March 2003 - Kommunikationsforum

IKEA has faced a number of important issues since the 1980s. It started off when Greenpeace leaned on companies, including IKEA, to stop usingPVC. One large issue has been allegations that IKEA suppliers employ underage workers. The issue first occurred in 1992 when a Swedishdocumentary showed children in a factory in Pakistan. The contract was terminated and a clause that forbad child labour was build into all supplycontracts. On the advice of Save the Children in Stockholm, a company was hired to monitor suppliers in the region. But over the next years IKEAfaced new allegations. Executives sought out advice from UNICEF, the International Labour Organization and unions. In 2000, IKEA settled adonation plan with UNICEF to donate half a million dollars to fight child labour in the carpet belt of India by setting up schools and other programs in200 villages. By that, their strategy changed to fight child labour by means of attacking root causes, like poverty and lack of education, as UNICEFproposes. Another issue has been suppliers’ general working conditions. Nordic woodworkers threatened in 1998 to organize a boycott over reportsof dismal working conditions at IKEA’s Romanian suppliers. IKEA agreed to apply ILO standards for working conditions. Then a joint team fromIKEA and the union went on an inspection tour of suppliers in Eastern Europe and Asia. During that round, IKEA dropped a Thai supplier after itrefused to rehire a man fired for trying to organize workers. The boycott never materialized.Internally, IKEA has also faced multicultural issues. InDenmark and Sweden there has been an intense media discussion about the wearing of particular clothing on the job, like Muslim women wearingheadscarfs. IKEA quickly responded that they did not oppose traditional headgear. In May 2002, IKEA decided to terminate supply contracts withthe company Trayton, that operates under the Danish “Tvind imperium”, which has been alleged of severe tax omission in Denmark. In another taxissue in 1999, IKEA was criticised in Belgium for tax omission in an affair with the Belgium railway company, SNCB. Another major issue for IKEA is“Companies forced into Foreign policy”.(Ugebrevet Mandag Morgen. September 2001)Enormous bill to Novo Nordisk after tax issue in Japan.(Ugebrevet Mandag Morgen. September 1999)wood supplies. Much IKEA furniture is fabricated in wood and the company receives worldwide supply. Recently, IKEA has forged alliances withGreenpeace on environmental matters. Now it demands that all suppliers guarantee that the wood does not originate in ancient forests IKEA alsoFURIOUS NATIVE NEW ZEALANDERS CLAIM ACTION TOYSARE 'CULTURAL PIRACY‘. (Sunday Express. June 2001)South Africa issue only a symptom: Businessesare loosing too activists. (Ugebrevet MandagMorgen. April 2001)places emphasis on environmental issues in their warehouses in terms of construction and waste management. Approximately 75 pct. of all wastefrom warehouses are sent to recycling. Of the more rare issues, community relations can be mentioned. Several rich New York suburbs rose up lastyear to block the construction of an IKEA store, because they feared that the Swedish retailer would wreck the neighbourhood. In that category youcan also mention critical voices from Jewish communities, because the company’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad, now honorary chairman at 75, admitshe attended Nazi gatherings after World War 2. Many of the issues that Grundfos has been involved in are related to the local community. The mainpart of Grundfos’ growth takes place outside Denmark, which has led to insecurity in terms of fear of reductions in the Danish work force. During aperiod of 5-7 years, one third of the production has moved abroad. Nevertheless, employee loyalty is extremely high, and in the press, dismissedworkers have expressed understanding with company decisions. Grundfos often engages in political debates relating to especially infrastructureand local politics. The company has long lobbied for the construction of a new Danish airport near Bjerringbro.Grundfos sponsors many events nearBjerringbro, like the local first division handball club and the construction of a new library. It also provides funds to research projects and putpressure on the Danish government to increase expenses on research and education. Grundfos reserves a certain percentage of its positions fordisabled persons. On the contrary, the company has few non-Danish employees in high profile jobs and it has been criticised for not employingmore people from this group. Grundfos holds that fluency in the Danish language is indispensable in engineering positions where closecollaboration with co-workers prevails. In 1971, Grundfos continued exports to the former Rhodesia despite the international embargo, which led tofierce opposition by some parts of the public. Today, the company policy is to respect international trade sanctions. Nevertheless, Grundfos hasdeclared that it does not want to “participate in formulating Denmark’s foreign policy” and does not want to refuse commercial activities in specificcountries because of political matters. As Grundfos has production units in China, the company has been mentioned in relation to criticism ofChina’s violation of human rights. Grundfos markets its products worldwide, which include a large number of markets with unstable politicalsituations like various African countries and the Middle East. Being an industrial company with large production units, there is much focus on thecompany’s environmental responsibility both in Denmark and abroad. Grundfos publishes an environmental report that monitors its performance interms of environmental factors. The company recently received an award for its environmental audits. Also, through its production of water savingpumps, Grundfos strives to appear as a “green” company. Lately, the choice of suppliers has become more important for Grundfos and in relationto the Shell’s Brent Spar issue, Grundfos was criticised for using Shell as a supplier. Another issue of concern to Grundfos is allegations ofmonopolistic market situations. Recently, the EU has investigated Grundfos and acquisitions abroad have become more troublesome. In addition,Grundfos often faces resistance from local communities when it takes over companies abroad. It started off