Exploring and assessing issue communication - issue communication practices and consequences of issue response strategies for organizational reputation and legitimacy

Purpose - Although issue management has received ample attention, changes in the media landscape and increased societal scrutiny are currently challenging organizations’ communicative handling of issues. This raises the question of how communication professionals currently perceive and communicatively deal with issues, and what impact issue response strategies have when organizations are addressed regarding their involvement in an issue.
Design/methodology/approach - We explore issue communication perceptions and practices by communication professionals in two focus groups. A subsequent experimental study assesses the consequences of issue response strategies for corporate reputation and legitimacy and examines to what extent this relationship can be explained by skepticism while taking issue phase into account.
Findings - Although most issue communication practices (still) resemble earlier descriptions, the focus groups also indicate the importance of timing and medium of issue communication. The experiment shows that organizations are better off responding to an issue than not responding at all. Organizations should choose for an accommodative or adaptive response to positively impact reputation and legitimacy, and should be aware of the phase of an issue. Remarkably, these empirical differences only apply for a sustainability issue, not for a social issue.
Originality/value - The focus group study illuminates current issue monitoring and communication practices in today’s challenging media and societal landscape. The subsequent experiment enhances our understanding of a sub-field of issue communication: the communicative options of organizations when they are the addressed actor in issues.