Thorsten Schwetje, Christiane Hauser, Stefan Böschen and Annette Leßmöllmann
The paper reports on a research project exploring the change in the organizational context of communicators and communication units in higher education and research institutions…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper reports on a research project exploring the change in the organizational context of communicators and communication units in higher education and research institutions (HERIs), the importance of informal processes within their daily work and the great diversity of expectations communicators have to tackle.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a literature review, a mixed-methods study combining expert interviews with 54 German HERI heads of communication units, an online-survey and a document analysis of organizational characteristics was conducted. Findings were validated in four focus groups.
Findings
The study illuminates the impact of organizational and operational structures of HERIs on communicators and their boundary spanning activities. Due to varying expectations of stakeholders, communicators constantly have to switch roles. Members of HERIs' executive boards affect status and working conditions for communicators in the organization.
Research limitations/implications
Interviews with other HERI actors, especially members of the executive board, are proposed to get more thorough insights into the organizational context of HERIs and the mutual expectations of different internal stakeholders.
Practical implications
Insights from the project may help HERI actors to reflect their organizational context and to identify potentially contentious structures or processes.
Originality/value
Communicating science sometimes clashes with complex organizational and operational structures. Despite the “organizational turn” in HERI research, there is a lack of data on the relation between communicators, their communication units and the larger organizational context. The exploratory study addresses this gap.
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Mike S. Schäfer and Birte Fähnrich
Research on science communication in organizational contexts is scarce – even though many cases can be found where organizations from science and beyond communicate about…
Abstract
Purpose
Research on science communication in organizational contexts is scarce – even though many cases can be found where organizations from science and beyond communicate about science-related issues, or where organizational contexts have an impact on the communication of individual scientists and scientific organizations. Therefore, it is time for an “organizational turn” in science communication research, and for more scholarly emphasis on the specific cases that science-related communication in, from and about organizations presents. Such an approximation would benefit both science communication research and analyses of strategic and organizational communication.
Design/methodology/approach
This special issue of the “Journal of Communication Management” on “Communicating Science in Organizational Contexts” is a step in this direction: It compiles commentaries from leading scholars in the respective fields as well as research articles coming from various disciplines and conceptual as well as methodological paradigms. In the editorial, we assess overlaps between scholarship on science communication and strategic communication, respectively, based on a meta-analysis of journals in the field(s), develop a guiding heuristic for analyzing science communication in organizational settings, and introduce the contributions to the special issue.
Findings
The meta-analysis shows that overlaps between science communication research and scholarship on strategic communication are scarce. While organizations and their communication appear occasionally, and increasingly often, in science communication research, scholars of strategic communication only rarely analyze science communication.
Research limitations/implications
The meta-analysis is limited to the publications of five scholarly journals over ten years. It still demonstrates the lack of research in the intersection of scholarship on science communication and strategic communication.
Practical implications
Scientific organizations are rapidly extending and professionalizing their strategic communication, and an increasing number of organizations beyond science communicate on science or science-related issues. Understanding science communication in organizational settings, therefore, is crucial for practitioners in both areas.
Originality/value
Analyzing science communication in organizational settings is of increasing importance – yet few studies exist that have done it, and the respective research fields devote not much attention to one another. The special issue is a first foray into this new, intersectional field.