in the Danish medias by the end of MayWHY IKEA IS A TARGET OF TERROR BOMBERS (TheScottsman, December 2002)SHELL-SHOCKED; HOW OIL GIANT'S NORTH SEASTRATEGY TURNED DRAMA INTO A PR NIGHTMARE,(Mail on Sunday. June 1995)last year. A New Zealand lawyer, Maui Solomon, representing three Maori tribes accused Lego of using sacred names of gods and value termsfrom the Maori culture and religion and threatened to take legal action. Nevertheless, Lego had legal affairs on their side because Lego nevertrademark registered the individual figure names. Until late in the debate, Lego refused to comment the issue before it had been contacted directlyby the Maoris, which led to criticism in the press. In one article, Lego was accused of “culturally narrow-minded arrogance and ignorance.” Therewas a clear disagreement in New Zealand whether Lego had offended the Maoris but the issue fell in a hot spot because there had been intensediscussions about Maori vs. Western culture in New Zealand and elsewhere. Robbie Williams had been criticised for bearing a Maori symbol as aSAS: Industrial giants attack bonus system.(Jyllandsposten. August 2001)tattoo and when Spice Girls performed a religious Maori dance in a hotel it also led to immediate disapproval. Danish experts came forward in thepress and expressed their opinions and most newspapers agreed that Lego was caught in “a global cultural fight.” Finally, Lego reacted by sendinga letter to Maui Solomon explaining the company’s respect for the Maori culture. The same day, Bionicle was introduced on the American market.According to the Maoris, Lego refused dialogue in the letter and they threatened to organise a network of original inhabitants around the worldagainst Lego. New Zealand’s prime minister also criticised Lego’s attitude in New Zealand medias and the New Zealand government proposed alaw giving Maoris a veto right to refuse trademarks using cultural and religious names. During the autumn 2002, Lego decided to take up dialoguewith the Maoris and in October it signed a contract saying it will not use Maori myths and names in commercial affairs. Eventually, Lego also wentinto cooperation with the Maoris under the umbrella of a UN forum for the use of trademarks. Another so-called moral issue appeared because theChild labour: Tobacco company to meet withcriticisers. (Politiken. March 2001).instruction book for a toy called Alpha Team showed pictures that could be connected to the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre inNew York. Lego decided to take the toy off the shelves just after the attacks. At the same time, an American manager was fired for not complyingwith Lego values. Some felt that Lego overreacted because children should have the possibility to play with things that provoke different kind offeelings. Lego argued for its decision with respect to a moral and ethical standpoint and the protection of Lego values. Simultaneously, another toyproducer, Mattel, withdraw a toy showing the World Trade Centre in fire. A much debated issue lately in the Danish and international press hasbeen “access to medicine” for the world’s poor populations. Different parties have criticised pharmaceutical companies for keeping up prices by theuse of patents, thereby blocking production of less expensive generic products. The issue escalated in the winter/spring 2001 when 39 internationalIkea child labour probe (Nottingham EveningPost, January 1999)medical companies decided to press charges in South African to prevent the government from legalising cheap generic medicine for patientssuffering from aids. The Danish press followed up the story by questioning whether Novo Nordisk blocks access to diabetes medicine by the use ofpatents. During the next month, Novo Nordisk came under immense media coverage in Denmark and 3000 activists demonstrated in front of NovoNordisk’s headquarter. Many prominent NGOs came forward with criticism of Novo Nordisk’s patent strategy. The general issue of access tomedicine achieved great attention from medias around the world. Novo Nordisk has approached the issue proactively by creating the so-calledLEAD initiative (Leadership for Education and Access to Diabetes care) that incorporates the WHO’s four recommendations to focus areas forimproving access to healthcare in developing countries. In March 2002, Novo Nordisk established an international foundation, the WDF (WorldDiabetes Foundation), with the purpose of supporting projects that will improve diabetes care in developing countries. The organisation consists ofdiabetes specialists and representatives from Novo Nordisk. In 1996, Novo Nordisk was involved in a legal case about 89 Danish patients sufferingfrom haemophilia that had been treated with HIV-infected blood in the late 1970s. Novo Nordisk was found not guilty in the case that went on for along period of time. In 1996, Novo Nordisk was involved in a legal case about 89 Danish patients suffering from haemophilia that had been treatedwith HIV-infected blood in the late 1970s. Novo Nordisk was found not guilty in the caseCopenhagenthat went on for aBusinesslong period ofSchooltime. As Lego, Novo.diabetes care in developing countries. The organisation consists of diabetes specialists March and representatives 2003 from Novo Nordisk. In 1996, NovoNordisk was involved in a legal case about 89 Danish patients suffering from haemophilia that had been treated with HIV-infected blood in the lateSupervisor: Kristian Eiberg1970s. Novo Nordisk was found not guilty in the case that went on for a long period of time. In 1996, Novo Nordisk was involved in a legal caseabout 89 Danish patients suffering from haemophilia that had been treated with HIV-infected blood in the late 1970s. Novo Nordisk was found notguilty in the case that went on for a long period of time. As Lego, Novo. diabetes care in developing countries. The organisation consists of diabetesHangings put Shell in dock over Nigeria (TheIndependent, November 1995)Ethical risks in half of ATP’s largest foreigninvestments. (Ugebrevet Mandag Morgen. June 2001)Issues Managementin Multicultural Stakeholder EnvironmentsShell stunned by Brent Sparanger (Financial Times. June1997)Toys to children sparkling withchemicals. (Politiken. November1997)By Lena SørensenMaster Thesis CMINew Zealand Maoris declare global war againstLego. (Politiken. November 1997)

To be a known brand..........

