Title: The Power of Corporate Communication: Crafting the Voice and Image of Your Business
Abstract: by Paul A. Argenti and Janis Forman. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 294 pp. The authors of The Power of Corporate Communication: Crafting the Voice and Image of Your Business are familiar, at least by reputation, to most readers of the Journal of Business Communication: Paul Argenti, who serves on the editorial review board, is the author of Corporate Communication, a respected paperback textbook for upper-level and graduate students that is now in its third edition. He has also been quoted in Time magazine concerning the June 2003 indictment of Martha Stewart on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice (Thottam, 2003). Janis Forman, a frequent contributor to the Journal of Business Communication, received the Association for Business Communication's Outstanding Researcher Award in 1995. Their expertise shows in this book. In each chapter, Argenti and Forman grab our attention with corporate communication issues ripped straight from the headlines of the press, clearly define each facet of corporate communication in a separate chapter of its own, give a brief historical overview in each chapter, elucidate basic principles, and offer concise case studies, backing up general claims with statistics drawn from the research and anecdotal evidence developed through their own extensive consulting work. The authors draw on very current examples of communication successes and snafus, citing a range of popular and periodicals and newspapers as their sources in their meticulously documented endnotes. The authors also draw on their own research and cite personal interviews among their sources, particularly for the third chapter, so as to produce a synthesis of the principles of corporate communication with varied examples to illustrate each. As the title of their book would suggest, the implied audience for The Power of Corporate Communication consists of CEOs and other professionals working in upper-level management, probably for a multinational corporation with publicly traded stock (because most of the text's examples are drawn from such organizations). Not surprisingly, its authors take a firmly pro-business stance; they take capitalism as a given in our society and do not venture into cultural critique. Oddly, however, the authors seem to assume an almost complete ignorance of communication on the part of their audience; surely anyone who has reached an upper-level position would have at least a basic understanding of such concepts as advertising and investor relations. Such an approach might prove more effective for an audience of students, however, who might enjoy envisioning themselves working in upper management but who might nevertheless need an introduction to all aspects of corporate communication. The book's prose is highly accessible, straightforward, and admirably lucid; it is unusual to see such distinguished scholars produce not just well written but also surprisingly entertaining material appropriate for a general audience. Unlike many books on this topic, The Power of Corporate Communication is genuinely fun to read. With the exception of a rather nondescript cover, the book is also well designed, with a highly readable typeface, sometimes as many as three levels of headings to break up the text within chapters, and endnotes rather than footnotes. The introductory chapter offers an eloquent response to the question, Why bother with corporate communication? The authors are careful to define their terms: By corporate communication we mean the corporation's voice and the images it projects of itself on a world stage populated by its various audiences, or what we refer to as its constituencies (p. 4). In the course of that chapter, the authors refer to the Justice Department's lawsuit against Microsoft, the Firestone tire crisis, Hooker Chemical and Love Canal, Nike's troubles in Asia, and the continuing popularity of the theme of public distrust of business in such artifacts of popular culture as the 2000 Oscar-nominated film Erin Brockovich, Michael Moore's 1996 best-selling book Downsize This/, and the widely syndicated Dilbert comic strip. …
Publication Year: 2004
Publication Date: 2004-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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