Effective Communication Assignment Outlining Stakeholders Relations Towards Business Success

Question

Task: Your boss, the CEO of MnM Company, has asked you to prepare a report investigating the question: 'Why and how should managers master the corporate communication function'? In so doing she expects you to examine the following four subfunctions within the function.

Topic

1. Identity, image, and reputation
2. Corporate responsibility
3. Media relations
4. Stakeholder relations: government and investor relations

Answer

Introduction
On this effective communication assignment, communication is one of the crucial aspects for ensuring that they are contributing at their best in the organization. In this regards, it is noteworthy that through this assignment on effective communication, the managers need to maintain effective relationship with all the stakeholders, including the internal and external stakeholders. In this regards, the “government and investors” are two key external stakeholders, with which organization needs to maintain effective relationship (Andriof and Waddock, 2017). Inability to maintain effective communication with this external stakeholder could significantly affect the organizational performance and the market position of the organization, while allowing a range of issues to rise. In this regard, the following effective communication assignment is going to emphasize upon the importance of keeping effective communication with government and investors by the managers and the key issues that could rise, if effective communication is not maintained.

Issue 1: Relation with government
This assignment on effective communication outlined how organizations need to develop and maintain effective relationship with the government bodies. Government relations are emphasizing upon how the organization is interacting with government and different branches of its officials. It is an area of public relations, which is assisting to develop relationship and positive interactions among the organization and government officials. On this effective communication assignment managers are responsible for developing communication skills supporting government relations, which are relying highly upon “communication about regulatory issues”, “one-on-one conversation with government representatives” and “lobbying efforts on behalf of an organization” (Eckhardt, 2018).

As the business is strongly affected by the public policies, it is crucial to stay informed about public policies and influencing government decision making as well as public policy. Keeping close relation with government can aid the organization to influence the government to make decision supporting the business activities of the firm. There are different ways, through which businesses are viewing and acting on their relationship with the government. One perspective of communication is when the businesses consider the trading and government on “two sides” and in opposing position to each other. Herremans et al., (2016) claimed that this is the mainstream business communication type in terms of government relations, used by the organizations, which is known as the “limited government or antiregulatory view”. It indicates that the government has minimal role in the organizational practices, which is considered as best for the economy on this effective communication assignment. Another communication perspective regarding government relations is the relationship through which government would show favor and organization and incentivize the performance or investment, considering that the businesses are the key source of “jobs, innovation, and societal economic well-being, and therefore government should support businesses with grants, tax credits, and subsidies” (Andriof and Waddock, 2017). Sometimes, organizations develop partnership with the government organizations to address some societal matter. The key communication ways through which managers can influence government are:

• Business lobbying
• Political contribution
• Interest group participation
• Participation in social wellbeing or sustainability and contributing in public policy development

The key issue that could be raised, if the manager fails to communicate with the government properly, is the ethical or legal dispute, for which the government could claim compensation from the organization, for its misconduct. When the managers fail to communicate with the government agents and influence their decision making process, the government policies would not be made in favor of the business practices, some of the government regulations and policies might cause negative impact upon the existing business or cause hindrance in business expansion (Eckhardt, 2018). For instance, in several countries, government regulations favor growth of domestic businesses, while hindering foreign business’ growth. However, the MNCs, working closely with government and influencing the decision making is usually favored by the government, in terms of setting such regulation, which influences their business growth, which is often known as “frontlining”.

Issue 2: Relation with investors
Since the historic era, the relationship between the investor and marketer is important, which has been evolved with changing market dynamics. Investor relations are referred to the responsibility for managing communication within the corporate management of the organization and the investors. On this effective communication assignment managers dealing with the investor relations need to communicate in a several ways considering some key aspects including “support releasing information, handling inquiries and meetings, providing feedback to management and crisis management” (Chapman et al., 2018). It is crucial for the managers to communicate with the investors about all the financial and non-financial resource related aspects in a two-way manner, in order to eliminate dispute or any kinds of unethical issues in the crisis situations also. It is crucial to maintain the trust of the investors, so that they could be interested to maintain investment in company’s share for the long time.

It is crucial to create a two way communication channel for communicating with the investors, as it can help the managers to understand the investors’ concern and expectations. It also helps the managers to make the investors informed about the passion and mission of the organization, which will help to convince them as well as maintain long term relationship, by gaining trust. Maintaining a two-way communication will not let the investor to interfere with the daily operations of the company; rather, they will expect to lead independently, but expect to be informed about the risks and benefits of the decisions made by the marketer, so that any additional information, which could safeguard the investment, could be provided by them (Tantalo and Priem, 2016). It often saves the managers to make a wrong decision, while ensuring that the organization is able to manage all it’s trading in expected ethical and legal manner. Some key communication ways used by managers for maintaining investors’ relations identified on this effective communication assignment include:

• Conference
• Email updates
• Newsletters

The key issue of not maintaining effective investor relations is loss of business relation and trust of the investors, which could be harmful for the business. In some crises situations, often organizations do not communicate with the investors about the risks and benefits of the decisions, especially the risky investments. As a result, when the decision goes wrong and the business face failure, the investors often unable to get their expected ROI from the business. In such situation, trust is reduced and investors often tend to reduce or stop investing in the company, indicating financial risk for the organization (Schnackenberg et al., 2016). In addition, when the organizations are able to maintain strong relationship with investors, they often give reference to the other investors for investing, due to developed trust. However, the lack of two way communication and transparency identified on this effective communication assignment has resulted in the investor relations causes the investors not to refer the company to others investors. As a result, the financial viability and sustainability of the business could reach at a stake.

Conclusion
In the above assignment on effective communication, the key focus was upon the stakeholder relationship and how the managers need to communicate with two major stakeholders in the business. In this context, it is noteworthy that two key external stakeholder of the business are the government and investors. The organization needs to continuously put the best effort to maintain a strong and two way relationships with these two stakeholders to ensure the business excellence and achievement of the expected outcomes in the business. In addition, the key issues raised on this effective communication assignment, the managers roles have also been discussed here. Effective communication assignments are being prepared by our management assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable university assignment help service.

Reference List
Andriof, J. and Waddock, S., 2017. Unfolding stakeholder engagement. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 19-42). Routledge.

Chapman, K.L., Miller, G.S. and White, H.D., 2018. Investor relations and information assimilation. The Accounting Review.

Eckhardt, J., 2018. Business-government relations in EU trade politics. Handbook on the EU and International Trade, p.152.

Herremans, I.M., Nazari, J.A. and Mahmoudian, F., 2016. Stakeholder relationships, engagement, and sustainability reporting. Journal of Business Ethics, 138(3), pp.417-435.

Schnackenberg, A.K. and Tomlinson, E.C., 2016. Organizational transparency: A new perspective on managing trust in organization-stakeholder relationships. Journal of Management, 42(7), pp.1784-1810.

Tantalo, C. and Priem, R.L., 2016. Value creation through stakeholder synergy. Strategic Management Journal, 37(2), pp.314-329.