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe dissertation takes its point of departure in the observation that larger European companies areacting in multicultural stakeholder environments. They are confronted with a range of expectationsand demands and some are only peripherally related to the company’s core business. Companiesare involved in an increasing number of issues, which risk maturing into crises in the public sphere.The dissertation focuses on the discipline within public relations concerned with the identificationand analysis of issues and prevention of crises: “Issues Management”. The dissertation aspires tounveil the problem: “How should companies manage issues in multicultural stakeholder environmentsin order to prevent crises?” The research question is enlightened through a theoretical interdisciplinaryanalysis and an empirical analysis of issues management practices in six Europeancompanies: Grundfos, Ikea, Lego, Novo Nordisk, SAS and Shell Europe. Two tables in the empiricalanalysis recap issues management practices in the six case companies.The dissertation argues that in order for companies to manage issues involving culturally differentstakeholders - to understand their reactions and arguments correctly and respond efficiently - theissues management practice must rely on “cultural awareness and mindfulness” and be integratedwith stakeholder analysis and dialogue.On a conceptual level, the dissertation demonstrates that issues are not detached matters in thepublic sphere. Issues are anchored in stakeholders’ and companies’ subjective opinion formationabout proper corporate behaviour. The parties’ cultural context influences this opinion formationand the cultural attachment then significantly impacts which issues or aspects of an issue theyfocus on and how they act in relation to that issue. The larger the cultural differences there arebetween stakeholders, the more complex the issue becomes and the management of it. The dissertationelaborates on how cultural differences are expressed in issues and which effect it has oncompany-stakeholder relations.On an operational level, the dissertation recommends that through a structured issues managementprocess, companies should seek to identify and analyse issues as early as possible and findsolutions to them that are mutually satisfactory to the most important parties. Solutions to issuesmay be to create understanding of corporate behaviour through internal or external communicationor to change business practices. The dissertation suggests that the issues management process isdivided into four phases: Identification, Analysis, Response and Evaluation. Nevertheless, it is onlypossible to attain the objectives of issues management if more technical activities in each phaserely on cultural awareness and mindfulness. Communication practitioners should be competent tostep beyond their own opinion formation and understand opinion formations rooted in other culturalcontexts. In addition, stakeholder analysis and dialogue should support the entire issues managementprocess. The dissertation goes into details about how cultural competences and stakeholderdialogue must be utilised and wherein the benefits lie.The dissertation concludes that companies, which share this conceptual understanding and havethe right operational issues management set-up in place, are equipped to lessen the risk that issuesmature into crises. The risk that issues undermine the company legitimacy and deterioratesits reputation is reduced accordingly. Two models encapsulate the fundamental conclusions: 1) Aconceptual model for issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. 2) An operational model tostructure and specify the issues management process. It is recommended that companies developan individual model containing the defined phases and those activities most relevant to them.

RESUMESpecialet tager udgangspunkt i den iagttagelse, at større europæiske virksomheder agerer i multikulturellestakeholder-miljøer og konfronteres med mange forskelligartede forventninger og krav,hvor nogle kun er perifert relateret til virksomhedens egentlige forretning. Virksomheder involveres iet stigende antal komplekse debatsager, som risikerer at udvikle sig til kriser i den offentlige sfære.Rapporten fokuserer på det område inden for public relations, som vedrører identifikation og analyseaf debatsager (”issues”) og forebyggelse af kriser: ”Issues Management”. Specialet søger atafdække problemstillingen: ”Hvordan kan virksomheder håndtere debatsager i multikulturellestakeholder-miljøer for at forebygge kriser?” Gennem en teoretisk analyse samt en empirisk analyseaf seks europæiske virksomheders issues management-praksis, Grundfos, Ikea, Lego, NovoNordisk, SAS og Shell Europe, belyses denne problemstilling.Specialet konkluderer, at for at virksomheder kan håndtere debatsager, som involverer kultureltforskellige stakeholdere, forstå deres reaktioner og argumenter korrekt og reagere effektivt, skalissues management-praksis bygge på kulturel opmærksomhed (”awareness”) og sensitivitet(”mindfulness”) samt integreres med stakeholder-analyse og -dialog.På det begrebsmæssige plan påviser specialet, at debatsager ikke er løsrevne emner i offentligheden.Debatsager er forankret i stakeholderes og virksomhedens subjektive meningsdannelse om,hvordan virksomheden bør handle. Aktørernes kulturelle kontekst påvirker denne meningsdannelse,og dermed får den kulturelle forankring betydning for, hvilke debatsager eller aspekter af endebatsag, de fokuserer på, og hvordan de handler i forhold til sagen. Jo større kulturel forskel, derer mellem stakeholdere, jo mere komplekse bliver debatsagen og håndteringen af den. Specialetgår i dybden med, hvordan kulturforskelle kommer til udtryk i debatsager og hvilken betydning, dethar for forholdet mellem virksomheder og deres stakeholdere.På det operationelle plan anbefaler specialet, at virksomheder gennem en struktureret issues management-processøger at identificere og analysere debatsager så tidligt som muligt og finde løsningerpå dem, som er gensidigt tilfredsstillende for de vigtigste parter. Løsninger kan enten væregennem intern eller ekstern kommunikation at skabe forståelse for virksomhedens handlinger ellerat ændre forretningsmetoder. Specialet foreslår at processen inddeles i fire faser: Identifikation,Analyse, Svar/kommunikation, Evaluering. Issues management-processens mål kan dog kun opnås,såfremt de mere tekniske issues management-aktiviteter bygger på kulturel opmærksomhedog sensitivitet. Virksomhedens kommunikatører skal kunne sætte sig ud over egen meningsdannelseog forstå meningsdannelser, som har rod i en anden kulturel kontekst. Stakeholder-analyseog -dialog bør desuden understøtte hele issues management-processen. Specialet uddyber, hvordanden kulturelle kompetence og stakeholder-dialog skal udmøntes, og hvori fordelene består.Det er specialets konklusion, at virksomheder, som har denne begrebsmæssige forståelse samtdet korrekte operationelle issues management set-up, vil være i stand til at mindske risikoen for, atdebatsager udvikler sig til kriser. Dermed begrænses risikoen for, at kritiske debatsager underminerervirksomhedens legitimitet og forringer dens offentlige omdømme. Specialet har udviklet tomodeller, som sammenfatter de vigtigste konklusioner: 1) En begrebsmæssig model for debatsageri multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer. 2) En operationel model, hvormed virksomheden kan strukturereog konkretisere issues management-processen. Specialet anbefaler, at virksomheder udvikleren individuel model bestående af de nævnte faser og de aktiviteter, som er mest relevante.(En samlet konklusion på dansk findes i specialets appendiks)

