexts. Multicultural stakeholder environments are characterised by a diversity of values, expectations and interests. In order to accurately identify and analyse issues and respond in an effective manner, issues manages will need a profound understanding of in-volved stakeholders. I propose that an enhanced understanding of stakeholders can lead compa-nies to more successful issues management practices in multicultural stakeholder environments. In addition, such an understanding may be rewarding for the company in the long run and improve future issues management practices and business activities. On the basis of the interdisciplinary theoretical analysis, I conclude that at least four elements of stakeholder theory can move communication practitioners towards a more profound understanding of issues and issues management. Again, these can be translated into to some principles for effec-tive issues management practice, which are listed in the figure below.


More pro-found un-derstanding of issues management

Ihtets(hcc

takeholders have ifferent importance o companies. Their otential influence in public issue debate ary due to differ-nces in their power,

egitimacy and ur-ency.

Stakeholders have internal relations independently of the company. Stake-holders may compete or unify in specific issues and mutually influence each other.

IstthCoe

Spbhialud

Identify the web of relations that exist in the company’s entire stakeholder environ-ment and use such mapping in the issue analysis.

Proposition for stake-holder analysis in issues man-agement
As the last boxsustainable staand thereby of “strategic coopbers around kemutual benefit.strategic coopeagement practifor the business Stakeholder thement are abilititheir possibilitiebuild sustainabsuccessfully red
Proposi-tion for implemen-tation

Cc“p

ssue holders - stake-olders - both reside in he close business nvironment (contex-ual) and the larger ocietal environment transactional). Stake-olders may differ onsiderably across ultures.

in the model explainkeholder dialogue is aissues. More specificaerative communities”. Iy issues. In addition,

These principles are rative communities w

ce in multicultural stake organisation.

ory suggests that mees to accurately defines of influence and thele relations and dialoguuce the risk of crises f

reate sustainable stakeholdhanging information about isstrategic cooperative commuredictability, mutual interests

A variety of interests lead stakeholders to raise issues. Stake-holder interests are often different from company interests. Interests can be mate-rial, political, affiliative, informational, symbolic, spiritual or other.

Sdtpavelg

dentify issue holders - takeholders - from both he contextual and ransactional stake-older environment. reate individual maps f stakeholders in differ-nt cultural settings.

Investigate underly-ing interests that lead stakeholders to raise issues. Group them into for example material, political, affiliative, informa-tional, symbolic or spiritual interests.

s, stakeholder theoryn effective way to gally, the chapter has et distinguishes itself it is based on core pat the heart of issueith stakeholders couholder environments

asurements of effect stakeholders involveir web of contacts. The with them. Such sk

or the business organ

er dialogue with stakeholdesues and finding common nities”. Base the communi, mutual gratification or be

ustain a strategic rioritisation of issues y assessing stake-olders’ potential

nfluence through an nalysis of the power,

egitimacy and the rgency of their emands.

Part 2 | 33

proposes to issues management that in better understanding of stakeholders xplored one relationship model labelled from other models by organising mem-rinciples of trust, mutual interests and

s management. I propose that building ld strengthen companies’ issues man-. Again, this can reduce the risk of crisis

iveness in intercultural issues manage-d in issues, understand their interests, is should be coupled with the ability to ills will equip issues managers to more isation.

rs involved in key issues with the aim of ex-solutions to them. Possibly use the model of ties on the minimum characteristics of trust, nefit and proximity.

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT



In this chapter, I investigate in which ways theories of intercultural communication may support issues management. I mainly draw on Gudykunst that is one of the pioneers within intercultural communication research (Gudykunst & Kim 1992; Gudykunst 2002). Intercultural communication involves communication between people from different cultures (Gudykunst 2002: 19). Intercultural communication theory can help us to understand what is spe-cial about issues management when it involves parties that are culturally diverse. Let me explain why: Heath points out that as companies and stakeholders begin to form opinions about an issue they engage in intentional or unintentional communication. In that process, they come to share “evalua-tive frameworks” with groups and unify with them in order to advocate their interests. Other groups will have conflicting ideas. These last groups and the company then become part of different “zones of meaning” that lead them to form different opinions. (Heath 1997: 43). I attempt to replace Heath’s notion of “zones of meaning” with that of “culture”. Actually, in the concluding chapter of his latest very comprehensive book on issues management, Heath opens this possibility himself:

“…we can see the challenge of issues management as being the satisfactory reconciliation of conflicts that results from a clash of cultures – that of the or-ganization being represented and those of key publics whose expectations arise from cultural perspectives that are or at least seem to be different from those of the organization.” (1997: 364). “The agenda that arises from this array of per-spective may lead us to refine our views of how corporate organizations….and other groups of stakeholders enact their self-interests…..so that opportunities can be exploited and threats avoided.”(…) “…the key to this process is the kinds of evaluative frameworks that operate as compatible or incompatible zones of meaning.”(…) “These zones influence….and rationalize that kinds of actions that are seen to be responsible or irresponsible.” (1997: 365)

From the quotes, I understand that companies and stakeholders have different cultures (compatible or incompatible zones of meaning) and consequently form different opinions (evaluative frame-works) about issues. So culture leads them to advocate a stand on an issue. Culture impacts their opinion and provides the logic for that decision. I need to ask if the substitution of Heath’s notion of “zones of meaning” with that of “culture” actu-ally takes us towards a more profound understanding of issues management in a multicultural stakeholder environment? I believe so. Cultural theory and intercultural communication explain in depth the process by which cultures are created and how they influence opinion-making, actions, behaviour and communication pursued by companies and stakeholders in relation to issues. Inter-cultural communication theory may help us to understand sources of eventual agreement of dis-agreement that lie beneath an issue. Such a deeper understanding can lead companies to take advantage of agreements and countervail the negative consequences of disagreement between the business organisation and its environment.


Part 2 | 35

The communicative aspect of intercultural communication is relevant because in addition to being strategic management, issues management is a communicative activity between companies and stakeholders (Heath 1990: 29). In saying this, I see communication in its broadest sense as a process that takes place both intentionally and unintentionally. All behaviour, verbal as non-verbal, between parties is communication. Zaharna argues, and I agree, that by breaking down public relations activities into communication elements, we can depict hidden cultural facets.

“From an intercultural perspective, each public relations activity represents a higher-level or complex pattern of several culturally-mediated behaviours. It is because of this complexity that public relations practices are ripe for hiding cul-tural assumptions. However one can expose cultural assumptions by breaking these complex activities into basic communication components.” (Zaharna 2001: 142).

VALIDITY When undertaking the interdisciplinary analysis, it quickly becomes evident that intercultural com-munication is a phenomenon while issues management is a process employed by practitioners – a profession. I recognise that not all parts of the intercultural communication theory are valid when studying issues management. The majority of intercultural communication theory sets a person at each end of the communication process. In my approach, I substitute the person for a company and a stakeholder. It is debatable whether such a substitution is feasible. The question must be whether the same factors influence inter-group communication as interper-sonal communication. In inter-group communication we cannot look at cognition at the personal level alone. We also need to understand how information is processed through each group in the end forming a common response. At first, information is processed through representatives from each group (the personal level). But within a group, the final meaning or opinion (the group’s stand in relation to an issue) is, in addition to personal cognition, based on power, institutional, economic and other structures in that group. Issues managers operate within a business organisation that shapes the way they behave and the objectives they seek. They also function within a broader institutional frame being subject to laws, economic measures, policies etc. (Zaharna 2000: 10). Below, I try to illustrate some contextual factors shaping the issues management practice.

Figure 12: The internal and institutional context of issues management. Source: own

Issues Managers

Main objectives

Organisational structure

Product characteristics

Marketing activities

Manufacturing / operations

Type of interna-tional presence

Political ideology

Societal tolerance

Strengths of labour unions

Relation gov-business

State-to-state relations

Media development

Level of economic development

Other factors

INTERNAL SYSTEM

INSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM



As Zaharna has pointed out, we can use intercultural communication theory to study the communi-cation-related activities of issues management but we must understand the broader frame issues management operates within. It is not my objective to show how the contextual factors influence issues management. But in the remaining, I recognise that other dynamics but cultural causes should be taken into consideration when explaining stakeholders’ and companies’ different stands and behaviour in respect to issues. In focusing on cultural aspects, I do not claim that other ele-ments are irrelevant.

BASICS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION Having clarified this difference, I now turn to the interdisciplinary analysis. In the chapter “cultural diversity” on page 13, I showed that culture should be conceptualised as our “system of knowl-edge” that determines how we understand and interpret things we experience. Basically, intercultural communication theory holds that the way we communicate and perceive communication is conditioned by our culture. Consequently, when we communicate across cul-tures, there are differences in how we communicate and the sense we make of that communica-tion. Gudykunst shows this in his central model of intercultural communication, which elaborates on the model I drew on page 14. He attempts to ground the communication process not only in the environmental context but also in relation to the cultural influences that affects the sender and re-ceiver’s coding and decoding of messages. Gudykunst’s model becomes useful in this dissertation because through its systematic methodol-ogy, I can study issues management as a sort of intercultural communication. First, I investigate cultural influences on the cognition of issues (the process within each circle). Then, I examine cul-tural influences on issues communication between companies and stakeholders (the lines between the circles).

Figure 13: Intercultural Communication. Source: Gudykunst 1992: 33

Gen. culture

Socioculture

Psychoculture

B

Gen. culture

Socioculture

Psychoculture

System of knowledge

A

Message/Feedback

Message/Feedback

Environmental Context

Environmental Context

D

E D

E

E= Encoding of messages D= Decoding of messages

System of knowledge


Part 2 | 37

CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTION

GENERAL CULTURAL FILTER The outer filter, the general cultural influences, refers to ! Values, which are shared perceptions of desired ends of social life and the means to reach

these goals. Values indicate what is good and bad, important and unimportant. ! Norms and rules that determine what we see as acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and

expected behaviours for particular situations. If we look at why issues arise, the legitimacy gap model illustrated that they originate from a dispar-ity between expectations and corporate behaviour - differences in facts, values and interests. As Näsi & Näsi has shown, legitimacy is “a social construct based on cultural norms for corporate behaviour” (1997: 300). Consequently, corporate legitimate behaviour in one culture may be per-ceived as illegitimate in another. Legitimacy is not an abstract definition about what is “right” but a social perception about what constitute legitimate actions and policies. Heath shows that this is true in the relation between activists and companies:

“Each activist group develops its unique view of what ought to be”….“Such groups form a culture that views the world and evaluates business activities in terms that may be at odds with preferences of company executives.” (1997: 158)

As Wartick and Wood argue, the principles of corporate social responsibility are not particularly culture-bound. Principles in the global market place or with regard to any stakeholder are the same and refer to 1) society is a source of legitimacy and can withdraw that legitimacy; 2) business are not responsible for all problems, but for the ones they have caused; 3) business managers have personal responsibilities for their own acts (1998: 76). What is culturally bound is what we put into those principles, i.e. what constitute legitimate corporate performance and the way companies choose to address them. Consequently, the first thing to conclude is that legitimacy is culturally bound. It becomes obvious that if the stakeholder environment is multicultural, the likelihood that issues will arise increases simply because there will be more diversity in terms of what is seen as legitimate corporate behaviour and what is not. The cultural anchor of legitimacy is also extremely important for how companies must manage issues. The arguments that stakeholders use in a debate may seem unsustained, wrongly defined or inconsistent in the eyes of the company. Often, arguments are not based on logic and lack sci-entific or technical justification. The essential thing is whether they have plausibility in the eyes of stakeholders and the general public and match their values (Winter & Steger 1998: 34). The Brent Spar incident is evidence of that. Before deciding on the sea dumping, Shell conducted 30 studies on possible options that concluded that sea dumping would cause the least harm to the environ-ment in addition to being most cost-effective. Despite this, environmental activists and eventually most of the general public strongly opposed Shell’s decision. Shell’s norms were based on scien-tific logic (we have to dump it in some way or the other and have chosen the least environmentally harmful option) while the activists were acting upon more emotional norms (it is unacceptable to dump an oil platform into the sea and cause damage on sea life). It is also striking that there was



no political opposition to the decision, when Shell first went public with it because many politicians were able to buy into Shell’s logic argument. The political response only occurred after criticism from activist stakeholders. (Winter & Steger 1998: 16). By looking at “general cultural influences” it is possible to see that some issues will occur in multi-cultural stakeholder environments that would never arise in so-called unicultural environments. This is due to the fact that we generally distinguish between one-sided and two-sided topics (Nielsen 2000: 29). To be an issue, a topic must be two-sided, i.e. there must be at least two conflicting arguments. Issues can be one-sided, let us say, in Scandinavian countries and two-sided in the Middle East because the two regions experience differences in norms, rules and values. It follows that if companies are not aware of those differences, they may consider an issue “dead”, while in fact in may turn into a crisis. Nielsen explains an example:

“The modern debate over feminism could be considered as an example of how some groups try to define feminism as a zero-sided topic (“feminism is old-fashioned and irrelevant, drop it”), while others strive to define it as a one-sided topic (“we still do not have equal rights between sexes, let us discuss why”). And in other cultures it is a two-sided topic (“should we have equal rights be-tween sexes at all”).” (Nielsen 2000: 32)10

On the basis of extensive research, Coates, Coates, Jarratt and Heinz found that companies very often “downplay or deny deep-seated, lasting, and insoluble conflicts associated with its activities or re-interpret those conflicts as problems” (1986: 19). To stay with Nielsen’s terminology, they see issues as zero-sided or one-sided. They automatically seek out definitive answers and solutions. Ignorance of the general cultural filter that shape companies and their different stakeholders re-spectively increases that tendency, which, again, reduces organisations’ ability to anticipate emerg-ing issues or even deal with them in an effective manner. Next, Gudykunst says that knowledge of strangers’ values can help us make more accurate cul-tural predictions about their behaviour. Values indicate what is good and bad, important and unim-portant. That supposition can enlarge our understanding of issues management. Many issues oc-cur because of a disparity in “desired ends of social life and the means to reach these goals.” Think of work-related issues about race or sex or about an issue like child labour, which many Western companies have had to solve in East Asia. The conclusion to draw from this chapter is that knowledge of stakeholders’ values helps compa-nies to better anticipate issues and stakeholders’ actions. If a company has some knowledge about its various stakeholders’ values or simply is conscious that diversity of values may exist, it will be able to see more faces of an issue and if not sympathise with stakeholders then at least under-stand their reactions. Ultimately, this should lead towards more effective issues management. Gudykunst also shows that norms and rules guide our behaviour. By understanding strangers’ as well as our own norms and rules, we communicate more effectively, he holds. Norms and rules guide what we think we or others “ought to be doing”. Definitely, many issues arise because of different perceptions of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in specific situations. To mention 10 Translated from Danish


Part 2 | 39

an example: Is it acceptable to employ underage workers? Or even to get supplies from companies that do so? Opinions about that question are influenced by norms and rules in our culture. Thus, the last conclusion must be that if companies pay attention to stakeholders’ norms and rules they should be able to conduct better issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments.

SOCIOCULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTION The second conceptual filter in Gudykunst’s model, sociocultural influences, refers to: ! Memberships of social groups, which can be nations, companies, organisations or racial, eth-

nic, social class etc. It is any group with which we share factual characteristics (age, wage level etc.), or value orientation (egalitarianism, environmental protection, pacifism etc.).

! Role expectations, which signify “a set of behavioural expectations associated with a particular position in a social group” (Gudykunst 1992: 75). It could be in terms of the occupational role, (an accountant should act differently than a human resource manager in the same company), managerial position or other. It guides how formal we think we should be, if we are high or low in the hierarchy etc.

! Self-conceptions that involves a process of self-categorisation where we group ourself into categories with others that we see as similar on some dimensions. The perceived similarity is a major factor deciding who we like to approach in communication.

The sociocultural filter provides a more profound understanding of issues in multicultural stake-holder environments. Different parties in a public debate often come from different socio-cultural groups like companies versus activists, NGOs, politicians etc. Gudykunst’s theory shows that membership of groups leads us to ascribe different meaning to the same issues. In addition, role expectations guide assumptions and prejudices that companies may hold towards other parties in a debate. A representative from an activists organisation may expect a manager from a multinational company to only think of increasing profit while the manager may believe the activists lacks under-standing of the conditions companies have to comply with to survive. Consequently, since roles tend to vary across cultures, it is necessary for issues managers to know stakeholders’ role expec-tations if they are to understand and accurately predict their behaviour and manage issues effec-tively. The self-categorisation aspect also influences companies’ approach to issues. From Gudykunst’s theory I infer that it is a natural tendency for companies to approach stakeholders that somehow share similar value orientations and worldviews. If companies are unaware of this fact, they may undeliberately avoid engaging with stakeholders that are critical towards the organisation. Such stakeholder engagement is paramount in order to detect issues in an early phase and manage them once occurred. From Gudykunst’s theory I can deduce that if companies are to mange issues effectively, they must understand the way stakeholders categorise relationships and the expecta-tions they have for people in each category. Without this knowledge they cannot correctly interpret or make accurate sociocultural predictions about stakeholders’ behaviour or resolve any conflicts through the issues management practice.

PSYCHOCULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTION The last filter in Gudykunst’s model is the psychocultural influences, which refer to:



! The way information is ordered. It includes our stereotypes and attitudes that lead us to catego-

rise people and make predictions about their behaviour. We treat data in a cognitive process where we both make generalisations and particularisations.

What Gudykunst calls social stereotypes is very interesting when discussing issues management. The term refers to the stereotypes we share with other members of our so-called in-groups - in other words, the stereotypes that companies may rely on with regard to specific stakeholders and their representatives. Stereotypes tell different parties in an issue debate what representatives from the other parties are like or are supposed to be like. First, stereotyping originates in a tendency to overestimate the association between people’s be-haviour and their membership of a specific cultural group. Companies may be too quick to ascribe some people’s reactions to the fact that they are from France, from a political party, from a NGO, from a specific company etc. Second, issues managers may tend to remember more favourable information about “in-groups” than about groups that are culturally very different from the company. There is a risk that messages from culturally very diverse stakeholders will be interpreted nega-tively. That is often the case when activist organisations put pressure on companies. Last, stereo-types create self-fulfilling prophecies. If companies are not aware of the stereotyping process, they tend to see behaviour that substantiates their expectations and they disconfirm evidence of the opposite. As time passes, the company may end up with a misleading and erroneous perception of its environment. It is common logic that companies’ initial predictions about other parties’ behaviour must be based on some stereotype anchored in previous experiences or knowledge. To the degree the stereo-types are accurate, they are helpful in understanding conflicting opinions about an issue. Contrarily, if stereotypes are inaccurate they can lead to misinterpretations of stakeholders’ viewpoints11. Gudykunst writes:

“In order to increase our effectiveness in communicating with strangers, we need to increase the complexity of our stereotypes and question our uncon-scious assumption that most members of a group fit a single stereotype.” (1992: 93).

I can conclude that the ability for issues mangers to first of all be conscious about the stereotypes they hold and secondly constantly question if the stereotypes are correct will lead to a more effec-tive issues management practice. They must particularise, rather than categorise, information about others, that is look closely at the unique attribute, attitudes and behaviour of each stake-holder before making predictions about them (Gudykunst 1992: 25). Ethnocentrism is another aspect within the “psychocultural filter” of relevance to issues manage-ment. Ethnocentrism refers to our tendency to view our own cultural values and behaviour as more real or right (Gudykunst 1992: 95). Undeliberate, we measure other groups on the basis of our own standards and our own ways of doing things are often seen as superior. In order to lead effective issues management, companies must try to avoid such ethnocentrism because it blocks under- 11 For further knowledge of the very interesting process of stereotyping refer to Gudykunst 1992: 91ff.


Part 2 | 41

standing and exclude any hope of a mutually beneficial stakeholder relationship. Since it is natural to be ethnocentric, issues managers must control affective responses when they communicate with different stakeholders about an issue or strive towards some degree of cultural relativism when they analyse stakeholder behaviour.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTION Gudykunst’s notion of environmental influences refers to elements surrounding the communication like place and setting. When discussing issues management, I wish to take that notion one step further and characterise the environment as the public sphere. As I described on page 9, issues occur in the public sphere through the media, the public and the political agendas. Gudykunst says that the environment influences our perception of tings. The environmental influ-ence on cognition has been subject to extensive studies in the communication literature (Frandsen, Johansen & Nielsen 1997) Indeed, it holds true for issues communication as well. It makes sense to say that the conditions under which issues are debated in the public sphere influence the issues management practice. Does the issue debate take place in the medias? If so, in which kind of me-dias? Or does it take place in a stakeholder forum or a network set up by international organisa-tions? If so, is it held at a company, or in a neutral setting? All these questions have a huge impact on the way people will perceive issues. I can conclude that to make accurate predictions about stakeholders’ reactions about an issue and correctly interpret their behaviour, issues managers must know how the person with whom they are communicating defines the setting in which the communication is taking place.

DEGREES OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY As explained in the introduction to cultural diversity, Gudykunst operates with the concept of the “stranger” referring to any person or group from which we feel culturally different. He cites Schutz’s description of the stranger:

“…this is a shared world, it is an intersubjective one. For the native, then, every social situation is a coming together not only of roles and identities, but also of shared realities – the intersubjective structure of consciousness. What is taken for granted for the native is problematic for the stranger.” (Gudykunst & Kim 1992: 20).

The stranger concept is not fixed but variable. We may perceive some groups as culturally diverse but with a little degree of strangeness, while others may represent a large degree of strangeness to us. The degree of strangeness is determined by the extent to which we share elements in the con-ceptual filters with the group we confront. From Gudykunst’s work, it becomes clear that it makes no sense to speak of culturally diverse and culturally similar stakeholders. Studied in detail, every stakeholder will represent some sort of cul-tural diversity compared to the company. Therefore, it only makes sense to speak of degrees of cultural diversity and for that purpose Gudykunst’s stranger concept becomes valuable. The extent



to which companies’ and stakeholders’ conceptual filters (general culture, socioculture and psycho-culture) vary, will determine the point of strangeness between them.

CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE COMMUNICATION Above, I have described the conceptual filters that compose our culture and how a thorough under-standing of these filters may lead issues managers to more effective practice in multicultural stake-holder environments. Now, I turn to the communication process between representatives from dif-ferent cultures (the lines between the circles in the intercultural communication model). Gudykunst says that our

“….culture provides us with patterned ways of dealing with information in the environment. It influences what we perceive, how we interpret, and how we re-spond to messages both verbally and nonverbally. Cultures shapes and colors our image of reality and conditions the way we think. (1992: 133)

That tells us that culture conditions how companies and stakeholders perceive issues, interpret them, and respond to them. In order to understand how we have to look at the two processes fram-ing communication – encoding and decoding. Encoding refers to the fact that in order to transmit them to others, we put messages into codes that can generally be understood as verbal (language) and nonverbal (gestures, forms) codes. Language is not merely a medium of expression. What we say is loaded with implicit understand-ings. That is both in terms of actual wording and inherent discourses12. That is interesting for issues management. When a company wants to communicate its opinion about an issue, it does so through either words or action. From the intercultural communication theory, we can learn that when a company communicates verbally, language differences have a huge impact on the issue communication. This way it becomes important for issues managers to acknowledge the cultural and subcultural variations in the social meaning of verbal behaviour. Ob-viously, knowledge of other languages can lead issues managers to better understand other cul-tures. That also includes developing an ability to feel empathy and patience for people or stake-holder groups whose primary language and modes of verbal behaviour is different from the com-pany’s own. It could be a stakeholder that does not speak the “company language”, like an activist organisation using sentimental and expressive terms. Paying attention to verbal differences en-ables the issues manager to study issues from multiple perspectives instead of an ethnocentric position. Nonverbal encoding of messages plays a similar important role in how well the communication flows between parties. Different cultures display emotions differently. They also differ in the type of contact they favour – face-to-face/impersonal, frequent/infrequent etc. Synchronisation, which re-fers to the sequence of messages, plays a role as well. Respondents that are culturally very differ-

12 I will not elaborate any further on the link between language and culture. Refer for example to Tae-Seop Lim, “Language and Verbal Communication Across Cultures” in Willam B. Gudykunst & Bella Mody’s International and Intercultural Commu-nication, Sage Publications, London, 2002.


Part 2 | 43

ent from us tend to have other expectations in terms of synchronisation and lack of synchronisation renders the communication ineffective. These observations are highly relevant for issues management. Do companies approach stake-holders by means of face-to-face communication, telephone, letter or other communication meth-ods? Stakeholders will have different expectations about the type of communication. In addition, there are important differences in emotions build into the issues communication. Think of the Brent Spar issue again. Greenpeace and other activists were playing highly on the emotional side while Shell focused on scientific elements. Likewise, synchronisation is relevant for issues communica-tion. If some stakeholders expect the company to react and it fails to do so, it most often leads to negative impressions. This analysis leads me to conclude that in order to conduct effective issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments, practitioners must pay attention to accu-rately interpret nonverbal behaviour and adjust accordingly. The second process in intercultural communication is decoding. It refers to our interpretations of messages. Attribution is the sense we make of people who are smiling, crying or shaking their heads or how we understand their words. Naturally, we try to make sense of the world by attribut-ing meaning to what we perceive. The attribution process is social in its origin and we share our way of making attributions with members of our culture (Hewstone & Jaspars 1984; Gudykunst & Kim 1992: 138). Consequently, there are differences in the attribution process between different cultures. This tells us a lot about how different parties perceive issues or issues communication. Heath ex-plains that different parties may hold contradictory opinions about an issue because they do not make the same sense of the world. When companies or stakeholders make sense of an issue it involves a process of reality construction that allows them to see and understand events, actions, objects or situations in distinctive ways. Heath’s point-of-view is in line with the hermeneutic para-digm that I discussed on the introductory pages (page. 7). I stated that I examine issues as a sen-semaking process by companies and stakeholders and I wanted to look at the meaning that differ-ent actors in the debate attach to issues, the difference between their meaning ascriptions and what intentions that drive them. Companies have to get insight into other stakeholders’ own inter-pretation of issues. Only by doing that, they will be able to anticipate future issues and understand their environment’s response once an issue has caught public attention. As the intercultural communication theory describes the attribution process as linked to culture, it is possible to conclude that issues managers need to step beyond their own cultural line of thinking in order to get that important insight into stakeholders’ interpretations. If they manage to put them-selves into alternative cultural attribution processes, it becomes possible to anticipate which opin-ions and reactions different stakeholders are likely to come forward with. Thus, to reduce the risk of misinterpreting stakeholders’ opinions about an issue, issues managers should be mindful of how they decode stakeholders’ behaviour.

HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION MODEL In the previous, I went into details about how Gudykunst’s intercultural communication model may describe issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments. Now, I look at issues man-



agement and intercultural communication in a holistic manner. Gudykunst’s model shows that what we interpret is a function of what the sender encoded and what we previously decoded. It depends on the sender’s encoding, our own encoded messages, our conceptual filters and the context in which the message is received. The conceptual filters refer to the cultural, sociocultural and psy-chocultural filters, which delimit the stimuli we observe and tell us how stimuli are to be interpreted. In short, it is an integrated dialogical process. From the interdisciplinary analysis carried out above, I can conclude that intercultural communication explains issue debates as different cultures that form different opinions on the basis of their conceptual filters. Through debate, people encode and decode messages that are transferred between them, which again is culturally conditioned. The process, by which companies and stakeholders evaluate issues, is a sort of intercultural communi-cation. It is a “transactional, symbolic process involving the attribution of meaning.” Ting-Toomey describes intercultural communication as “a symbolic exchange process whereby individuals from two (or more) different cultural communities negotiate shared meanings in an in-teractive situation” (1999: 16). We can see issue debates as such a process of symbolic exchange with the aim of achieving a shared ground of meaning between companies and stakeholders. The aim is to create harmony between the organisation and its environment (Heath 1997: 81). We learn that a company can only achieve harmony in multicultural stakeholder environments by under-standing and paying attention to cultural disparities that may distinguish it from its stakeholders. Moreover, I can deduce from the theoretical analysis that companies and stakeholders influence each other as they go along in an issue debate, for example if they engage in stakeholder forums. The interpretive, critical approach to intercultural communication that I apply in this dissertation holds that cultures are constantly being adjusted and reformed. This way, it becomes clear that companies and stakeholders do not hold fixed standpoints about issues. In the exchange of view-points and through the creation of mutual understanding of the conditions under which each party operates, they may meet on common ground and adopt cultural elements of the other party. The observation I here draw from intercultural communication theory adds new knowledge to what dif-ferent theorists describes as an “enacted environment”. Sutcliffe describes the way organisations process information this way:

“Enacted environments are socially created rather that concrete or material in that the environment is the joint product of the actions of purposeful actors and accompanying efforts to make sense out of these actions. Enactment transpires through communication processes in that entities involved in interactive rela-tionships read each other’s behaviour and make attributions to make sense of situations.” (Underscores added). (Sutcliffe in Jablin & Putnam 2001: 201).

The enactment perspective says that issues penetrate a continuous communicative process that involves: 1) the company pay attention to certain aspects in the environment, 2) data penetrate the company’s cognitive system, 3) employees give meaning to data, 4) they act on that interpretation, 5) the resulting actions gives information to stakeholders in the environment, 6) they now ascribe meaning to that data and so forth. The notion of the enacted environment is also central to Heath’s theory of issues management (1990; 1994; 1997). With the knowledge from intercultural communi-cation theory, I can conclude that issues exist in an enacted public sphere where different stake-holders and companies shape and are shaped by each other.


