The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication: A Guide to Internal Communication, Public Relations, Marketing, and Leadership

What Corporate Communicators Need to Know about Their Organizations

An effective corporate communicator must have thorough knowledge of the organization, with a good understanding of its industry, mission and strategic focus, management structure, products or services, customers and clients, community, history, employees (their demographics and issues), and culture.

There is typically a ramp-up period when a new communicator comes into an organization, during which he or she absorbs as many of the details of the environment as possible before initiating communication. It helps, of course, if the communicator has previous experience in the organization's industry or in a related field, but this may not always be the case, particularly in today's ...