PREFACEPREFACEIssues management has not achieved the attention it deserves by European communication specialistsand researchers. While issues management is practiced by many larger organisations inEurope, academic research and publishing is to a large extent American. This dissertation attemptsto develop the issues management thinking in a European contemporary context. The objective willbe to rethink issues management principles in the perspective of European companies’ multistakeholderand multicultural environment.Part 1, page 3 through to 24 set the stage for this intercultural issues management focus. Keyterms are defined and epistemological considerations are explained. Next, page 25 to 52 attempt todraw a conceptual skeleton by bridging theories of issues management with knowledge from interculturalcommunication theory and stakeholder relations. A central model encapsulates key findingsfrom this theoretical analysis. From there, part 2 moves to the operational level: Page 53 topage 74 take the reader through a re-examination of the four steps in the issues managementprocess: identify, analyse, respond and evaluate. A process model is drawn hereafter.The final part of the dissertation, from page 76 to 110, is devoted to empirical research. During thesummer 2002, issues management practitioners at 6 major companies participated in personalinterviews. The interviews provide evidence to test normative conclusions from the theoreticalanalysis. In addition, they are tentative examples of contemporary European issues managementpractice. Summaries of the interviews are enclosed in the end of the dissertation.With this dissertation I aspire to indicate ways to practice systematised and effective issues management.Also, I attempt to present some new perspectives to current issues management thinkingon an academic level.I would like to thank the corporations who were willing to devote time for interviews and subsequentquestions and advice. These corporations are Lego, SAS, Novo Nordisk, Shell Europe, Ikea andGrundfos. The knowledge I obtained in these endeavours is greatly appreciated. Thanks to mysupervisor Kristian Eiberg for valuable insights and critical comments at important times in theprocess. My colleagues at Monday Morning merit recognition for providing me with a solid understandingof communication, intelligence, and journalism in its practical forms. Finally thanks to myfellow students at Copenhagen Business School.Lena Sørensen|

TABLE OF CONTENTTABLE OF CONTENTPREFACE..........................................................................................................................................IPART 1INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 3RESEARCH QUESTION ....................................................................................................................................... 5OUTLINE ............................................................................................................................................................ 6RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGY .............................................................. 7META-THEORETICAL PARADIGM........................................................................................................................ 7KEY CONCEPTS................................................................................................................................................. 8REFINED RESEARCH QUESTION ...................................................................................................................... 16THE NORMATIVE STUDY TYPE ......................................................................................................................... 17GENERIC PRINCIPLES...................................................................................................................................... 18EPISTEMOLOGY............................................................................................................................................... 18PART 2INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORETICAL ANALYSIS......................................................... 25EXISTING THEORETICAL FOUNDATION.............................................................................. 26STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT ................................................ 28ISSUE HOLDERS............................................................................................................................................... 28UNDERLYING INTERESTS................................................................................................................................. 29PRIORITISATION BETWEEN ISSUES.................................................................................................................. 29UNIFIED AND CONFLICTING OPINIONS ............................................................................................................. 30STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT ....................................................................................... 31SUMMING UP.................................................................................................................................................... 32INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT ................................. 34BASICS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION................................................................................................ 36CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTION............................................................................................. 37DEGREES OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY ................................................................................................................ 41CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE COMMUNICATION...................................................................................... 42HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION MODEL ................................................................ 43CULTURAL MINDFULNESS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT ........................................................................................ 45SUMMING UP.................................................................................................................................................... 48PROPOSING A CONCEPTUAL MODEL ................................................................................. 52THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS ............................................ 53IDENTIFICATION ............................................................................................................................................... 55ANALYSIS......................................................................................................................................................... 58RESPONSE....................................................................................................................................................... 63EVALUATION .................................................................................................................................................... 67| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

TABLE OF CONTENTPROPOSING A PROCESS MODEL ......................................................................................... 69CONCLUSION PART 2................................................................................................................ 70PART 3INTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ............................................................... 76ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIES.................................................... 77PROPOSITION 1: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT............................................................................................. 77PROPOSITION 2: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS.............................................. 83PROPOSITION 3: THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS ...................................................... 94CONCLUSION PART 3.............................................................................................................. 105PART 4CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................. 111PERSPECTIVES FOR ADDITIONAL RESEARCH .............................................................. 115APPENDICES.............................................................................................................................. 118APPENDIX 1: CAUSAL RELATIONS IN THE STUDY.......................................................................................... 118APPENDIX 2: MEDIA SOURCES IN THE IDENTIFICATION PROCESS................................................................ 119APPENDIX 3: LIFECYCLE CURVES................................................................................................................. 120APPENDIX 4: CONCLUSION IN DANISH.......................................................................................................... 121LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 125INTERVIEW SUMMARIES………………………………………………………………………………….x|