Part 2 | 45

CULTURAL MINDFULNESS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT The greater the degree of strangeness a company feels towards a particular person or stakeholder, the greater the likelihood that misunderstandings will occur because they make faulty predictions about their motives, reactions and eventual public criticism. Consequently, the greater the degree of perceived strangeness between a company and stakeholder, the greater the necessity to be sensitive about the cultural differences. Two steps are important in order to manage cultural diversity in issues management. The first thing is simply recognising that cultural differences play a role in issues management – being aware. Gudykunst explains that we rarely notice that we perceive things differently from others. To borrow a frequently cited analogy: “The last thing the fish notices is water.” The cultural difference between the company and the stakeholder is what cultural theory calls “out-of-awareness”. Companies may debate an issue with stakeholders on the false assumption that they understand the issue by the same logic or buy into same arguments. Companies may also be unaware of the cognitive proc-esses they apply. Thus, they engage in issue communication relying on habitual or scripted behav-iour based on past experiences or prejudice and stereotype images (Gudykunst 1992: 25). Actu-ally, assuming that there are no cultural differences between parties when the context is multicul-tural is a recurrently committed blunder when handling issues across different cultural groups (see introduction page. 5). The second step is issues managers’ competence to overcome and take advantage of cultural diversity. As Zaharna has pointed out we can speak of intercultural competence in either of two ways: First, issues managers could learn about specific cultures, their values, norms etc. That ap-proach has serious limitations, primarily because cultures are not stable entities that can be mapped on beforehand. Cultures are dynamic features. This is why companies’ and stakeholders’ culture must be studied in relation to the specific issue in question. Of course, if a company repeat-edly deals with specific stakeholders, knowledge about their way of acting will be accumulated. But as the environment is rapidly changing and business organisations are put under pressure from unexpected sides, the company cannot rely on s-called “culture-specific” competences alone. The second competence option is to adopt a broad range of intercultural communication skills. With reference to, in particular, Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey, I call those skills cultural mindfulness. Ting-Toomey describes cultural mindfulness this way:

“Mindfulness means the readiness to shift one’s frame of reference, the motiva-tion to use new categories to understand cultural or ethnic differences, and the preparedness to experiment with creative avenues of decision-making and problem solving” (1999: 46)

On the other hand, mindlessness means relying on habits and prejudices and ethnocentric belief systems. To engage in an issue debate with a culturally mindful competence means paying atten-tion to others’ self-conceptions and their conceptual filters (see Gudykunst’s intercultural communi-cation model). Issues managers have to develop the aptitude to change between identify construc-tions and understand and perceive an issue from others’ cultural frame. Basically, cultural mindful-



ness entails that issues managers must beware that multiple perspective typically exist in interpret-ing an issue (Ting-Toomey 1999: 46). Thus, to lead effective issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments, i.e. to iden-tify, analyse and respond to the facts, policies and values that stakeholders apply (refer to Heath’s model of the legitimacy gap on page.8), it requires awareness of cultural diversity and the compe-tence to be culturally mindful. From the two axes described above, I am able to say that issues managers may penetrate different stages of intercultural communication competence. In the figure below, I illustrate these stages. 1. Unconscious incompetence, where the company is unaware of the communication blunders it

commits in relation to stakeholders.

2. Conscious incompetence, where the company is aware of its incompetence in managing is-sues in multicultural stakeholder environments but does nothing to correct it.

3. Conscious competence, where a company is aware if issues management’s potential intercul-

tural communication blunders and is committed to integrate a culturally mindful approach. This is the “full mindfulness phase” in which issues managers are fully aware of their own way of thinking, reasoning and experiencing issues and simultaneously attend to stakeholders’ culture.

4. The last category is unconscious competence where issues managers move in and out of cul-

turally mindful behaviour and no longer have to think about it. Truly competent issues manag-ers will move between the conscious and unconscious competence stage.

An interesting perspective in this discussion is what happens once the issues manager has achived a level of conscious-unconscious competence. In fact, there is a risk that issues managers develop “culture specific” competences, which paradoxically, makes them incompetent over time. Stake-holders may change while the issues managers start to rely on stereotype perceptions. Thus, even though culture specific competences are accumulated, it is paramount that issues managers stay truly mindful in the sense that they are open towards new categories and frames of reference. In addition to speak of cultural mindfulness and mindlessness, I find that it makes sense to speak of degrees of mindfulness. A company may take some measures of mindfulness while it is showing mindless behaviour in other areas. I believe we should consider cultural mindfulness in issues management as operating on a scale from zero-sensitivity to full-sensitivity.

Com

petence

Consciousness

Unconscious incompetence

Unconscious competence Conscious competence

Conscious incompetence

Figure 14: Intercultural competence model. Source: Own with inspirationfrom Gudykunst 1992: 26; Ting-Toomey 1999: 51


Part 2 | 47

This dissertation aspires to help issues managers become consciously competent to handle cul-tural diversity in issues management. Through Gudykunst’s model I have presented material that illustrates why companies may misinterpret stakeholders’ behaviour and standpoints in multicultural stakeholder environments. This way, I have intended to increase awareness. Once issues manag-ers are aware or consciously incompetent (understand that they misinterpret situations), they can consciously try to improve their effectiveness. It takes time and experience to develop intercultural competences. Gudykunst cites Langer’s definition of tree qualities of mindfulness that may be valuable for issues managers: ! Creation of new categories ! Openness to new information ! Awareness of more than one perspective According to Langer, being mindful requires making more distinctions and fewer generalisations. For issues management it requires that a company study stakeholders’ stand towards an issue from an open and non-prejudiced position. The next hurdle is how to adapt such a multiple-perspective approach. Some issues managers will, through experience, have developed cultural competences while others may benefit from making use of specific techniques. Cultural theory explores different cultural paradigms, perspectives and frameworks that can be helpful. One that I find plausible for issues management is Leichty and Warner’s notion of “cultural topoi” (Leichty & Warner’s in Heath 2001: 66). They say that instead of relying on cognitive models to describe the way stakeholders form and process issues, we should focus on understanding which beliefs people buy into and predict the issues they will find important and pay attention to. Leichty and Warner operate with 5 cultural biases, which are fatalist, egalitar-ian, hierarchical, autonomous and competitive. To these cultural biases belong different cultural topoi described as: “systematic line of assumptions and arguments that reinforces a preferred pat-tern of social relationships” (in Heath 2001: 62). Each topoi represents an argument structure, logic, and rationality. Issues managers may be able to develop a mindful approach by viewing any issue from all of these five topoi and predict possible actions and standpoints within each topoi. It is important to stress that stakeholders should not be classified in any of the topoi. Their position will only be determined once they react upon an issue. But an analysis from all five topoi may provide a multi-perspective overview of an issue. It is not my intention to go into details about each of these cultural topoi. Refer to Leichty and Warner in Heath 2001. Other theorists’ groupings of cultural perspectives may be relevant in issues management as well. What I intend to stress is that a multi-perspective approach and an open attitude are necessary when conducting issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments. In fulfilling that aspiration, the issues manager can make use of different multi-perspective frameworks. Finally, I want to make some few comments about desirable outcomes of a culturally mindful issues management approach. Ting-Toomey defines a set of required results of mindful intercultural communication (1999: 47) and it makes sense to reassign these criteria to issues management. Consequently, effective issues management in an intercultural context should achieve the follow-ing:



1. Giving stakeholders the feeling of being understood. Understanding is a vigorous way of being validated. Companies do not have to agree with stakeholders but they have to have an empa-thetic impact. (“We understand your position on this issue and your working conditions”).

2. Giving stakeholders a feeling of being respected. Stakeholders should feel that their behaviour

and standpoints are deemed as legitimate and credible (“We respect that you have feelings to-wards this issue and let us discuss how we can harmonise our different interests”). It demands that issues managers pay attention when making value-based judgements in their external communication. That is a difficult process because in many situations stakeholders may pos-sess less encompassing knowledge about an issue or a company’s grounds for action than the company itself. Subsequently, stakeholders could easily be found not worthy to attend to.

3. Giving stakeholders the feeling of being supported. Stakeholders should feel as worthwhile as

the company despite having different identities and ideas. If the company endorses stake-holders’ identity they will tend to view the company positively, while the opposite will be the case if they receive negative endorsement. A company typically expresses identity endorse-ment through verbal and nonverbal confirming messages. Confirmation entails responding sympathetically to stakeholders’ affective position and accepting their experiences of an issue as “real”. To disqualify some stakeholders’ sense of an issue is bound to create conflict.

Companies affirm stakeholders by the verbal and nonverbal actions they use in their communica-tion with them – whether engaging in direct communication activities like stakeholder forums, round-table discussions and conferences or in indirect communication through, for example, public medias. In communicating mindfully about an issue, a company message must convey understand-ing, respect, and support for culturally diverse stakeholders on a holistic level. On the contrary, mindless issues management express evaluative attitudes, suspicion, and mistrust. Consequently, intercultural communication theory proposes that companies integrate measures of cultural awareness and mindfulness in issues management. Ideally, issues managers should act on a level of “conscious competence” where they are both aware of cultural differences and able to act upon them. Culturally mindful issues management is capable of using a multicultural perspec-tive. Towards that end, the issues manager could draw on past experiences with specific stake-holders or make use of different cultural frameworks or “topoi”. One ultimate goal of this “aware-ness” and “mindfulness” is to give stakeholders the feeling that the company understands, re-spects, and supports the way they approach a specific issue. Another goal is the companies’ ability to early identify and correctly analyse issues. And to respond to stakeholders in a way where mis-understanding is avoided and further conflict prevented. In sum, this leads to more effective issues management practice and thus the ability to avoid public relations crises for the business organisa-tion.

SUMMING UP Intercultural communication theory adds many central conclusions to the study of issues manage-ment in multicultural stakeholder environments.


Part 2 | 49

Cultural theory and intercultural communication can explain the process by which cultures are cre-ated and how they influence opinion-making, actions, behaviour and communication pursued by companies and stakeholders in relation to issues. Issues debates can be seen as a “transactional, symbolic process involving the attribution of meaning.” Companies’ and stakeholders’ respective cultural context must be seen as a “system of knowledge” that consists of cultural, sociocultural, and psychocultural conceptual filters through which they interpret issues. Intercultural communica-tion theories show that companies and stakeholders assign meaning to issues according to their respective cultural context because facts, values and policies (causes of legitimacy gaps) are inter-preted through cultural codes. At this point, I attempt to rewrite the way Gudykunst explains intercultural communication (see page 46) into how culture affects issues management:

Culture provides stakeholders and companies with patterned ways of deal-ing with issues. It influences what they perceive, how they interpret, and how they respond to issues both verbally and nonverbally. Cultures shapes and colours their image of reality and conditions the way they think.

It tells us that legitimacy is culturally bound. When the stakeholder environment is multicultural, the likelihood that issues will arise increases simply because there will be more diversity in terms of what is legitimate corporate behaviour and what is not. It leads me to propose that thorough understanding of cultural differences between stakeholders and companies may lead to more effective issues management in multicultural stakeholder envi-ronments. It helps issues managers to understand sources of eventual agreement of disagreement. Such a deeper understanding can lead companies to take advantage of agreements and counter-vail the negative consequences of disagreement between the business organisation and its envi-ronment. From the interdisciplinary analysis I can conclude that there is a large possibility that is-sues managers construct wrong perceptions of the company’s own and stakeholders’ attitudes towards issues when they are not aware of cultural diversity. In issue debates, information passes through each party’s cultural context in which misunderstanding may occur as a consequence of the encoding and decoding process. At the same time, companies’ and stakeholders’ cultural contexts interact in a dialogical process. This way, all stakeholders and companies influence each other. Thus, over time, companies and stakeholders may come to share the same viewpoints or learn from each other. The above analysis brings exciting knowledge about issues facing contemporary European com-panies. As the number of stakeholders and the cultural diversity between stakeholder arise so do the number and complexity of issues. Different issues will arise in different cultures. One issue may be one-sided in one culture and two-sided in others. And one issue will be given different signifi-cance in different cultures. Thus, the greater the degree of “strangeness” of involved stakeholders relative to the company, the greater the risk of legitimacy gaps and thereby the creation and com-plexity of issues. The more challenging it also becomes to accurately identify, analyse and respond to issues. Therefore, there are greater risks that so-called “intercultural” issues evolve into crises.


50| Issues Management i

The following figure summarises key conclusions from the previous chapter. Solutions asalso be foucates that tachieved. Hnies and stain multicultudiversity exiwith that of multiple pertify the factsthem. In othments and rdigm (beyongreater the need to be c It is possiblesity in the s

Issues management in a multicultural stakeholder context is a dialogic intercultural communication process involving encoding and decoding of infor-mation exchanged between companies and stake-holders. Encoding and decoding are shaped by stakeholders’ and companies’ respective cultural contexts. As a result of the communication proc-ess, issues exist in an enacted public sphere. Companies and stakeholders affect each other in how they interpret issues and act upon those issues and the way the issues develop.

All stakeholders and companies exist in a culturalcontext. The cultural context consists of differentconceptual filters composed by a general culturalfilter (values / norms / rules), a socio-cultural filter(role expectations / value orientations) a psycho-cultural filter (stereotypes / ethnocentrism) and anenvironmental filter. In sum, the conceptual filtersinfluence how companies and stakeholders inter-pret issues and act upon those issues. To somedegree, differences in the conceptual filters maydescribe differences between different parties’interpretations, opinions and actions in relation toissues.

Propositions for cultural analysis in issues man-agement

More pro-found un-derstanding of issues management

Identify and analyse the cultural context of stake-holders involved in a specific issue as well as that of the company itself. Conduct analysis that take in the four conceptual filters that influence how is-sues are interpreted and acted upon. Reveal own and stakeholders’ norms, rules and values, role expectations and the way to categorise relation-ships and expectations for people in each cate-gory. Avoid ethnocentrism.

Be mindful of the interpretation of stakeholders’ behaviour and opinions (decode) and own verbal and nonverbally communication (encode). Aim responses at creating mutual understandingbetween companies and all stakeholders. Designresponses as a dialogical communication processwith a balanced effect between companies andstakeholders. Consciously control attitudinal re-sponses in the communication)


Build issues management on cultural awareness and cultural mindfulness. Mindfulness and awarenessentails a “conscious competence” to actively implement the propositions for effective issues managementmentioned above. Change worldviews / cultural paradigms along in the issues management process. Givestakeholders the feeling of being understood, respected, and supported

n Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

to how to overcome the challenge to manage issues across cultural differences can nd in the intercultural communication theory. Intercultural communication theory indi-hrough cultural awareness and mindfulness, reconciliation between cultures can be eath states such reconciliation as pre-eminent for achieving harmony between compa-keholders (Heath 1997: 364). I make two propositions for effective issues management ral stakeholder environments: One, issues managers should be aware that cultural sts. Two, they should be mindful to shift the company’s frame of reference or worldview stakeholders representing another culture. Issues managers must look at issues from spectives. In pursuing cultural mindful issues management, companies aspire to iden-, interest and values that key stakeholders apply and the conclusions they draw from er words: To understand the complexity of issues in multicultural stakeholder environ-each reconciliation, issues managers will have to move out of their own cultural para-d ethnocentrism) and seek an understanding of stakeholders’ own interpretations. The

degree of strangeness between a company and involved stakeholders, the greater the ulturally aware and mindful in the issues management process.

to conclude that issues management that is aware of and mindful about cultural diver-takeholder environment and its influence upon issues communication will be more ef-


Part 2 | 51

fective. Companies must aspire to design responses to issues so that stakeholders gets the feeling that their opinions and actions are understood, respected, and supported by the company. Measurements of effectiveness in intercultural issues management are the abilities to accurately understand and predict stakeholders’ behaviour and opinions and to respond to stakeholders with-out creating misunderstanding. Such aptitude will, in the end, make it possible for an issues man-ager in multicultural stakeholder environments to reduce the risk of crises for the business organi-sation.

PROPOSING A CONCEPTUAL MODEL


PROPOSING A CONCEPTUAL MODEL

Now, I have conducted two interdisciplinary theoretical analyses that serve t conceptualise issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. I have developed some theoretical propositions that describe in which ways intercultural communication theory supports issues management. I have also researched how stakeholder theory can add new perspectives to issues management. These propositions are summarised on page 32 and page 48 respectively. The aim of the analysis has been to show the relations and dynamics between the dissertation’s main concepts: “issues”, “the public sphere”, “companies”, “stakeholders” and “cultural diversity”. The first conclusion I make is that issues are anchored in the relation between companies and stakeholders and not as free-floating in the general business environment. This is important be-cause it indicates that enhanced understanding and identification of involved stakeholders - their origin, interests, possibilities of influence and internal relations – will strengthen the issues man-agement process. The second conclusion is that stakeholders and companies are attached to their cultural context. The cultural distinctiveness can be conceptualised as a layer of general cultural (values, norms and rules), sociocultural and psychocultural belonging. This belonging creates different “systems of knowledge”. Thus, stakeholders’ and companies’ cultural context influences how they interpret issues, form opinions about them and the actions they pursue in relation to issues. It reveals that paying attention to and understanding cultural differences and how they influence issues communi-cation are crucial for managing issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. Below, I show the two propositions in a model. The model combines Heath’s legitimacy-gap model (1997) with Gudykunst’s model of intercultural communication (1992) and stakeholder theory (War-tick & Wood 1998). The different agendas show that issues risk penetrating into the public sphere if companies do not pursue issues management activities. On the next page, the full model is illus-trated in a detailed manner. It is my intention that this model conceptualises issues in multicultural stakeholder environments.

Figure 15: Issues in multicultural stakeholder environments – small model. Source: Own with inspiration from Heath1997, Gudykunst 1992 and Wartick & Wood 1998)

Cultural

context

Stakeholder B

Cultural

context

Stakeholder A

Stakeholder C Cultural

context

Stakeholder D

Cultural

context

Stakeholder E

Cultural

context

Company Issue Issue

Issue Issue

Cultural

context

Issue

Media agenda Public agenda

Non-Issue Non-issue

Political agenda

Issues in multicultural stakeholder environm

ents – large model

CU

LTUR

AL CO

NTEXT

(General cultural, sociocultural and

psychocultural filters)

ISSUE

E D

Media agenda

Public agenda

Political agenda

E = Encoding D

= Decoding

O

rigin of issues (legitimacy gaps):

! D

ifferences of fact !

Differences of value

! D

ifferences of policy

CU

LTUR

AL C

ON

TEXT (G

eneral cultural, sociocultural and psychocultural filters)

STAKEH

OLD

ER A

Interests Influence

Interests Influence

D

E

CU

LTUR

AL C

ON

TEXT (G


STAKEH

OLD

ER B

Interests Influence

Interests Influence

ISSUE

E D

D

E

CU

LTUR

AL C

ON

TEXT (G


STAKEH

OLD

ER C

E D

Interests Influence

D

EISSU

EInterests Influence

NO

N-ISSUE

NO

N-ISSUE

CO

MPAN

Y X

Figure 16: Issues in multicultural stakeholder environm

ents –large m

odel

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS


So far, part 2 has been concerned with the objective to provide a more profound understanding of issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. The second objective of my research is to investi-gate how cultural diversity in the stakeholder environment impacts the issues management prac-tice. Thus, I now move on to the operational level. The previous theoretical analysis made some general propositions for more effective issues man-agement practice. The propositions were: Intercultural communication:

Stakeholder

On the subcompanies uniques issue

Propositions for cultural analysis in issues man-agement

Identify and analyse the cultural context of stake-holders involved in a specific issue as well as that of the company itself. Conduct analysis that take in the four conceptual filters that influence how is-sues are interpreted and acted upon. Reveal own and stakeholders’ norms, rules and values, role expectations and the way to categorise relation-ships and expectations for people in each cate-gory. Avoid ethnocentrism.

Be mindful of the interpretation of stakeholders’ behaviour and opinions (decode) and own verbal and nonverbally communication (encode). (Aim responses at creating mutual understandingbetween companies and all stakeholders. Designresponses as a dialogical communication processwith a balanced effect between companies andstakeholders. Consciously control attitudinal re-sponses in the communication)



-

Build issues management on cultural awareness and cultural mindfulness. Mindfulness and awarenessentails a “conscious competence” to actively implement the propositions for effective issues managementmentioned above. Change worldviews / cultural paradigms along in the issues management process. Givestakeholders the feeling of being understood, respected, and supported

relations:

Identify issue holders - stakeholders - from both the contextual and transactional stake-holder environment. Create individual maps of stakeholders in differ-ent cultural settings.

Investigate underly-ing interests that lead stakeholders to raise issues. Group them into for example material, political, affiliative, informa-tional, symbolic or spiritual interests.

Sustain a strategic prioritisation of issues by assessing stake-holders’ potential influence through an analysis of their power, legitimacy and the urgency of their demands.

Identify the web of relations that exist in the company’s entire stakeholder environ-ment and use such mapping in the issue analysis.

Propositionfor stake-holder analysis in issues management

Part 2 | 53

sequent pages, these general propositions will be developed into concrete practices ndertake in order to lead effective issues management - the practical tools and tech-s managers employ in their work. I will take the reader through a critical analysis of the

Create sustainable stakeholder dialogue with stakeholders involved in key issues with the aim of ex-changing information about issues and finding common solutions to them. Possibly use the model of “strategic cooperative communities”. Base the communities on the minimum characteristics of trust, predictability, mutual interests, mutual gratification or benefit and proximity.



tools and techniques that contemporary issues management literature recommends. Such a re-examination is in line with Zaharna’s proposals:

“Straddling the tension between public relations universalism and relativity as well as unearthing hidden assumptions may result in the very definitions of fun-damental public relations roles, functions and goals being re-examined” (2000: 85).

I identified an issues management process model on page 11 that synthesises different of the most important issues management models. If we look briefly at the “large conceptual model”, the issues management process is carried out by companies in the exact interface with stakeholders were the encoding and decoding process takes place. I will run through each phase in the process model on the subsequent pages.

Figure 2: Issues management process model

Company Stakeholder

IdentifyScan

Evaluate

Analyse Monitor

Evaluate Prioritise

RespondChange options

ISSUE

E D

D E


Part 2 | 55

IDENTIFICATION The issues management literature says that since issues rarely occur overnight, it is possible to identify them by means of different techniques. The task involves scanning the environment to discover developing issues that are likely to affect the company through the public policy process. In the identification phase, issues managers should identify crucial issues as well as identify in-volved stakeholders in each issue.

MEDIA AND TECHNIQUES First of all, existing issues management literature investigates different techniques for identifying issues. Gaunt & Ollenburger mention seven ways companies designate an issue (1995: 207): 1. An issue is designated an “issue” by the chief executive. 2. Informal discussions among senior executives. 3. Structured polling of senior management using a list of issues prepared in advance.

Executives are asked to rank the issues they believe are important. 4. An employed staff unit is charged with the responsibility to develop issues and set

priorities for senior management’s considerations. 5. Issues are developed initially by division or profit-centre heads. 6. A formal exploratory process which asks “what if” questions. 7. Scanning of media sources for any discussion of an event or an idea that appears to

be emerging as an issue. Option one through to six are internal processes where managers identify issues. When companies operate in a multicultural stakeholder context, there is a risk that the use of such identification processes alone will lead to an ethnocentric practice in which the company culture and policies are dominating. The previous chapter showed that it is a natural tendency for people to focus on facts and values that sustain their own culture. Secondly, as stakeholder theory describes, people on the day-to-day practical management level tend to only focus on the transactional stakeholder envi-ronment. On page 32 I concluded that in issues management it is of prime importance to identify legitimacy gaps with stakeholders in the so-called contextual environment – groups and organisa-tions that are not part of the obvious business environment. Consequently, I would like to add the following new principles to the identification process: 8. Local issues are identified by representatives from international divisions 9. The contextual environment is scanned for issues by means of direct stakeholder contact,

forums, networks, conferences etc. The last option mentioned by Gaunt & Ollenburger is: Scanning of media sources for any discus-sion of an event or an idea that appears to be emerging as a trend. The issues management litera-ture says that such a method should look at articles that imply some relation to the long-range con-cerns of both society and the corporation. Coates, Coates, Jarratt & Heinz mention a long list of media sources to be scanned ranging from artistic and poetic works, over statistical documents to legislative/governmental report and newspapers (1986: 24). Renfro draws a model showing how issues spread through popular media (1993: 73). Please find the model and the list in appendix 2. Winter & Steger (1998: 63) mention that issues managers should monitor press agencies and in-



formation services by key words, scientific databases like research or legal databases, search en-gines on the internet by key words or chat groups as well as internal information sources like claim line and customer service department. The list of relevant scanning sources is long and the conclu-sion I draw is that each company will have to define a set of these that are most relevant for that particular organisation and industry. While there seem to be much focus on which media to scan, little is said about assuring the diver-sity of sources. I refer to diversity in terms of covering all stakeholder groups from both the contex-tual and transactional environment as well as the entire international media arena. Available envi-ronmental scanning tools may be somewhat different across cultures. To mention an example: Companies will not obtain sufficient in-depth knowledge about an environmental activist organisa-tion’s opinion about, let us say, global heating by reading about them in the national press. The company would need to scan resources that provide tools for cultural relativism in order to reach a position of “understanding”, “support” and “empathy” (see page 47) with the organisation’s opinions and eventual actions. It could be the organisation’s own newsletter, their web page etc. To mention another example: It is very difficult to know what preoccupies governmental institutions in South East Asia by looking at national television in Denmark. As a result of these concerns I would like to modify the last principle to the following: 10. Scanning of media sources representing a broad range of cultural diversity and all

stakeholder groups for any discussion of an event or an idea that appears to be emerging as an issue.

The above identification methods spot issues that have all ready appeared. Another discipline, futures research, aims at identifying issues before they occur or have matured from trends and social change into concrete issues. Futures research is distinct from issues management as it is more broadly concerned with emerging issues, trends and future possibilities likely to occur in the next tree, four, five years. As Gaunt & Ollenburger point out, “predicting the future is an imprecise art, to say the least” (1995: 208). Nevertheless, more than 150 forecasting techniques exist and many companies have developed their own methods. One widely used technique is trend extrapo-lation, which is based on the logic than the past is prologue to the future. It involves monitoring a factor over time and extrapolating a line into the future. For more knowledge about futures research techniques refer to Renfro 1993. Again it should be remarked, which is absent from existing theory, that it is extremely important in futures research to be mindful towards the multiplicity of different cultures view upon the company and their variability of perceptions and values.

IDENTIFY RIGHT ELEMENTS Another aspect addressed in the issues management literature is what in fact you need to scan in order to identify an issue. To answer that, one needs to ask what makes an issue an issue. Among others, Wartick & Wood, Buchholz and Gaunt & Ollenburger speak about how companies must understand issue creation and issue perception in order to early identify important issues. There is a common understanding in the issues management literature that issues are expectational gaps between the business organisation and some people or groups in the surrounding society. This is also the definition cited on the Issues Management Council’s website. (www.issuemanagement.org). Issues arise when humans attaches significance to an issue. As mentioned earlier, different interests lead people to raise issues.


Part 2 | 57

In the previous chapters, I provided evidence that such observations are insufficient on their own to sustain issues managers’ identification process. The large conceptual model illustrates that com-panies need to understand the difference between the cultural context of the company and that of opposing stakeholders. They also need to understand the cultural conditioning of the responsive process by which issues are communicated between businesses and the surrounding society. If companies do not understand the characteristics of stakeholders’ cultural context, they may over-look important issues because different issues may arise in different cultures. While child labour is an issue in China or Pakistan it most likely will not be an issue in a production unit in Denmark. Western European companies do not have to guard their employees against outbreaks of Malaria, nor would they be expected to support research to prevent it. But Western companies in Africa would have to be concerned with this. In addition, one-sided issues may be two-sided in other cul-tural settings, like feminism. Different areas of concern also exist in different cultures and same issues will subsequently be given different significance in different cultures. While consumer safety is very important to Ameri-cans, environmental concerns preoccupy many Scandinavians. Another aspect is that issues may have ethnic, racial or historical undertones in some cultures. The impact of cultural factors on issues is explored in depth earlier in this dissertation. Here it should just be pointed out that the cultural embedment of issues and issues communication ren-ders it important for the issues manager to scan different elements in different cultural settings. Cultural relativism is essential in that process.

IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDERS While most of the issues management literature stops by the identification of issues, we know from stakeholder theory that once an issue has entered on the company radar, it should identify which stakeholders that are likely to put pressure on the company in that issue. Unfortunately, many companies consider issues management and stakeholder relations separate disciplines. Instead, I propose that companies should see them as supplementary functions. Winter & Steger show that the stakeholder identification should take its point of departure in identified issues and not vice versa, which is illustrated in the models below.

1 2 3

Issue charac-teristics

Issue

Strength of key outside pressure group

Outside pressure groups

Demands

Issues

Figure 17: Traditional model and new model for evaluating outside pressure. Source: Winter & Steger 1998: 29

Traditional model New model



Two things can be said about the stakeholder identification process: First, once an issue has been identified, issues management must investigate eventual legitimacy gaps in relation to stakeholders both in the contextual and transactional environment. Second, the greater the degree of perceived “strangeness” of involved stakeholders, the greater the risk of legitimacy gaps between the organi-sation and its environment. Consequently, issues that exist in multicultural stakeholder environ-ments become more complex and have more legitimate sides in the eyes of different stakeholders. Finally, stakeholders engaged in an issue may change from one national culture to the next. (War-tick & Wood 1998: 78). An issue about employee safety may involve the government in one coun-try, trade unions in another and private organisations in a third. On the practical level, it could be helpful for companies to run through a complete list of possible stakeholders in any country the company is involved in when a new issue is detected. In particular, when companies operate in countries with less stable democratic regimes, it may have to confront stakeholders like public bu-reaucrats, political activists etc. that it is not accustomed to on its home markets. Even if compa-nies face generic stakeholder categories, these stakeholder groups can have radically different expectations and perceptions of corporate behaviour.

ANALYSIS According to the issues management theory, the analysis phase should determine the origin and history of issues, identify its phase in the life cycle, forecast further development and assess its eventual impact.

