Journal of Communication Management

Creating business value through corporate communication: A theory-based

framework and its practical application
Ansgar Zerfass, Christine Viertmann,
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JCOM
21,1 Creating business value through
corporate communication
A theory-based framework and its
68 practical application
Received 27 July 2016
Ansgar Zerfass and Christine Viertmann
Revised 3 November 2016 Institute of Communication and Media Studies, University of Leipzig,
Accepted 4 November 2016
Leipzig, Germany

Abstract
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a multi-step research project which explores concepts
that explain communication value across different disciplines and builds a framework that identifies and
systematizes communication goals linked to generic corporate goals.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on a literature review of work on value creation through
communication, drawn from 815 publications in 36 international journals across several disciplines (public
relations, marketing, management, etc.) and published from the year 2000 onward, the authors have
developed a framework, named “Communication Value Circle.” The application of the framework was
discussed with chief communication officers from global companies and was used during a communication
alignment process in a global healthcare company.
Findings – Empirical surveys across several continents show that communication professionals use a
multitude of rationales to explain the value of their work to top executives. These range from building
reputation, brands and identity, to gaining thought leadership, boosting sales, motivating employees,
preventing crises and listening to stakeholders. The researchers have identified four major value dimensions of
communication (enabling operations, building intangibles, adjusting strategy, and ensuring flexibility). The
framework encompasses 12 specific goals for communication that can be derived from corporate strategy.
Research limitations/implications – The framework stimulates the debate on the diverse concepts of
communication value, performance and measurement, and the need to integrate those approaches into theory
and practice. Additional qualitative studies to verify the framework are proposed.
Practical implications – The communication value circle can be used as a management tool for planning,
evaluating, and revising strategic directions for communication in any corporation.
Originality/value – Explaining the value of communication continues to be one of the most important
challenges for professionals and scholars alike. This paper proposes a consistent explanation for the theory
and practice of what constitutes corporate communication.
Keywords Organizational effectiveness, Corporate communication, Measurement,
Organizational performance, Communication management, Communication excellence,
Communication goals, Communication planning
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
One of the key characteristics of corporate communication is its mission to serve the overall
strategic goals of a company (Argenti, 2016; Goodman and Hirsch, 2015; Van Riel and
Fombrun, 2007). However, linking communication to business strategy continues to be one
of the key challenges for communication professionals around the globe. Recent surveys
among more than 4,200 practitioners in 82 countries across Asia-Pacific (Macnamara et al.,
2015), Europe (Zerfass et al., 2015), and Latin America (Moreno et al., 2015) have identified
this topic as the most or second-most significant issue for the profession in next years.
Along these lines, 4,483 professionals in the USA and other large economies around the
Journal of Communication
Management world interviewed for the Global Study of Leadership in Public Relations and
Vol. 21 No. 1, 2017
pp. 68-81
Communication Management, ranked “improving the measurement of communication
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1363-254X
effectiveness to prove value” as among the four most relevant issues in the field (Berger and
DOI 10.1108/JCOM-07-2016-0059 Meng, 2014). Empirical studies have also shown that practitioners lack a consistent
 understanding of communication value as they use a multitude of rationales to explain the Creating
value of communication to top executives, ranging from building reputation and business value
brands, gaining thought leadership and preventing crises, to stimulating sales or
employee motivation (Macnamara et al., 2015). As such, the obvious gap between
the need to demonstrate value and the absence of practice might be related to the
conceptual lack of a “big picture” of value creation in corporate communication – and not
solely limited to inadequate practices of measurement and evaluation on an applied level, as 69
claimed by many scholars and practitioners (Stacks and Michaelson, 2014; Watson
and Noble, 2014).
Therefore, we propose a new approach to close this gap. Rather than arguing from the
perspective of the corporate communication function and looking for yet another magic
formula for communication value, we suggest starting with a reflection on corporate
strategy and its generic contribution to business goals. This corresponds with the idea that
strategic communication is neither limited to the activities of communication departments
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nor to specific stakeholders or situations. Instead, communication is a cross-sectional