TABLE OF CONTENTTABLE OF FIGURESFIGURE 1: THE LEGITIMACY GAPFIGURE 2: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSFIGURE 3: DEVELOPMENT OF ISSUESFIGURE 4: THE CULTURAL CONTEXTFIGURE 5: CULTURAL DIVERSITY OF STAKEHOLDERSFIGURE 6: THEORETICAL DISCIPLINESFIGURE 7: LITERATURE ABOUT ISSUES MANAGEMENT AND CULTUREFIGURE 8: LITERATURE ABOUT PUBLIC RELATIONS AND CULTUREFIGURE 9: STAKEHOLDER GROUPSFIGURE 10: STAKEHOLDER INTERESTSFIGURE 11: THE AIM OF STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUEFIGURE 12: THE INTERNAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT OF ISSUES MANAGEMENTFIGURE 13: INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIONFIGURE 14: THE INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE MODELFIGURE 15: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS – SMALL MODELFIGURE 16: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS – LARGE MODELFIGURE 17: TRADITIONAL MODEL AND NEW MODEL FOR EVALUATING OUTSIDE PRESSUREFIGURE 18: PUBLIC RELATIONS MODELSFIGURE 19: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS - SMALL MODELFIGURE 20: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS – LARGE MODELFIGURE 21: COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITYFIGURE 22: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN 6 COMPANIESFIGURE 23: PERSPECTIVES IN THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSFIGURE 24: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS MODEL REFINEDFIGURE 25: STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE IN THE 6 COMPANIESFIGURE 26: CONCLUSION: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTSFIGURE 27: CONCLUSION: THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTS| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTRODUCTIONPART 12| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTIONWith this dissertation, I study how companies manage responses to issues that affect the businessorganisation through exposure in the public sphere. First, I take a short look at the dynamics thathave made this topic imperative.The rationalist market-oriented approach traditionally perceived companies as isolated units withthe societal function of economic production and distribution (Wartick & Wood 1998: 68). In the late1970s, critique of industrial products and the lack of companies’ environmental concern as well asthe general rise of activism became eminent. During the past 30 years, ethical, social, political, andenvironmental corporate responsibility has been added to the company function in society (Cheneyand Christensen 2001: 237). A more direct link between the broader needs of society and companyobligations has been created. Up to today, that link has been reinforced and edges between thesurrounding society and the company realm are becoming blurred. Companies have a significantstake in its environment and stakeholders expect companies to fulfil the societal roles. This is farfrom saying that all companies have social awareness programs or take their social responsibilityserious, but the public has some expectations about acceptable corporate behaviour. After a crisisover enfant milk formula in developing countries, Nestlé said:“For business, the cost of social awareness programs are great, but the cost ofignoring the outside world is even greater.” (Nielsen 2000: 18).This climate has a tremendous impact on companies’ communication activities. As the businessenvironment becomes politicised it is less clear how the company must react communication vice.One of the founders of public relations, Arthur W. Page, said:“All business in a democratic country begins with the public’s permission andexists by the public approval” (Clark 2000: 364).Public relations practitioners approach the organisation from a public angle - an outside-in perspective.It is a strategic boundary between the organisation and the public arena (Culbertson and Chin1996: 13) and is concerned with the inclusiveness of the company in the public and the phenomenaof legitimacy (Vercic 2001: 382). Companies’ legitimacy is closely linked with their ability torespond to issues. Many larger organisations have been faced, in recent past, with an issue, whichhad the potential to explode into the public arena with serious consequences for the reputation andcredibility of the organisation, to its products, services, shareholders and employees. We all knowthe more spectacular issues of Shell and the Brent Spar oil platform or Den Danske Bank’s implicationsin the Faeroe Island Bank scandal. The SEPTember model in Wartick and Wood groups theorigin of issues into social, ecological, economic, political and technological matters (1998: 13).Issues can arise from any of these areas. It is extremely important, history shows, that companiesare able to manage those issues efficiently (Gaunt & Ollenbruger 1995: 200). If they are not, andcrises occur, the company image will be damaged and the company legitimacy in the public sphereslowly undermined. Thus, this dissertation focus on how companies can identify, analyse and respondto issues before they turn into crises in the public sphere and negatively affect the companylegitimacy or mature into legislative or regulatory constraints.Part 1 | 3

INTRODUCTIONNow, a second perspective narrows down my research. Many larger companies are confrontedwith stakeholders, like employees, customers, interest groups and governmental bodies to mentiona few, representing a variety of nationalities and cultures. Today, European companies’ stakeholderenvironment is very often multicultural. Thus, stakeholder relations are increasingly intercultural.The interesting point is that as stakeholder relations become intercultural so do issues (Nighand Cochran, 1994). Traditionally, large companies have more or less successfully been able tomanage issues in an isolated manner. Chances have been limited that conflicts, let us say betweena company and an environmental group, would get widespread public attention. If issues reachedthe public agenda, they were often kept within certain forums or the specialised press, like researchreports or newsletters. Even when issues caught attention from the national press, they rarely escalatedbeyond the national boundary.That picture is under transformation because public communication has changed significantly. Thespeed with which information travels and the scope of that information are connecting events andpeople from all different arenas and geographical locations. You may call it the global scope ofinformation, in the sense that globalisation, in the words of Giddens, can be defined as:….the intensification of world-wide social relations, which link distant local localitiesin such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring manymiles away and vice versa. (Giddens 1990: 64). 