DETERMINE THE ORIGIN OF THE ISSUE This is a difficult process as few issues emerge neatly from one source. It becomes even more complex when an issue is intercultural in nature. Politicians in one national culture may deal with an issue, while the same issue may be subject to attention from activist organisations in another. The analysis must determine whether the issue originates from a discrepancy in fact, value or pol-icy between the organisation and involved stakeholders (see model on page 16). Managers should understand the competing ideas, interpretations, values and policies at stake couched in what may be a very multicultural set of stakeholders. Issues managers should identify stakeholders’ expecta-tions and interests in the issue. The company must determine which stakeholders think the com-pany actions are illegitimate and which groups support the company (Heath 1997: 27). The inter-cultural aspect of issues in multicultural stakeholder environments complicates this process. As the intercultural communication theory showed earlier in this dissertation, issues managers have to reach an understanding of stakeholders’ own interpretation of issues. A key weakness, as I see it, is that issues management theory speaks very little about how to achieve such an understanding. It does not say anything about how people construct meaning and perceive information and how cultural differences inflict upon that practice. Facts, values and poli-cies are culturally conditioned as issues are social constructs based on cultural norms. Different communities have different ideas about what constitute legitimate corporate behaviour, I concluded in the last chapter. From intercultural communication theory we know that issues managers are likely to construct wrong perceptions of the company’s own and stakeholders’ stand on issues


Part 2 | 59

when cultural diversity is “out-of-awareness”. It becomes important for issues managers to base the analysis on cultural relativism and to consciously reject any prejudice or ethnocentric considera-tions. One practical method mentioned in the previous section is to analyse each issue by use of different cultural topoi or other cultural frameworks especially if the issues managers has no “cul-ture specific” knowledge of involved stakeholders.

IDENTIFY PLACE IN THE LIFE CYCLE There is a common agreement in the issues management literature that in developing a thorough understanding of an issue, it is important to understand where the issue is in its lifecycle. (Heath 1997: 96; Renfro 1993: 30; Gaunt and Ollenburger 1995; Nasi & Nasi 1997: 299; Wartick & Wood 1998: 177; Buckholz, Evans & Wagley 1989: 58). The fundamental relationship in any issues life cycle is changing public attention over time. A clear weakness of the issues management theory is its lack of clarification of what is meant by “public attention or awareness”. By assembling experi-ences from a large amount of firms practising issues management, Winter & Steger (1998: 60) found that public awareness can be seen as an aggregation of four factors: 1. Number of events (events triggering outside pressure) 2. Number of readers/receivers (expansion of tan outside pressure issue in the public) 3. Level of importance (development of topics) 4. Number of countries (stakeholder awareness in an international context) These factors should be multiplied into one model showing public awareness on the Y- axis and time on the X-axis. Please see appendix 3. Social issues life cycle theory maintains that issues follow a predictable evolutionary trajectory. The number of stages or periods through which the issue evolves varies from author to author. Never-theless, most authors agree that issues progress for a period in which the issues was unthought of or unthinkable to a period of increasing awareness and expectations for action and then to a period where new standards for dealing with the issue become ingrained in the normal functioning of the company. Ackerman was the first to identify a lifecycle in the 1970s and it focused on how the organisation went from a stage of policy through learning to commitment to an issue. In their models, Wartick & Wood (1998: 177), Renfro (1993: 32) and Crabble & Vibbert (in Gaunt & Ollenburger 1995: 205) focus on the development of the issue in the public sphere: Nascent stage: The first step is a nascent stage where a gap between company actions and stakeholder expectations develop. Public attention does not rise until some dramatic event or trig-ger moves the issue into is middle or developing stage. Triggers that move issues from the early to the middle stages need not be dramatic and can be government reports, media attention, lawsuits, boycotts or the establishment of an NGO. Renfro (1993: 32) describes the early stages of issues development this way:



Developing stage: The next stage in the issues lifecycle is an increase in the level of interests or activism on the part of some stakeholders. Evidence may first be detected in the alternative press, public relations newsletters, or specialist interest groups. It then goes through a period of public debate and, often, redefinition. It occurs in public forums such as educational activities, media re-ports or the popular press. Resolution: This phase is followed by some resolution of the issue, either voluntary or govern-ment-mandated by the company and stakeholders in conjunction. Mature stage: The resolution moves the issue into a mature stage where three options exist. The issue may re-emerge because the resolution is not satisfactory or stable, or new expectational gaps open up from the resolution. The issue may reach equilibrium where it remains closed as long as the resolution is in place. The issue may disappear, often because societal change makes it irrelevant. While such models are always over-simplified, I believe they are a useful way of classifying issues. I propose that issues managers identify where in the lifecycle issues are situated and by use of the cycle anticipate its future development. For the company that operates in a multicultural environment, whether it contains stakeholders from different countries, occupational groups, races, religious groups or other, issues analysis can present certain problems. First, the same issue can move through its lifecycle in very different manners in different countries or different stakeholder groups. The time from emergence of an issue to its resolution may take a year in one setting and a decade in another. Some international factors, which contribute to this variability, include the nature of the mass media, the nature of the political system, the maturity of interests groups, and the legitimacy and authority of public institu-tions in different countries. Consequently, for the company facing stakeholders from different cul-tures, the impact of an issue can be much more spread out over time. Likewise, at the time when most of these lifecycle models were developed, the media picture was much more fragmented to different countries and forums. Today, a NGO in Asia may publish its stand on an issue on the Internet involving a Danish company and inspire activists in Denmark, local politicians or the Danish media. In addition, news travels very fast from one country to the

Birth: In changing personal or social values, new technologies, new impacts, social change, and the like.

Definition: An event that defines and focuses the issue in the public’s mind. Name:

The development and acceptance of a single word or phrase to identify all aspects of an issue – for example, Watergate.

Champion: A person or persons who campaign the issue much like a politician with press conferences, books and planned media events.

Group: Formal or informal groups of various publics which decide to participate in the issue process.

Media rec-ognition:

First local, then regional and national, the key step that moves an issue up the public agenda, enhancing its priority over competing issues.


Part 2 | 61

next. This is not to say that all issues appear at the same time in all settings, but companies operat-ing across cultures most be prepared for the cross-cultural dynamics of the media. If we look at the lifecycle theory in a multicultural stakeholders environment, the lesson must be that issues proceed through a predictable series of phases, from an imminent stage to a mature stage. The series of phases may occur on different times in different cultural settings and there may be cross-cultural impacts. On the other hand, an international company experiences some advantages in issues analysis. It can apply knowledge and expertise gained from analysing and tracking the issue as it develops from one country to another. It can be alerted to some of the potential impacts the issue may have on its operations in other countries. While no issue develops in exactly the same way in two coun-tries, the lessons learned in one country can be transferred and adapted to another country.

FORECAST FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE ISSUE Once the underlying factors of issues have been identified, issues managers should develop fore-casts, the issues management literature says (Buckholz, Evans & Wagley 1989: 58). The company needs to assess the significance of the issue by asserting its future impact. The company will have to ask: Does it risk getting on the media, public or political agenda and how will the company’s eventual position be to influence public opinion or change the company behaviour to meet public expectations? A number of factors decide whether issues have the potential to penetrate into the public sphere. I will not mention all of these factors but a short-listing of a few shows that they are all culturally con-ditioned: Nielsen demonstrates that in order to reach the public agenda, issues most have an issue proponent, which are individuals or groups fighting to draw attention to the specific issue from the media, the general public, politicians or other decision-makers in the public sphere. Second, Niel-sen says that there need to be a trigger event moving the issue from its nascent to its mature phase, which is in line with the lifecycle perspective. Such trigger events can appear very suddenly or a company or stakeholders may plan them. Third, so-called real world indicators are variables showing the degree of significance a specific issue is given by the public. Fourth, the salience of the issue decides its future development. Fifth, the issue would have to meet some news criteria if it is to be picked up by the media. It can be criteria of sensation, importance, conflictual or easy identification by the public. Last, issues are competing against each other in the public sphere. If other big issues are dominating, it is less likely that the issue will achieve attention. On the other hand, if a similar issue has just appeared, for example involving another company in the same industry, there are greater possibilities that the issue will escalate in public awareness. It is clear that all the factors mentioned above will vary depending on the cultural context in which the issue becomes subject to attention. If companies operate in a multicultural stakeholders envi-ronments it is likely that issues managers will have to make several forecasts for how the issue will develop. Cultural mindfulness will lead issues mangers to understand which stakeholders that are likely to come forward in the future. For example, if an issue is at odds with Muslim values, it is likely that Muslim minority groups will try to have a voice in the debate. On the other hand, issues that rise to prominence also have some characteristics that are common across cultures. Renfro (1993: 36) mentions:



! good visuals - something people can see in TV ! immediacy, clarity of impact ! clearly defined players – victims and villains ! articulate available spokespersons ! good geography – easily accessible my major networks ! confirmation of existing attitudes and beliefs ! universality – it applies to everybody ! randomness – it could happen to anybody Winter and Steger (1998: 34) mentions eight questions that issues managers should ask in order to determine the future prospect of an issue: 1. Are the arguments against the issue plausible? 2. Does the issue evoke emotions? Is it understandable – visual, touching – by the pub-

lic? 3. Is the issue media-friendly? 4. Are there connections to other issues of the company or other companies? 5. How strong is the key stakeholder? 6. How isolated is the company? 7. How far have the dynamics of the issue all ready evolved? 8. How easy is the solution? I propose that these lists coupled with cultural awareness and mindfulness could be useful in fore-casting the development of an issue.

ASSESS ISSUES’ EVENTUAL IMPACT The ultimate outcome of issues analysis is an issues agenda – a prioritisation of issues for further management consideration. No company can address, in a meaningful way, all of the hundred of issues that may have some impact on it. It must rank issues it has identified so that it can devote resources to those issues that are likely to have greatest effect on its future business activities. Issues management theory suggests that companies divide issues into several categories. The highest category includes that handful of issues, which demand significant managerial attention and continuous monitoring. The issues, which are out at the top of the issues agenda typically have a high probability of generating outcomes that will have a major impact on the bottom-line. The next category contains lower ranked issues, which must be tracked but which require only periodic at-tention. The lowest category includes issues of potential interest. Information should be accumu-lated on them as it becomes available. This prioritisation process remains the same whether companies confront a multicultural or a unicultural group of stakeholders. Nevertheless, tools from stakeholder theory are capable of strengthening the prioritisation. In addition to looking at the specific issue in question, stakeholder theory proposes that it is important to determine the relative importance of each stakeholder’s value position. Hereby, stakeholder theory shows that not only the urgency of a specific issue must be examined but also the position of the “issue owner” – the stakeholder - because their respective possibilities of influence in a public debate may be very different. In the previous chapter I showed


Part 2 | 63

that an assessment of stakeholders’ value position, and thereby their possibility of attracting public attention, could be based on an analysis of the power, legitimacy and urgency of the demands stakeholder put on companies (see page 16). I propose that such factors should be subject to close analysis by issues managers when they prioritise between issues.

RESPONSE When sufficient analysis is completed, the company must respond to stakeholders involved in is-sues through communication and/ or action. The response should provide answers to stakeholder demands and be designed in such a way that stakeholders understand the response the same way it was intended by companies.

THE BUSINESS ORGANISATION AND SOCIETY The company’s development of responses to public issues builds on assumptions about how the business organisation is supposed to communicate and build relations with its surrounding society. Some issues management models describe the public sphere in a deterministic fashion: as an accumulated set of fixed characteristics that the issues manger can uncover if only he is bright and thoroughly enough. Other issues management models view the company as an open system. For example Broom and Dozier demonstrate that organisations are open systems that engage in ex-changes of tangible and intangible values with its environment (1990: 8). The previous chapter concluded that the company environment is not objectively defined but continuously constructed by companies and their stakeholders. It is not sufficient to understand some fixed characteristics of the environment. In the light of this knowledge, it becomes clear that the “deterministic description” of the public sphere has limited credibility. Consequently, there is a risk that managers who regard companies as closed systems will become insensitive to environmental change and it will be difficult to keep the company attuned to stakeholder expectations. On the contrary, the open system perspective emphasises that the influence between companies and stakeholders is reciprocal: Companies are not only influencing the environment but the organisation is also impacted by environmental condi-tions. That conclusion touches a fundamental principle in any public relations activity. Grunig’s model of excellent public relations has achieved tremendous attention and is shown below (Grunig & Grunig 1992: 285). Characteristic Press agency Public Information Two-Way Assymetrical Two Way SymmetricalPurpose Propaganda Dissemination of

information Scientific persuasion Mutual understanding

Nature of Comm. One-way; com-plete truth not essential

One-Way; truth essential

Two-way; imbalanced effects

Two-way: balanced effects

Communication Model

Source# receiver Source# receiver Source ↔ Receiver Group ↔ Group

Figure 18: Public relations models. Source: Grunig & Hunt 1984: 22

Grunig roughly distinguishes between four types of response and advocates that the model la-belled two-way symmetric is leading to must excellent public relations communication. In this model, the relationship between organisations and their environment is aimed at achieving mutual



understanding in contrast to conducting propaganda or persuasion. The communication is two-way in nature rather than one-way. Ideally, issues management should build on generic principles of a similar two-way symmetrical response (Heath 1997: 5). Heath lists a number of criteria that issues management should fulfil towards that end: Interdependence between organisation and interested parties; Openness to the environment; Dynamic adaptation to environment; Equity; Autonomy instead of control or domi-nance; And innovation. In order to conduct such two-way symmetrical response communication, issues managers must recognise that they cannot manipulate issues to their interest. It might be possible to turn a specific issue to the organisation’s advantage in the short run but such a strategy could cause damage to its public legitimacy in the long run. Savvy companies utilise issues management in a manner in-tended to build and improve relationships with key stakeholders. As stated in the introductory ex-planation of issues management, the goal of issues management is to achieve harmony between stakeholders and the organisation. This summarises the state-of-the-art description of issues response. But if the company environ-ment is multicultural it may prove very difficult to conduct true two-way symmetrical issues man-agement. The previous chapter concluded that the larger the degree of strangeness between a company and a stakeholder, the greater the eventual complexity of an issue. It said that only through understanding and paying attention to the cultural disparities that may distinguish a com-pany from its stakeholders, could issues managers achieve harmony. But even if issues managers hold competencies of cultural mindfulness, the two-way symmetric model is difficult to realise. If we look at Banks theory on multicultural public relations, he says that most importantly, the com-munication process must be based on genuine dialogue (Banks 1990: 89). Thus, dialogue is very important, especially because the issues manager will need to increase his knowledge about the stakeholders’ culture. This sustains my previous conclusions from the interdisciplinary theoretical analysis between stakeholder theory and issues management. At the same time, it can be difficult to enter into direct dialogue with stakeholders from which the company may be separated physi-cally. This could be one barrier to establish a genuine dialogue. Secondly, perfect mutual under-standing can be very challenging to achieve when the communication is intercultural. The previous chapter showed that communication across cultures easily results in misunderstandings. This is not only due to cultural unawareness but also to the fact that no issues manager is able to know all the different cultures he is likely to face. I addition, the previous chapter tells us that if a dioalogical two-way response to issues should suc-ceed, cultural diversity must be seen as variance rather than difference. In this fashion, companies remain open towards changes to its own fundamental way of doing things. Only by seeing other cultures on an equal level of ones own culture can issues managers make adaptations and even-tual response to issues result in harmony between the company and its surroundings. Thus, a two-way symmetrical issues management model should function as an ideal model for a company in a multicultural environment. Issues managers must beware of cultural differences that are likely to create some barriers in the relationship-building thus rendering the model difficult to


Part 2 | 65

accomplish. Measures must be taken in order to account for potential downfalls of such barriers. Open dialogue is an important mean to reduce barriers. The model for stakeholder dialogue men-tioned in the previous section, “strategic cooperative communicates”, could be an option towards that end.

STRATEGIC RESPONSE OPTIONS Now, we should move to the different strategic options for response. Chase and Jones identify three so-called “Issue change strategy options” labelled Reactive, Adaptive and Dynamic response (Gaunt and Ollenburger 1995:207). There are a number of limitations connected to their response options. They embrace the dynamic response as being generically superior to the other two without taking into consideration the characteristics of the issue in question. I addition, their categorisation provides nothing but – categories. Earlier, I stated that good theory describes the causes of the phenomena under investigation, their affect and under which conditions they should prevail. Chase and Jones do not fulfil these conditions. The same critique applies to Buchholz, Evans & Wagley’s generic response strategies that are: Reactive (fighting change), Accommodative (adapting to change), Proactive (influencing change) and Interactive (adjusting to and influencing change) (1989: 65). They draw a model showing that the choice between these options should be based on two dimensions: One, the issue’s stage in the issues life cycle and two, its impact on the corporation. I can only find few arguments support-ing that the choice of response be based on these criteria. It is a short-term focus and it concen-trates on how the issue materialises rather than from where it originates. By response is meant the way the organisation tries to close the legitimacy gap from which the issue originates. To resume, legitimacy gaps arise out of a difference in fact, value or policy be-tween companies and stakeholders. Consequently, I argue that a firm’s response to an issue should depend on the nature of that gap. That leads me to present the following alternatives 1. First, if the issue involves a discrepancy between stakeholders’ and companies’ information

relative to the issues (fact), the company may try to make stakeholders’ aware of new informa-tion about the issue or to gain sufficient information itself. Stakeholders and companies may also perceive facts differently. In this case, the firm might be able to close the gap by moving stakeholder perceptions of facts towards their own perception. It could happen through ways of communication about corporate performance and issues.

2. Secondly, if the issue appears from a discrepancy between stakeholder expectations and ac-

tual corporate behaviour (value), the following alternatives may be pursued alone or in combi-nation:

- The company could alter its behaviour sufficiently to reduce or eliminate stakeholder

pressure. This could involve changing corporate values and strategy in various func-tional areas. This can be a very effective strategy for dealing with social pressure. Firms that are perceived as flexible and taking voluntary steps are often spared more rigid and costly legislative or regulatory strictures.



- Another option is to try to alter stakeholder expectations in order to bring expectations of corporate performance closer to actual corporate performance. This may involve “educating” stakeholders about the range of realistic corporate behaviour either through additional information or by changing the symbols used to describe business performance. (Näsi & Näsi 1997: 301)

- Last, the firm may choose to contest the issue in the public opinion arena. Some

stakeholders have what amounts to very sophisticated strategies for influencing he evolution of public opinion with respect to a particular issue. Firms must respond with at least equal levels of sophistication.

3. Thirdly, the gap may originate for a discrepancy between the way companies actually approach

and manage an issue and the way stakeholder expect the company to act (policy). In this case, they may share objectives but hold different opinions about ways to reach those goals. The fol-lowing alternatives may be pursued alone or in combination:

- The firm could alter its policy to correspond with stakeholders’ suggestions. This path

is only advisable in the case that consensus exists in the entire stakeholder environ-ment about alternative policies. If consensus does not exist, the company must alter its policy in ways that satisfy most stakeholders without jeopardising with its own corpo-rate culture and strategy.

- A second option is to change stakeholder expectations to policies. It may be obtained

by openly communicating about grounds for the company policy and this way aspire stakeholders’ understanding and support.

- In the case different expectations to company policies prevail, the company may

choose to juxtapose expectations in the public and this way publicly debate alternative policies.

I can conclude that determining the response to an issue involves choosing and implementing one of the above strategies. Consequently, the three points above describe the generic principles for different strategic response options. But are the same strategies feasible in a multicultural stakeholder environment? Companies may find it difficult to influence stakeholder perceptions and expectations in foreign cultures. Some companies may face negative attitudes because it is regarded as a “foreigner”. For example, it may be seen as acceptable for a local firm to lobby members of the legislature but entirely unacceptable for a foreign-owned firm to do so. It may be equally difficult for a company to get through to a very company-unfriendly activist group. In addition, the means by which a company can influence public opinion or governmental policy can vary tremendously across cultures. Separate sets of unwritten rules apply to different cultures. Furthermore, the wording of the response or the way it is repre-sented can be misunderstood in foreign cultures. In the previous chapter, intercultural communica-tion theory showed that people in different cultures communicate by means of different implicit signs and symbols that lead them to make separate conclusions. Finally, I developing its response to issues the company may find itself caught between conflicting expectations of two or more


Part 2 | 67

stakeholders. The more it changes its behaviour to close the expectational gap with one group of stakeholders, the more it widens the gap with the other. Such cultural differences pose additional challenges to the company to develop knowledge and expertise necessary to formulate and implement appropriate externally directed responses. For example, it is obvious that a company must respond differently towards an association of female employees in South America than towards a political party in Denmark. Nevertheless, in practice, the actual job to design different responses is very challenging because most often the issues manager will not possess sufficient in-depth knowledge about all of the cultures he is responding to. From intercultural communication theory we can deduce that in order to effectively manage issue responses, companies operating multiculturally need to acknowledge the potential risk of miscom-munication, i.e. to be culturally aware. This should lead the company to consider the possibility of designing culturally adapted versions of their response to different stakeholders. Again, that neces-sitates a thorough analysis of stakeholders involved in the issue. In that process, stakeholder the-ory illustrated earlier that it is eminent to respond to stakeholders both in the contextual and the transactional environment. The fact that they do not all have the same interest in the issue is an-other lesson from the interdisciplinary theoretical analysis. One stakeholder may have a political concern while another holds some symbolic interest in the issue. Failure to determine this variety of interest could lead the issues manager to respond to sides of the issue that the stakeholder find irrelevant. An often-committed mistake by companies is to argue from a business perspective with arguments grounded in economic considerations. These may have little or no significance in the eyes of the public. Obviously, it is not possible to design separate responses to all stakeholder groups on every market. But some sort of rough grouping should be considered. In some issues, it can be necessary for a company in a multicultural environment to respond through other parties – for example a local association or organisation with whom it collaborates. A local NGO could be a very valuable communication channel in order to successfully respond to specific parts of the public. To conclude: Management should adopt one of the above-mentioned strategies in order to close the legitimacy gap. But the creation of the response and the implementation of the communication process both demands cultural mindfulness and sufficient knowledge about the target of the com-munication. Only this way may issues managers be able to close legitimacy gaps between compa-nies and stakeholders representing significant degrees of “strangeness”. Thus, any of the strategy options mentioned must be sustained by cultural mindfulness in order to succeed.

EVALUATION The last phase in the issues management process is to evaluate the success of the implemented policies and programs in order to determine future strategy on this and related issues. I ssues management theory says that managers must compare the objectives of the organisation with the results of the program it has been through (Gaunt & Ollenburger 1995: 208). Some of the



questions they could ask are: How well did the company perform and what is the result in terms of the corporate image in the public and the relationship with specific stakeholders? Gaunt & Ollenburger also draw the attention to the fact that a second imperative step is to continu-ously re-analyse the issue. Societal changes may resurrect the issue. In that continous monitoring, it is imperative to stay attuned to sensitive topics in different cultures. Changes do not occur at the same time around the world or in different settings. Often, an issue may be resurrected in a foreign country before this happens on a company’s home market. Again, cultural awareness and mindful-ness are pre-eminent for an effective evaluation process. Stakeholder theory emphasised how good stakeholder relations could strengthen the entire issues management practice around key issues. Thus, in the evolution process, issues managers could consider the possibility of setting up “strategic cooperative communities” around key issues engag-ing key stakeholders in order to continuously monitor its development.

St a k e h o l d e r d i a l o g u e

Cu

ltura

l aw

are

ne

ss

an

d m

ind

fuln

es

s


Cu

ltura

l aw

are

ne

ss

an

d m

ind

fuln

es

s


Cu

ltura

l aw

are

ne

ss

an

d m

ind

fuln

es

s

S t a k e h o l d e r d i a l o g u e

Cu

ltura

l aw

are

ne

ss

an

d m

ind

fuln

es

s

IDEN

TIFY (Scan)

Objective : Identify crucial issues and involved stakeholders

Tasks : !

Design a com

prehensive set of scanning techniques and media sources

that cover both the contextual and transactional environment. Assign

local issue identifiers in international divisions. Assure cultural diversit yof sources scanned.

! R

each understanding of different cultural contexts the company faces as

well as the com

pany’s own cultural context. Separately scan those areas

of concern, interest and matters given m

ost clout in each culture. !

Identify key stakeholders once the issue has been identified. Create

maps of issue holders. Bew

are that issues involve different stakeholders in different cultural settings. If necessary, create individual m

aps of issue holders for each cultural setting.

Potential risks: !

Important issues dism

issed !

Important stakeholders dism

issed

EVALUATE

Objective: Evaluate the success of im

plemented policies and program

s in order to decide future strategy Tasks: !

Critically assess practice

! Judge w

hether issues could re-emerge in different cultural settings

! Set up long-term

stakeholder dialogue around most im

portant issues for ongoing m

onitoring. Potential risks: !

Importance of evaluation dism

issed and not pursued !

Com

mitted m

istakes not corrected in future strategies !

Issues re-emerge w

hen thought dead

ANALYSE (M

onitor, evaluate, prioritise) O

bjective : Determ

ine origin and history of issues and stage in the life cycle.Forecast further developm

ent and assess eventual organisational impact.

Tasks !

Unveil if issues originate from

discrepancy of fact, value or policy. !

Unveil underlying interests that lead stakeholders to raise issues.

! Seek

understanding of

stakeholders’ ow

n interpretation

of issues

through cultural relativism and rejection of prejudices and ethnocentrism

.U

se multiple perspectives, possibly different cultural fram

eworks.

! U

nderstand how issues suit into the w

eb of relations that exist among

stakeholders. !

Identify the issues’ place in the life cycle depending on public attentionover tim

e. Distinguish betw

een nascent, developing, resolution and m

ature stages.

Where

necessary, develop

separate life

cycle fo r

different cultural settings and beware of staggered stages.

! D

esign methods to predict future developm

ent, including: 1) Analyse lifecycles. 2) Analyse agenda setting factors. Bew

are of different factors in different cultures. 3) Analyse if typical hot issue characteristics arepresent. 4) R

un through list of W&S’s 8 key questions. Possibly, as k

questions for each cultural setting. !

Prioritise issues on the basis of issue characteristics as well as the

power, legitim

acy and urgency of stakeholder demands.

Potential risks !

False perception of issue development and of stakeholders’ standpoints

and interests !

Wrong issues prioritised

RESPO

ND

(Change options)

Objective : R

espond to stakeholders involved in issues through com

munication and/ or action.

Tasks !

Aim responses at creating m

utual understanding between com

panies and all stakeholders.

! D

esign responses as a dialogical comm

unication process with a

balanced effect between com

panies and stakeholders. !

Consciously control attitudinal responses in the com

munication

! Enter into open stakeholder dialogue w

ith culturally different stakeholders.

! C

hoose between alternative strategic response options depending on

the kind of legitimacy gap. D

ifference of fact: inform about issue, change

symbols used to com

municate. D

ifference of value: alter company

behaviour, alter stakeholder expectations through information or

education, contest the issue. Difference of policy: alter policy, change

expectations to policy through open comm

unication; contest policy in the public by juxtaposing alternative stakeholder expectations.

! C

onsider developing separate responses if there are significant differences betw

een stakeholders’ interests in the same issue.

! C

onsider designing culturally adapted versions of responses if there are significant cultural differences betw

een stakeholders. Potential risks: !

Com

munication causes m

isunderstanding !

Res ponses focus on w

rong interests in issues

Figure 20: The issues managem

ent process in multicultural stakeholder environm

ents

PROPOSING A PROCESS MODEL

Part 2 | 69

PROPOSING A PROCESS MODEL

The previous chapter has proposed that issues management should be a structured process that includes identification, analysis, response development and evaluation with the aim of early identi-fying issues and finding suitable responses to them. In the light of contemporary European compa-nies’ multicultural stakeholder context, I have taken the reader through a re-examination of the process and I have pointed to obvious insufficiencies in the way existing literature describes the process. I have indicated ways that issues managers can improve practice. On a general level, I have ap-plied principles from stakeholder theory and intercultural communication theory. First, I can con-clude that all actions pursued by the issues manager - identification, analysis, response develop-ment and evaluation - need to incorporate cultural awareness and mindfulness. This means being “consciously competent” to unveil how cultural differences influence issue debates and act upon that knowledge. Next, I conclude that the issues management process should be supported by sustainable dialogue between companies and stakeholders. This dialogue will strengthen the entire process because more and better information is gathered more easily and common solutions may be found. Issues managers could choose to establish so-called “strategic cooperative communities” around key issues in order to structure the dialogue. The figure below illustrates how I imagine the process should be carried out. The full model on the page to the left shows how I propose that “cultural awareness and mindfulness” and “stakeholder dialogue” materialise into concrete actions carried out in each stage of the process.

St a k e h o l d e r

C u l t u r a l a w a r e n e s s a n d m i n d f u l n e s s

ANALYSE(Monitor, evaluate, prioritise) Objective: Determine origin and history of issues and stage in the life cycle. Fore-cast further development and assess eventual organ-isational impact.

di a l o g u e

S t a k e h o l d e r


IDENTIFY (Scan)

Objective: Identify crucial issues and involved stake-holders

d i a l o g u e



RESPOND (Change options)

Objective: Respond to stake-holders involved in issues through communication and/or action.

di a l o g u e



EVALUATE Objective: Evaluate the success of implemented policies and programs in order to decide future strat-egy

di a l o g u e

Figure 19: The issues management process in multicultural stakeholder environments - small model

CONCLUSION PART 2


CONCLUSION PART 2

In part 2, a theoretical approach to issues management grounded in multicultural diversity has been examined. I can conclude that theorists like Banks, Heath and Wilson have drawn interesting perspectives to light but no existing theory or exhaustive study provide a satisfactory answer to the dissertation’s research question. Inspired by these scattered perspectives, I have given emphasis to an interdisciplinary methodol-ogy that enables a more profound understanding of the diversity of the everyday character of is-sues by bridging theories of issues management, stakeholder theory and intercultural communica-tion. Secondly, I have used this enhanced understanding to redefine the issues management prac-tice, i.e. the practice of issue identification, issue analysis, issue response development and evaluation. The original research question sounded: “Which generic principles for issues management in multi-cultural stakeholder environments should companies follow in order to prevent crises?” Below, I provide a comprehensive conclusion of the theoretical analysis13. The two key models on page 52 and page 69 sum up these conclusions and should be beared in mind when reading through the following.

PROPOSITION 1: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT The first proposition I make concerns the business environment: Larger European corporations are part of multicultural stakeholder environments. Companies should effectively manage issues in this environment in order to reduce the risk that issues mature into crises for the business organisation. The fact that European corporations are facing a culturally diverse set of stakeholders is the foun-dation for all research carried out in this dissertation. I argue that corporations are accountable to their stakeholders and that these stakeholders put demands on companies. As the environment is becoming more multicultural, the number of stakeholder demands increase and so the variance between them. These demands should be taken serious and responded to if the company wants to avoid potential crises. In the dissertation, I seek out ways to accomplish that.