function that aims to fulfill the organization’s mission in many different ways (Christensen
and Cornelissen, 2011; Holtzhausen and Zerfass, 2015; Nothhaft, 2010). In this respect it is
necessary to understand the different facets of value creation in corporations, as well as the
multitude of concepts on the contribution of communication to organizational goals (Pallas
and Svensson, 2016). Both strands must be aligned to develop a comprehensive framework
of corporate communication value.
This paper describes the process, results, and implications of this research approach.
It reports on the extensive literature survey that has was conducted in order to build the
framework; explains the framework named communication value circle and its dimensions;
and shows how this framework can be applied in practice. The limitations and requirements
for future research are also outlined. The results presented here are based on a multi-step
research project conducted by communication and management researchers from two
universities, and supported by a sounding board of chief communication officers from
several global blue-chip companies.

Literature review
The first task of this research was to identify and systematize the various theoretical
concepts on value creation through communication that were present in the academic
literature. We conducted a literature review in the disciplines of corporate communication,
organizational communication, public relations, marketing, and strategic management.
The review focused on publications written in English and German (the two most important
linguae francae of the social sciences) since the year 2000. We used multiple search terms to
identify relevant contributions through an iterative multi-step process, relying on electronic
database searches (Business Source Complete, Communication Mass Media Complete),
manual searches in leading academic journals, cross-reference and citation tracking in
landmark works, as well as web searches on popular practitioners’ blogs and industry
associations’ websites. The 18 search terms employed included: measurement, evaluation,
controlling, reputation, value, audit(ing), scorecard, assets, strategy map, effectiveness,
listening, audience, brand, intangibles, contribution, monitoring, impact, and effect.
Different types of contributions were deemed relevant for the review and these included
journal articles located in 36 international journals, seminal books, and reference works
in the field (e.g. Kaplan and Norton, 1996, 2004; Kotler and Keller, 2012; Pfannenberg
and Zerfaß, 2010; Porter, 1985; Rappaport, 1986; Stacks and Michaelson, 2014; Watson and
Noble, 2014), as well as industry whitepapers and standpoints (e.g. International Association
for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, 2010, 2015). These searches
resulted in a sample of 815 relevant contributions.
 JCOM A qualitative content analysis of the publications (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005; Mayring,
21,1 2000) was conducted, relying on a systematic data extraction process with 24 analytical
coding categories for general information (e.g. authors, affiliations, type of publication, year
of publication), and specific information (e.g. topics under investigation, definitions,
theoretical background, methodological approach), as well as the coders’ comments and
remarks (e.g. relation to value creation, critique, implications for framework). The review
70 revealed that measuring the effects of communication in organizational contexts has been
an important topic in communication research since the 1970s (Likely and Watson, 2013;
Macnamara, 1992, 2002; Volk, 2016; Watson, 2012). Through inductive coding and
searching for common patterns across the included evidence, different streams of research
were identified and clustered and, finally, four major streams of research emerged. The first
three streams represent different understandings of value creation and the fourth stream
comprises various approaches to implementing goal-setting and measurement in
communications.
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The majority of the contributions aim at explaining the influence of corporate