1About this global information flow, Wakefield writes:“….the global media have helped to integrate publics and issues worldwide. Interestgroups are using the media to create issues and achieve their goals.They stage events such as protests, boycotts and even violent demonstrations.Media cover these dramatic events, which ensures audiences for activist ideologies.As a result, interest groups are influencing the opinions of policy makersaround the world.” (Wakefield in Culbertson & Chin 1996: 26).One concern is that different critical stakeholders can unify through modern communication channelslike the Internet and become more powerful. Activist groups widely employ that method, whichhas been witnessed in the anti-globalisation demonstrations in France last year that included violentattacks on McDonald outlets and other American icons. Another consequence is that the potentialscope of issues is greater and thus the influence issues may have on the company. Opponentsnow have access to a larger amount of sources and can reach publisher or journalists moreeasily. Consequently, a problem of little concern in a small corner of a company’s activities maythreaten to turn into a damaging case for the whole company on its entire markets and for all itsstakeholder relations. This was the case for Shell, when it decided to dump the Brent Spar oil platformin the sea.It is less clear for a large company to know how to respond to issues in the new information reality.Suddenly, in order to avoid global crises in the public sphere, it must be able to confront a culturally1 This is a so-called multidimensional theory of globalisation also represented by authors like Robertson, Bauman, Sennettand Castells.4| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTRODUCTIONvery diverse set of stakeholders not from a local, but from a unified position. Today, larger Europeancompanies are not manoeuvring in a single cultural sphere, involving parties that share culturaltraits with the company itself. The large European firm finds itself in a multicultural environment,where public issues must be managed across cultural boundaries.From my point of view, many companies have found it difficult to see through the public debatewhen it moves from the intracultural to the intercultural level. A general trait about many of the issuesthat have been on the public agenda recently, is, I believe, that companies debate from asingle cultural perspective. They find it difficult to understand why their actions are criticised. Fromtheir own cultural line of thought, their actions are legitimate. A study has shown that many publicrelations practitioners overlook the implication of cultural diversity or do not consider it important(Banks 1995: 2). In addition, research and theory that link public relations to cultural diversity isscarce. Clearly, there is a need for a better understanding of cultural diversity in stakeholder environmentsand what it implies for companies’ management of issues in the public sphere.RESEARCH QUESTIONTo resume: Rising public expectation about corporate social responsibility and the global scope ofinformation have increased the number and complexity of crises for the business organisation.Therefore, I wish to investigate how companies can improve their ability to avoid crises by effectivelymanaging issues with stakeholders that represent a variety of cultural backgrounds. Thatleads me to the research question:How should companies manage issues in multicultural stakeholder environmentsin order to prevent crises?Now, I stand in front of a number of choices involving the paradigm behind the research (metatheory),the nature of the key concepts (ontology), their relation to other concepts (axiology), andhow to conduct my research (epistemology). The subsequent chapters will clarify those questions.Hereby, I wish to explicitly define and assess my own role in the study process and justify the assumptionsand choices that guide any research project.When the key concepts are defined, the research question will be refined on page 16. First, let mecreate an overview of the dissertation by summarising the outline.Part 1 | 5

INTRODUCTIONOUTLINEThe figure below illustrates the outline. Individual questions are answered in each part:! What are the problematic aspects in managing issues in a multicultural stakeholder environment?Which theoretical concepts should I address and in which way should they be studied?This is answered in part I! To what extent does existing theory conceptualise principles for companies’ management ofissues in a multicultural stakeholder environment? In which ways can other academic fieldscontribute towards that end? That will be the aim of part II.! How do the identified principles apply to practice? Do issues management practitioners findthem valid? This will be explored in part III.! On the basis of the theoretical analysis and the empirical study, which generic principles canbe identified for companies’ management of issues in a multicultural stakeholder environment?Part IV provides an answer to the research question.Knowledge baseProblem identification and research questionConceptual frameworkPART IInterdisciplinary theoretical analysisStakeholdertheoryIssues managementInterculturalcom. theoryPART IIConclusion part IIEmpirical data: interviewswith 6 European companiesEmpirical analysisof propositionsPART IIIRefinement of interdisciplinary approachConclusion part IIIConclusionPART IVCritical assessment andperspectives6| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYRESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYMETA-THEORETICAL PARADIGMThe dissertation makes use of a hermeneutic paradigm 2 . It examines issues - their arousal, evolutionand eventual resolution – as a sense making process by companies and stakeholders. In linewith the hermeneutic paradigm, people’s actions, or the sum of a group of people’s actions, and theoutcomes of those actions, are considered as making sense (meaning, content) because they areexpressions of those people’s intentions (assumptions, objectives, reasons). Consequently, thedissertation will study “public issues” by looking at the meaning that different actors attach to thoseissue, the difference between their meaning ascriptions and what intentions that drive them. Theoretically,the objective in the hermeneutic paradigm is to get insight into people’s own interpretationsof their context (Jensen & Løngreen: 28).In opposition to the hermeneutic paradigm stands positivism. Within positivism, we find the structuralfunctionalist tradition that believes phenomena are organised in a sort of structured organismwhere everything interacts. Thus, it is possible to predict future outcomes. In positivism, researchaims to find fixed correlations between phenomena and establish a set of universal laws. Had Iemployed a positive paradigm to my research, I could have mapped stakeholders by identifyingdifferent attributes, like cultural characteristics, and this way predicted each stakeholder’s eventualposition in a public debate along some parameters.I find that positivism has evident limitations when it comes to study human actions. It is impossibleto foresee - in a rationale manner - that certain stakeholders that are part of a specific culture willreact in a definite way. This is because issues are a social construct. People actively interpret theirsocial environment. Accordingly, in a public debate about an issue, people do not act mechanicallybut out of their cognition of that issue. Drawing on communication theory, public debates aboutissues must be seen as a dialogical, symmetrical process: The receiver’s interpretation (decoding)of the sender’s message influence the communication process as much as the sender’s encodingof that message. Also, interaction between debaters is not “a linear, mechanical process of messagetransmission and response in sequence” (Banks 1995: 110). It is an emergent, dialogic processof forming opinion. Issues are not couched in the different opponents in the public debate, butexist in the relation between opponents.In staying true to the hermeneutic tradition, the dissertation aspires to propose ways that companiescan understand issue debates in multicultural stakeholder environments rather that ways theycan predict actions and control the debate.2 A meta-theoretical paradigm is a set of assumptions that a researcher has towards the study and methodology. Suchassumptions constitute the natural way we observe phenomena, answer questions and reach conclusions – our so-calledworld-views.Part 1| 7

