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In recent years, the acronym VUCA has gained traction in strategic communication (SC) as an umbrella term that summarizes the recurrent challenges (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) of digital communication environments. However, an integrated reflection on how the VUCA dimensions facilitate a deeper understanding of specific digitalization challenges and how to navigate through these challenges is lacking. This article aims to explore and substantiate the descriptive (how) and prescriptive (how to) potential of VUCA for SC under digitalization conditions.

We first provide a systematic discussion of the four VUCA dimensions based on the general strategy literature. While their descriptive value is undisputed, prescriptive advice on how to respond to these challenges is contradictory. We substantiate this observation in a second empirical step based on problem-centered interviews with strategic communicators at the agency and corporate levels.

Our findings reveal that VUCA facilitates a systematic mapping of digitalization challenges consistently identified by professionals. The proposed strategic responses, however, remain contradictory at the theoretical and empirical levels. Hence, we propose the VUCA radar as a comprehensive descriptive and prescriptive framework.

The radar provides (a) a systematic overview of recurrent digitalization challenges to SC at the industry and practice levels and (b) prescriptive advice on how to navigate through these challenges by balancing contradictory strategic responses at the levels of vision, understanding, clarity and agility.

This paper aims to systematically unpack the ideal of organizational transparency by tracing the concept's origins in the era of Enlightenment. Based on a genealogical reconstruction, the article explores different transparency understandings in key areas of online public relations (PR) and discusses the opportunities and challenges they present for the field.

This is a conceptual paper that unfolds a genealogical reconstruction to uncover different transparency ideals of modernity. These perspectives are then transferred to the field of online PR to discuss their ethical and practical implications in the context of digitalization.

Claims for transparency manifest in three distinct ideals, namely normative, instrumental and expressive transparency, which are also pursued in online PR. These ideals are related to associated concepts, like dialogue, control and authenticity, which serve as transparency proxies. Moreover, each transparency ideal inherits an ambivalence that presents unique opportunities and challenges for PR practitioners.

Instead of an unquestioned belief in the ideal of organizational transparency, the paper urges communication practitioners to critically reflect on the ambivalent nature of different transparency regimes in the context of digitalization and provides initial recommendations on how to manage digital transparency in online PR responsibly.

The paper contributes to the vivid debate surrounding organizational transparency in the context of digitalization by offering a novel and systematic analysis of the multifaced concept of transparency while opening new research avenues for further conceptual and empirical research.