communication messaging on stakeholder attitudes and behavior. In the first research
stream, value is conceptualized at an operational level as an effect of messaging.
Researchers in marketing and public relations propose various models for clustering
communicative outcomes into different chunks and levels of effects, such as media output,
stakeholder awareness, attitudes, etc. (e.g. Kotler and Keller, 2012; Lindenmann, 2003;
Macnamara, 2015). Ex post evaluation of corporate communication is intensively discussed
in the realms of mass media, corporate media, and social media. These approaches aim to
track links between communication and stakeholder behavior, for example, by influencing
customer preferences or employee motivation. However, the questions of whether and how
this contributes to organizational goals or strategy as a whole are seldom answered or
measured. Instead, much of the literature based on this perspective assumes that
communication is at the center of decision-making itself. This does not correspond with the
reality of supporting functions in a business context. Moreover, many situational factors
have to be taken into account when communicating and there are only a few circumstances
(e.g. product launches) in which direct effects can be easily measured.
The second stream of research in the literature is related to the creation of intangible
assets through communication. Here, value is defined strategically as a resource – as
immaterial capital. Practitioners often use stories about soft factors created by
communication to explain their job profiles to their superiors (Zerfass et al., 2015). The
key concepts introduced and discussed in the body of knowledge are reputation (Deephouse,
1997; Dowling, 2006; Fombrun, 1996), brands (Kapferer, 2012), corporate identity (Anson,
2000; Balmer and Greyser, 2006); employee commitment or motivation (de Bussy and
Suprawan, 2012; Meng and Pan, 2012), organizational culture (Henri, 2006; Sackmann, 2006),
relationships (Grunig, 2006; Hon and Grunig, 1999), networks (Eisenberg et al., 2015; Esteves
and Barclay, 2011), social capital (Sommerfeldt and Taylor, 2011), and communication
capital (Malmelin, 2007). Raising awareness and changing the behavioral dispositions of
stakeholders are described as drivers for creating intangible assets for corporations. There
is also a large portfolio of methods to measure and value intangibles, such as reputation,
brands, or social capital. In contrast to the popularity of these concepts, however, there are
no standards for combining these closely linked values and for explaining their connection
to organizational strategy.
Third, communication has been identified as a reflective function (Van Ruler and Verčič,
2005) that supports strategic alignment and positioning of corporations (Van Riel, 2012).
Value is conceptualized strategically and proactively as a potential for future success.
Recently, traditional concepts such as issues management (social) media monitoring and
customer insights have been developed further in terms of the grand idea of building
 architectures for organizational listening (Macnamara, 2016), which complement integrated Creating
messaging platforms and strategies (Van Riel and Fombrun, 2007). This underlines the business value
notion that communication professionals can enable top executives, internal business
partners, and employees (Heide and Simonsson, 2014; Mazzei, 2014) to perform better in
their own areas of responsibility by widening their understanding of communicative
prerequisites and the consequences of strategic decisions in the public sphere (Bentele and
Nothhaft, 2010; Habermas, 1989). This relates to, but is not limited to, innovation, change, 71
crises, and other contexts that are directly linked to corporate success (Frandsen and
Johansen, 2011; Huang, 2012; Jin et al., 2014; Pang, 2012; Watson et al., 2002). To date, these
concepts have not been linked to the predominant approaches of communication
measurement and evaluation. Some researchers in this field might not even identify
themselves with the paradigms of evaluation and continuous improvement. However, their
research widens our understanding and they provide a valid explanation for the productive
role of communication in organizations. The underlying conception of a communicative
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organization (Hamrefors, 2010) in which every member of the corporation is able to

collaborate with stakeholders, is closely linked to the modern approaches of strategic
management (Baber et al., 2015) and the emerging concepts of the co-creation of value in
stakeholder networks (Garriga, 2014).
The fourth important stream in the literature focuses on the adaptation of business
valuation and management concepts. To date, many practitioners have attempted to
measure the return on investment (ROI) in communication. However, the complexity of
communication processes, the close nexus with other functions and activities, and a lack of
transparency about costs and investments for communication in most corporations hinder
the utilization of such indicators (Watson and Zerfass, 2011). Most of the concepts based on
the ROI formula in academic research (e.g. Likely et al., 2006; Meng and Berger, 2012) use a
quasi-ROI blueprint that must not be confused with the original formula. Along these lines,
recent approaches that try to define standard metrics for communication (International
Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, 2015; Macnamara,
2014; Michaelson and Stacks, 2011), and seminal works in the field (Stacks and Michaelson,
2014; Watson and Noble, 2014), recommend measuring the impact on organizational
performance but do not offer unified indicators or methods. Instead, they are open to
different understandings of value, which can and should be combined at the operational and
strategic levels. One example is the adaptation of management concepts such as scorecards
and value links (Fleisher and Mahaffy, 1997; Hering et al., 2004; Kaplan and Norton, 1996,
2004; Zerfass, 2008b). These enable professionals to visualize the link between
communication activities, media and channel outcomes, changes in stakeholders’
knowledge, attitude, behavioral disposition or behavior, and organizational impact. Based
on these approaches, researchers and professional associations in German-speaking
countries have developed a joint framework to capture the value chain of communication
from input to outflow/impact (DPRG and ICV, 2011). Today, this framework is widely
known and even accepted as a standard by many global corporations based in the region.
To sum up, to date, the question of how communication contributes to value creation for
organizations has not been answered (Podnar et al., 2009). Instead of providing a broad
perspective of different value dimensions, researchers tend to keep to their specific fields of
knowledge, such as crisis or innovation communication, measurement and evaluation,
internal communication, etc. Additionally, professionals and researchers tend to focus on
“soft factors”, such as creating reputation, brands or relationships, even though these only
represent one of the four outcomes of value creation through communication and are
strongly influenced by circumstances beyond the control of the communication department.
Although many indicators, measurement methods, and concepts for evaluation are
available, they lead to different results and a coherent approach is lacking. De Beer (2014)
 JCOM has called for “integrating the corporate communication process into strategic management,
21,1 governance and value creation processes” (p. 136) to show and achieve benefits for the
organization and also for society as a whole. This has been achieved by constructing a new
holistic framework that combines the above-mentioned approaches.