PROPOSITION 2: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS The large “conceptual model” on page 52 shows how I conceptualise issues in multicultural stake-holder environments. First, it demonstrates that: Issues are anchored in the relation between companies and stakeholders and are not detached topics in the business environment. Issues arise because stakeholders and companies show inter-est in them, give them significance and there are legitimacy gaps arising from discrepancies of fact, value or policy. 13 It should be possible to read this conclusion independently from other parts of this dissertation. Therefore, some overlap-ping with earlier sections is unavoidable.

CONCLUSION PART 2

Part 2 | 71

The analysis revealed that issues should be studied and analysed with much attention payed to the parties who raise issues – the stakeholders. Issues arise because there is a legitimacy gap be-tween company performance and public expectation. This gap arises from a discrepancy of fact, value or policy between the corporation and one or more stakeholders. If attention is payed to stakeholder analysis it opens up for interesting new dimensions of issues management. First, it reveals that not only obvious business partners, like customers and share-holders, generally termed as part of the “transactional business environment” raise issues that will affect corporate performance. Other stakeholders in society like governments and interest groups that are part of the so-called “contextual environment” may also initiate influential issues. Secondly, companies become alert to the fact that stakeholder groups vary across cultural settings and that issues may be raised from unexpected sides abroad. Thirdly, the analysis has demonstrated that “issues” and “stakeholder interests” are closely related. Interests that lead stakeholders to bring up issues are as intricate and broad as human interests and may be material, affiliative, political, informational, symbolic, spiritual or other. Awareness of this diversity will prevent companies from debating an issue from a single or a wrong perspective (often from the material side) when in fact other aspects are more important in the debate. Further, I am able to conclude that an assessment of relative stakeholder importance will help is-sues managers to foresee which stakeholders that are likely to put pressure on the organisation in public debates and consequently which issues that will attract most attention. Some stakeholders are more influential than others and companies cannot and should not be everything to everybody. Three attributes determine stakeholder influence, which are “legitimacy”, “power” and “urgency”. Finally, the analysis demonstrates that in some issues, different stakeholders will have competing or unified interests that the company must balance. The more stakeholders unify, the more isolated the company becomes. This was the first part of proposition 1. Now, the large conceptual model also demonstrates that: Companies and stakeholders are attached to their cultural context, which conditions what they perceive as legitimate corporate performance. The cultural context conditions how they perceive issues, interpret them, which opinions they create and how they respond to them verbally and non-verbally.

Studied in detail, every stakeholder will represent some sort of cultural diversity compared to the company. Thus, cultural diversity or simply the degree of “strangeness” must be seen on a contin-uum. Cultural differences between stakeholders and companies are comprised by a number of factors and by looking into those factors we learn new things about issues and issues manage-ment. First, “values” indicate what is good and bad, important and unimportant and desired ends of social life and the means to reach these goals. “Norms and rules” guide what we think we or others “ought to be doing”. Their norms, rules and values strongly influence how stakeholders and com-

CONCLUSION PART 2


panies perceive issues and the opinion they form. Values, norms and roles are referred to as “the general cultural filter”. Secondly, “role expectations” guide assumptions and prejudices that companies may hold towards stakeholders in a debate and vice versa. People expect certain things from each other because they believe they have a certain role. Roles tend to vary across cultures, which may lead compa-nies and some stakeholders to create very different expectations towards each other. I can also conclude that it is a natural tendency for companies to approach stakeholders with whom they somehow share similar “value orientations” and “worldviews”. If companies are unaware of this fact, they may decide not to engage with stakeholders that are critical towards the organisation. Role expectations, categorising and value orientations are termed as “the sociocultural filter”. Thirdly, I can conclude that companies may rely on “stereotypes” with regard to specific stake-holders and their representatives. Stereotypes tell what other parties in issues debates are like or are supposed to be like. Companies may be too quick to ascribe some people’s reactions to the fact that they are from a specific culture. Moreover, issues managers may tend to remember more favourable information about “in-groups” than about groups that are culturally very different from the company. There is a risk that messages from stakeholders that are very different from the company in cultural terms will be interpreted negatively. Stereotypes create self-fulfilling prophe-cies. If companies are not aware of the stereotyping process, they tend to see behaviour that sub-stantiates their expectations and they disconfirm evidence of the opposite. As time passes, the company may end up with a misleading and erroneous perception of its environment. In addition, “ethnocentrism” refers to our tendency to view our own cultural values and behaviour as more real or right. Issues managers must try to avoid such ethnocentrism because it blocks understanding and exclude any hope of a mutually beneficial stakeholder relationship. Stereotyping and ethnocen-trism is referred to as “the psychocultural filter”. In issue debates, stakeholders and companies “encode” and “decode” what each other do and say. Encoding means the “codes” we put into our own messages. There are cultural and subcultural variations in the social meaning of verbal and nonverbal behaviour. Decoding refers to our interpre-tations of messages. The attribution process is linked to culture and there are differences in the attribution process between different cultures. As issue debates in multicultural stakeholder envi-ronments are communicative processes, culture (the cultural filters) provides stakeholder and com-panies with patterned ways of dealing with issues. It influences what they perceive, how they inter-pret, and how they respond to issues both verbally and nonverbally. Culture shapes and colours their image of issues and conditions the way they think. This way it is possible to conclude that cultural diversity between stakeholders and companies partly describes why they may form differ-ent opinions about an issue and why misunderstandings may be created when they debate that issue. I can conclude that legitimacy is culturally bound. When the stakeholder environment is multicul-tural, the likelihood that issues will arise increases simply because there will be more diversity in terms of what is seen as legitimate corporate behaviour and what is not. In addition, the greater the degree of “strangeness” a company feels towards a particular person or stakeholder, the greater the likelihood that misunderstandings will occur because they make faulty predictions about their motives, reactions and eventual public criticism. Harmony is the ultimate goal of effective issues

CONCLUSION PART 2

Part 2 | 73

management. But to create harmony in multicultural stakeholder environments, it entails under-standing and paying attention to cultural disparities that may distinguish a company from its stake-holders.

PROPOSITION 3: THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS The third proposition concerns the issues management practice. “The large process model” on page 69 indicates ways that issues management could be practiced effectively in multicultural stakeholder environments. First, it demonstrates that: Issues management should be a structured process of identification, analysis, response and evaluation with the aim of early identifying issues and finding suitable responses to them. The analysis has shown that issues management consists of separate activities that must be car-ried out at different steps. By systemising and making issues management a structured process, there are greater possibilities that all necessary actions are undertaken enabling practitioners to lead more effective issues management. It also makes it possible for individual companies to judge how well they perform in each step in the process and reveal if important elements are missing from their approach. This conclusion is parallel to the dominant issues management literature. Nevertheless, I conclude that the process of identification, analysis, response and evaluation is insufficient on its own in multicultural stakeholder environments. Thus, as it is illustrated in the model on page 69, I make the following proposition: It is paramount that all issues management actions are supported by genuine “stakeholder analysis and dialogue”. It is equally paramount that all actions are supported by “cultural awareness and mindfulness” towards involved stakeholders. Communication practitioners must translate and inte-grate these two measures into day-to-day issues management practices. The analysis has shown that the risk of global public relations conflicts and bad media coverage diminish if issues management seeks fruitful stakeholder dialogue and builds sustainable relations with stakeholders that are involved in key issues. This way, the issues management process – often regarded as a purely communicative discipline - will be strengthened if it is undertaken in an integrated manner with stakeholder analysis and dialogue. The ultimate goal is to create mutual understanding between companies and stakeholders about issues. The aim should be to exchange information about issues and finding common solutions to them. A key attribute for issues man-agement will be the ability to early identify issues and closely monitor their development. In addi-tion, solutions to issues can often be found that satisfy all publics if people work together with a willingness to compromise for the benefit of the community. I propose that the dialogue is carried out in a so-called “strategic cooperative community” centred on key issues. These communities must include key stakeholders involved in the issue and be based on the minimum characteristics of “trust”, “predictability”, “mutual interests”, “mutual gratification or benefit” and “proximity”. (Find more information about strategic cooperative communities in the specific chapter). Intercultural communication theory indicates ways that the issues management process may ac-count for cultural differences between companies and stakeholders. I have been operating with the term “cultural awareness”, which refers to the fact that we rarely notice that we perceive things

CONCLUSION PART 2


differently from others. Companies are likely to debate an issue with stakeholders on the false as-sumption that they understand the issue by the same logic or buy into same arguments. I have also employed the term “cultural mindfulness”. Mindfulness has three parameters. One is the ability and readiness to shift one’s frame of reference. The second is the motivation to use new categories to understand cultural or ethnic differences. And the third is the preparedness to experiment with creative avenues of decision-making and problem solving. Ideally, issues managers should act on a level of “conscious competence”, meaning that issues managers are both aware of cultural differ-ences and able to act upon them (mindful). Being “consciously competent” they have the aptitude to change between identify constructions and understand and perceive an issue from others’ cul-tural frame. It requires making more distinctions and fewer generalisations. Issues mangers should be conscious about the stereotypes they hold and constantly question if the stereotypes are cor-rect. They must particularise, rather than categorise, information about others and look closely at the unique attribute, attitudes and behaviour of each stakeholder before making predictions about them. Culturally mindful issues management is capable of using a multicultural perspective. To-wards that end, the issues manager could draw on past experiences with specific stakeholders or make use of different cultural frameworks or “topoi”. The ultimate goal of this “awareness” and “mindfulness” is to give stakeholders the feeling that the company understands, respects, and sup-ports the way they approach a specific issue. On the contrary, the incompetent issues manager expresses evaluative attitudes, suspicions, and mistrust. I conclude that if issues managers are culturally “aware” and “mindful” they will be able to see more faces of an issue and if not sympa-thise with stakeholders then at least understand their reactions and anticipate some of their expec-tations. In the analysis, I have put emphasis on translating the general concepts of “stakeholder analysis and dialogue” as well as “cultural awareness and mindfulness” into operational practices. These concepts are not useful unless they materialise into concrete activities undertaken by issues man-agers. In the large “process model”, I have rewritten each step in the issues management process. Each company must draw a similar process model in which similar concretisation is pursued. I conclude that if “stakeholder analysis and dialogue” as well as “cultural awareness and mindful-ness” are integrated into the issues management process it increases the possibility to effectively identify and correctly analyse issues. And to respond to stakeholders in a way where misunder-standing is avoided and further conflict prevented. These propositions should make it possible to reduce the risk of crises. With these three propositions, part 2 has fulfilled the aspiration to identify generic principles for intercultural issues management both on a conceptual level and on an operational level. The propositions should be tested in an empirical analysis, which is the objective of part 3.

Part 2 | 75

PART 3

INTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS


INTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

The purpose of part 3 will be to present the practice of issues management at a number of large European corporations. The objective is to provide empirical data that assess the theoretical propositions. The data has been obtained through personal qualitative interviews with practitioners of issues management at 6 large European corporations: ! One interview was conducted with Kim Klastrup (Danish) at Grundfos. Kim Klastrup is brand

and marketing manager. Grundfos manufacturers and markets high technology electronics and electric motors for pumps and separate merchandising.

! A second interview was carried out with Marianne Barner (Swedish) from Ikea. She is head of

PR and Communications at Ikea International A/S. Ikea offers home furnishing in its ware-houses around the world. In addition to own production, Ikea receives supplies from a world-wide net of manufacturers.

! A third interview was with Jette Orduna from Lego (Danish). She is employed in the communi-

cation department at Lego and responsible for issues management. Lego produces toys and is known worldwide for the traditional Lego brick.

! A fourth interview took place with Bo Wesley (Danish) from Novo Nordisk. Bo Wesley is man-

ager of trendspotting and dialogue in the Stakeholder Relations Department. Novo Nordisk manufactures and markets a number of pharmaceutical products, mainly within diabetes care.

! SAS participated in a fifth interview. The interviewee, Carl Karlsson (Swedish), is vice president

of Corporate Communication at SAS Sweden. SAS is the biggest airline in Scandinavia. In ad-dition, it has a large number of hotels, Rezidor SAS Hospitality, around the world.

! Finally, I spoke to Matthias Glischinski-Kurc (German) from Shell Europe. He is employed as

issues manager and communication specialist in Shell’s European External Affairs Department in London. Shell finds, produces and markets oil and gas in all parts of the world.

The full interview summaries stand as interesting examples of contemporary issues management practices and may be of particular inspiration to other companies. It is not prerequisite for the un-derstanding of the subsequent chapters to read through the summaries but they will provide a more profound understanding. It is evident that the sort of propositions this dissertation has developed does not translate into concrete yes and no questions. It has been my objective to get answers to three very general questions: How do the companies experience their business environment and the risk of crises? How do the companies conceptualise issues? How do the companies manage issues? In the end of the dissertation, you may find the interview guide including the questions asked during the interviews. The intention has been to let issues managers describe how they con-ceptualise issues in their business environment and how they conduct issues management – with their own words. The three propositions structure the analysis.

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIES

Part 3 | 77


PROPOSITION 1: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT The first observation tested on the 6 companies concerns the business environment. It sounds: Larger European corporations are part of multicultural stakeholder environments. Companies should effectively manage issues in this environment in order to reduce the risk that issues mature into crises for the business organisation.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE ENVIRONMENT In the interviews, all companies described their stakeholder environment as being multicultural. The background information about the 6 companies presented in the interview summaries also provides evidence that all 6 companies indeed are part of multicultural stakeholder environments. Below, I pick out four issues from each company that illustrate the many different stakeholders involved. If we look at how I described cultural differences on page 15, it is clear that a large degree of cultural diversity exist in each of 6 companies’ respective environments. Company Issue 1 Issue 2 Issue 3 Issue 4 Grundfos Anti-globalisation dem-

onstrations by groups like “Attac”

Local politics, like infra-structure and education.

Production in China – the discussion about China’s violation of human rights

Exports to Arab world vs. Israel – the Jewish-Palestinian conflict

Ikea Greenpeace allegations of PVC (formaldehyde) in products.

Ikea suppliers in Paki-stan employing underage workers.

Discussions of wood supplies from ancient rain forests.

Local resistance towards large warehouses in the US.

Lego The use of religious Maori names for toy characters.

Instruction book with reference to September 11 attacks in the US.

Toy safety and PVC in products.

Allegations of dismissal of older employees in Denmark.

Novo Nordisk

Access to medicine in poor countries and pat-ent rights

HIV infected blood. Genetic modification as basis for research.

Animal testing of phar-maceuticals.

SAS Accusations of pool sharing with Maersk Air.

Sustainable tourism at hotels

Critique of safety on board flights

Frequent flyer program limiting competition

Shell Dumping of the Brent Spar Oil platform in the sea

Oil exploration in Nigeria and government hanging of 8 agony activists

Environmental damages caused by oil or gas

Exploration of poor countries’ oil resources

One company worth mentioning is Lego that is facing a large amount of demands from its environ-ment. The majority comes from customers and the company gets about 2 million enquiries a year. Most enquiries are product specific but Lego has experienced an increase in other sort of ques-tions. One example was a very upset American mother who had bought some Lego toy for her son. Pictures in the instruction book could be compared to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. The much-discussed issue with the Maoris from New Zealand also demonstrates the fact that Lego is part of a multicultural stakeholder environment. Representatives from some Maori tribes accused Lego of using sacred Maori names for figures in their new Bionicle toy series. The case attracted very high media exposure in Denmark. In addition to the Maori tribes, the issues involved stakeholders like national politicians in New Zealand and UNICEF. These examples, that Jette Orduna pointed to during the interview, stand in opposition to the following statement: “There is so few stakeholders that it has to be because people have confidence in what we do. We know



about the cultural differences in the world, but we have astonishingly few demands from stake-holders.” On the other hand, she also said: Today, there is so much focus that it is difficult to cheat on anybody.” This confusing situation most likely arises because Jette Orduna conceptualises “stakeholders” as interests groups while I refer to the concept as “anybody or any group with a stake in the company”. Novo Nordisk is often in the limelight in the Danish media. Not at least the so-called South Africa case illustrated the multiplicity of demands this pharmaceutical company is facing. In the South Africa case, Novo Nordisk was dealing with activist organisations and especially international activ-ist organisations. According to Bo Wesley from Novo Nordisk, activist organisations have become very professional in their international cooperation over the past years. They are very effective in taking concerted action and coordinate campaigns across national boundaries. They are also very professional in terms of fundraising capacities and communication experts are borrowed from in-dustrial companies or public relations agencies. Bo Wesley feels that many issues will become international in the future. “In issues management we are aware that most issues will arise interna-tionally, especially on the political arena.” Bo Wesley referred to the debate in the European Union at the moment about commercials for pharmaceuticals and another debate about price setting standards. For Shell, the circle of stakeholders has widened the past 10 years and the company now faces a greater diversity of stakeholder. Most of the time, oil exploration leads to direct confrontation or collaboration with stakeholders like politicians, local inhabitants, NGOs and others. There is no doubt that Shell’s stakeholders represent all types of cultural differences. Contrarily to the other companies, the international integration of the media has been an important driver making Shell’s stakeholder environment more multicultural. A common example is when Shell starts new opera-tions that may cause local resistance. Often NGOs chose to jump on that bandwagon and make it an international issue. But it can also have positive outcomes: “I don’t think outside pressure must be by definition negative. It can be very positive because it helps you to identify how to improve your own processes and standards.”(...) “NGO’s internationalisation of issues isn’t all that bad be-cause some of the outside pressure has helped the industry actually improve and continue to im-prove their own standards. Today, we approach projects in a different way than we did 10 or 15 years ago and I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 years time we approach them even more differently.” One Danish article sums it up this way: “Through time, businesses have been given a more power-ful position in society and function as governmental aids in many respects today.” (…) “If the envi-ronment does not assess that the company meets its obligations in a satisfactory way, a crisis may easily appear, become unmanageable and pose a threat to the company image in the long term.” (Translated from Danish. Schønnemann 2002).

INCREASE IN DEMANDS PUT ON COMPANIES Some of the companies pointed to the fact that more demands are put on companies today than before. Kim Klastrup from Grundfos explained: “Today, there are more opinion makers that raise subjects. There are also more medias that have to take a very critical stand in order to have an impact at all. The paradox is that in the 70s and 80s industrial companies had a negative image in the public but it was rarely confronted by critical voices. During the 90s the industrial sector has become “in” again.” Industrial companies have gained a greater societal acceptance. But on the


Part 3 | 79

other side, a greater number of critical medias and critical interests occur that all have an agenda we cannot avoid.” For Ikea, it is relatively new to manage issues. First, the company was caught by surprise in a case about the use of PVC in some of their products. Concerning the allegations that Ikea suppliers were using child labour, Marianne Barner explained in the interview: “If we take the child labour issue, Ikea just fell. I had just started and I felt awkward and I thought why do we not know more about this issue…” During the interview, Marianne Barner explained that Ikea has come to learn that its role is bigger today than it was ten years ago. Lego has experienced the same increase in public demands as Ikea. One example of such new demands was an enquiry from a critical con-sumer who wanted Lego to stop supplies from Bayer in Germany. In the interview, Jette Orduna explained about the Bayer issue: Bayer must take responsibility for its other activities. We have forwarded the enquiry to Bayer. I do not want to get involved with what Bayer does in third world countries. Somehow, it is not my pigeon. But we sit down and estimate what is behind this issue. It could be a forerunner of an NGO or a larger organisation that want to test our standpoint”. Bo Wesley from Novo Nordisk pointed to this increase in demands as well. He referred to a study showing that private companies fulfil a very large percentage of traditionally public tasks. “It is a sliding transition of roles that nobody has defined or wants to define. That is why businesses now face extraordinary demands. At a moment, it was almost expected that companies had the respon-sibility for the entire sum of people they engage with.” In an interview with the Danish Newspaper Politiken, Lise Kingo, Executive Vice President at Novo Nordisk, explained that she has clearly notified a rising awareness in society about problems with an ethical character (June 1997). Novo Nordisk has identified a number of so-called environmental stakeholders. Eight to nine years ago there were three – the authorities, the neighbours and environmental NGOs. Today, there are ten to twelve, Lise Kingo said in the interview. These include investors, customers, suppliers and em-ployees. The fifth company I interviewed, SAS, has experienced an equal multiplication of expectations from the environment: “There are very big demands and the development is that we should take a greater responsibility.” To mention an example, SAS faces greater demands from suppliers, like coca cola and more and more often, shareholders require that SAS live up to certain standards.

ISSUES WITH LITTLE RELATION TO CORE BUSINESS ACTIVITIES A general trait for the 6 companies is that more issues appear with only periphery connection to the companies’ core business. General topics are picked up and stakeholders “use” companies to draw attention to the topic. Grundfos is a good example of this. The Danish media often demands that the company develops effective responses to very general public issues. As a large company, Grundfos has to take a position in that issue even though it does not concern its business as such. Kim Klastrup believes it is about getting an outside-in perspective on the organisation and he says that is a process many companies now go through. Before, companies used to have a low profile. “The one that live in silence will die. The consequence is that you have to see and anticipate new issues”. In the Brent Spar issue, Grundfos was pressed to make a standpoint and decided that it would cut business relations with Shell unless Shell found another solution to the dumping of the Brent Spar oil plat-



form. The decision was based on the fact that Grundfos had signed ICC’s (the International Cham-ber of Commerce) environmental charter that advised companies to be critical towards suppli-ers.Lego has experienced a similar proliferation of demands with very little relevance to Lego’s core activities. In the interview, I referred to an issue where Lego was criticised for exporting to Burma. Jette Orduna answered: “There has to be a limit for trivial matters. We said: Ok, so what, once again we are used in a play that does not concern us.” Matthias Glischinski-Kurc from Shell confirmed this general picture. Often, when Shell starts a new exploration of oil, it takes place in countries outside Western Europe that may have faced or faces problems with political instability. When Shell moves in, some organisations use the Shell brand to attract attention from the general public: “All of a sudden organisations can attach a name that everybody knows to a problem. Nobody else would be interested in what is going to happen in, let’s say, the African Delta but if you have a high street name coming in then all by a sudden all people can understand. You can attach a face to a problem that has nothing to do with the face.”

INCREASED FOCUS ON ISSUES MANAGEMENT At Grundfos, the increase in stakeholder expectations has driven the company to put greater focus on issues management, not a more integrated media, as was my point in the introduction: “I think the Danish media is surprisingly uninterested in Grundfos issues abroad.” Kim Klastrup mentioned an issue in the UK about allegations of monopoly. The case received great media coverage in the UK but no journalists in Denmark picked it up. Nevertheless, Kim Klastrup pointed to the fact that the Internet has paved the way for more international integration of the media: “More and more issues get picked up on the Internet. The Internet is open for everybody, no matter whether argu-ments are legitimate. It can be results of research reports, competitors that publish negative news about you etc. The Internet is still based on anarchy.” Grundfos has dealt with critical issues on the Internet. Kim Klastrup finds it difficult to respond to such issues, because it is not clear who to re-spond to. At Lego, the communication department also pays more attention to issues management than ear-lier. All enquiries receive an answer and consumer service pays more attention to identifying en-quiries that have a moral or ethical side to it. A couple of years ago, Lego was less sensitive to-wards issues like the Bayer case. “We used to think: Well, too bad. You have your opinions, we have ours.” Since the Maori issue, Lego pays more attention to potential public relations conflicts: “What concerns moral, we have got the warning that we have to pay more close attention to that”. At Novo Nordisk, issues management achieves great attention. Bo Wesley devotes all his time to issues management and stakeholder relations and colleagues in the same department are dealing with futures research and trend spotting. Issues management has become increasingly important for SAS as well despite the fact that there is no actual issues manager employed. Not at least be-cause SAS is part of an industry where minor crises like safety or job dissatisfaction easily have consequences on the operational level (cancellation or delay of flights). With the realisation that Ikea occupies a broader role today than ten year ago, the company has started focus more on proactively looking for upcoming issues. Marianne Barner said: “These is-sues have learned us something. We should try to see things coming. Even though we do not do it in a very systematic way, we are out and seeing and doing things before somebody come knocking


Part 3 | 81

on our door”(….) “No one will ever be the masters of this, but we are much much better now than ten years ago.” Compared to a couple of years ago, IKEA management are much more concerned about non-commercial issues and about identifying them. Finally, issues management has achieved greater clout at Shell in recent years, Today, the com-pany runs regular seminars for the 150 top managers in Europe to assure they have a proper intro-duction to reputation management. The seminar teaches that what managers do in terms of run-ning their business, always has two impacts: A reputational impact and a business impact. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc said: “There are no illegitimate questions. Ideally, you should always be able to answer any question from the public – and be it by admitting that you don’t have the answer yet.” Matthias Glischinski-Kurc is employed as full time issues manager with Shell.

ISSUES MANAGEMENT, SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND/OR COMMUNICATION Not all companies confirmed that the intensification of public demands has lead to more focus be-ing paid to issues management. The interview with Marianne Barner demonstrated that Ikea has put more focus on creating partnership and changing business activities to become more responsi-ble rather than to strengthen communicative efforts. Actually, Marianne Barner seemed quite resis-tant towards treating issues as a communication activity. Instead she puts emphasis on letting the issues become part of the company’s sustainability work: “If it is a communication activity, then it is short term and not sustainable business. That does not correspond with our way of working.” Thus, in opposition to most literature and the way I have presented issues management in this disserta-tion, Marianne Barner does not see social responsibility work and issues management as comple-mentary disciplines. Instead she believes there is a risk that issues management leads to a super-ficial and short-term approach to issues. In the introduction to issues management I pointed to the risk that issues management is perceived as spin doctoring or defensive delay activities which is the fault of some unserious parts of the issues management literature (page 19). Issues manage-ment must be understood as Wartick & Wood define it – as a way to broaden the framework of business exposure to include threats and opportunities in social and political environments (1998: 195). In opposition to Marianne Barner, Carl Karlsson from SAS does not agree that the intensification of stakeholder demands translates into greater focus on social responsibility in the company. He be-lieves SAS has been working with a broad range of topics like the environment, social responsibility and community relations for a long time. The great change is that today companies need to be open and communicate about what they do. In a television program, SAS was accused of putting aside safety issues. Media coverage like this one does not lead SAS to focus more on safety, as it is all ready very important in all SAS activities. But it leads to greater efforts put into communicating about safety, both internally and externally, Carl Karlsson said. Kim Klastrup from Grundfos agreed with Carl Karlsson, that the urgency to communicate about business activities is the biggest change: “In general, I believe our work in society has something to do with our world view. The public attention to companies’ social responsibility only really began in the 1990s but for Grundfos it has been part of business since the company was established. The difference is that now we have to be open and communicate about it.” The remaining 3 companies said that issues management has lead to greater focus both on social responsibility work and effective communication. Asked about what to do in order to avoid public relations crises, Jette orduna from Lego answered that the most important part was to behave morally and to allocate resources and manpower to issues



management. Bo Wesley from Novo Nordisk said: “The first thing we should do is to behave cor-rectly. Show that what we say is what we do and build trust in the public. We should take our re-sponsibility seriously and use resources to improve ourself. The second thing is to notice what goes on in the surrounding society, take it seriously and react upon it. These are two very important elements.” The quote demonstrates that at Novo Nordisk, like at Lego, social responsibility goes hand in hand with effective communication as means for reducing crises. In addition, the respondents drew my attention to another interesting aspect. If companies are open about company values and social responsibility it seems likely that they face more issues than more “silent” companies. The following quotations are evidences of that: “You want your customers to fall in love with the company. But the more emotions that come into play, the greater is the risks that emotions turn around.”… “It is clear that a higher profile, a sharper profile, leads to greater risks to get overthrown.” (Kim Klastrup Grundfos). “We are aware that the more we poke our nose into discussions, the greater the blows we receive. That is why we are actually quite reticent.” (Jette Orduna, Lego). “By being open about your social responsibility, public expectations to your company rise. If you do not live up to it, you get beaten up. But we believe that it pays off to be open in the long run.” (Bo Wesley, Novo Nordisk). These arguments are sustained in a Danish article: “Only the naïve manager believes that the company image is guaranteed simply because the company is branding itself in terms of soft values, holistic management and responsibility to-wards developments in the global society. One the contrary, the many bottom lines increase the company’s sensitivity towards criticism…” (Translated from Danish. Schønnemann 2002). Conse-quently, the interviews indicate that the general trend towards more open communication about corporate values and social responsibility may increase companies’ legitimacy in the public. But in order to reduce the risk that critical issues jeopardise with this image of being responsible, effective issues management is increasingly important for today’s European companies. I may illustrate the way the different companies described the relation between issues manage-ment, social responsibility and communication this way:

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION The preliminary conclusion I draw is that all companies described their stakeholder environment as being multicultural, while the diversity and number of stakeholders varied from company to com-pany. The 6 respondents feel more demands are put on companies and more issues arise as a consequence, especially broad issues with periphery connection to core business. I also conclude that the companies believe effective issues manage activities could reduce the risk that these is-sues evolve into crises for the organisation. Though it is paramount, the interviews showed, that effective communication and changing business operations into more sustainable practices are complementary ways of responding to issues.

More end new de-mands put on com-panies. Issues arise.

Make business activities more socially responsible Issues management

identifies and analy-ses issues

Communicate more effec-tively about bus. activities

Figure 21: Communication and social responsibility


Part 3 | 83

PROPOSITION 2: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS The “conceptual model” on page 52 shows how to conceptualise issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. It demonstrates that: ! Issues are anchored in the relation between companies and stakeholders and are not detached

topics in the business environment. Issues arise because stakeholders and companies show interest in them, give them significance and there are legitimacy gaps arising from discrepan-cies of fact, value or policy.

! Companies and stakeholders are attached to their cultural context, which conditions what they perceive as legitimate corporate performance. The cultural context conditions how they per-ceive issues, interpret them, which opinions they create and how they respond to them verbally and nonverbally.

