Communication management as a second‐order management function: Roles and functions of the communication executive – results from a shadowing study

The purpose of this paper is to provide young communication managers with a theoretical framework to better understand what they are doing.

The paper combines theoretical reflections with empirical material from an observation study, a “shadowing study” of eight communication managers in German companies undertaken by the author.

Communication management is explained as a second‐order management function, i.e. a function which not only coordinates organizational performance by planning, organizing, controlling, but also institutionalizes certain concerns in the organization. Drawing on the shadowing study, the paper describes how communication managers “manage the management of others” by acting in certain roles, e.g. the missionary (not the guru), the agent of common sense (not the enforcer), the buck's stop (not the CEO's darling). Communication management, it is argued, is not predominantly concerned with power in the organizations, but with influence.

Based on week‐long observations of eight experienced communication executives' everyday activities, the paper argues against concepts which implicitly or explicitly debase “soft”, “influence‐based” and “people‐oriented” approaches and portray “proper” communication management as “hard”, “power‐based” and “system‐oriented”.