Digital formats

16 September / 15 October / 10 November / 17 December 2020 / 14 January 2021

During the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the expertise of communications departments has taken on a new importance. It is especially in times of uncertainty that communicators are expected to provide information and orientation as well as maintain and strengthen the credibility and trust of stakeholders. At the same time, tried and tested communication formats such as live events are not possible and new methods are becoming necessary. In short, the crisis poses many challenges for which a sound knowledge of communication management, technologies and tools, and even the ethical issues is essential.

In five lectures, university professors will give you insights into the current state of research on key areas of corporate communications. By attending our lectures, you will get the chance to gain
knowledge that will help you to navigate through these new times.

• Participation is only permitted for corporate partners of the Academic Society.
• Language: English and German

Lecture 1: Everything digital? Automated communication and
its potential [English]

• 16 September 2020, 11:30 - 12:30 Uhr (CEST)
• Prof. Dr. Stefan Stieglitz (University of Duisburg-Essen)
• Recording of the Lecture
   

Lecture 2: Strategic communication: How communicators create value
when everybody is  communicating [English]

• 15 October 2020, 11:30 – 12:30 (CEST)
• Prof. Dr. Ansgar Zerfaß (Leipzig University)
• Recording of the Lecture

Lecture 3: The new relevance of employee communication [English]

• 10 November 2020, 11:30 – 12:30 (CET)
• Prof. Dr. Sabine Einwiller (University of Vienna)
• Recording of the Lecture
   

Lecture 4: Trust and credibility [German]

• 17 December 2020, 11:30 – 12:30 (CET)
• Prof. Dr. Ulrike Röttger (Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster)
• Recording of the Lecture

Lecture 5: How much ethics does corporate communication need? [German]

• 14 January 2021, 11:30 – 12:30 Uhr (CET)
• Prof. Dr. Günter Bentele (Leipzig University)
• Recording of the Lecture

More and more companies experiment with agile organizational structures and processes. In the future, corporate communications will have to face the challenge to work more flexibly and adapt to internal and external changes. 

In the webinar Ulrike Röttger and Christian Wiencierz from the University of Münster discussed with corporate experts from Daimler and Continental as well as with the cosultancy Summer & Co how to master the agile transformation of the communication department. 

The buzzword agility is currently on everyone's lips and already seems overused to many. But the trend towards more flexibility, dynamism and flatter hierarchies will not stop at the communications department. Many companies are already involved in large-scale change processes in order to better react to external and internal drivers such as digital transformation, market changes and employee demands.

What role does corporate communication play here and what new tasks are facing communicators? Which structures, processes, skills or tools are needed? To answer these questions, Dr. Lisa Dühring interviewed nearly 40 international companies as part of the current research project and reviewed the current state of science. In the webinar, she shows which drivers are responsible for change, how communicators assess the new challenges and what strategies exist to deal with them.

• For whom? The webinar is particularly suited for team leaders with management responsibility, communicators dealing with strategy and personnel development as well as all interested parties.

• Language: German (English on request)

In the age of globalization and digitalization, corporate reputation has become a key success factor. Companies with a high reputation are believed to perform above-average. Reputation is a strategic competitive advantage and requires active reputation management. Corporate communications should play an important, if not the central role.

Joachim Schwalbach, Professor (em.) for International Management (Humboldt-University of Berlin) has specialized in the topic of reputation. He discusses the link between reputation and communication and gives recommandations for successful reputation management.

• For whom? The webinar is particularly suited for communication managers who deal with strategic planning and image/reputation campaigns, as well as anyone who is interested. The invitation is only valid for the employees of the Academic Society's corporate partners.

• Language: German

"Internal before external" is the mantra of employee communication. But all too often, this principle is neglected. In most cases, employees learn negative headlines from the media. The effect is devastating: in addition to frustration and uncertainty, the employees lack a line of argument for how they should react to questions from stakeholders, such as customers or persons from their private environment. In critical situations, however, it is crucial for an organization that its employees behave loyally and, as a matter of fact, even stand up for it.

Sabine Einwiller presents the results of a research project on communication in critical situations. Nearly 300 employees and managers as well as those responsible for internal communication were interviewed. On the basis of these findings, Sabine Einwiller shows how internal communication should look like in times of crises and points out the responsibilities of executive managers.

• For whom? The webinar is particularly suited for communication Managers responsible for internal communication, for team leaders with management responsibility, who want to communicate appropriately in crisis situations, as well as all interested parties.

• Language: German

Social media have become an integral part of corporate communications. On the one hand Facebook, Twitter & Co. are used to inform stakeholders about the company and its products or for interaction. On the other hand, the mass data generated by the social web offer a valuable data source that can be utilized. Issues management, identifying trends or individually targeting stakeholders are possibilities to apply big data to corporate communications. At the University of Duisburg-Essen the potentials and challenges of these developments have been intensively researched.

In the webinar Prof. Dr. Stefan Stieglitz presents a Social Media Analytics model developed in his working group as well as a specially developed tracking and analysis tool. The most important methods to analyse data will be briefly explained.

• For whom? All communication experts of our corporate partners, who are interested in the potentials of Big Data from social media and who want to learn more about data analysis.
•  
• Language: German

Communication professionals need to explain how their work contributes to corporate success. Holistic approaches that show the big picture of value creation have been missing until now. To close this gap, a research team at the University of Leipzig has conducted an interdisciplinary literature review and analysed the findings.

This has led to a new generic framework: the Communication Value Circle. It identifies twelve central communication goals and supports communication managers in planning and managing communication strategies as well as evaluating its success. Ansgar Zerfass, Professor for Strategic Communication at the University of Leipzig explained how the Communication Value Circle can serve as a proof point and how communication creates value for the company.