Developing a new framework

72 Value-based management and communication
According to our literature review, most of the approaches to the contribution of
communication to organizational goals begin by analyzing communication processes.
However, it is not the capacity for corporate communication but the requirements of
corporate strategy that should define the values to be supported or created (Argenti, 2016).
Thus, it is important to begin by explaining what “value” means in the business world in
general, before discussing the impact of effective communication.
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Value creation describes the transformation of resources into goods or services with a
higher financial value. This supports the foremost goal of every corporation – to work
efficiently and effectively to create financial value today and enable value creation in the
future. Value-based management is a well-known concept in business theory and practice,
as explained in the studies by Porter (1985) and other management scholars. This concept
means that all corporate decisions should focus on increasing the company’s overall value
rather than only their short-term objectives. Corporate value was traditionally equated with
shareholder value (Rappaport, 1986) and only measured in economic terms such as ROI.
From this perspective, communication contributes to the overall value merely by
positioning a company in the marketplace or by creating a favorable corporate image
among investors. However, it is common knowledge today that corporate success not only
depends on shareholders but also on sustainable relationships with employees, politicians,
regulators, customers, mass media, social media influencers, and many other stakeholders.
The concept of stakeholder value (Freeman, 1984) expands the notion of value-based
management by considering the expectations and legitimate interests of everyone affected
by corporate strategy. Thus, a corporation is positioned in the market, as well as within its
social and political environments (Zerfass, 2008a).
In our understanding, the primary task of the communication function is to strategically
manage and measure this positioning by using communicative means. In this sense,
corporate communication is an integral part of a company’s value chain. Communication
processes are part of the primary activities (inbound logistics, operations, outbound
logistics, marketing and sales, and service), as well as the supporting activities (firm
infrastructure, human resource management, technology, and procurement) (Porter, 1985).
Thus, communication is not simply a function that helps top executives and other business
managers to reach out to stakeholders. Corporate communication is also a valuable resource
for listening and learning from the environment. It helps to reposition the organization and
adjust strategies, and can be a key driver for creating an overall supportive framework for
corporate activities.

Dimensions of value creation

In order to build a consistent typology of corporate and communication values we searched
for approaches that describe generic goals for business success. Strategic management
theory distinguishes liquidity (financial dimension), success (operational dimension:
profitable business models), and potential for success (strategic dimension: resources that
enable future success) (Gälweiler, 2005). In light of the stakeholder theory, these can be
expanded and differentiated into four generic types of corporate values: tangible assets,
intangible assets, room for maneuver, and opportunities for development. Tangible assets
 include financial resources as well as goods and equipment that have a market value. Creating
They are needed to fulfill the demands of shareholders, investors, employees, suppliers, tax business value
authorities, and others who interact with a corporation. This is very much linked to
operations and the ongoing business model. Intangibles, on the other hand, are needed to
deal with uncertainty, complexity, and future challenges. They may be based in daily
operations, for example, positive aspects of reputation based on customer experiences.
They can also be a result of specific investments, for example, patents or product brands. 73
Room for maneuver is a value in itself since a corporation has to ensure that it gains and
retains its license to operate (Van Riel, 2012). This may be threatened by regulators, politics,
activists, the media, and several other actors. Last but not the least, development
opportunities are valuable for organizations as they allow them to rebuild their business
models and reposition themselves within their environment.
Corporate strategies prioritize and operationalize these four value dimensions into
concrete goals based on the specific positioning and resources of a company (Porter, 1985;
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Steinmann et al., 2013). Corporate management strives to accomplish these goals. As part of
these overall ambitions, corporate communication can support all four dimensions.
These dimensions in turn help to structure the multitude of communication goals identified
in the literature. They can be summarized into 12 generic types of communication value and
four dimensions of what communication actually does to support a corporation’s value
creation: enabling operations, building intangibles, ensuring flexibility, and adjusting
strategy (see Figure 1). The goals for communication programs and campaigns can be