ISSUES – CONFLICTS OF INTEREST I wrote in the theoretical analysis that “issues” and “stakeholder interests” are closely related. Inter-ests lead stakeholders to bring up issues and can be material, affiliative, political, informational, symbolic, spiritual or other. Awareness of this diversity will prevent companies from debating an issue from a single or a wrong perspective (often from the material side) when in fact other aspects are more important in the debate, I argued. The examples below quite clearly illustrate that this is true in the 6 companies. Kim Klastrup mentioned an issue where Grundfos became subject to criticism of racial discrimina-tion. In order to protect activities in Arab countries, Grundfos had decided not to make permanent agreements with Israeli distributors. In several Arab countries, Grundfos had been forced to sign agreements not to provide products to Israel. The issue arose because the editor of the Danish newspaper Politiken was Jewish and Grundfos refused to sign a contract with an acquittance of his in Israel. Politiken printed an article saying that Grundfos refused to trade with Jewish people. It was eventually picked up by the national television. Grundfos was obliged to react promptly and openly declared that it did not want to trade with Israel because it had to protect a turnover of 300 million DKK in the Arab world. Concerning that issue, Kim Klastrup said: “It is evident that there is a conflict of interest. But as a company you should be prepared that some people will question your activities. Borrowing terms from the theoretical analysis, the above case is an evident example of a situation where the company logic is based on financial considerations (material interests) while the Israeli distributor and the Danish media picked up the issue from a political and a racial angle. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc from Shell pointed to the fact that issues are not only about conflicting interests between a company and a stakeholder. Often there are a whole variety of interests in-volved. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc said: “Usually issues are not very straightforward and clear. Is-sues management is not a scientific laboratorial exercise where you can isolate one element. Usu-ally an issue is complex and interrelated with other policy arenas or policy issues.”(….)“You have to see NGOs as one stakeholder group and not forget about all the others like the political arena for example. Politicians and NGOs have to be able to explain the issue to THEIR supporters. They have their own agenda. Sometimes, it is hard for them to say publicly that what the company is doing is bloody good because their supporters don’t like to hear that.”(….)“Various stakeholders



have various interests not only in terms of demands but also in aspects of an issue.” He mentions new operations as an example: Human Right groups want Shell to respect human rights in a dictatorial political regime. An environmental NGO might be interested in gas flaring, biodiversity etc. A development agency might be interested in how Shell contributes to the local development of resources of the people. There are also differences between political stakeholders. Local government might be interested in getting local revenue while a national government might see the need to let other regions participate in the wealth created. And governments in Europe or political organisations might choose to put pressure on that government because of various reasons. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc verifies that it is imperative in issues management to understand the interests that drive stakeholders to raise issues and to put yourself in the stakeholder’s feet. He also extents on the proposition 2 by pointing to the potential downfalls if issues managers focus too narrowly on interest conflicts with one stakeholder and overlook other important interests in the same issues. Marianne Barner from Ikea had a different perception of interest conflicts than the other companies. She confirmed that some stakeholders and Ikea may be driven by different objectives in their day-to-day work: “..of course we are business companies and we are here to make a business and we should use our business.” But she believes the discussion of conflicting interests is often misunder-stood. Marianne Barner does not ascribe the “child labour issue” to conflicting interests between Ikea and some stakeholders. Ikea was simply unprepared that society was putting new demands on companies to assure that their suppliers respected principles of social responsibility: “We do not have different interests. And that is my key point. Save the Children do not accept child labour. Ikea does not accept child labour. Other companies do not accept child labour. So what can we do?” (…..) “The lesson is that we have the same goals but we have different roles. It does not have to be that we agree on everything during that journey and I don’t think that we shall because we have different roles in society.” You could say that in the “child labour issue” the true interest conflict was between some Ikea stakeholders: The supplies wanted to reduce costs in order to be competitive and maintain contracts with Ikea while NGOs wanted to stop the use of underage workers. Ikea being a globally known corporation was expected to actively take part in that conflict.

CONCRETE DESCREPANCIES Marianne Barner’s statement directly leads to another conclusion from the theoretical analysis. An issue does not arise from conflicting interests alone. They only arise if there are concrete discrep-ancies of fact, value or policy. Kim Klastrup from Grundfos made this distinction between interests and concrete gaps: “There are not that many areas of conflicts between Grundfos and its various stakeholders but it is evident that we each have our foundation and interests. Grundfos wants to foster sustainable development and so does organisations like Greenpeace. So where is it that we have different interests? It is when it comes to the company existence and what it takes to lead a company.” (….). “You have to remem-ber that we have a raison d’être as a company which is to be a leading company on our markets. Of course this is another objective than NGOs like Greenpeace. They operate on a much broader arena.” An example of a discrepancy of fact is Grundfos’ confrontations with anti-globalisation groups. These groups hold that through global dominance, Grundfos participates to increase local unemployment. On the other hand, Grundfos maintains that it contributes to the creation of jobs through international expansion.


Part 3 | 85

The “South Afric issue” involving Novo Nordisk illustrates a discrepancy of policy. Novo Nordisk became subject to immense media coverage in this case. “Oxfam”, an international confederation of NGOs, started the debate about medical companies’ intellectual property rights vis-à-vis access to life-saving medicine for people in developing countries. Novo was accused of limiting access to medicine for diabetes patients. Novo Nordisk felt that stakeholders had a very narrow approach by focusing on intellectual property rights. Bo Wesley explained: “The activists have led a very narrow debate. At Novo we feel you need to take a much more holistic approach in order to assure access to life-saving medicine. Many parties should do something positive at the same time and together in order to create sustainable solutions.”(…) “They say they want to achieve the same as we do: assure access to heath for as many people as possible in poor regions of the world. But there is a big difference between our solutions and we discuss a lot about that. In the South Africa case, some activist organisations thought that moving intellectual property rights would solve all problems because other companies would be allowed to develop genetic medicine and prices would fall. We cannot accept that solution because intellectual property rights is key in our business model. If they do not exist it will be catastrophic for innovation in the pharmaceutical industry.” The ground pillars in Novo Nordisk’s business model are to develop unique expensive medicine that can be patented. Novo firmly believes that it is in the best interest of the public to continue such up-front innovation. In order to, at the same time, assure access to medicine Novo has chosen to follow WHO’s solu-tions. Oxfam and other stakeholders like Danish “Mellemfolkelig Samvirke” and “Læger uden grænser” believe a very different policy is needed to assure equal access to medicine. The following is an example of a discrepancy of “policy” between Shell and some NGOs: Some NGOs say: Stop oil tomorrow, because oil creates climate change. We have to say: This is the logic yes BUT there is also an economic or social impact. You can’t simply switch off the oil supply from the third world. You need to develop alternatives and that takes time. If we want to avoid so-cial or economic eruption in the world system we need to find a reasonable why to migrating from economy A to economy B.”

STAKEHOLDER INFLUENCE In the theoretical analysis I argued that stakeholder theory could contribute to issues management by analysing which stakeholders the company should pay most attention to. I wrote that not all stakeholders are equally important because they have different possibilities of influence. Carl Karlsson from SAS confirmed that conclusion. He said: “Instead of just talking about the envi-ronment, we have to become more aware which of our stakeholders are important to us and build our work with different issues on that basis.”(….) “As our operations spread, new stakeholders are introduced. Society put new demands on us. New expectations are created. New customers arrive. We develop our relations.” He points to the fact that it is not enough to analyse the environment. Companies must be strategic in choosing which forces in the environment they pay attention to. Ikea is aware of the potential downsides of paying too much attention to specific stakeholders. Marianne Barner said in the interview that companies should beware not to blindly follow what one stakeholder is saying just because it is influential. Otherwise, the company risks reacting in a way that does not correspond with its policies in the long run. Thus, Ikea puts emphasis on always ob-taining knowledge about a specific issue and forming an independent standpoint on that basis. Marianne Barner mentioned an example: “I can give you one example and that is the red mark. It is



a label that was very much discussed for carpets. It was a very good initiative, but we saw the weaknesses. And we said we will not participate.” The initiative came from very influential stake-holders in Ikea’s environment. But had the company followed these stakeholders’ suggestions, it would have jeopardised with its other policies and programs related to the child labour issue. The conclusion must be that it makes sense to closely take into consideration potential stakeholder influence before deciding which issues to pay attention to and which stakeholders to focus on. At the same time it is paramount that issues managers are capable of assessing whether catering to specific stakeholders is in balance with overall corporate policies and values in the long run.

CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN FOCUS ON ISSUES Moving to the intercultural aspect of issues management, the first thing that springs in the eyes in the interviews is the fact that there are substantial cultural variations in which issues people focus on. Cultural variations may appear along many dimensions, which I illustrated in the model on page 15. The following are examples of two of those dimensions - national cultures and subcultures. Kim Klastrup from Grundfos made the following observation: “Culture and cultural understanding vary a lot in different locations. People pay attention to different things.” He pointed to national cul-tural differences as one aspect: “…there is a difference between which issues the individual coun-tries focus on. It has something to do with values and traditions in each country and what moves people to action. Like in the US, there is a hysterical consciousness in relation to food.” (…..) “Many themes are global. But there is a great difference in how much focus the issue achieves on each market.” It is interesting that Kim Klastrup spoke about “values” and “traditions”. It corre-sponds with what I wrote about “the general cultural filter” in the theoretical analysis. I stated that values indicate what is good and bad, important and unimportant and “desired ends of social life and the means to reach these goals” while norms and rules guide what we think we or others “ought to be doing”. Thus, Kim Klastrup confirms that these cultural variations lead people to focus on different issues or different aspect of an issue. Bo Wesley (Novo Nordisk) further substantiated this. He explained that he has experienced large disparities in the attention different countries pay to medical diseases. In India, diabetes is not con-sidered a priority because it is a slowly evolving illness. Many patients in non-western countries do not take diabetes seriously either. They are fundamentally sceptical towards medicine and nutrition advices from Western doctors. The Maori issue is a further example: “When you look at cultural differences, we said that the US is one place we really can come into trouble with the Maori issue because Americans often have double standards. At that time, we had a very big McDonald campaign coming up in the US and McDonald did not want to get their fingers burned so we had clammy hands. But it never occurred.” The fact that Lego had to withdraw a product from the shelves that contained controversial pictures in the instruction book is another example of cultural variations. Jette Orduna described this inci-dent as very “American”: “You can say that in issues like this one we go in and think about the cul-ture because on the one side we think this is A BIT exaggerated, to be honest. On the other hand, we had to say, ok, we have offended someone in the US, and it is likely that more people will be offended if they get hold of the product. So we must withdraw it.”(…)”Again, the culture is decisive.


Part 3 | 87

Because here in Europe we would say it was very unlucky but nobody would have made the con-nection.” These are examples of national cultural variations. Subcultural variations between stakeholders influence which issues they focus on as well. In the interview, Shell distinguished between so-called event-driven NGOs (for example Attac) and scientific NGOs (for example research insti-tutes). “Event driven NGOs tend to select potential areas to get involved in a different way than organisations that are more into the background and substance and structure of an issue.”(…) “Contrary to other stakeholders, scientific organisations tend to focus on how to get sound informa-tion to make very informed and knowledge-based decision.” In the first type of organisation, creat-ing high media attention, maybe trough demonstrations, is considered most valuable and “right”. In the second type of organisation, the culture may value research that disapproves corporate performance. In this case, it becomes decisive whether the NGO is part of an “event-driven culture” or a “scientific culture”. Novo Nordisk is currently going through a similar recognition of subcultural variations in ways of communicating about issues. Bo Wesley explained that the organisation has been focusing too heavily on NGOs, political organs and other formal stakeholders. Now, the company wants to cre-ate dialogue with individuals and patients and it has recognised that it has to move its rhetoric out of this “informed and special universe” and jump to “a second level of competence”. In sum, I conclude that the interviews provide evidence that culture, both at a national and subcul-tural level, is a decisive driver for which issues or which aspects of an issue people focus on.

CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN DEALING WITH ISSUES In part 2, I concluded that bases of issues – discrepancies of fact, value or policy – are couched in cultural beliefs and attitudes. This way, cultural differences between stakeholders and companies may explain why some discrepancies arise. If this conclusion is true, issues are likely to occur when there are cultural, sociocultural or psychocultural variances between stakeholders and com-panies. All 6 companies touched upon cultural variations in the way different stakeholders approach and manage issues. Below, I mention a few. At a general level, Kim Klastrup (Grundfos) said: “There is a clear difference between our three regional blocks, Europe, Asia and the Americas, in how they approach different issues. This goes for example for themes like environmental consciousness, human rights, and social responsibility.” Kim Klastrup argued that issues are more complex when they have an international perspective: “It is obvious that when an issues is transnational or even global, it is difficult to manage. Some issues occur abroad that you can manage locally. One example was an issue in the US about water pollu-tion. It is relatively easy to understand an issue within one country. What is really difficult is when it involves a number of countries.” Indeed, Grundfos have concrete experiences that so-called one-sided issues are two-sided in for-eign cultures. Grundfos’ mission-vision manifest explains company policies and one part says that the company does not accept violations of human rights, which also concerns business partners.



Especially the US has been positive towards the human-rights part while in Asia, there have been some problems. At Grundfos’ subsidiary in China, Chinese employees have found it intricate to explain the policies to governmental relations. Grundfos’ mission-vision manifest is translated into all the languages of the countries where it operates. At one point, employees in China thought it would be easiest if it just was not translated into Chinese. Kim Klastrup said: “It creates problems when you are persistent in your demand to apply the same values and policies around the world.” Another formulation in Grundfos’ policies says that close relations should be created with all busi-ness partners - also employees. Employees are characterised as family members. It has been sharply criticised by American subsidiaries. In the American culture, there is a clear distinction be-tween the company realm and private life, Kim Klastrup explained. Contrarily, this policy complies very well with the Asian culture. In these two cases, there definitely seem to be a clash of cultural values (“general cultural filter”) between the company (Grundfos) and some stakeholders (Chinese governmental bodies / American employees). The interview demonstrated that Grundfos finds it very challenging to ague with anti-globalisation groups. This is not only due to the fact that Grundfos as global company is unable to meet the groups’ demands. It is also due to the fact that values and norms vary tremendously between these NGOs and companies like Grundfos. There is a huge lack of understanding from the two sides. Kim Klastrup showed very little respect for their arguments in the interview and said that to his opinion, some of the anti-globalisation activists are unaware of what the globalisation discussion is actually about. Studied in the light of the large conceptual model on page 52, you could say that both Grundfos and the anti-globalisation groups suffer from a lack of mutual understanding of each party’s cultural contexts. This results in a lack of understanding and respect of the other party’s arguments. Again, this is not to say that Grundfos should agree with the anti-globalisation groups. But if issues are to be resolved, there need to be some sort of mutual understanding. It makes sense to interpret the difficulties of dialogue and mutual understanding between these groups and Grundfos as a clash of cultures. Issues are really about a discrepancy in the perception of what is seen as “right” and “wrong”, Bo Wesley said in the Interview. Many times he has assisted in meetings between Novo Nordisk and stakeholder where huge differences between the two parties “worldviews” existed. “We think: Why don’t they understand that what we do is important and right? Why do they react differently than we expected?” It is not only opinions that distinguish Novo Nordisk from some stakeholders, but also the arguments’ structure and content. “In the round table discussion with NGOs we can sit 4 hours and try to understand each other’s languages. Sometimes, discussions are at that level.” I asked Marianne Barner form Ikea whether she finds it more difficult to deal with a stakeholder from Scandinavia that someone from East Asia or The Middle East. She answered: “Of course it is always easier to work with people coming from your own culture. First of all you have the language. I think we have a tradition to sit down and speak in our culture and not start with the confronta-tion.”(…) “Of course we are coming from different environments. Here from the Nordic countries trust is very important. If we say one thing we trust each other. But in many other countries that is not common. But you have to respect that too.” She pointed to differences in the way various cul-tural groups communicate about issues – through confrontation or dialogue.


Part 3 | 89

I would also like to mention Lego. The company owns production sites in China where expectations to corporate behaviour vary tremendously compared to Denmark. Lego does not pay wages similar to Danish levels in China and standards are generally much lower. While this is accepted in China, Jette Orduna said in the interview that the company may become subject to criticism by Danish or international stakeholders who disapprove the fact that Western companies move manual intensive production to poorer regions of the world. The interview with Jette Orduna also revealed that cul-tural variations exist within companies. There may be great differences between how different groups of employees look upon an issue: “An understanding of the entire picture is also necessary in order to understand cultural differences between different departments in Lego. There are big internal cultural differences in ways of dealing with things and you have to take care of that in a company as well. You have to be on the top of that. Respect other people’s way of acting.” The Brent Spar issue may be the best example that culture strongly influences how different stake-holders handle and form opinions about issues. The following quotation where Matthias Glischin-ski-Kurc analyses the Brent Spar issue is key to understand the connection between culture and issues management: “This was one example that one of the great strengths of the organisation in the past – its highly decentralised nature - didn’t really work out very efficiently this time because it was very hard for one operating unit, the country organisation, to understand what the hell was going on in another country. All proper regulatory procedures had been followed. Local consultation had taken place. This was identified as the best way. The company had fixed the regulations by the comma and why the hell is anybody on the Continent starting to complain? What it showed is that just sticking to the law is not enough. It’s also about the expectations of society. And as we saw, these could be very different in individual countries. I don’t know whether you can call it a cultural gap….” Another Shell example is climate change. There are important differences between how different corporations deal with that issue. Shell and BP early supported an international mechanism like Kyoto whereas other international energy companies did not – namely Esso. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc believes there are very distinct differences in terms of cultural approach to climate change: “I would tend to say there is a different cultural mindset that influence the approach to issues and that become even more distinct when you come to other parts of the world.” He referred to a study pur-sued by the consulting company Edelman (Deri & Wootliff 2001) that demonstrates huge differ-ences between the US and Western Europe in perceptual trust in stakeholders like NGOs and politicians. Businesses are hardly trusted in Europe and NGOs are very trusted. The picture is the opposite in the US. It is evident that it influences how people in these two regional blocks manage certain issues. The interview with Matthias Glischinski-Kurc changed my understanding of when issues are most complex. Before conducting the interview, I instinctively assumed that the more stakeholders are involved in one issue, the more complex it is to handle. Instead, Matthias Glischinski-Kurc ex-plained that the degree of diversity between stakeholders involved is more important that the num-ber of them. Consequently, if there is a large degree of “strangeness” between relatively few stake-holders it may be complicated to lead effective issues management. At the same time it may be a rather uncomplicated process if a large number of stakeholders are involved that share similar cultural orientations.



Above, I have spoken about how the 6 companies perceive cultural variation in their environment. But the interviews also revealed something about how they look upon their own cultural context and its influence on issues management. Grundfos, SAS and Ikea seem to pay much attention to corporate values. In the theoretical analysis, I did not discuss corporate culture and values. But from the interviews I clearly get the impression that they are valuable ways of characterising and understanding the cultural context of the company. Within the last 10 years, businesses have payed greater attention to corporate culture and to explicitly define company values. Concurrently, the interviews showed that companies rely on their internal values in searching for responses to external issues. That is an interesting observation. Carl Karlsson has experienced that SAS’ Scan-dinavian culture is perceived negatively. “We know that when you say Scandinavian some people may perceive it as discriminating. But when we say Scandinavian we refer to a set of values that encompass that we, in our position, should try to be multicultural.” “The Scandinavian image can be perceived in such a way that we only favour Danish, Swedish and Norwegian men and women in our jobs.” This example validates the proposition’s message - that companies and stakeholders are part of distinct cultural contexts that influences how they understand issues and respond to them.

ROLE EXPECTATIONS AND STEREOTYPES The interviews with Novo Nordisk, Ikea and Grundfos showed that understanding role expectations is important in issues management (“the sociocultural filters”). Role expectations signify “a set of behavioural expectations associated with a particular position in a social group” (Gudykunst 1992: 75). In part 2, I argued that role expectations might guide assumptions and prejudices that compa-nies or stakeholders hold towards other parties in a debate. In addition, I have concluded that peo-ple have a sort of “psychocultural filter” that create stereotype perceptions about what others are like or are supposed to be like. In the stakeholder relations department at Novo Nordisk, Bo Wesley has often experienced that mistrust is created because NGOs and companies expect there should be a difference of interests. When NGOs only focus companies’ objective to make profit, mistrust occurs, he said. Novo Nord-isk has not been able to show that social responsible business behaviour is financially sound. But the company has put efforts into contesting the myth that good economic results automatically is in opposition to behaviour that satisfy broader societal expectations. It is difficult to stay open-minded and positive towards stakeholders who are persistent in rejecting any initiatives taken by compa-nies because they are supposed to have a certain role, Bo Wesley said. He referred to a web site on the Internet called Corp Watch. The web site explains that the Johannesburg Summit is a joke because companies have green-washed or blue-washed themselves into the UN and have set the summit’s agenda, which makes it untrustworthy. “It is not always easy to have a real dialogue. Many NGOs do not want it. Like Greenpeace. It is hard to believe but we have had dialogue with the organisation called Shac, who goes crazy over animal testing. We are the only company who have spoken with them.” Recently, Novo Nordisk has considered that it has to act more like NGOs. It means taking a more proactively role, for example in campaigns. It does not have to be NGOs that initiate campaigns and catch companies on the wrong leg each time, Bo Wesley explained in the interview. Bo Wesley imagines a campaign chaired by Nike and Novo: “Get up from the couch and run”. This way, Novo Nordisk wants to turn roles upside down and become the offensive part. The following shows that Novo Nordisk and their stakeholders also have some stereotype percep-tions of each other: “Activist organisations are some of the most undemocratic institutions you can


Part 3 | 91

find. They decide to pursue an issue in the public. But nobody has elected them. Who do they rep-resent? Maybe they do not even represent the people they say they do. Despite that fact, it is or-ganisations like these we invite into dialogue because they are so effective. It is an undemocratic balance. They turn it around and say that companies have become so powerful in society that they can make changes that the public administration no longer is able to.” Earlier in this empirical analysis, I pointed to the fact that issues do not only appear in cases where there is a dispute about goals. In fact, companies and stakeholders often share objectives. Never-theless, discrepancies may arise because expectations about which roles to fulfil in order to meet objectives are different. I mentioned that Marianne Barner ascribed the “child labour issue” to the fact that the company was unprepared that the environment expected Ikea to fulfil a societal role of improving working conditions in poor countries. In many occasions of stakeholder dialogue, Marianne Barner has experienced that role expectations become a barrier to find solutions to is-sues – for example that companies should react in a particular manner because they are compa-nies: “Sometimes you feel that a company has to be different from a non-governmental organiza-tion. But we are all people. Sometimes I feel that you make this difference bigger that it is”(…)“I think that the most difficult part was this…not trusting each other. It was a threat. It was negative.” Marianne Barner explained in the interview that for some people it is an enormous step to start working together, which this quotation illustrates: “I have a contact at a local NGO in India. I went to see her in 1998 and when I came into the room she said: Marianne, had you come two years ago, I would not have let you into the room. Because I came from a company. She speaks a lot about how this confrontation was not good. That was created by certain trade unions and certain NGOs.” Kim Klastrup from Grundfos agreed with Ikea’s perspective. In the interview he expressed that too much focus on roles can be a disadvantage: “Of course we are not a NGO and we do not work in the same way.” But “…you have to take care not to get the impression that you have defined the distribution of roles on beforehand. I do not think it is like that. To a great extent, the roles can change. You should not have a too narrow or predefined opinion about how you are supposed to think and act as a company or a NGO. You can change roles. Often it is the role of the NGOs to raise issues and set the agenda. Companies come rushing behind to defend their viewpoints and show they act responsibly. The politicians or the press play similar defined roles. I do not believe in that and I think it is very dangerous if you accept it because companies will always become the defensive party. Intercultural communication theory demonstrated that people make social stereo-types about people from other cultures. Stereotyping originates in a tendency to overestimate the association between people’s behaviour and their membership of a specific cultural group. Kim Klastrup’s statements certainly validates that such considerations are relevant in issues manage-ment. The previously mentioned issue about Grundfos’ human rights policies in its mission-vision state-ment is another example that expectations about societal roles vary across cultures. Chinese em-ployees and government relations did not assume a company to interfere in matters related to hu-man rights. On the other hand, Western activist organisations and customers expected just that. It illustrates that companies may face conflicting role expectations in its environment that it will have to juxtapose these. The theoretical analysis showed that in that process, it is paramount that the company does not follow the role expectations of its own culture blindly. It has to be capable of understanding role expectations that prevail in stakeholders’ culture – for example the Chinese



society. Many different perceptions about what role is “right” will most often exist in a multicultural stakeholder environment. The theoretical analysis demonstrated that ethnocentrism leads us to view our own cultural values and behaviour as more real or right. Ethnocentrism must be avoided as it blocks understanding and the creation of sound stakeholder relationships. It is possible to say that the interviews provided evidence that roles tell one party in a debate what representatives from the other parties are like or are supposed to be like. Further, the interviews confirmed that roles tend to vary across cultures. It is necessary for issues managers to know stakeholders’ role expectations if they are to understand and accurately predict their behaviour and manage issues effectively. If a company are unaware of the process, and do nothing to move be-yond these role expectations, it may experience itself in a static role, with fewer possibilities of ac-tion in relation to an issue.

EMOTIONS VS. RATIONALE A significant cultural difference between companies and their stakeholders is the sort of arguments they rely on. This became evident when I went through the 6 interviews. Companies’ cultural con-text supports rather rational and logic arguments while that of many stakeholders, especially activ-ist organisations, sustains more emotional attitudes. In various cases, companies have found it difficult to create understanding about issues because it has kept arguing from the rational point of view that did not really affect the public. The Brent Spar issue is a very good example of that. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc described it very clearly: Quite extensive local consultation in the UK with various environmental NGOs, fishermen, the government and many other stakeholders – including other European governments - preceded the regulatory approval granted by the British government to sink the installation in the North Atlan-tic. The issue showed us, from a company point of view, that rational arguments absolutely don’t get across in a very heated and emotionally driven atmosphere. Interestingly enough even Green-peace concluded in the end that the original proposal of deep-sea disposal was on balance the best option. From all aspects of sustainable development that would have been the best mean. They said so two years later. But what it really showed all interested parties: Public expectations were different – for whatever reasons – and we had learnt to listen and take the public perception into account.” The South Africa case is another god example. On the one hand, pharmaceutical companies can-not exist if intellectual property rights are not respected. On the other hand, poor patients are not capable of buying expensive patented medicine, which creates a serious gap in the world between who can and who cannot get medical aid. Generic medicine could supply cheaper medicine. Again this would force pharmaceutical companies that lead up front research out of the market. In the beginning, Novo Nordisk was certain that the public would understand arguments to protect intel-lectual property rights and it was very surprised that it triggered such tremendous opposition in the public. Bo Wesley explained: “It is because we think in a rational way, while an issue like this rarely follow a rational logic in the medias and in the interface between the medias and other parties. Activist organisations think they are rational as well, but they use emotional means. We find it very difficult to respond to that because we think it isn’t serious. But maybe it is not unserious at all in the world where we live. It has been a lesson for us.” Novo Nordisk came to understand that logic arguments do not always get through. What matters is what the public buys into.


Part 3 | 93

A third example was Grundfos and the “Israel issue”. The company openly declared that it had to protect a turnover of 300 million DKK in the Arab world. From an economic point of view, this is a sound argument. But in the eyes of the public, Grundfos distinguishes between customers on the basis of their race, which is unacceptable from an emotional standpoint. Again, an example of ra-tionality vs. sensitive arguments. From the interviews I get the picture that issues managers should debate issues in the public by understanding and using arguments that are supported by the other parties’ cultural contexts. Jette Orduna from Lego pointed to the fact that such relativism is principal: “When I give an answer to someone, I would never dream of using legal arguments. Because everything that has to do with NGOs are fundamentally about feelings.”(…)“Actually, I do not think it is difficult to understand the logic and moral that drive different people to criticise Lego, but it demands an effort. You HAVE to take all enquiries serious.”(…)”…nothing is too small.”

MUTUAL INFLUENCE BETWEEN COMPANIES AND STAKEHOLDERS The last thing I find important to stress from the interviews relates to the mutual influence between companies and stakeholders. By the arrows going back and fourth between companies and their stakeholders, the “conceptual model” illustrates that issues exist in an enacted public sphere where different stakeholders and companies shape and are shaped by each other. At least, Grundfos, Ikea and Shell confirmed that. Kim Klastrup said that in some issues, bounda-ries have been removed between Grundfos and stakeholders. They have approached each other’s standpoints because stakeholders have brought forward perspectives that Grundfos has not thought about. Marianne Barner told that in the “child labour issue”, Ikea learned a lot and moved its standpoint after speaking to stakeholders: “..I must say that I have had wonderful experiences meeting people in South East Asia and other places. Actually, I have learned more from them about the complexity of issues. There have been occasions for me where I really had to sit back and say hey, wait a minute, and think things over to understand.” Matthias Glischinski-Kurc agreed: “In general, I would tend to say yes, there are movements on both sides. Sometimes it is just by exchanging your information which really didn’t happen to that extent a few years ago when companies were very secretive about what they do and thereby maybe perpetuating the kind of mistrust development. If you want to get the perception of being an open and transparent company you need to act in this way.” He mentioned the “Nigeria issue” which, among others, involved church groups and human rights groups in Germany. All parties influenced each other in that issue, he said.

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION In sum, the “large conceptual model of issues in multicultural stakeholder environments” corre-sponds with how the 6 interviewed companies perceive issues in their environment. The respon-dents expressed that an issue arises because companies and some stakeholders have interests in the issue and there is a concrete gap between what the company does and what the public ex-pects. They validated that stakeholders’ potential influence vary a lot. Moreover, the interviews provide evidence that culture decisively impacts which issues or which aspects of an issue compa-



nies and stakeholders focus on, the opinions they form and which actions they take. Cultural differ-ences may occur along a range of dimensions. The more different cultural dimensions that exist and the greater the degree of “strangeness” between companies and stakeholders, the more com-plex the issue becomes. On the other hand, in engaging with culturally different stakeholders, the company may come to adopt values or roles of the other party, which may motivate changes that develop into advantages to the company in the long run.

PROPOSITION 3: THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS The “process model” on page 69 shows how to practice issues management in multicultural stake-holder environments. It demonstrates that: ! Issues management should be a structured process of identification, analysis, response and

evaluation with the aim of early identifying issues and finding suitable responses to them. ! It is paramount that all issues management actions are supported by genuine “stakeholder

analysis and dialogue”. It is equally paramount that all actions are supported by “cultural awareness and mindfulness” towards involved stakeholders. Communication practitioners must translate and integrate these two measures into day-to-day issues management practices.

