ICCC – International Corporate
Communication Compass for Europe

The significance of international corporate communications is growing rapidly, and the complexity associated with it is increasing almost exponentially. But systematic understanding of International Corporate Communications (ICC) is still underdeveloped. Especially, there is no comprehensive interlinking of PR knowledge with relevant expertise derived from other disciplines. This project is built on an already proposed heuristic analytical grid, along with its interdisciplinary application using at the beginning the example of Media Relations, but later enlarging the perspective towards a more general view of global stakeholder management. It aims to continue to develop that grid, but even more to offer a kind of “ICC Compass for Europe” that can be used by academics and professionals to tear their attention to important differences within PR in Europe – and beyond between specific European issues and other continents. It is really important for a globally-engaged corporate communicator to be knowledgeable about the levels of target countries, target institutions, target contents and target actors (or why he or she should ensure that employees or service providers have the necessary knowledge). How many and which particular compass axes should be selected for an individual strategic communications goal depends upon the situation. In any case, however, by combining the points on the individual axes, a kind of rough map emerges. When the cultural expressions of the individual contexts for all axes are compared to the map, the biggest cultural differences between the systems in which a communications project originates and those of the target system become apparent.

This project intends to make evident the potential usefulness of interdisciplinary approaches in international comparative PR research and show examples of European countries where it will applied. This only possible in an international team – just using the existing knowledge as a proposal for going much further. Additionally, to the research aim, an educational aim has been added to the goals of the projects since the last official update. Due to high demand from the sides of universities, also a teaching concept for international corporate communication with the ICCC as an important, but not the only example has already been partially developed and tested. So far, two schools have been involved, but based on the evaluations so far at least one more testing seminar is planned. At the end of the project, beside the academic documentation as a book also a set of educational material for teaching purpose is planned.

Project leader

Prof. Dr. Holger Sievert
Macromedia University, Cologne, Germany
h.sievert@macromedia.de

Can EUPRERA members still join the project?

EUPRERA members can still join the project whenever they are interested. The benefits are lots of publication also in the future after the official end of the project, a good international and even global network on PR issues as well as speaker invitation by major multinational corporations on the subject.

The idea is a centrally managed project, but with individual and equal contribution of everyone interested. All work done so far is only to be understand as possible input that can, but needn’t to be followed. However, a lot of modification on this base on empirical data results are anyway possible.

Therefore, these are the possibilities of co-operation for EUPRERA members:

• in discussion the key indicators used so far in the “compass” and the common development of an own common and further one;
• the collection of empirical data for all countries concerned and all key indicators;
• the re-discussion of compass indicators and its final definition; including the formulation of general consequences for PR practice, research and education in Europe.

To read some of the research paper already developed within the subject of the ICC Compass, please visit www.holger-sievert.de where the most downloaded papers deal nearly all with this issue in different languages. For additional questions, please send an email to h.sievert@macromedia.de.