Adopting an Entrepreneurial Perspective to the Study of Strategic Communication

In 1938, Barnard anticipated the strategic role of communication as one of the most important functions of executives. Since then, a growing number of communication and management scholars have been theorizing on the institutionalisation of the strategic role of communication within organizations (Gregory, 2008; Hallahan, Holtzhausen, van Ruler, Vercic & Sriramesh, 2007; Invernizzi, Muzi Falconi & Romenti, 2009; Lurati & Eppler, 2006; Zerfass & Huck, 2007). Today the field of inquiry of strategic communication appears rich, broad, multidisciplinary as well as highly fragmented due to the multiplicity of management and organizational perspectives to which they refer. In this paper we argue that the entrepreneurial theory of the firm provides a useful conceptual framework which integrates and values the different ways of seeing the role of strategic communication within organizations. Adopting the entrepreneurial perspective to analyse the strategic role of communication means enlargening the horizon of strategic communication contents as well as describing to what extent they drive and support organizational decision-making processes. In this paper we’ll propose four dimensions of the entrepreneurial communication paradigm which can open up intriguing insights into both the present and the future role of communicators. The description of the four entrepreneurial and communication dimensions will be enriched by four case studies describing the communication practices of successful Italian companies.