So far, I have spoken about how the 6 respondents conceptualised issues and how they have ex-perienced demands from their stakeholder environment. Now, I move to the next level of the analy-sis and investigate in which ways they actually go about performing issues management on an operational level. As the following will show, there are great variances between these practices. In addition to investigate proposition 3, it has been my intention to outline a framework that other companies may use to get inspiration for their own issues management practices. This is why the reader will find a number of tables in the following that, in key words, describe the issues manage-ment processes at Grundfos, Lego, Ikea, Novo Nordisk, SAS and Shell Europe.

THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS In the theoretical analysis, I synthesised the most dominant issues management techniques into a model containing four phases: identification, analysis, response and evaluation. I argued that is-sues management should be a structured process involving all these phases and that the aim should be to identify and manage issue as early as possible. I start by addressing the four phases. I have picked out the activities the companies described in the interviews and grouped them into my framework. The result is shown in model 22 on the next 2 pages. In the right hand column, I include activities that my model does not contain.

CO

MPAN

Y ID

ENTIFY

ANALYSE

RESPO

ND

EVALU

ATE SU

PPLEMEN

TARY

PRO

CESS

Grundfos

1) M

anagement in local subsidiaries

reports about competitors and general

market developm

ent, rumours, trends

and the environment’s changing

expectations to the company. 2) Patent

department gathers product-oriented

information. 3) Analyses and reports

from external institutes read by D

anish C

om. D

ep.

1) Summ

ary of intelligence from subsidiaries

made every three m

onths by the Danish com

-m

unication department. 2) O

nce a year a confidential “hate list” m

ade by the manage-

ment of G

rundfos including issues to “avoid in the public”. Issues are prioritised into a) ob-serve, b) follow

closely and c) act upon.

Central corporate response to issues

coupled with local adaptation. Sub-

sidiaries responsible for local press contact and relations to local stake-holders.

Following issues

after responding to them

Before step 1 in the IM

process: identify com-

pany policies and values. After step 4 in the IM

process: m

ake sure that w

hat you say is what you

do.

Ikea

Once a year: public relations and com

-m

unication executives brainstorm “is-

sues of tomorrow

”. Continuously

throughout the year: 1) Business travels to suppliers around the w

orld. 2) Stake-holder dialogue. 3) Purchasing offices overview

suppliers’ working conditions.

4) General alertness by m

anagers. 5) C

omm

unication personnel study the press and articles and go to sem

inars.

Once a year: a list of next years’ m

ost likely and im

portant issues. 1) M

aking use of mediators in reach-

ing local stakeholders, for example

linking local NG

Os and suppliers.

? Look at business idea and com

pany values to find suitable responses.

Lego

1) All enquiries to Custom

er Service registered and centrally gathered in the U

S and the UK. Special enquiries picked

out. 2) Mem

bership of central union and organisations. 3) Legal office scan for judicial issues. 4) Independent institutes to perform

field research at production units and test products.

1) Com

munication departm

ent discuss if a special answ

er or action is need. 2) Form

a group of people to manage a key

issue and name spokes persons at regional

offices.

1) Written responses by com

munica-

tion personnel sent through Custom

er Service. 2) R

esponsible public rela-tions personnel in each region in charge of response but in close coop-eration w

ith the Corporate C

omm

uni-cation D

ep. at headquarter. 3) Word-

ing, but not meaning of press releases

translated and adapted locally.

Crises plan if

response is ineffective.

Response based on Lego

values.

Novo

Nordisk

1) Librarian monitors international m

edia, m

edia web sites, activists w

eb sites and new

s groups through key words. 2)

Stakeholder dialogue – formal and in-

formal dialogue and focalised partner-

ships. 3) Experts within specific fields for

example hum

an rights or diabetes. 4) Participation in forum

s and seminars. 5)

Press Dep. receive general enquiries

1) Stakeholder Relations D

ep. extracts most

important issues in the general m

onitoring and w

rites weekly new

sletter distributed on the intranet to key personnel centred around five m

ost important N

ovo Nordisk them

es. 2) Stakeholder R

elations Dep. m

akes brief re-search papers w

ith detailed analysis of key issues – esp. in run-up to dialogue sessions. 3) Issues discussed in stakeholder dialogue. 4) Assignm

ent of issue comm

ittees around key issues. 5) C

omm

ittees group issues into a, b, and c issues. 6) Issues m

anagement plan

drawn for potential critical issues containing

Novo’s standpoint, contact persons, possible q

& a and potentially involved stakeholders.

1) Solutions to issues articulated through stakeholder dialogue. 2) C

orporate Press department w

rites press releases. 3) N

ot content but w

ording and form adapted according

to country and type of stakeholder.

? 1) Form

ing of issues m

anagement com

mittees

in key issues. 2) Make a

total issues managem

ent plan betw

een the analysis and response stage.

SAS 1) N

ews telegram

s from new

s agencies including the SAS nam

e. ?

Corporate C

omm

unication Dep. de-

velops response. ?

1) Using SAS values as a

mirror to identify and

analyse issues and find-ing solutions. 2) C

risis plan in case of accidents.

Shell 1) Local operating m

anagers and per-sonnel in the entire business line stay alert to potential issues and report to European External Affairs D

ep.2) Stake-holder dialogue at local and European level. 3) First identify issue, TH

EN im

pli-cated stakeholders.

1) Analysis by use of issues matrix based on

likelihood of occurrence and potential organisa-tional im

pact. One m

atrix for each business unit. 2) D

evelop base understanding of issues through stakeholder dialogue. 3) Prioritise issues through m

atrix. 4) Establish issue “own-

ers” in the organisation. 5) European External Affairs D

ep gathers country matrices and iden-

tify cross-country effectiveness. 6) Every six m

onth a total European issues matrix com

mu-

nicated to European Managem

ent and VPs. 7) European External Affairs D

ep. develops strat-egy. 8) Be alerted to issues w

ith emotional

pictures, god visualisation, easy messages and

event driven media appeal.

Develop positions, m

essages centrally and com

munication plans in European

External Affairs Dep. and m

onitors im

plementation locally.

2) Search comm

on solutions with

stakeholders you engage in dialogue.

Evaluate suc-cess or failure of developed strategy.

1) Identify extensive strategy involving a variety of responses before response phase. 2) D

efine company cul-

ture and values to assure consistency

Figure 22: The issues m

anagement process in 6 com

panies

CO

MPAN

Y K

EY IM IDEO

LOG

Y R

ESPON

SIBLE IM PER

SON

NEL

“HO

BB

YHO

RSES”

IN IM

PRO

CESS

IM PR

OC

ESS

Grundfos

General: O

penness. Clear policies and values. C

onsistency. Identification : Preparedness. Anticipation. R

esponse: Clear com

munication. Targeted com

munication. Q

uick responses. C

onsistent responses. Local adaptations. Evaluate : C

ontinuously monitor issues.

Identify: Managers at local subsidiaries, C

orporate C

omm

unication Dep. Analysis: C

orporate Com

muni-

cation Dep., C

orporate Managem

ent. Response:

Corporate C

omm

unication Dep. and executive staff

at local subsidiaries.

Brand managem

ent System

atised

Ikea G

eneral: Openness. R

espect for implicated parties. W

ork with and seek helps

from others. Long-term

focus. Clear policies and strategy.

Identification : Anticipation. Analysis: O

btain knowledge. Independent decision-m

aking within organisation.

Think things over before comm

unicating. R

esponse : Admit m

istakes. Show that you correct m

istakes. Pure standpoints. H

onesty in the media. Be trustw

orthy. Dem

onstrate knowledge of issues. Selec-

tive in choosing partners to cooperate with.

Continuos w

ork of Corporate C

omm

unication Dep.

and Social and Environmental affairs. Purchasing

offices overview suppliers. G

eneral task of manage-

ment.

Field trips and con-crete N

GO

dialogue Partly unsystem

atised

Lego G

eneral: Holistic view

. Identification : Take all dem

ands serious. No issue is too sm

all. Coordinate and

systematise enquiries. D

ifferentiation individuals/organisations. Analysis : D

o ground homew

ork. Use com

mon sense.

Response : C

onsistency. Adaptation.

Identify: Custom

er Service, Legal Service, Corporate

Com

munication D

ep. Analysis: Corporate C

omm

uni-cation D

ep. Response: C

orporate Com

munication

Dep, spokes persons at local offices, local public

relations personnel. Evaluate: corporate Com

muni-

cation Dep.

Consum

er service and international m

arketing team

Partly systema-

tised identification and response. U

nsystematised

analysis

Novo

Nordisk

General : O

penness about social responsibility. License to operate. Trust be-tw

een implicated parties.

Identification : Palette of supplementary im

techniques. Stakeholder identification. Analysis: Intelligence is valuable. D

evelop knowledge. Stakeholder engagem

ent. U

se network. Engage w

ith critical stakeholders. Prioritise. Systematise and plan.

Response : Experts as door-openers to stakeholders. Partnerships. Solutions in

cooperation with stakeholders.

Identify: Library, experts, Stakeholder Relations

Dep., Press D

ep. Analysis: Stakeholder Relations

Dep., assigned im

comm

ittees. Response: Stake-

holder Relations D

ep., Press Dep.

Partnerships and stakeholder net-w

orks

Systematised

identification and analysis. Partly system

atised response.

SAS G

eneral: Openness. H

onesty. Analysis : C

areful planning. R

esponse: Promptness. Integrated com

munication.

Continuous w

ork of Corporate C

omm

unication Dep.

Integrated comm

u-nication

Unsystem

atised.

Shell G

eneral: Central coordination. R

ight organisational set-up to support im process.

Structured and clear process. Make im

task of operational managers. N

ot the im

process but the managem

ent of it most im

portant. Openness.

Identification : Anticipation. Bottom-up rather than top-dow

n. Im part of every day

life in the organisation. Coordination. Business line responsibility. Absorb all

feedback. Analysis : Accept conflicting interests. Base inform

ation/knowledge. Structured

analysis. Prioritisation. Issue analysis precedes stakeholder analysis. Stake-holder engagem

ents. Listen. R

esponse : Mutual understanding for com

pany response. Coordination. C

onsis-tency. Accuracy. U

nderstandable.

Generally: European External Affairs D

ep. in London coordinates and supports local issues m

anagement

activities. Local operational managers report to

London, get support and make local im

plementation.

Issues matrices and

line managem

ent IM

responsible

Very systema-

tised.

Figure 23: Perspectives of the issues m

anagement process


Part 3 | 95

Figure 22 clearly shows differences between issues management practices in the 6 companies. The interesting question becomes in which way they are different. First, there are disagreements between the companies to which extent issues management is a structured process. Grundfos and Shell described their actions as a very structured process: Grundfos: “First of all you need to have internal policies in order to avoid any doubt about what is the organisation’s standpoint. It is also a matter of anticipating issues by scanning and monitoring and staying attuned to movements in the company environment. Then you need to respond to is-sues that occur. Time is a very important factor in globalisation. Subsequently, you need to make a complete adaptation in order to make it relevant. Adaptation does not necessarily signify that you modify facts, but just that you get a local angle on things. Finally, it is a matter of following the is-sues after you have responded to them.” Shell: “The issues management process consists of 7 steps: 1) Identify the issue. 2) Monitor its development. 3) Prioritise the various issues to see what you need to focus on. 4) Analyse it in more details. 5) Develop a strategy. 6) Implement the strat-egy. 7) Evaluate success or failure.” At Novo Nordisk, issues management also seemed to be a quite structured process. The identifica-tion and analysis parts at least. A palette of techniques is applied to identify issues, which then are analysed and structured into newsletters and research papers. They are prioritised and issue committees are nominated. The response phase was less clear according to Bo Wesley’s descrip-tion. The same picture is true at Lego. Here, the identification phase and the response phase were very systematised. The analysis phase, on the other hand, seemed a little random based on the judgement of few persons in the Corporate Communication Department. At the other end of the spectrum stands Ikea. Marianne Barner said that the company is “out and seeing and doing things before somebody come knocking on the door” but she admits that Ikea does not do it in a very systematic way. It is an on-going task for communication personnel and specific actions are only taken if an issue emerges. Marianne Barner expressed that she feels too much discussion is about monitoring. She pointed to the risk that companies are pushed to believe that effective issue monitoring techniques and a code of conduct are safeguards. Based on my analysis of the interviews I find convincing evidence to support that issues manage-ment preferably should be a structured process. It shows in the interviews that in cases where the companies employed a structured process, the respondents’ consciousness was more insightful in relation to explain past issues and account for what actions should be undertaken tomorrow if an emergent issue would appear. On the other hand, the analysis shows that it is not enough to have a set of structured issues management techniques. The decisive point is the way these techniques are applied. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc summed it up by saying: To be frank, it is no rocket science by the end of the day. The question is how do you apply this process and how stringently. How are medias scanned, how are issues analysed, with which mindset etc? Thus, good techniques and proficient competences to pursue them are both needed if the issues management process should be effective. There are no reasons to believe that relying on structured techniques stand in opposi-tion to achieve a sound understanding of issues. Now, moving to the objective of the issues management process. I wrote in the theoretical analysis that the goal is to detect issues as early as possible and ideally before they enter the public sphere



because companies then have more possibilities of action. Shell was the only company to com-ment on that directly. On the other hand, the other companies emphasised, in their description of the identification phase, that the objective was to identify issues at an early stage. Matthias Glis-chinski-Kurc said: ”…the earlier you manage to identify a potential issue that could arise and try to do the full process of proper stakeholder identification, stakeholder analysis, stakeholder engage-ment, the more you can avoid getting into that confrontational shoot-out kind of situation.” The ob-jective, according to Shell, is to enter the debate: “…at a stage where you still have an opportunity to discuss and engage, to try to find new ground, before the issue actually escalates leading into a campaign or whatever.” An example of this was when Shell had to find a new way of reporting along sustainable development. They turned to various stakeholders to ask which performance indicators they recommended the company to use. This way, Shell was sure to use indicators that stakeholders approved which made it easier to meet eventual criticism later. Next, I found great variation between the companies in which part of the organisation that was responsible for different issues management activities. In this dissertation, I do not focus on the so-called “program focus” (see page 10) but it is interesting to observe this difference. The general picture is a number of centralised issues management activities at a corporate level (often the Communication Dep.) coupled with different activities carried out at a local level (local subsidiary or business unit). It also varies in the individual companies to what extent executive management is involved in the issues management process. It is not possible to draw out a conclusion about “best practice” in terms of the organisational design from this analysis. Only, I can conclude that the or-ganisational design has an important influence on how well the issues management process is carried out. I come back to this point in the last chapter of the dissertation describing perspectives for additional research. Another very interesting observation is the fact that the 6 companies appeared to rely on different “hobbyhorses” when explaining their issues management activities. One put emphasis on aligning issues management with brand management (ex: Grundfos), another on stakeholder engagement and partnerships (ex: Novo Nordisk) and a third on customer service (Lego). My conclusion is that the diversity originates from two things. One, each company comes from very separate industries. And two, the position and background of the respondents have an impact on which methods they favour. Finally, it is possible to spell out some concepts that characterise the issues management “ideol-ogy” that each company relies on. In the theoretical analysis, I stated that the overall objective of issues management is to achieve harmony between companies and their environments. The ide-ologies can be seen as key measures to obtain that harmony. It is out of my hands to discuss which of the ideologies that are more correct or effective. But it is possible to identify those that most of the companies point to and to sum up the different ideas. At a general level the respondents pointed to openness. The company should be open about what it does, how it does it and why. As Marianne Barner said in the interview, companies and stake-holders should not agree on everything. But they should be open about their intentions in order to find common points where they can cooperate. Openness also entails honesty and trust in the entire issues management process. Of course, companies engage in issues management in order to migrate issues to own benefit and to avoid criticism in the public. But it is important that in it is


Part 3 | 97

done with you could say “good manners”. This point is parallel to what I wrote in the theoretical analysis. The objective of issues management is to create a win-win situation and to search solu-tions that are sustainable in the long run (two-way symmetrical, Grunig, see page 63). Companies should not turn issues to their own side if it seriously deteriorates relations to important stake-holders. In the identification phase, the respondents emphasised anticipation. Issues must be identified just when they are on the edge of really appearing in the public. In order to do that, Shell and Ikea pointed to three important competences. The first is to assure that the organisation is set up in a way where feedback is absorbed. That is to say that so-called issue-identifiers are appointed, whether it is personnel in the Corporate Communication Department or in line management in local subsidiaries or business units. The second is to take all demands serious. It is not until the analysis phase that it is judged wether issues are important or not. In the identification phase, such discrimi-nation must be avoided. The third is to register and systematise all issues and enquiries that the organisation receives. Large corporations need a central mechanism to register issues. The 6 companies have a number of recommendations for the analysis phase as well. To develop a sound understanding and knowledge about the issue seem to be the central ideology. The com-pany must understand all aspects of the issue before deciding on a specific response. Shell devel-ops information bases and Novo Nordisk writes short research papers. Ikea and Lego just pointed to using “common-sense”. Generally, the companies also recommend that you seek out help from others to learn more about the issue. Especially Marianne Barner from Ikea is very keen on that model, but also Novo Nordisk and Shell are very much into stakeholder engagement in the analysis phase. Nevertheless, the company must stay independent from these stakeholders in developing its eventual standpoint, some of the respondents said. Otherwise, the organisation might jeopard-ise with its own policies and business idea in the long run. Last, consistency is emphasised by multiple respondents as very important in the response phase. There need to be a red line in all actions and communication. Issues managers need clear policies and strategies they can rely on to pledge that consistency. The respondents refer to con-sistency in terms of assuring that standpoints and actions to different issues are reliable and not conflicting over time. In addition, they refer to consistency in terms of making sure that responses towards different stakeholders and in different countries are coherent. Adaptation is needed be-cause different stakeholders pay attention to different things but there must be consistency be-tween these different responses. Promptness - to react in time – is another important element in the good issues response according to the companies. In order to provide an overview, figure 23 summarised the considerations I have discussed above.



CORPORATE VALUES AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS Above, I went through the four phases in my issues management process model and I have shown which activities and ideologies the 6 companies apply in each phase. This grouping made it much easier to understand each company’s issues management strategy. Naturally, the companies do not undertake all activities included in the “large process model” on page 69. The important conclu-sion is that the model is valuable as a way to structure companies’ issues management activities. Nevertheless, two dimensions of issues management are lacking from the model: Earlier, I stated that the interviewed companies seemed to rely on internal values and corporate policies in searching for responses to external issues. Kim Klastrup from Grundfos stated as the first task in issues management: First of all you need to have internal policies in order to avoid any doubt about what is the organisation’s standpoint. Marianne Barner said that the way IKEA deals with issues has much to do with the IKEA culture and vision. In situations like the child labour case, Ikea relied on its corporate values of “modesty” and “humbleness”, which led to early cooperation between IKEA and “Save the Children”. “We must put down our ground values. Study an issue and say: how can we do something better within the framework of our values and our business”, Marianne Barner said. Also Lego and SAS explained in the interview, that they rely on corporate values throughout the issues management process – much like a mirror ensuring that what the company says and does stay within its core business. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc said that a clear perception of the company culture and values is needed in order to navigate in many different mi-lieus and to be consistent in all communication. “In terms of our position as a multinational com-pany acting in 130 countries in the world you need to stand for something – for certain values – which need to be very precise and consistent and clear.” On the basis of these statements, I con-clude that in order to assure companies’ integrity and consistency, corporate values/culture should be the frame within which issues management must be pursued. Values become the way to make sure that issues and public responses to them do not lead the company off the track of its core business. Of course, there is a risk that such a framework leads to ethnocentrism. In the theoretical analysis I argued that by all means, ethnocentrism must be avoided in issues management. In the interviews, I find no evidence to support that relying in corporate values in the issues management should lead to an ethnocentric approach. Nevertheless, it is imperative that issues managers keep the “outside-in” perspective on the organisation that signifies all good public relations activities. The second dimension lacking from my model has to do with responsible business behaviour: Ear-lier, I concluded that there should be a back-and-fourth mechanism between issues management and communication (response) on the one side and responsible business activities on the other. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc explained it quite clearly: “You cannot fool any external or even internal stakeholders by having very nice corporate brochures if what you do is not perceived to be in com-pliance with what you say. Otherwise you increase your problems.” At Grundfos, the same percep-tion prevails: “You can never communicate a set of values if they do not rest solidly on the actual company performance. The public will quickly perceive them as contrived. Responsibility is deeply rooted in our company.” I find that these dimensions put forward by the 6 companies are very relevant. In any academic research, there is always a risk that when you focus on one specific discipline you loose sight of the overall picture. Studied from a general level it becomes obvious that issues management should function within the frames of corporate values/culture and responsible business behaviour.


Part 3 | 99

This is why I propose to justify “the process model” in the manner showed below. Here, you see that the identification phase is preceded by a clarification of company values and policies. When the company reaches the response phase, business activities and strategies must be evaluated. In the theoretical analysis I listed a number of “strategic response options” (see page 63). Roughly, the company has the choice between 1) arguing that its performance is sound or 2) changing its way of operating. It is paramount, the interviews have shown, that what the company communi-cates is eventually taken into effect. Then, after the evaluation phase, corporate values may be re-evaluated. During the issues management process, the company may come to justify its perception of what it wants to stand for as a company. If it changes activities in significant ways, it is possible that the values need to be readjusted.

STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE With these corrections I mind, I move on to analyse whether the 6 companies support that genuine stakeholder dialogue strengthens companies’ issues management practice in multicultural stake-holder environments. I have argued that issues managers should be capable of accurately define stakeholders involved in issues, understand their interests, their possibilities of influence and their web of contacts and have the ability to build sustainable relations and dialogue with them. They must do it in an integrated manner with the issues management process, I concluded in part 2.

Iden-tify

Evalu-ate

Ana-lyse

Re-spond

Figure 24: The issues management process model refined

Corporate values and culture

Business operations

I could illustrate the new model by the example of Ikea and the “child labour issue”. Values and policies: “Furniture at modest prices to the many people.” Identification: Ikea learns that child labour exists in some suppliers’ factories and certain international NGOs publicly criticise the company. Analysis: Ikea searches out knowledge about child labour. Engages with “Save the Children” and various other NGOs. Makes business travel to India and Pakistan. Response: Publicly admits mistakes and informs about the complexity of the issue. Explains that measures are beingtaken to assure child labour is avoided in suppliers’ factories. Business operations: Suppliers to comply with a code of conduct. Economic funds to NGOs. Evaluate: Ikea assesses that the company has a new and greater role in society and Ikea must readjust accordingly. Accepts that other issues related to child labour may occur. Values and policies: “A better everyday life for the many people” by having products that add good quality and good service at low prices so that many people can afford it and by assuring responsible business behaviour all way through the company pipeline.



All 6 companies mentioned stakeholder engagement and dialogue as a tool in managing issues. Naturally, it varied to what extent they engage in stakeholder dialogue. Lego and Grundfos only occasionally take part in such dialogue, while still being favourable of its value. On the other hand, Novo Nordisk and Shell are very keen on all types of stakeholder dialogue, partnerships and net-works. The table below provides a short overview of different ways the 6 companies pursue stake-holder dialogue. It also summarises in which way they believe the dialogue could be an advantage to issues management. COMPANY MEASURES OF STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE ADVANTAGE TO ISSUES MANAGEMENT Grundfos Dialogue with local and national politicians in relation to

immigration, environmental policy, social networks, research resources etc. Local partnerships instead of ethical standards.

Identify other parties’ interests. Respect for the diversity of interests. Less standards and more understanding.

Ikea Field trips to suppliers. Cooperation with Save the Children about child labour Regular meetings with NGOS like Greenpeace, WWF and Unicef, with trade unions and with IFBWW.

Early identification of issues. Learn from each other. Exchange ideas. Obtain knowledge about issues. Mutual respect. Understand common goals. Create openness. Stakeholders as mediators in conflicts.

Lego Independent institutes to test products. Chairs the TIE. WIPO collaboration chaired by Unesco. Sponsoring.

Stakeholders as mediators in conflicts. Early awareness of new regulations and prod-ucts. Identify competitors’ issues and learn from that.

Novo Nordisk

Network of specialists and experts within variety of fields from human rights to diabetes. Dialogue with Oxfam and various Danish NGOs about “access to medicine”. Dialogue with NGOs about genetic modification. Variety of partnerships.

Network informs about new issues. Obtain knowledge about issues and the busi-ness environment. Experts and specialists as door openers. Mutual understanding. Find points for cooperation. Concerted action.

SAS Sponsoring to some NGOs. Show that you live up to corporate values. Shell Stakeholder forums held if important issues appear –

with all stakeholders from media to politicians and academics. Always engages stakeholders from the identification phase through to the response. Stakeholder dialogue when opening new oil explora-tions.

Platform to build mutual understanding. Provide understanding for company dilemmas. Understand local issue. Obtain knowledge. Better informed decisions. Create trust and honesty Mitigate conflict as information is shared

Figure 25: Stakeholder dialogue in the 6 companies

It varied in which phase of the process each of the 6 companies pursues stakeholder dialogue and how structured the dialogue is set up. But there seem to be consensus about how dialogue sup-ports issues management. First, the respondents pointed to the fact that it is possible to pick up issues at an early stage. One example is Lego that participates in various industrial organisations exactly to do that. Secondly, companies may obtain knowledge about issues from stakeholders and exchange ideas about avenues for resolving issues. Shell does this deliberately when setting up new oil explorations, Matthias Glischinski-Kurc explained. Ideally, mutual understanding is created between the company and involved stakeholders. The parties may even find common points or objectives that make it possible to take concerted action instead of working against each other. The way Ikea went into dialogue with “Save the Children” and other Western firms operating in India and Pakistan is evidence of that: “It is a good example of a group going from a situation of threat….and to a group where we now exchange ideas and say: hey, we have been there and done that. Maybe you would like to know. That is quite a journey.” (Marianne Barner, Ikea). On a more general level, stakeholder dialogue makes it possible for companies to proactively raise is-sues instead of always being the defensive part. At many occasions, Grundfos has raised issues related to local infrastructure in Denmark and Denmark’s educational policies through network


Part 3 | 101

meetings. Finally, Lego and Ikea have used some stakeholders as mediators to reach other stake-holders with whom they had a conflict. It can be difficult for a company to interfere in some matters but through for example NGOs they can find solutions to the conflict. Looking at the “large concep-tual model” from the theoretical analysis, it can be illustrated by the company going through stake-holder A, which uses its web of contacts to stakeholder B. Hereby, the issue between stakeholder B and the company is resolved. Nevertheless, there are also risks involved in close stakeholder collaboration. Jette Orduna from Lego said that companies risk loosing their independency. In addition, creating a good dialogue with the right stakeholders can prove to be more complicated than it sounds. Marianne Barner said that she has experienced huge barriers for some stakeholders to start to cooperate. And, as de-scribed earlier, some stakeholders, like NGOs, look upon companies with massive distrust. Even when the dialogue is established, it can be very hard to create that mutual understanding. It takes patience and open-mindedness if the stakeholder dialogue is to be of any value to issues man-agement. There is a risk that companies only set up dialogue with stakeholders who have a rather positive image of the company. As some of the respondents pointed out, it is paramount that the most criti-cal stakeholders are engaged as well: “…it is not just looking for those that support you 100 pct. of the time but also those that are critical and can actually bring in a value to the project. If people say what you do is always great then they can’t really advice you.” (Matthias Glischinski-Kurc, Shell). “I rather want to learn something from NGOs that are against us. What do they want and how do they work? I cannot use NGOs that are too positive. Then we are not in conflict and that is when it be-comes challenging.” (Jette Orduna, Lego). In a Danish article, Schønnemann wrote that: “Company relations are as personal relations. Strong relationships are build on loyalty, trust and security.” (2002). In the theoretical analysis I proposed that stakeholder dialogue is set up as so-called “strategic cooperative communities”. They are cen-tred around key issues (like “child labour”, “access to medicine” etc.) and built on the key character-istics of “trust”, “predictability”, “mutual interests”, “mutual gratification or benefit” and “proximity”. Of these characteristics, “trust” and “mutual interests” were mentioned by some of the companies. In addition, Matthias Glischinski-Kurc mentioned one example where “mutual gratification or benefit” was created. Shell has a gas development in the Peruvian rain forest close to a national park with a huge biodiversity. The company lined up with various organisations like ministries and NGOs to have scientific research done about biodiversity in the region because little knowledge and data existed about that. World-renowned institutes gathered with local Peruvian organisations to carry out a study. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc described it as a win-win situation for the company, the soci-ety, and the environmental and scientific organisations. It is possible to conclude that stakeholder dialogue does support traditional issues management activities in a constructive way in the interviewed companies. The majority of the issues manage-ment literature sees stakeholder relations and issues management as separate disciplines, which is partly due to the fact that most issues management techniques are developed more than 10 years ago – at a time where stakeholder engagement was less widespread. An integration of is-sues management and stakeholder dialogue can be recommended on the basis of the theoretical analysis and the 6 interviews. At the same time, the individual company will have to set up the



stakeholder dialogue in specific ways that support their business, their stakeholder relations and industry characteristics. And they must be patient and persistent because mutual trust is imperative to a valuable dialogue process.