Current value creation

Enabling Ensuring
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intangibles strategy The communication
value circle
Future value creation
 JCOM categorized under these four dimensions and measured using the established sets of
21,1 evaluation methods and performance indicators. However, due to the different
characteristics of communication and corporate goals that contribute to stakeholder
value, it is not possible to define an overall indicator and to calculate an overall value of
communication – just as management theory and scorecard concepts have long abandoned
the simplified idea of using only top indicators such as ROI to steer a company. Instead of
74 presenting one key indicator or equation, the following framework serves as a template for
prioritizing and planning communication activities.

The communication value circle

Description of the framework
A holistic approach to systematizing communication value needs to integrate various
layers. It should also grasp the big picture. This requires a sophisticated visualization.
Our proposal is shown in Figure 1: the communication value circle. This is an
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interdisciplinary framework that explains the process of value creation through

communication at the levels of corporate strategy, corporate management, and corporate
communication. The framework combines the generic value dimensions derived from the
business literature with key insights from the body of knowledge on value creation
through communication.
The core of the framework is the unique corporate strategy of the focal organization or
unit (the overall enterprise on a global level, a specific business unit, a national subsidiary,
etc.). Serving this strategy is the overall goal of all related business and communication
activities. Depending on the strategy, corporate management will weigh the generic values
discussed above in different ways. This is reflected in annual reports and statements to
investors but, more importantly, in internal goals, budget allocations and incentive schemes.
For example, a start-up company in the software industry will invest heavily in building up
intangible assets such as a large customer base, a recognized brand, and securing its
intellectual property rights across multiple markets. Generating profit (tangible assets)
might be less important as daily operations are less dependent on cash flow than they are on
the financial resources provided by key investors. Seeking new development opportunities
by adjusting or enhancing the strategy will also be a key issue for start-ups. At the same
time, they are usually not in the spotlight when it comes to challenging the legitimacy of
labor relations or doing business in specific industries. Labor unions and non-governmental
organizations tend to focus on establish brands and corporations when attacking an
industry. In contrast, many established energy companies are now blessed with large
intangible assets and a pipeline of innovative technologies such as hydraulic fracturing
(“fracking”). Nevertheless, they struggle to secure their room for maneuver due to the
changing western mindset toward energy consumption and production. This, in turn, makes
it necessary to have a stronger focus than before on producing a satisfying amount of
tangible assets and liquidity – an issue that had never been a limiting factor in the energy
industry for decades. In any case, corporate communication contributes to value creation in
all dimensions by achieving appropriate types of communication value.
The communication value circle is a matrix that can be read either vertically or
horizontally. From the vertical perspective, tangible assets and intangible assets contribute
to creating corporate value, whereas room for maneuver and opportunities for development
contribute to enabling value creation. From the horizontal point of view, tangible assets and
room for maneuver represent the corporation’s current value creation, whereas intangible
assets and development opportunities foster future value creation. Every function within
the corporation supports these four dimensions of corporate value on the first level of the
framework. These generic values are applicable to human resource management, sales or, as
in this case, corporate communication.
 The 12 major values that can be achieved by corporate communication can be linked to Creating
the four core corporate values and the four dimensions of what constitutes communication business value
for organizational success. These are as follows:
(1) Enabling operations: communication contributes to organizational objectives by
supporting business operations internally and externally, for example, through
stimulating publicity, customer preferences, and employee commitment.
By disseminating content and messages or by raising attention and awareness of 75
strategic issues, communication keeps an organization running and enables the
creation of material assets. By entering into dialogues with employees, suppliers,
customers, etc., on a daily basis, communication builds the basis for delivering value
to key stakeholders. Contributions to this first corporate value dimension appear to
be critical when it comes to explaining and defending communication work to the
management board since these assets build the basis of financial success
and productivity.
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(2) Building intangibles: communication helps to create intangible assets, such as