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYKEY CONCEPTSISSUESWhat are issues? In the public relations literature, issues are defined as “a point of matter of discussion,debate, or dispute” (Nielsen 2000: 29). An issue must have at least two different possibleresolutions and there must be a dispute about which of the alternatives that will prevail (Renfro1993: 14). Issues should not be confused with trends, which is a broad term for changes in thecompany environment.Lieberson says that in social theory, researchers should isolate the basic causes of the phenomenonunder investigation (1985). So let me clarify the basic causes behind issues. In the introduction,we saw that issues are linked to companies’ corporate social responsibility and may arise fromecological, economic, political and technological matters in the business environment. I describedthat public relations is about managing legitimacy in the public sphere. Legitimacy is“…. a measure of the adequacy of societal perceptions of corporate behaviorcompared to societal expectations for corporate activity.” (Näsi & Näsi 1997:300)Subsequently, issues arise when there is a legitimacy gap between, on the one side, companyinterests and performance and, on the other, stakeholders’ interests and expectations.Company XBusinessPerformanceActivitiesPoliciesGAPBases of gap:! Differences of fact! Differences of value! Differences of policyExpectationsof corporatesocial responsibilityPublic AFigure 1: The Legitimacy Gap. Source: adopted from Heath 1997: 8The gap may arise because companies and publics do not have the same level of knowledgeabout facts to sustain their actions and considerations. It may also be, that they judge actions fromdifferent policies or values. Heath says:“An issue is a contestable point, a difference of opinion regarding fact, value orpolicy the resolution of which has consequences for the organisation’s strategicplan.” (1997: 84).In accordance with the hermeneutic paradigm, Heath points out that people’s individual interestslead them to support or attack specific company actions or policies (1997: 85). Consequently, interestsare key to understand issues and why they arise.8| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYTHE PUBLIC SPHEREIt is one thing that an issue arises, another that it may develop into the public sphere and eventuallyinto a crisis. The objective in this dissertation is not to describe the dynamics by which issuesdevelop in the public sphere but how companies manage issues. Consequently, let me just explainwhat is meant by “the public sphere”. For that purpose I look at theory for agenda setting 3 .The public sphere should be considered in opposition to the private sphere. For a company, it compriseseverything that takes place outside the business organisation. Nielsen (2000) shows thatissues generally penetrate the public sphere through different agendas:1) The media agenda where an issue gets attention by journalists from national newspapers,television, radio, academic revues etc. Researchers may seek to measure an issue on the mediaagenda by counting articles and news shots, or to conduct a content analysis of these.2) The public agenda where individual people pay attention to an issue. They may discuss it withfriends, relatives, over lunch, in the streets etc. Or just express an opinion about it. Issues onthe public agenda are measured through opinion pools where its significance is determinedrelative to other issues.3) The political agenda where politicians and public officials work with an issue, discuss it andeventually set laws or policies in relation to it. A research of the political agenda could try to detectsuch laws or how much time politicians debate the issue in parliament.To that I would like to add boundary-spanning agendas between the public and non-public spherelike academic agendas (seminars, debate forums) and the Internet. I find it complicated to draw theline between the public and non-public sphere. If an activist group publishes its opinion about anissue on the Internet or in a newsletter is it then public? I believe that the jumping point here is howmany people get exposed to the issue, if these people have a stake in the company and to whatextent they find the issue worth paying attention to.ISSUES MANAGEMENTDuring my research, I began by investigating if there was any approach within the public relationsliterature that could provide answers to the research question. I found that the discipline, “IssuesManagement”, had many interesting and central consideration to add to my research.Issues management seeks to uncover issues that may play an influential role in the relationshipbetween an organisation and its stakeholders. For companies, the goal is to detect issues as earlyas possible and ideally before they enter the public sphere through any of the agendas describedbefore. Thereby, the issues management theory says, companies can more easily influence theissue’s development in a positive way. If an issue has negative consequences for the company, theorganisation may try to reach a resolution with its opponents before the issue becomes subject topublic attention.3 For further studies into agenda setting, refer to the interesting work by Mie Femø Nielsen (2000).Part 1 | 9

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYWhile issues are a gap between company actions and stakeholder expectations, issues managementis the process used to close that gap 4 . Issues management is a “strategic use of issuesanalysis and strategic response to help organizations make adaptations needed to achieve harmonyand foster mutual interests with the communities in which they operate” (Heath 1997: 3). Thefocal point is to achieve harmony between the company and its environment 5 . In broad terms, thegap can be closed if companies adjust to expectations and modify operations or if public expectationsare changed through communication expertise. Most often, it is by a combination of thesestrategies.There are risks that issues management can be perceived as spin doctoring or defensive delayactivities to suppress criticisers. Indeed, this is the fault of some parts of the issues managementliterature that present issues management as a mean for controlling opponent voices in the public.Instead, the true potential of issues management should be to add value externally in terms of improvingstakeholder relations through open dialogue that allay conflicts and lead to win/win solutionsthat comprise the stances and goals of all parties having a stake in the issue. Issues managementmay also deconstruct barriers to entry on new markets and operations constraints. Issuesmanagement should equally add value internally by reducing surprises and uncertainty with reducedliability for directors and managers and by avoiding crises.A large amount of definitions of issues management exist and no definition has achieved consensus.Foremost, I find it important to distinguish between issues management as a program andissues management as a process (Signitzer in Moss 1997: 122).The program focus investigates issues management in an organisational perspective. It discussescoordination with other organisational functions and how intelligence is processed internally. Withinthe multinational companies, the program focus investigates the coordination of issues managementactivities between headquarters and subsidiaries (Wakefiled 2000: 68.). The essential conclusionis that issues management is a strategic discipline and that issues management practitionersare not only communication technicians but must be given strategic management clout. Forfurther discussion about the program focus see for example Heath 1997: 9ff or Jablin 2001: 205ff.My research takes a process focus that treats communicative aspects of issues management.Consequently, I choose to define issues management as the effort to:“Identify emerging issues and respond to them before they become publicknowledge.” (Jones & Chase in Gaunt & Ollenburger 1995: 201).A later but similar definition by Coates, Coates, Jarrat and Heinz is more detailed and will be myworking definition:“Issues management is the organized activity of identifying emerging trends,concerns or issues likely to affect an organization in the next few years and de-4 From the Issues Management Council’s website www.issuesmanagement.org5 This line of thinking in issues management draws on system theory, where companies and stakeholders are seen asindividual systems that pull in different directions but also seek internal and external equilibrium with other systems. It alsohas roots in the “fit school” in strategic management.10| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYveloping a wider and more positive range of organizational responses towardthat future. Business and industry, in adopting issues management, seek toformulate creative alternatives to constraints, regulations, or confrontation. Oftenin the past, the awareness of a trend, a new development, or the possibilityof new constraints came too late to frame anything but a reactive response.”