CULTURAL AWARENESS AND MINDFULNESS Earlier in this empirical analysis, I provided evidence that culture is a decisive driver for which is-sues or which aspects of an issue people focus on, the opinions they form and which actions they take. Consequently, it becomes important that issues managers are capable of understanding and acting upon that knowledge. The theoretical analysis was operating with the term of “conscious competence” which means that issues managers are both aware of cultural differences and able to act upon them (mindful). Being “consciously competent” they have the aptitude to change between identify constructions and un-derstand and perceive an issue from others’ cultural frame. Thus, two steps are important: One is to recognise and see the cultural differences and how they distinguish parties in issue debates. Another is to behave in a way where miscommunication is avoided. Unequivocally, the respondents agreed that cultural awareness and mindfulness are very important in the issues management process. Nevertheless, this is not sufficient evidence to support proposi-tion 3. I should take a closer look at how the 6 companies actually describe and integrate this cul-tural competence in practice: Kim Klastrup from Grundfos said that cultural understanding is important in all aspects of the issues management process. When companies operate around the world, as Grundfos does, the central communication department is incapable of identifying all emergent issues. ”I think it is important to have people with the local cultural understanding in the scanning process. These people have great experience with the local market and can better understand issues.” Jette Orduna strongly agreed with that perspective. She said that understanding the logic and moral that drives different people to criticise Lego is not reached unless you are aware that different perceptions might pre-vail. It demands an effort. As a consequence, Lego puts much emphasis on taking all enquiries serious. “We have colleagues around the world and we are a global company and we travel. We know what the world is like. Therefore, nothing is too small.” Especially after the “Maori” issue, Lego has become alerted to being culturally aware and mindful in all parts of the process. Prior to the launching of the Bionicle products, the legal office had checked if the trademarks were regis-tered but they did not investigate the moral aspect. Bo Wesley from Novo also demonstrated that he is aware of the potential blunders in being cultur-ally insensitive: “I think we could become less Danish in our approach. We are prone to seeing the world through very Danish glasses. It makes sense to have people with different glasses on in-volved in the issues management process. It is very important to take on intercultural glasses in order to understand stakeholder reactions and expectations.” Several of the companies referred to this about “applying another mindset” or “taking on different glasses”: “When doing this kind of research, we should try and look upon things with other eyes and that way see how new issues may affect our business and then decide if it is something that we have to take care of.”(…) “Maybe reading an article not with the company eyes but that of a


Part 3 | 103

private interests.” (Marianne Barner, Ikea). “…cultural sensitivity is important. If we had managed the Maori issue from Denmark with our glasses and our narrow mindedness, or I would not even say that because actually I think we have a very good cultural understanding here, it would never have worked. We would just have said: There is no legal problem and you are down in New Zea-land. Who cares? But we are so used to be a global company. We are so used to have on that cultural set of glasses that of course, it is natural.” Also in the response phase, cultural awareness and mindfulness are imperative, Grundfos, Lego, ad Shell stated. Kim Klastrup said: “The only way you can make communication coherent, is, if on the one side you have identified your company culture, to the extent it is possible across national cultures, and on the other side you make some adaptations. You have to appear with a local face in cultures where you operate.” The “Maori” issue shows how important it is to manage issues with cultural mindfulness. “Exactly in this case, we knew that you couldn’t manage issues like this one from Denmark. We can sit down and say, yes, they are angry and apparently we have done some-thing wrong morally which we are sorry about. Instead, we quickly got contact to some Maoris and asked what this was all about. We also had a lawyer in New Zealand and our New Zealand office was very much involved. All the time, we had the finger on the pulse on the spot where the issue took place.”(….) “With the Maori issue, we managed it in one fashion in Europe and Asia while in the US we followed the same line but adapted it to their culture.” All the way down to actual press releases, cultural awareness and mindfulness are needed accord-ing to the interviews. For communication professionals it becomes the task of finding a coherent response across all stakeholder groups and countries and to adapt the response in such a way that it actually responds to stakeholders’ interests and that misunderstanding is avoided. At Lego, local subsidiaries are welcome to adapt the content but not the meaning. In the US and Europe for ex-ample, two different persons are cited for saying the same thing. Shell has a similar practice of adapting not the content but the communication form to different national cultures: “When it comes to the cultural aspect, it is the question of how you get it across – how you word the content.”(…) “The core content of what you need to get across in your messages to various stakeholders needs to be consistent.”(…) “If I go to Greenpeace in Germany and say our position on issue x is a, b, c, and a colleague of mine goes to Greenpeace in Spain and say it is d, e, f – guess what is going to happen in that organisation. The two departments speak to each other.”(…) “But how to get it across and who needs to be informed, that is something the local people are best equipped to de-cide.” SAS was the only one of the companies that did not make this cultural adaptation in its press releases. In the interview, Carl Karlsson said that the most important thing is to communicate in an integrated manner, which is why the same communication tools are employed and responses to issues are identical no matter where they take place and towards whom they are directed. Another aspect addressed by the 6 companies was how you develop this “cultural competence”. In general, they pointed to the fact that issues managers should have some basic understanding of other cultures, for example through travels or by working in an international environment. I addition, they should use the expertise within the organization. As Matthias Glischinski-Kurc said, it is diffi-cult to understand issues and stakeholders when you “sit in the ivory tower”. It is likely that some employees somewhere in the organisation understand the cultural context of specific stakeholders better than a central issues manager. This aggregated intelligence must be used constructively in the issues management process. If I refer back to the theoretical analysis of cultural mindfulness, I



spoke about two levels of competence – a culture-specific competence and a general cultural com-petence. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc has such a general cultural competence while he draws on culture-specific competences of employees in the organisation. As a last point, I concluded in the theoretical analysis that “mindful” companies should give stake-holders the feeling of being “understood”, “supported” and “respected”. Marianne Barner explained that the villages in India and Pakistan that IKEA have dealt with through UNICEF are very remote. Despite this, the company must have a lot of respect for the country where it is going and the em-ployees they meet, she said. Bo Wesley spoke about respect too. He said that even though Novo Nordisk and NGOs still speak different languages, they have managed to reach a certain level of respect. When Jette Orduna explained how important it is for Lego to take all enquiries seriously, she conveys the attitude of support towards stakeholders. By writing personal answers to all cus-tomers, Lego shows that the company considers their opinions worthwhile to pay attention to. I wrote in part 2 that if the company endorses stakeholders’ identity they tend to view the company positively, while the opposite will be the case if they receive negative endorsement. Finally, Mat-thias Glischinski-Kurc from Shell confirmed that is very important to convey attitudes of understand-ing towards other parties involved in issues: “…as a company you need to be able to stand up and say: We have listened to various dilemmas. We cannot accommodate everybody. It is impossible. This is the decision we make based on all that kind of information and expectations we received. And that is usually something where people say: I may not entirely like what you do but at least I see you have been reasonable in making that decision.” The following statement by Jette Orduna from Lego sums up the way cultural awareness and mind-fulness may support issues management in a holistic fashion: “Understanding other people’s differ-ences. That is incredibly important. Many communication people find it hard to see the entity and goes into details. They have difficulties stepping beyond their own perspective and say: What if I was in his chair or in his? Unfortunately, many people do not have that ability. They can come with fancy educations but the ability to empathise with other people’s world view and understand their values – that is important.”

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION Despite the fact that there are significant differences in individual companies’ practice, issues man-agement techniques and tools can be classified within the framework of identification, analysis, response and evaluation. The “issues management process model” must be regarded as a valu-able way of categorising and systematising the issues management process rather than as a pre-scription of which exact actions to pursue in each stage. A second dimension must be added to the model, which indicates that issues management should function within the frame of corporate val-ues/culture and responsible business behaviour. In addition, stakeholder dialogue should be pur-sued in parallel to more technical issues management practices, which will be valuable to the effec-tiveness of the overall process. Similarly, cultural awareness and mindfulness are important in the entire process from identification to the wording of press releases. The general conclusion is that each company should draw a process model including those activities most relevant for that par-ticular company. In addition, they should define concrete ways to integrate cultural awareness and mindfulness and stakeholder dialogue into day-to-day issues management activities.

CONCLUSION PART 3

Part 1| 105

CONCLUSION PART 3

The conclusion in part 2 provided a theoretical answer to the research question: Which generic principles for issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments should companies follow in order to prevent crises? Part 3 has aspired to provide an empirical answer to the same question. Models and propositions from the theoretical analysis have guided the analysis. Some parts have been validated, some parts modified and a couple of new perspectives have been brought to light.

HYPOYTHESIS 1: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AND ISSUES MANAGEMENT The first conclusion is that proposition 1 applies to all of the 6 interviewed companies. All compa-nies described their stakeholder environment as being multicultural. It seemed that different factors had opened up for this “multiculturalism” in the companies’ stakeholder environment and the media has played a less important role than I anticipated. Instead, it is an evolution provoked by a combination of many different drivers in society. Practical examples of issues involving the 6 companies further sustained proposition 1. Naturally, the diversity and number of stakeholders vary from company to company. The interview with Shell gave the impression of the most multicultural stakeholder environment amongst the interviewed companies. A general trait for the 6 respondents is that they feel more demands are put on companies and more issues arise as a consequence. They have all experienced an intensification of issues that only have periphery connection to their core business. All 6 companies verified that effective issues manage is important to reduce the risk that these many issues evolve into crises for the organisa-tion. Not all companies referred to issues management specifically but mentioned different activi-ties that should be considered issues management practices. The interviews provide interesting new perspectives to proposition 1 as well. Some of the respon-dents looked upon issues management as a communicative discipline while others believe it is concerned with corporate social responsibility. Some said that communicative activities of issues management are insufficient to prevent crises alone. Concrete business operations must accom-pany communicated standpoints. Others argued that communication is needed in order to allay potential crises as the “responsible” company becomes more vulnerable to criticism. The conclu-sion must be that effective communication and sustainable business practices are complementary responses in issues management. This is parallel to what I wrote in the theoretical analysis. Never-theless, it is an important message that the 6 companies here put forward.

PROPOSITION 2: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS The second conclusion to draw is that in sum, the “large conceptual model of issues in multicultural stakeholder environments” corresponds with how the 6 interviewed companies perceive issues in their environment.

CONCLUSION PART 3


On a general level, the respondents expressed that issues are not general topics in the public sphere – they arise because of two things: One, that companies and some of their stakeholders show interest in the issue. Here, the 6 companies extended on knowledge from the theoretical analysis by pointing to the fact that companies and stakeholders often share interests and objec-tives in an issue. Next, issues arise because there is a concrete discrepancy between the company and these stakeholders. Referring to the theoretical framework, such discrepancies materialise into so-called legitimacy gaps between corporate performance on the one side and pubic expectations on the other. Different examples of issues brought forward by the 6 respondents could be classified within Heath’s notion of discrepancies of fact, value or policy. In addition, the companies validated that potential stakeholder influence vary tremendously. At the same time, issues managers should not be blinded by this potential influence. They must inde-pendently assess whether catering to specific stakeholders is in balance with overall corporate policies and values in the long run. There are risks that issues managers focus too narrowly on one stakeholder and overlook other important aspects in the same issue, the interviews revealed. Next, I conclude that the interviews provide evidence that culture is a decisive factor that impacts which issues or which aspects of an issue companies and stakeholders focus on. Culture strongly influences how they deal with that issue as well. The interviews demonstrated that cultural differ-ences arise a long a number of different dimensions. National cultures have huge impacts on is-sues and issues management in all 6 companies. Secondly, some respondents pointed to work occupations. Thirdly, role expectations seemed to be very decisive for conflicts between especially companies and NGOs. And finally, stereotype perceptions of specific stakeholders or companies had a negative impact on the effectiveness of the issues management process. Referring back to the theoretical analysis, it becomes clear that all three dimensions in Gudykunst’s intercultural communication model - the general cultural, sociocultural and psychocultural filters - are decisive factors deciding why issues arise and how companies and stakeholders deal with those issues. One concrete way cultural differences materialise is the sort of arguments stakeholders and com-panies rely on. Companies’ cultural context supports rather rational and logic arguments while that of many stakeholders, especially activist organisations, sustains more emotional attitudes. In addition, the interviews showed an interesting new dimension lacking from my framework: Cor-porate values and corporate culture are important factors impacting how companies approach and interpret issues. Companies often rely on such values across its international operations. Thus, the internal corporate culture may be as decisive for companies’ approach to issues as factors residing in the external cultural context where they operate. I want to emphasise another interesting conclusion from the empirical analysis: The bigger cultural differences between involved stakeholders, the more diversity is likely to exist in terms of what they perceive as legitimate corporate behaviour. The 6 companies explained that it could be a tricky process to balance all of these different expectations. My attention was brought to the fact that it is the degree of “strangeness” between stakeholders and companies that decide how complicated issues become. Not how many stakeholders that are involved. Finally, the empirical analysis shows that issues managers should be cautious not to see cultures as stigmatised differences. Companies or stakeholders may come to adopt values or roles of the

CONCLUSION PART 3

Part 3 | 107

other party. Such dynamics often push companies or industries to change in ways that are actually advantageous to them in the long run. That observation is parallel to the theoretical analysis, which argued that issues are part of an enacted public sphere.

PROPOSITION 3: THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS The third significant conclusion is that the “issues management process model” that I drew in the theoretical analysis is valuable as a way to structure and describe the issues management practice in the 6 interviewed companies. Its main potential is its way of categorising the issues management process into four phases of identification, analysis, response and evaluation rather than as an indi-cator of the exact process to go through. The model does not manage to catch all the perspectives that the companies brought forward neither do the 6 companies pursue all of the actions described in the model. In figure 22, I showed how issues management is practiced in the 6 companies, which demon-strated quite significant differences. First, there are disagreements to which extent issues man-agement is a structured process. Based on the analysis of the interviews, I find convincing evi-dence to support that issues management preferably should be systematised and structured. Sec-ondly, I found great variation between the companies in which part of the organisation that was responsible for issues management. Another very interesting observation is the fact that the 6 companies appeared to rely on different “hobbyhorses” in issues management, which could be “brand management”, “partnerships” or “sustainability”. The empirical analysis revealed some very interesting indications of a successful issues manage-ment process that can be of inspiration to other practitioners. At a general level, openness is of prime importance. This is in accordance with the theoretical conclusions, which recommended that issues management ideally be based on “two-way symmetrical” communication. In the identifica-tion phase, the respondents emphasised anticipation. Issues should be unveiled as early as possi-ble. To develop a sound understanding and knowledge about the issue seemed to be the central ideology in the analysis phase. Last, consistency was emphasised by multiple respondents as very important in the response phase. It is the classical matter of standardisation vs. localisation that has been discussed in international marketing for many years. On the one side, issues managers must lead effective communication by adapting responses towards different stakeholders. On the other side, the company must show consistency in what it stands for. Companies must balance cultural adaptations with the need to have a clear and consistent policy and some values they stand for. The 6 companies agreed that adaptations should take place in ways that are not at odds with other company policies even though it may satisfy critical stakeholders sin the short run. It varied in which phase of the process each of the 6 companies pursues stakeholder dialogue and how structured the dialogue is set up. But unmistakably, they all recommend that stakeholder dia-logue is pursued parallel to more technical issues management practices. There seemed to be consensus about how they believe dialogue supports issues management. First, you can pick up issues at an early stage. Secondly, companies may obtain knowledge about issues from stake-holders and exchange ideas about avenues for resolving them. Ideally, mutual understanding may be created between the company and involved stakeholders and the parties may even find com-mon points or objectives. Finally, some stakeholders may be used as mediators to reach other stakeholders that the company is prevented from speaking to directly. On the other hand, some of

CONCLUSION PART 3


the companies had a warning concerning stakeholder dialogue. Companies may risk loosing their independency. Companies should independently analyse all information, ideas and intelligence gathered from stakeholders before an eventual response to an issue is chosen. Good stakeholder dialogue is not achieved over night especially because it is important that very critical stakeholders are engaged in dialogue, the companies emphasised. It is a complicated proc-ess that demands patience. They pointed to the fact that it is imperative to build trust and show respect in the dialogue and that mutual benefit (to create a win-win situation) must be the objective. The two other key success factors for good stakeholder dialogue mentioned in the theoretical analysis were not touched upon in the interviews. Unequivocally, the respondents agreed that cultural awareness and mindfulness are very important in the issues management process. All the way from identification to the actual wording of press releases, cultural awareness and mindfulness are needed. In return, the companies’ way of apply-ing intercultural competencies to actual issues management practice is much less coherent. All seem to have found a way about the task. At the same time, they also agree that new and more structured methods for true intercultural issues management could render their practice more effec-tive. A number of concrete issues demonstrated ways the 6 companies have applied such cultural competences. The companies referred to “applying another mindset” or taking on “a different set of glasses”, which is directly comparable to the way I described cultural mindfulness and cultural rela-tivism in the theoretical analysis. The interviews validate that any positivist approach to culture in issues management must be rejected. No clear-cut list can explain cultural differences. Only cul-tural relativism and openness may uncover hidden cultural assumptions that influence opinions, actions and policies pursued by companies and stakeholders in issue debates. From the inter-views I get the picture that issues managers should debate issues in the public by understanding and using arguments that are supported by the other parties’ cultural contexts. Independent com-ments by three different respondents pointed to the importance of conveying attitudes of “under-standing”, “support” and “respect”. Thus, also on that dimension, recommendations from the theo-retical analysis can be validated. The empirical analysis has briefly touched upon how to develop cultural competences in the or-ganisation. From the interviews with especially Lego, Grundfos and Shell it is possible to conclude that a central communication department or external affairs function should rely on so-called gen-eral cultural competences while it should draw on culture-specific competences of employees in specific parts of the organisation that have the direct stakeholder contact. Now, a new dimensions of the issues management process was brought to light through the inter-views. The 6 respondents had a much more general approach to issues management that I have used in the theoretical analysis. They argued that issues management should function within the frames of corporate values/culture and responsible business behaviour. I have all ready described how corporate culture is a valuable way of characterising companies’ cultural context. It showed out that cultural values also inflict directly upon the issues management process. They serve as a sort of frame that assures the company’s integrity and consistency across many different business units and subsidiaries. In addition, the companies were very persistent in underlining that what you say as a company must be in accordance with what you do. Thus, if you communicate that you

CONCLUSION PART 3

Part 3 | 109

want to change operations in ways stakeholders suggest, you must change those operations ac-cordingly. I have justified the process model as a consequence of those propositions. The conclusion to draw is that a company should draw a process model similar to the one I devel-oped in the theoretical analysis including those activities most relevant for that particular company and industry. In addition, they should closely consider in which ways it is possible to continuously integrate cultural awareness and mindfulness and stakeholder dialogue into day-to-day issues management activities. Trough an empirical analysis of 6 European companies, part 3 has fulfilled the objectives to con-ceptualise issues in multicultural environments and to indicate ways issues management should be practiced in order to prevent issues from evolving into crises. Conclusions from the theoretical analysis have been refined. Hereby, I have aspired to live up to good normative research that I stated as a goal in the beginning of dissertation: “Useful normative theory should prove solutions under typical conditions in actual practice.” (Vercic in Culbertson & Chin 1996). Part 4 presents the final conclusions to the entire study. In addition, some perspectives for addi-tional research are outlined. During the study, especially through this empirical analysis, a number of interesting perspectives came to light, which may aspire future research into issues manage-ment.


PART 4

CONCLUSION

Part 4 | 111

CONCLUSION

SETTING THE STAGE Larger European companies are acting in multicultural stakeholder environments. They are con-fronted with a range of expectations and demands and some are only peripherally related to the company’s core business. It requires, that companies are competent to effectively communicate about their activities and responsibility. At the same time, the enlarged openness and communica-tion result in more focus being directed towards companies’ social responsibility, which makes them more exposed to public criticism. It is especially true for companies with a well-known brand. The globalisation of the media gives rise to a situation where local conflicts potentially may mature into global issues for international companies on all markets with consequences for all employees, investors and other stakeholders. The dissertation’s topic stems from this self-perpetuating process in the business environment between openness and responsibility. The dissertation asks how companies’ public relations function handles a situation, where compa-nies must manage issues with parties, who are very different in cultural terms. Focus is directed towards the field within public relations that through identification, analysis of and communication about issues intend to prevent crises in the public sphere. This discipline is named ”Issues Man-agement”. The report’s pivotal point is an investigation of how companies should manage issues in multicultural stakeholder environments in order to prevent crises.

FINDINGS The dissertation brings forth conclusions at two levels – a conceptual level and an operational level. On a conceptual level, the dissertation argues that issues are so-called legitimacy gaps between corporate behaviour and stakeholders’ expectations to this. An issue arises when companies and stakeholders show interests in the issue (which can be the same or different) and there are dis-crepancies in: 1) Facts the parties hold about corporate behaviour. 2) Values from which the par-ties judge the behaviour. 3) Policies the parties believe are most appropriate to follow. The conclu-sion is that issues are not detached topics in the public sphere. They are always anchored in the interface between companies’ and stakeholders’ subjective opinion formation. To begin with, that conclusion gives birth to exiting acknowledgement that draws on stakeholder theory. To mention the most important: Stakeholders who are part of the “contextual business environment” are just as likely to initiate issues as stakeholders in the “transactional business environment”. Stakeholders’ interest in an issue may be very diverse and range from material to political or more emotionally accentuated concerns. And stakeholders have very different clout in the public sphere depending on their power position, the legitimacy of their demand and how urgent the issue is. The next key conclusion is that stakeholders’ and companies’ respective cultural context impacts their subjective opinion formation about proper corporate behaviour. Their cultural attachment then significantly impacts which issues or aspects of an issue they focus and how they act in relation to that issue. The cultural context may be dismantled into a number of dimensions. The national cul-ture frame with its inherent values and norms, expectations about the distribution of roles (the

CONCLUSION


socio-cultural frame) and the stereotype we hinge on to understand foreign cultures (psycho-cultural frame) are those dimensions with greatest significance in issues management. When dif-ferences between companies’ and stakeholders’ cultural dimensions are present, it may be part of the explanation why different opinions are formed, the difference between their patterns of action and why misunderstanding may occur when they debate an issue. It materialises in different ways. One way is that companies often make use of rational reasons while stakeholders, especially NGOs, employ more emotional arguments. Another consequence is different perceptions of which role companies should occupy in general societal questions like human rights, welfare and envi-ronmental protection. The last conclusion on the conceptual level is that the public sphere is characterised by a process of dynamic and mutual influence between debaters through which a public opinion is formed. Com-panies do no participate in that mutual influence if they remain passive – do not engage in issues management activities – once an issue appears. When they are directly confronted with the issue they are left to reactive strategies because the issue has all ready penetrated the public sphere and a public opinion has been formed. Based on findings from this analysis, the dissertation has devel-oped a conceptual model for issues in multicultural stakeholders environments, which can be found just after this conclusion. On an operational level, the tentative study of six case companies reveals relatively great differ-ences between the issues management process in individual companies. It signifies that general practice is characterised by individual preferences and “mudding through”. There seems to be a need for more fundamental principles for issues management in multicultural stakeholder environ-ments, which companies can depend on. The dissertation concludes that issues management should strive to anticipate issues. At an early stage, companies should search solutions to issues at a time where there are more possibilities to impact the development of the issue and public opin-ion. It must take place through a set of activities and techniques and by competent execution of those tasks. The dissertation suggests some concrete activities, which are synthesised in the rele-vant chapter. They should be grouped into a systematic and structured process containing four phases: identification, analysis, response and evaluation. In the identification phase, the aim is to identify important issues and involved stakeholders. “Anticipation” is the most important ideology here. I the analysis phase, the company determines the history and origin of the issue, its stage in the so-called life cycle, predicts its further development and assesses its influence on the organisa-tion. “To develop a sound understanding and knowledge” about the issue is important at this stage. In the response phase, companies formulate their answer to those stakeholders involved in the issue through communication or action. At this point it becomes essential that the company is “con-sistent” in its communication while being able to adapt the response to the various interests or as-pects in the issue different stakeholders have focused on. In finding a response to an issue, com-panies may roughly choose between altering business practices or to create understanding of and support to corporate behaviour through communication. Companies must be open for new ways to act but the aim should not be to satisfy critical stakeholders in the short term if a solution is contra-dictory to company policies in the long term. All together, the issues management process should function within the superior frame of corporate values / culture and business operations. Issues should always be related to the values a company stands for or wishes to stand for. Corporate values should be reformulated if responses to issues point in directions that are at odds with the present value foundation. Likewise, it is essential that companies’ responses to stakeholders com-

CONCLUSION

Part 4 | 113

ply with true business operations. The credibility of the organisation is diluted if disparities exist between what the company says and what it does in practice. As issues are anchored in the subjective opinion formation, which is influenced by the parties’ cul-tural context, cultural understanding becomes a fundamental competence to manage issues and to comprehend stakeholder reactions – thus, for the entire way companies pursue activities in the process above. The six case companies put great emphasis on that argument. On the other hand, they did not agree how cultural competences could be translated to issues management in prac-tice. The dissertation argues that cultural understanding entails the ability to understand the cultural dimensions mentioned previously and how they affect issues and company-stakeholder relations. It is concerned with developing “general cultural competences”. In an issues management situation, it is suggested that cultural competence is divided into “cultural awareness” where the company real-ises the cultural differences, wherein they lie and how they materialise. We rarely notice that we perceive things differently from others and mistakenly assuming that no cultural differences exist between parties is a recurrently committed blunder in communication. The other competence is “cultural mindfulness”, which has three parameters: One is the ability and readiness to shift one’s frame of reference. The second is the motivation to use new categories to understand cultural or ethnic differences. And the third is the preparedness to experiment with creative avenues of deci-sion-making and problem solving. Fundamentally, issues management should strive to achieve harmony between the organisation and its environment. But the dissertation demonstrates that a company may only achieve that harmony by understanding and paying attention to cultural dispari-ties that may distinguish it from its stakeholders. The company’s communication practitioners should be able to step beyond their own opinion formation and understand opinion formations an-chored in other cultural contexts. In practice, it may be explained as the ability to “put yourself in other shoes” or “take on another pair of glasses”. The dissertation concludes that a cultural compe-tence is vital in order to identify the right issues, understand them correctly and to react in a way where misunderstandings are precluded. Regardless wether companies comply with stakeholders’ expectations and demands, companies should regard it as an objective to give stakeholders the feeling that the company understands, respects and supports their opinions. Such positive en-dorsement is likely to have positive effects on the management of issues. In addition, in concrete issues, employees in the central communication department should draw on the operational staffs’ specific knowledge of particular stakeholders, for example a subsidiary’s knowledge of a national culture. The dissertation holds that the entire operational issues management practice is strengthened if stakeholder analysis and dialogue are integrated into the process. It demands that involved stake-holders are identified and those relations they may have to other groups in society are revealed. It must be acknowledged that different stakeholders groups are likely to exist in different countries. Interests that stakeholders attach to the issues must be investigated. Moreover, the company’s prioritisation of issues should be supported by an analysis of respective stakeholder influence. Dialogue must be initiated at an early stage with most important stakeholders including very critical stakeholders as well. The dissertation argues that the dialogue should build on deep-seated values about mutual trust where the aim is to create a so-called win-win situation so that a solution is beneficial to all parties. In reality, it could be a challenging and time-consuming exercise. On the other hand, there are convincing advantages by integrating stakeholder dialogue into issues man-agement. You can early identify important issues, companies can obtain valuable knowledge about

CONCLUSION


issues from stakeholders and they can exchange ideas about avenues for resolving the issue. In addition, stakeholder may be used as mediators to solve conflicts with groups in society that com-pany is unable to reach directly. On the other hand, there are risks that companies loose their in-dependency and uncritically cater to stakeholder demands. Obviously, it should deliberately be avoided Consequently, companies should share a conceptual understanding of issues as anchored in the subjective opinion formation between stakeholders and companies, which is influenced by the par-ties’ cultural context. Through a structured issues management process, companies should seek to identify and analyse issues as early as possible and find solutions to them that are satisfactory to the principal parties. In multicultural stakeholder environments, that objective is only feasible if the process integrates more technical activities and tasks with cultural awareness and mindfulness as well as stakeholder analysis and dialogue. The dissertation concludes that companies, which share this conceptual understanding and have the right operational issues management set-up in place, are equipped to lessen the risk that is-sues mature into crises. The risk that issues undermine the company legitimacy and deteriorates its reputation is reduced accordingly. This conclusion is followed by two models, which encapsulate the fundamental conclusions: 1) A conceptual model for issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. 2) An operational model, by which companies may structure and specify the issues management process. The dissertation recommends that companies develop an individual model containing the defined phases and those activities most relevant to them.

PERSPECTIVES

Part 4 | 115

PERSPECTIVES FOR ADDITIONAL RESEARCH

After having researched theoretical and empirical aspects of issues management, which mainly drew on communicative theories, some evident questions arise which have not been given clout in this dissertation. The most important of these are concerned with the organisational and structural dimensions of issues management. I have come to realise that the competence to lead effective issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments depends upon both a communicative competence and an organisational, structural competence. A central communication department cannot possess knowledge about all the different cultures the company may encounter when managing issues. An issues manager must have some general competences of cultural mindfulness but he must be able to draw on cul-ture-specific knowledge of local employees in different parts of the organisation. Moreover, it is not enough that the central issues manager contacts employees if questions occur during his analysis of an issue. The entire organisation must be integrated in the issues management process all the way from identification to evaluation. People in different parts of the organisation are able to see issues arising much quicker because of their in-depth knowledge of specific cultures and they are able to get the eventual response through with less risks of misunderstanding. I will give space to some key quotations from the 6 interviewed companies, which touches upon the organisational, structural perspective: Marianne Barner, Ikea: “I feel our advantage is that we have worked so closely wiht our suppliers in these countries and for years we have had local staff, so we are not coming as totally new –as a foreigner from far away, we have been THERE, like in India or Pakistan, for so many years. That is an advantage.” Jette Orduna, Lego: “…we cannot sell our products in the same way all over the world. So we have different ways of dividing the world. This is why there are different perceptions of Lego in different locations and different communication messages are employed. There are differences in the world and we know that. And we also know it when we respond to public issues. We have a lot of experience in man-aging cultural diversity. We try, to the extent it is possible, to unify our messages but we also know it is not possible in all places.”(…) “We have responsible local public relations people with knowl-edge about how to manage public relations in each region. At the same time, they cooperate closely with our communication headquarter here in Billund. We visit each other a lot. Therefore we know each other’s backgrounds. And we really try to minimise those cultural differences as much as possible because it is actually quite expensive to make different campaigns depending on where you are. It would be easier to make one press release that you translate into x number of lan-guages and that’s it. But you cannot do that. We have known that for many years.” Bo Wesley, Novo Nordisk: “This department consists of Danes, Swedes, Brits, a Frenchman and an African. We are more women than men. We are very diverse. And the department’s objective is to become increasingly

PERSPECTIVES


international despite the fact that we are quite international already. We use a lot of money on trav-els in this department.” Matthias Glischinski-Kurc, Shell Europe: Identifying and understanding issues can only really be done by people on the ground who com-prehend the local sensitivity, the local values that are driving the particular stakeholders. This, again, was one of the motivations when I said: We actually have to turn the whole process up-side down. We really have to come to a point where we have that bottom-up approach rather than top-down approach in order to capture all this cultural sensitivity”. (…) “It’s harder to do when you sit in the ”ivory tower”. Of course, having worked in different environments and different countries in the world that have different mindsets and ideas, and having your network of local contacts helps you to do that. But that’s just a little bit of personal skill or character that frame the issues management process. The real added value you can only create by using the organisation. And that is using the diversity that we have within the operating company to make sure we capture this”. (…) “External contacts are usually very strongly owned and lived on the local level where we have the customer and stakeholder interface. And this is where the human interaction really takes place. Of course, there is also a European office that is dealing with the EU parliament for example and relations to European industry association. But the main interface, were you have interaction and contact, is the local level. We do have a European level of issues management that provides services to a certain extent but you cannot substitute for real local interaction.” A thesis that arises out of this knowledge is that you cannot lead an effective issues management process without the right organisational structure to support that process. That thesis generates a number of interesting questions for further research. If this research were carried out, the researcher would have to conduct interviews with more re-spondents from the same companies. It could be interviews with employees in local subsidiaries and business units in order to unveil to what extent they are engaged in the issues management process and in which way they could contribute. In addition, the researcher should perform an in-depth analysis of feedback systems set up in the organisation and investigate the internal process by which responses to issues are formulated and communicated to stakeholders.