reputation, brands, or corporate culture. Intangibles are part of the overall value of
the company. Reputation has to be managed for important representatives of the
corporation (CEO communication), as well as for the whole company. Positive
reputations and strong brands are not only relevant for the corporate environment,
they also create a strong corporate identity. Integrating the specific culture and
history of a corporation into its internal and external communications is a basic task
for any communication department. Although this value proposition might
be assumed to be the key asset of professional communication, the current and
future worth of intangibles is influenced by many situational factors
and organizational structures that cannot be controlled by the communication
department. Thus, placing intangibles at the center of the communication
department’s value proposition could actually lead to an unexpected deprivation
of power.
(3) Ensuring flexibility: being flexible as a corporation means having relationships that
are based on trust or, at least, a perception of the legitimacy of the corporation’s
values and actions. Communication can build stakeholder networks that ensure
room for maneuver, and continue to do so in times of change and crisis. If the license
to operate is questioned by relevant stakeholders every other value dimension will
be negatively affected. Corporations have to face various situations of uncertainty,
during which nothing becomes more important than relational capital, trust, and
public acceptance. Although the process of ensuring flexibility through networks
and relationships is a basic topic in public relations literature (Grunig, 2006; Hon and
Grunig, 1999), the actual value of acceptance needs to be discussed in a more specific
way. For example, there are almost no publications on how to plan or measure the
legitimacy of a corporation’s strategy.
(4) Adjusting strategy: communication assists in making strategic management decisions
by fostering thought leadership, innovation potential, and crisis resilience. This value
dimension is built first and foremost on the communication department’s capacity to
listen. Systematically monitoring public opinion in mass media, social media, markets,
politics, and society helps to adapt strategies to upcoming socio-political and economic
developments. Thus, corporate communication contributes to identifying competitive
advantages. By integrating this value proposition the researchers defend a specific
perspective on the process of the strategic alignment of communication and
management goals. The communication department’s reflective function as a
 JCOM boundary spanner is critical to corporate success. Although, the framework suggests
21,1 a clear process of listening and of adjusting goals to serve the corporate strategy,
communication professionals also need to question the strategic decisions of the
management board in order to address the expectations and demands of various
stakeholders and to ensure the company’s future value creation.

76
Practical guidelines for using the framework
The communication value circle is first and foremost a tool for planning and prioritizing
management and communication goals. The framework enables communication
professionals to discuss their work with superiors and business partners. It provides a
common platform by integrating concepts and approaches from the different perspectives of
research and practice. Obviously, it is also fundamental that the corporate strategy has been
defined and is known to those who are in charge of communications.
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The framework should not be misunderstood as a normative representation of

