Role of the reflective (Communication) strategist in obtaining social intelligence as part of environmental assessment: a case study of International Airport X

Abstract

The case selected for this multidisciplinary research in the corporate communication and strategic management domains is International Airport X -- Africa’s third largest, most award-winning airport that has consistently received global recognition for excellence. As an aerotropolis (airport city) it has a multitude of diverse stakeholder groups with differing concerns/expectations and also faces complex issues and challenges. The Airport has a senior management team consisting of eight senior managers – seven of the latter being the respondents in this descriptive survey (and the eighth being the author of this study). The main problem of this intrinsic case study on International Airport X is that the stakeholder and issues landscape is shifting drastically, inter alia due to extensive land acquisitions and pending infrastructural developments. Although competitive intelligence is gathered as part of the environmental assessment process, the need for and importance of obtaining social intelligence as a tool to address stakeholder and societal expectations, values and norms as well as the early identification of concerns and issues do not appear to be fully understood by senior management. Organisations of today need to adopt a structured, formalised environmental assessment approach whereby senior management listens to, interacts with, and obtains feedback from their external (and internal) environment on a regular basis. The secondary problem of this instrumental case study is theoretical, firstly to relook the reflective strategist role in the corporate communication domain and explore it in the context of obtaining social intelligence as part of the environmental assessment process at the societal (macro) level and then to broaden this role conceptually through an analysis of newer (strategic) roles. Secondly, to reaffirm this role empirically, according to the normative expectations and the perceptions of the Airport X senior management team as to how this role is currently being performed in their company. The major research objective set to address the two-fold problem of the study is to explore, describe and reconceptualise the role of the reflective (communication) strategist in obtaining social intelligence as part of the environmental assessment process at the societal (macro) level of an organisation, to be used as input into enterprise strategy development. The study has been divided into two phases: Phase 1: Exploratory research (conceptual/theoretical) is to achieve Objectives 1 and 2, while Phase 2: Descriptive research (empirical) is to achieve Objectives 3 and 4. In Phase 1: Exploratory research, a literature review (secondary research) has been conducted with the objective to explore the relevant literature in the field of corporate communication to identify new activities to broaden the reflective strategist role conceptually and also to reaffirm its relevance two decades after conceptualisation and verification. Furthermore, to obtain an initial understanding of the concept social intelligence in the environmental assessment process by exploring the relevant literature on strategic management and related fields such as marketing. The approach in Phase 2 of the study is quantitative, namely a descriptive survey (primary research). A published framework has provided conceptual guidance for Phases 1 and 2, further assisted by the following guiding hypothesis: Social intelligence is to be obtained by the reflective (communication) strategist through scanning the environment, and interpreting and assessing the information gathered in the organisation’s stakeholder and issues environment. In Chapter 2: Reflective Strategist role (Phase 1), a conceptual analysis of the literature on the reflective strategist role in the corporate communication domain resulted in the development of a measuring instrument to operationalise the reflective strategist role for the descriptive survey (a theoretical contribution). Research Objective 1 was achieved by identifying activities from more recent roles research during the last decade to broaden the reflective strategist role conceptually, making a contribution in addressing the instrumental case problem. In Chapter 3: Environmental Assessment and Social Intelligence (Phase 1), through a conceptual analysis of the strategic management literature, social intelligence was conceptualised which achieved Research Objective 2. In addition, two more theoretical contributions emerged through the exploratory research: • The metatheoretical framework in the strategic management domain was broadened by adding the reflective paradigm from the corporate communication domain to the three existing approaches, to form an overarching metatheoretical framework for this multidisciplinary study. • Secondly, the situational theory from the corporate communication domain was added to the constructs stakeholder assessment and issues assessment (which are two of the three steps/phases in the process to obtain social intelligence) to provide conceptual clarity and direction as to how passive stakeholders turn into activist/pressure groups, with negative consequences for the organisation’s reputation. The above basic and introspective research findings contribute substantially towards addressing the instrumental case problem of this study. Chapter 5: Discussion of Empirical Findings (Phase 2) provides the empirical findings that achieve Research Objective 3 namely to investigate, by means of the descriptive survey, senior management’s expectations and perceptions of performance with regard to gathering social intelligence as part of the environmental assessment process at Airport X (to be used as input into enterprise strategy development at the societal/macro level of the organisation) and the potential role of the reflective strategist therein. These strategic and applied research findings contribute substantially towards addressing the intrinsic case problem of this study. The foregoing empirical findings led to, and provided the foundation for, the reconceptualisation of the role of the reflective strategist in providing ‘actionable’ social intelligence and, in so doing, achieved Research Objective 4 namely to reconceptualise, based on the findings of the descriptive survey, the reflective strategist as a role that focuses on obtaining social intelligence as part of the environmental assessment process at the societal (macro) level of an organisation (to be used as input into enterprise strategy development). This reconceptualisation contributes substantially towards addressing the instrumental case problem of this study.