Part 1| 117

APPENDICES

APPENDICES


APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: CAUSAL RELATIONS IN THE STUDY Causes Problem variables Consequences ! Integration of the media

across cultures and coun-tries.

! Companies met with new

and unexpected demands from a variety of stake-holders in a multicultural environment.

! Lack of framework and tools

to identify, analyse and re-spond to issues involving stakeholders from different cultural contexts than the company.

! Issues mature into crises. ! Lack of harmony between the organisation and the environment.

! Bad image in the public. ! Undermining the company’s

public legitimacy.

APPENDICES

Part 4 | 119

APPENDIX 2: MEDIA SOURCES IN THE IDENTIFICATION PROCESS

Artistic, poetic works Science fiction

VISIONARY UNINHIBITED

Fringe media, underground press Unpublished notes and speeches Monographs, treatises Scientific, technical, professional journals Highly specialised, narrow-viewpoint journals Statistical documents (social indicators, statistical services)

RENDERING IDEA TO SPECIF-ICS

Abstracting services, journals Datasearch composites (predicast) Egghead journals (e.g. Science, Scientific American)

DIFFUSION OF IDEA AMONG IOPINION LEADERS

Insider “dopesheets” (e.g. Product Safety Letter) Popular intellectual magazines (e.g. Harpers, Atlantic) INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSE Network communications (Bulletins, Newsletters) Journals for the cause (e.g. Consumer Reports, Asbestos Reporter) General interest publications (e.g. Time, Newsweek)

MASS MEDIA

Condensation of general literature (e.g. Readers Digest) Poll data, public opinion, behavioural and voter attitudes POLITICISING THE ISSUE Legislative/governmental services, reports Books (fiction, novels provide social analysis of the times; non-fiction, pull together discordant parts into easily understood whole) Newspapers

INSTANTANEOUS COVERAGE FOR MASS CONSUMPTION

Radio & television EDUCATING THE PEOPLE OF THE NEW NORM

Education journals

Historical analyses HISTORICAL ANALYSIS Traditional doctoral thesis

Identifying Emerging Issues. Source: Coates, Coates, Jarratt & Heinz 1986: 24

Highly specialized literature

Science Science High Digest Tech

Nature

New York Times “Science Times”

Omni Discovery

All Things Considered (NPR)

General News Stories – TV – Radio - Newspapers

Science Section of Newsweek/time/U.S. News

TV Specials

60 Minutes 20/20

Nova Readers Digest Life Look

The Oil Spot Model: The Spread of issues through Popular Media. Source: Renfro 1993: 73

APPENDICES


APPENDIX 3: LIFECYCLE CURVES

Time

Time

No. of events

Events triggering outside pressure

Time

No. readers/receivers

Expansion of an outside pressure issue in the public

Time

No. of Countries

Stakeholder awareness in an international context

Time

Level of importance

Development of topics

Public awareness

Aggregated public awareness

Life Cycle Curves. Source: Winter & Steger 1998: 60

APPENDICES

Part 4 | 121

APPENDIX 4: CONCLUSION IN DANISH

SPECIALETS UDGANGSPUNKT Større europæiske virksomheder agerer i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer og konfronteres med mange forskelligartede forventninger og krav, hvor nogle kun er perifert relateret til virksomhedens egentlige forretning. Det kræver, at virksomhederne er i stand til effektivt at kommunikere om deres aktiviteter og ansvarlighed. Samtidig indebærer den øgede åbenhed og kommunikation, at der er stigende fokus på virksomheders sociale ansvarlighed, og at de dermed er mere udsatte for offent-lig kritik. Det gælder særligt virksomheder med et kendt brand. Mediernes globalisering betyder, at lokale konflikter har potentiale til at udvikle sig til globale debatsager for en international virksom-hed på alle dens markeder med konsekvenser for alle medarbejdere, investorer og andre stake-holdere. Specialets emne udspringer af denne selvforstærkende proces i virksomhedens omverden mellem åbenhed og ansvarlighed. Specialet spørger, hvordan virksomhedens public relations-funktion klarer en situation, hvor virk-somheden skal håndtere debatsager med aktører, som er forskellige kulturelt set. Specialet fokuse-rer på det område inden for public relations, som via identifikation, analyse af og kommunikation omkring debatsager (”issues”) har til formål at forebygge kriser i den offentlige sfære. Dette område betegnes ”issues management”. Opgavens omdrejningspunkt er altså en undersøgelse af, hvordan virksomheder skal håndtere debatsager i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer for at forebygge kriser.

FORSKNINGSMETODE Forskningen i dette problemfelt er udført ved en omfangsrig scanning af eksisterende teori og litte-ratur inden for issues management. Specialet tager kritisk stilling til issues management litteratu-rens anvendelighed i forhold til debatsager, som opstår i spændet mellem kulturelt forskellige de-battører. En interdisciplinær teoretisk analyse mellem issues management, stakeholder relations og interkulturel kommunikation afdækker områder, hvor issues management litteraturen er mangel-fuld og nye aspekter tilføres fra disse to supplerende teoretiske discipliner. Herefter foretager spe-cialet en empirisk analyse af seks case virksomheder. Den empiriske data er indsamlet via person-lige kvalitative interviews med praktikere af issues management i seks større europæiske virksom-heder: Grundfos, Ikea, Lego, Novo Nordisk, SAS og Shell Europe.

RESULTATER Specialet fremkommer med konklusioner på to niveauer – et begrebsmæssigt niveau og et opera-tionelt niveau. På det begrebsmæssige plan konkluderer specialet, at debatsager udgør en såkaldt legitimitets-kløft mellem virksomhedens måde at handle på og stakeholderes forventninger til dette. En debat-sag opstår, når virksomheder og stakeholdere har interesser i forhold til sagen (som kan være ens eller forskellige), og der er forskel på: 1) De fakta, parterne har om virksomhedens handlinger. 2) De værdier, parterne vurderer handlingerne ud fra. 3) De politikker, parterne vurderer er rigtige at følge. Debatsager er altså ikke løsrevne emner i offentligheden, men altid forankret i spændet mel-lem stakeholdere og virksomheders subjektive meningsdannelser. Den konklusion giver i første omgang anledning til en række spændende erkendelser, hvor der kan trækkes på stakeholder

APPENDICES


teori. F.eks. kan nævnes, at stakeholdere, som er del af det ”kontekstuelle miljø”, kan iværksætte debatsager i lige så høj grad som stakeholdere i det ”forretningsmæssige miljø”. At de interesser som stakeholdere har i en debatsag kan være meget forskelligartede fra materielle over politiske til mere følelsesmæssigt betonede. Og at stakeholdere har meget forskellige muligheder for indflydel-se i offentligheden afhængig af deres magtposition, legitimiteten i deres krav og hvor presserende debatsagen er. Den næste centrale konklusion er, at stakeholderes og virksomheders respektive kulturelle kon-tekst påvirker den subjektive meningsdannelse. Dermed får aktørernes kulturelle forankring stor betydning for hvilke debatsager eller hvilke aspekter af en debatsag, de fokuserer på, og hvordan de handler i forhold til sagen. Den kulturelle kontekst kan nedbrydes i en række dimensioner. De dimensioner, som har størst betydning for issues management, er den nationale kulturramme med dens indgroede værdier og normer, forventninger omkring rollefordelinger (den socio-kulturelle kulturramme) samt de stereotyper, vi støtter os til (den psyko-kulturelle kulturramme). Når der er forskel på virksomheder og stakeholderes kulturdimensioner, kan det være en del af forklaringen på de forskellige meninger, de danner, forskellen på deres handlingsmønstre og hvorfor misforstå-elser kan opstå, når de diskuterer en debatsag. En konkret måde hvorpå det kommer til udtryk er, at virksomheder ofte benytter sig af rationelle begrundelser, mens nogle stakeholdere benytter mere følelsesbetonede argumenter. En anden konsekvens er forskellige opfattelser af, hvilken rolle virksomheder spiller eller bør spille i generelle samfundsspørgsmål som menneskerettigheder, velfærd og miljøbeskyttelse. Den sidste konklusion på det begrebsmæssige niveau er, at det offentlige rum er karakteriseret af dynamisk gensidig indflydelse mellem debattørerne, hvormed den offentlige mening dannes. Virksomheder tager ikke del i denne gensidige indflydelse, såfremt de forbliver passive - ikke foretager issues management aktiviteter – straks en debatsag opstår. Virksomheden overlades dermed til reaktive strategier, når den konfronteres direkte med debatsa-gen, fordi debatsagen allerede har penetreret den offentlige agenda, og en offentlig mening er dannet. På basis af disse resultater, udvikler specialet en begrebsmæssig model for debatsager i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer, som findes i forlængelse af specialets konklusion. På det operationelle niveau afslører det tentative studie af seks case-virksomheder, at der er forholdsvis store forskelle mellem issues management-processen i de enkelte virksomheder, hvil-ket tyder på, at generel praksis er karakteriseret af individuelle præferencer og “muddling through”. Der synes at være behov for mere fundamentale principper for issues management i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer, som virksomheder kan støtte sig til. Specialet konkluderer, at issues manage-ment skal have til formål at foregribe debatsager. Virksomheder skal finde løsninger på debatsager på et så tidligt stadie som muligt, hvor de har flere muligheder for at påvirke sagens udvikling og den offentlige mening. Det skal ske gennem et sæt aktiviteter og teknikker og ved kompetent udfø-relse af disse opgaver. De konkrete aktiviteter er syntetiseret i det pågældende afsnit. De skal grupperes i en systematisk og struktureret proces, som består af fire faser: identifikation, analyse, svar/kommunikation og evaluering. I praksis er denne strukturerede issues management-proces dog sjældent lineær. I identifikationsfasen skal formålet være at identificere de vigtigste debatsager og involverede stakeholdere. ”Foregribelse” er den vigtigste ideologi her. I analysefasen skal virk-somheden bestemme debatsagens historie og oprindelse, dets stadie i den såkaldte livscyklus, forudsige den videre udvikling og vurdere dets indflydelse på organisationen. ”At udvikle en solid forståelse og viden om debatsagen” er vigtigt i dette stadie. I svar/kommunikationsfasen skal virk-somheden formulere sit svar til de stakeholdere, som er involveret i debatsagen gennem kommuni-

APPENDICES

Part 4 | 123

kation eller handling. Her bliver det essentielt, at virksomheden er konsekvent i sin kommunikation, men samtidig i stand til at tilpasse svaret til de interesser eller aspekter i debatsagen, som forskel-lige stakeholdere har fokuseret på. I udviklingen af en løsning på en debatsag kan virksomheden groft sagt vælge mellem at ændre sine forretningsmæssige metoder eller gennem kommunikation at skabe forståelse for og tilslutning til de nuværende metoder. Virksomheden skal være åben for nye måder at agere på, men formålet må ikke være at tilfredsstille kritiske stakeholdere på kort sigt, hvis en løsning står i modsætning til virksomhedens politik på lang sigt. Overordnet set skal issues management-processen foregå inden for den overordnede ramme af virksomhedens værdier/kultur og forretningsdriften. En debatsag skal altid sættes i forhold til de værdier, virksomheden står for eller ønsker at stå for. Hvis svaret på en debatsag peger i en anden retning end det nuværende værdigrundlag, bør virksomhedens værdier omformuleres. Ligeledes er det essentielt, at det svar, som virksomheden giver stakeholdere efterleves i den egentlige forretningsdrift. Troværdigheden undermineres, såfremt der er kløft mellem det virksomheden siger, og det den gør i praksis. I den empiriske analyse findes to tabeller, som opsummerer issues management-praksis i de seks case -virksomheder. Disse kan være af særlig interesse for andre praktikere. Idet debatsager er forankret i en subjektiv meningsdannelse, som påvirkes af debattørernes kultu-relle kontekst, bliver kulturforståelse en fundamental kompetence for at håndtere debatsager og forstå kulturelt anderledes stakeholdere – altså for den måde aktiviteterne i ovennævnte proces angribes. De seks case-virksomheder lagde stor vægt på den konklusion. Derimod var der ikke konsensus omkring, hvordan kulturelle kompetencer kunne overføres til issues management i praksis. Kulturforståelse indbefatter evnen til at forstå de kulturdimensioner, som nævntes tidligere, og hvordan de påvirker debatsager og forholdet mellem virksomheder og stakeholdere. Det hand-ler om at udvikle en ”generel kulturel kompetence”. I en issues management-situation kan den kulturelle kompetence opdeles i ”kulturel opmærksomhed”, hvor virksomheden er klar over de kul-turelle forskelle, hvori de består, og hvordan de udmøntes samt ”kulturel sensitivitet”. Kulturel sen-sitivitet har tre parametre: Evnen til at skifte ens referenceramme; motivationen til at bruge nye kategorier til at forstå kulturelle forskelle; og viljen til at eksperimentere med alternative muligheder for beslutninger og løsninger. Målet i issues management er at skabe harmoni mellem organisatio-nen og dets omverden. En virksomhed kan altså kun opnå denne harmoni ved at forstå og være opmærksom på kulturelle uligheder, som måtte adskille den fra sine stakeholdere. Virksomhedens kommunikatører skal kunne sætte sig ud over egen meningsdannelse og forstå meningsdannelser forankret i andre kulturelle kontekst. I praksis kan det forklares som evnen til at ”sætte sig i andres sted” eller ”tage andre briller på”. Denne kulturelle kompetence er både vigtigt for at identificere de rigtige debatsager, forstå dem korrekt samt at reagere på en måde, så misforståelser undgås. Uanset om virksomheden efterkommer stakeholdernes forventninger og krav skal målet være, at stakeholderne gennem den måde debatsagen håndteres sidder tilbage med følelsen af, at virk-somheden viser empati, respekterer og støtter deres holdninger. I konkrete debatsager bør ansatte i den centrale kommunikationsafdeling desuden trække på et specifikt kulturkendskab til særlige stakeholdere hos linjestaben i organisationen, f.eks. et datterselskabs kendskab til en national kultur. Hele den operationelle issues management-praksis vil styrkes, såfremt stakeholder-analyse og stakeholder-dialog integreres i processen. Det indebærer, at de involverede stakeholdere identifi-ceres, og de relationer de måtte have til andre stakeholdere afdækkes. Herunder er det vigtigt at erkende, at forskellige stakeholdergrupper typisk vil forekomme i forskellige lande. De interesser

APPENDICES


stakeholderne har for debatsagen skal undersøges. Desuden skal virksomhedens prioritering af debatsagerne understøttes af en analyse af de respektive stakeholderes muligheder for indflydel-se. En dialog bør igangsættes på et tidligt stadie med de vigtigste stakeholdere, og det er essenti-elt, at også kritiske stakeholdere inviteres til dialog. Specialet konkluderer, at dialogen bør bygge på grundlæggende værdier omkring gensidig tillid, hvor målet er at skabe en såkaldt vind-vind situ-ation, så en løsning er til gavn for begge parter. Det kan i praksis være en svær og tidskrævende proces. Til gengæld er fordelene ved at integrere stakeholder-dialog i issues management, at man tidligt kan opfange vigtige debatsager, at virksomheden kan få værdifuld viden om debatsagerne fra stakeholdere, og at de kan udveksle ideer for, hvordan debatsagerne kan løses. Stakeholdere kan motivere forandringer i virksomheder, som viser sig at være værdifulde på lang sigt. På den anden side er der risiko for, at virksomheder bliver for afhængige og ukritisk efterlever stakeholde-res krav, hvilket bevidst må undgås. Virksomheder bør altså have en begrebsmæssige forståelse af debatsager som forankret i en sub-jektiv meningsdannelse mellem stakeholdere og virksomheder, der påvirkes af aktørernes kulturel-le kontekst. Virksomheder skal gennem en struktureret issues management-proces søge at identi-ficere og analysere debatsager så tidligt som muligt og finde løsninger på dem, som er tilfredsstil-lende for de vigtigste parter. Det mål kan kun opnås i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer såfremt processen integrerer mere tekniske aktiviteter og opgaver med kulturel opmærksomhed og sensiti-vitet samt stakeholder-analyse og -dialog. Det er specialets konklusion, at virksomheder som har denne begrebsmæssige forståelse samt det korrekte operationelle set-up vil være i stand til at mindske risikoen for, at debatsager udvikler sig til kriser i forhold til den offentlige sfære. Dermed begrænses risikoen altså for, at kritiske debatsager underminerer virksomhedens legitimitet og forringer dens offentlige omdømme. Denne konklusion efterfølges af de to centrale modeller, som opsummerer specialets hovedkon-klusioner. 1) En begrebsmæssig model for debatsager i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer. 2) En operationel model, hvormed virksomheden kan strukturere og konkretisere issues management-processen. Specialet anbefaler, at hver enkelt virksomhed udvikler en proces-model bestående af de nævnte faser og de issues management aktiviteter, som er mest relevante og mulige inden for virksomhedens ressourceramme.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Part 4 | 125

LIST OF REFERENCES

ARTICLES ! Botan, Carl H. And Francisco Soto, ”A semiotic Approach to the Internal Functioning of Publics:

Implications for Strategic Communication and Public Relations”, Public Relations Review, vol. 24, no. 1, 1998

! Butler, Alan, “Management and Co-ordination of International Public Relations Programmes”, Journal of Communication Management, vol. 1, no. 1, 1996

! Børsens Nyhedsmagasin, ”Novo: Hvad er Lars Rebien Sørensens næste træk?”, Børsens Nyhedsmagasin, 19. marts 2001

! Charles, Mirjaliisa, “Book Review – The Cultural Context in Business Communication”, The Journal of Business Communication, Vol 37, No 2, 2000

! Chase, W. H., B. L. Jones, Managing Public Issues. Public Relations Review. Vol. 5, No. 2, 1979

! Clark, Cynthia E., “Differences Between Public Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility: An Analysis”, Public Relations Review, vol. 26, no. 3, 2000

! Coombs, W. Timothy, Sherry Halla day, Gabriele Hasenauer and Benno Signitzer, “A Com-parative Analysis of International Public Relations: Identification and Interpretation of Similari-ties and Differences Between Professionalization in Austria, Norway and the United States”, Journal of Public Relations Research, vol. 5, no. 1, 1994

! Corneliussen, Joep P., “Towards and Understanding of the Use of Academic Theories in Public Relations Practice”, Public Relations Review, vol. 26, no. 3, 2000

! Deri, Christopher and Jonathan Wootliff, “NGOs: The Super Brands. Stakeholder Strategies, Edelman Worldwide”, Corporate Reputation Review, vol. 4, no. 2, 2001

! Gaunt, Philip and Jeff Ollenburger, “Issues Management: A Tool that Deserves Another Look”, Public Relations Review, vol. 21, no. 3, 1995

! Gonzáles-Herrero, Alfonso, “How to Manage a Crisis Before – or Whenever – It Hits”, Public Relations Quarterly, Spring 1995

! Grunig, James E., Larissa A. Grunig, K. Sriramesh, Yi-Hung Huang and Anastasia Lyra, “Mod-els of Public Relations in an International Setting”, Journal of Public Relations Research, vol. 7, no. 3, 1995

! Grunig, Larissa A., James E. Grunig and Dejan Vercic, “Are the IABC’s Excellence Principles Generic?”, Journal of Communication Management, vol. 2, no. 4, 1998

! Gudykunst, William, “Cross Cultural communication”, in William Gudykunst & Bella Mody (ed.), Handbook of International and Intercultural communication, Sage Publications, London, 2nd edi-tion, 2002

! Heath, T. L., “Corporate Issues Management: Theoretical Underpinnings and Research Foun-dations, Public Relations Research Annual, vol. 2, 1990

! Hewstone, M. & J. Jaspers, “The Social Dimension of Attributions” in H. Tajfel (ed.), The Social Dimension, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984

! Ihator, Augustine, “Understanding the Cultural Patterns of the World – An Imperative in Implementing Strategic International PR Programs”, Public Relations Quarterly, Winter 2001

APPENDICES


! Kent, Michael L. and Maureen Taylor, “Challenging Assumptions of International Public Rela-tions: When government is the Most Important Public”, Public Relations Review, vol. 25, no. 2, 1999

! Kent, Michael l. and Maureen Taylor, “When Public Relations Becomes Government Rela-tions”, Public Relations Quarterly, Fall 1999

! Kruckeberg, Dean, “The Challenge for Public Relations in the Era of Globalization”, Public Re-lations Quarterly, Winter 1995/96

! MacManus, Toby, “Public Relations, The Cultural Dimension”, in Moss, Danny, Dejan Vercic and Gary Warnaby (ed.), Perspectives on Public Relations Research, Routledge, London, 2000

! Mandag Morgen, ”Mennesker, magt og medier”, MandagMorgenMonitor, March 4, 2002 ! Miller, Kate, “Issues Management: The link Between Organization Reality and Public Percep-

tion”, Public Relations Quarterly, Summer 1999 ! Näsi, Juha, Salme Näsi, Nelson Philips and Stelios Zyglidopoulos, “The Evolution of Corporate

Social Responsiveness”, Business and Society, vol. 36, no. 3, 1997 ! Nigh, Douglas and Philip Cochran, “Issues Management and the Multinational Enterprise”,

Management International Review, Vol. 34, 1994 ! Schønnemann, Anne Louise, “Jagten på det positive image”, Kommunikationsforum, 15. juli

2002 ! Sriramesh, K, Yungwook Kim and Mioko Takasaki, “Public relations in Three Asian Cultures:

An Analysis”, Journal of Public Relations Research, vol. 11, no. 4, 1999 ! Taylor, Maureen, “Cultural Variance as a Challenge to Global Public Relations: A Case Study

of the Coca-Cola Scare in Europe”, Public Relations Review, vol. 26, no. 3, 2000 ! Toth, Elizabeth L., Models for Construction and Curriculum”, Public Relations Review, Spring

1999 ! Vercic, Dejan, “On the Definition of Public Relations: a European View”, Public Relations Re-

view, vol. 27, 2001 ! Zaharna, R.S., “Intercultural Communication and International Public Relations: An Integral

Literature Review and Critique”, Communication Quarterly, no.48, 2000 ! Zaharna, R.S., “”In-awareness” Approach to Interntional Public Relations”, Public Relations

Review, No. 27, 2001

BOOKS ! Andersen, Ib, Den Skinbarlige Virkelighed, Samfundslitteratur, Frederiksberg, 1997 ! Banks, Stephen P., Multicultural Public Relations, A Social-Interpretative Approach, Sage Pub-

lications, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1995 ! Bjorkman, Ingmar and Mats Forsgren, The Nature of the International Firm, Copenhagen Busi-

ness School Press, Copenhagen, 1997 ! Black, Sam (editor), International Public Relations Case Studies, Kogan Page, London, 1995 ! Broom, Glen M. and David M. Dozier, Using Research in Public Relations, Prentice-Hall,

Englewood Cliffs, 1990 ! Bucholz, Rogene A., William D. Evans & Robert A. Wagley, Managing Response to Public

Issues, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1989 ! Cheney, George and Lars Thøger Christensen, “Organizational Identity”, in Jablin, Fredric and

Linda L. Putnam, The New Handbook of Organizational Communication - Advances in Theory, Research and Methods, Sage Publications, London, 2001

LIST OF REFERENCES

Part 4 | 127

! Coates, Joseph, Vary Coates, Jennifer Jarratt, Lisa Heinz, Issues Management: How You Can Plan, Organize and Manage For the Future, Lomond Publishers, 1986

! Culbertson, Hugh M., and Ni Chen, International Public Relations: A Comparative Analysis, Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, Mahwah, New Jersey, 1996

! Cultip, Sctoo M., Allen H. Center, & Glen M. Broom, Effective Public Relations, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1985

! Daniel, Norman, The Cultural Barrier, The University Press, Edinburgh, 1975. ! Dodd, Carley H., Dynamics of Intercultural Communication, C. Brown Publishers, 1992 ! Dozier, David M. with Larissa A. Grunig, James E. Grunig, Manager's Guide to Excellence in

Public Relations and Communication Management, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jer-sey, 1995

! Dunn, S. Watson, How Fifteen Transnational Corporations Manage Public Affairs, Crain Books, Illinois, 1979

! Eiberg, Kristian, International Public Relations Strategies in Theory and in Practice, Cand-Merc.Int spciale, 1991

! Eiberg, Kristian, “Public Relations og omverdensanalysen”, in Katrine Hjort, Hanne Løngreen and Anne-Marie Søderberg, Interkulturel kommunikation – Spændingsfeltet mellem det globale og locale, Samfundslitteratur, København, 1993

! Frandsen, Finn, Winni Johansen og Anne Ellerup Nielsen, International markedskommunikati-on i en postmoderne verden, Systeme, Århus, 1997

! Giddens, Anthony: The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford University Press. Stanford. 1990 ! Grunig, James E. (edited by), Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Manage-

ment, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 1992. ! Grunig, James E. & Larissa A. Grunig: Model of Public Relations and Communication in

Grunig, James E, Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 1992.

! Grunig, James and Dejan Vercic, “Public relations and management theory” in Moss, Danny, Dejan Vercic and Gary Warnaby (edited by), Perspectives on Public Relations Research, Routledge, London, 2000

! Grunig, James E. and Todd Hunt, Managing Public Relations, Hartcourt Brace Jovonovih Col-lege Publishers, London, 1984

! Gudykunst, William B. and Young Yun Kim, Methods for Intercultural Communication Re-search, Sage Publications, London, 1984

! Gudykunst, William B. And Stella ting-Toomey, Culture and Interpersonal Communication, Sage Publications, London, 1988

! Gudykunst, William B., Bridging Differences, Sage Publications, London, 1994 ! Gudykunst, William B., Intercultural Communication Theory, Sage, California, 1983 ! Gudykunst, William B., Communicating with Strangers, McGraw Hill, New York, 1992 ! Heath, Robert L, Management of Corporate Communication – From Interpersonal Contacts to

External Affairs, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Hillsdal, New Jersey, 1994 ! Heath, Robert L, Strategic Issues Management, Sage Publications, California, 1997 ! Heath, Robert L, Handbook of Public Relations, Sage Publications, London, 2001 ! Henriksen, Carol, Modeller for kommunikation og public relations, Roskilde Universitetsfor-

lag/Samfundslitteratur, København, 2001 ! Jensen, Iben and Hanne Løngreen (red.), Kultur og kommunikation, interkulturel kommunika-

tion i teori og praksis, Samfundslitteratur, Frederiksberg, 1995

APPENDICES


! Jablin, Fredric and Linda L. Putnam, The New Handbook of Organizational Communication - Advances in Theory, Research and Methods, Sage Publications, London, 2001

! Lesley, Philip (ed), Lesley’s Handbook of Public Relations and Communications, NTC Business Books, Chicago, 1997

! Lieberson, S., Making It Count: The Improvement of Social Resarch and Theory, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1985

! Moss, Danny, Dejan Vercic and Gary Warnaby (ed.), Perspectives on Public Relations Re-search, Routledge, London, 2000

! Moss, Danny, Toby MacManus, Dejan Vercic, Public Relations Research: An International Perspective, International Thomson Press, 1997

! Nielsen, Mie Femø, Under lup i offentligheden, Samfundslitteratur, København, 2000 ! Nally, Margaret, International Public Relations in Practice, Kogan Page, London, 1991 ! Poulsen, Jørgen, Kultur og Betydning, Kommunikation som Kulturel og Social Praksis, Sam-

fundslitteratur, 1999 ! Renfro, William L, Issues Management in Strategic Planning, Westport 1993 ! Samovar, Larry A. and Richard E. Porter, Intercultural Communication, Wadsworth, 1991 ! Sutcliffe, Kathleen M., “Organisational Environments and Organisational Information Process-

ing”, in Jablin, Fredric and Linda L. Putnam, The New Handbook of Organizational Communi-cation - Advances in Theory, Research and Methods, Sage Publications, London, 2001

! Ting-Toomey, Stella, Communicating Across Cultures, The Gulford Press, New York, 1999 ! Wartick, Steven L. And Donna j. Wood, International Business and Society, Blackwell,

Massachusetts, 1998 ! Wilcox, Dennis L., Phillip H. Ault, Warren K. Agee and Glen T. Cameron. Public Rela-

tions: Strategies and Tactics, Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., New York, 2000 (vente)

! Winter, Matthias & Ulrich Steger, Managing Outside Pressure, Jon Wiley & Son Chicester, 1998

ISSUES MANAGEMENT PERIODICALS ! Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal ! Communication Quarterly ! Communication Research ! International Public Relations Review ! Journal of Business Communication ! Journal of Communication Management ! Journal of Public Affairs ! Journal of Public Relations Research ! Public Relations Journal ! Public Relations Quarterly ! Public Relations Review ! Management International Review ! Communication Management

March 2003 - Kommunikationsforum

Documents

Transcript of March 2003 - Kommunikationsforum