Analysing Van Riel (1995, 2000) Orchestration of Communication Model : Corporate Communication and the Role of the Communications Professional During a Strategic Change Process (Merger)

Organisations have changed the way they relate to their stakeholders as a requirement of what has been labelled as the 'new communication era'. Sources of competitive advantage are not anymore the traditional ones, and stakeholder management through effective communication becomes a moderating factor in the pursuit of better financial performance (Berman et. al., 1999). The ineffectiveness of attempts to communicate different messages to different stakeholders is a new important feature of the reality brought by the new communication technologies. Organisations have to adopt an integrated approach to their communications if they are to survive in this environment. Van Riel (1995, 2000) introduces the orchestration of communication through a sustainable corporate story as a tool to achieve the organisations' objectives. Based on his studies, this work consists in a literature review related to orchestration of communication involving and integrating different sets of theories, and proposes a deeper analysis on the applicability of Van Riel's model to coordinate and orchestrate communications during a revolutionary organisational change, namely a merger. The particularly original feature here is the link between organisational change and an innovative model to approach communications. We conclude that the sustainable corporate story tool can be successfully applied to different merger situations, increasing the company's chances to succeed during these troubled periods. Further empirical research is recommended in order to understand how the model can be indeed implemented in practice and how successful were its former implementations if any