communication goals. Rather, it can help to align communication with the unique strategies
of specific corporations or business units. In order to apply the communication value circle it
is necessary to adapt the framework to the multitude of possible variables and situations in
the business world, such as:
• type and size of corporations (start-up company, SME, corporate holding, etc.);
• functional areas and departments (communication department, marketing
department, etc.);
• field of action (public affairs, public relations, innovation communication, etc.),
• stakeholders (customers, employees, journalists, etc.); and
• situational contexts (product launches, crises, post-merger integration, etc.).
As these variables change, so does the significance of the four dimensions of value creation.
As mentioned above, strategies differ – even within the same company – depending on the
scope and focus. Consequently, not every single communication goal is relevant for each
function or department. For example, communication professionals working for a small
start-up company might focus mainly on goals such as building a brand among customers
and establishing a reputation among investors and potential partners. In contrast, a blue-
chip corporation with a unique history and listed on the stock market can probably leverage
the value of communication much more by adjusting strategies through a consistent system
for corporate listening and thought leadership. At the same time, a subsidiary of the same
listed corporation in another country could rank other values more highly, for example,
supporting sales in the local market through consistent marketing communications and
developing a culture of partnership with retailers on the ground. Depending on the goals to
which they aspire, different structures and competencies are required. This shows that
strategic corporate communication is inevitably linked to the core set-up, character, and
identity of the focal organization, and any attempt to generically define the best ways in this
field will miss the point.
Our framework can be used as a management tool to identify, discuss, structure, and agree
on value drivers and performance indicators in corporate communication. It contributes to the
strategic alignment of communication with overall organizational goals. Applying this tool
helps to make corporate communication more transparent and manageable. Consequently,
this can assist in improving the use and acceptance of communication measurement in
corporate practice. A common understanding and comprehensible links to corporate strategy
will make it easier to understand the relevance of such efforts.
 Conclusion and future directions Creating
We have argued that the continuing quest to explain the value of corporate communication business value
might be supported by constructing a “big picture” that incorporates and systematizes the
multitude of concepts and measurement methods used in various disciplines. An analytical
approach based on an extensive literature survey was used to build such a framework – the
communication value circle. Although the procedure had some limitations, it proved to be
generally fruitful. Despite conducting an extensive literature review it was clearly not 77
possible to include everything that has been written on the topic. A consequence of this was
the omission of literature in languages other than English or German, literature published in
other electronic databases, possible unpublished gray literature, and literature published
prior to the 2000s, that is, early contributions about strategy and value creation. It would
therefore be desirable to extend the review procedure to include other languages and other
publication types, and especially literature from strategic management research and related
research domains that were not considered in this analysis.
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Clearly, it is necessary to test the applicability and usefulness this approach. To do so we

invited a group of senior scholars in the fields of strategic management, marketing, human
resources, reputation management, public relations, journalism, and chief communication
officers from global companies headquartered in Germany, to comment on the framework
during a one-day workshop in the fall of 2015. Moreover, the framework was tested in an
applied research project with a global provider of healthcare products and services in 2015-2016.
With 55,000 employees in 62 countries, the company achieves a turnover of approximately US
$6 billion. The framework was used to derive communication goals from the new global
corporate strategy. It informed the construction of a strategic measurement system with value
drivers and key performance indicators for the corporate communication department. Both
exercises proved to be successful. The framework was generally approved and applicable.
Comments and experiences were noted and were used to fine-tune the framework.
Future research is needed to prove the framework’s capacity to explain the links between
communication and corporate goals on a broader scale. For this next step we propose
qualitative case studies based on interviews and document analyses in corporations across
different industries. In so doing, it will be necessary to identify specific combinations of
corporate values, business goals and related indicators, stipulated goals for communication
departments and their leaders, as well as the objectives assigned to communication
activities and the methods of communication measurement and valuation. The case studies
should help to verify or modify the communication value circle. Ultimately, it should be
possible to use the framework to reconstruct empirical settings with the aim of describing
specific approaches, identifying gaps, and outlining the best practices for value-creating
communication in a common language. This in turn should contribute to the
professionalization of corporate communication in both theory and practice.

Acknowledgment
This paper is based on results from the research program Value-Creating Communication
that has been funded by the Academic Society for Corporate Management and
Communication in Germany. The framework described has been developed by a research
team at Leipzig University and Humboldt University Berlin supported by a sounding board
of chief communication officers from BASF, Bosch, Deutsche Bank, Osram, and Roche.
Comments received by Karen Berger, Martin Binder, Maria Borner, Nicole Gorfer, Karolin
Köhler, Daniel Ostrowski, Elisabeth Schick, Joachim Schwalbach, Jan-Peter Schwartz,
Thorsten Strauß, and Christoph Zemelka helped to develop the framework. The authors
express their gratitude for specific support when writing this paper to Sophia Charlotte
Volk. Valuable feedback was received by several anonymous reviewers and the editor of
this journal.
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Corresponding author
Ansgar Zerfass can be contacted at: [email protected]

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