(1986: ix)The definition says that issues management must be an organised activity. Secondly, it states thatissues must affect the organisation. This is important because the organisational impact ultimatelydifferentiates issues from non-issues. Thirdly, it defines issues management as being proactiverather that reactive. And finally, it sees issues management as a process involving identificationand response development.In terms of the process model, the literature explores a number of different issues managementtechniques that vary from 3 to 10 phases. No models are conclusive because it will vary accordingto each company’s specific needs. The primary purpose of using a model is to illustrate that theprocess is a structured effort to put issues management into practice - to gather accurate andtimely intelligence from the environment about issues. In the model below, I synthesise differentstandard process models in the issues management literature (Buchholz, Chase & Jones, Heath,Nigh & Cochran, Nielsen and Wartick & Wood). The heart of each step in the model is companies’interaction with the surrounding society and the push and pull effect between stakeholders andcompanies.AnalyseMonitorEvaluatePrioritiseIdentifyScanRespondChangeoptionsEvaluateFigure 2: Issues management process model. Source: ownThe process is to some extent circular and is often programmed into the general company planningwith specific tasks carried out monthly or quarterly (Heath 1997: 91). Nevertheless, as I indicatewith the arrows in the middle, the phases may overlap in reality.Part 1 | 11

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYIssues management is different from“crisis management” in that it strives todeal with issues before they becomesubject to public outrage. It is proactive,while crisis management is reactive(Gaunt & Ollenburger 1995: 202). Issuesmanagement can also take itsoffset in old crises. Figure 3 shows thedistinction between the two disciplines.As the model indicates, effective issuesmanagement prevents crises in thepublic sphere, i.e. on any of the agendasmentioned earlier.Issues ManagementCrisisPost-crisisNo crisisTimeFigure 4: Development of issues. Source: Gonzáles & Pratt1995: 27.Finally, let me briefly comment on issues management with regard to public relations. Miller demonstratedthat issues management is a multidisciplinary approach with (ideally) connections intomost organisational functions (1999: 5). But it is often situated within a broader public relations orexternal communication function in the company, eventually by virtue of inter-departmental issuesteams, with the public relations department serving as coordinator and strategist.In the public relations literature, there has been an intense discussion about what constitute publicrelations. In that discussion, it is most relevant to focus on how public relations describes and explainsthe organisation differently from other disciplines like marketing, strategic management andhuman resource management. In contrast to marketing, public relations do not seek to attract andsatisfy customers through the exchange of goods and values but strive to establish and maintainpositive beneficial relations to all stakeholders (Cheney & Christensen in Jablin & Putnam 2001:238). In short, it manages the relation between the organisation and the public sphere:“Public relations is the management function that identifies, establishes andmaintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and thevarious publics on whom its successor failure depends.” (Cutlip, Center, andBroom 1985: 4)I consciously use the term “public relations” instead of “public affairs”. This is simply because definitionsof public affairs are very diffuse and that public relations is the most general term. MostDanish companies have renamed their public relations function communication departments. Thisis mirrored in the fact that the “Dansk Public Relations Forening” changed its name to “DanskKommunikationsforening”. Nevertheless, that shift has more to do with a negative connotation attachedto the public relations term than a change in practitioners’ actual work.Now, I have conceptualised what causes issues to arise, how issues may penetrate into the publicsphere, and I have introduced a theoretic field within the broader frame of public relations, issuesmanagement. In short, issues management describes the process by which companies shouldidentify, evaluate and respond to issues. Now, relating back to the research question, I should goon to what makes issues management special in multicultural stakeholder environments.12| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYSTAKEHOLDERSThe stakeholder theory of the firm suggests that businesses are answerable to a number of groupswhen pursuing stated aims and objectives. These groups have traditionally been stockholders,customers and employees. Recently this neo-classical assumption has come into question sincethese three groups are directly involved with the organisation. Currently stakeholders are definedas all groups affected by a corporation’s decisions, policies and operations. Consumer groups,customers and competitors, suppliers, special interest groups, local communities, judiciary andlawmakers, journalists, public authorities, as well as scientists and researchers all have expectationsto the company. These are all stakeholders. Freeman was the first to systemise a way ofthinking about stakeholders and defined stakeholders as:“…any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement ofthe firm’s objectives.” (Wartick & Wood 1998: 96).The dissertation mainly draws on stakeholder relation theory by Wartick & Wood (1998). Wartick &Wood synthesises the most important theorists within stakeholder relations and redesign it withinan international business context.CULTURAL DIVERSITYMost large European firms are confronted with stakeholders that are very diverse in terms of theircultural background. At the SPRØK programme, we have worked intensively with culture and itsaffect upon communication, management, strategy, and organisations. This dissertation will notcontain a complete discussion of different ways to define and understand culture. In very broadlines, public relations’ and issues management’s approach to culture falls within two traditions: astructural functionalist approach and an interpretive, critical approach.Structural functionalism understands culture as embedded in the individual as a sort of culturalprogramming, which determines the individual’s patterns of action. Cultures are homogenic, delineatedgroups that share characteristics. Methodologically, structural functionalism seeks to reducecultures to a set of characteristics like religion, world-view, the relation between sexes etc.One of the most applied theorists is Hofstede that operates with five cultural dimensions. On thebasis of retrieved characteristics, structural functionalism establishes taxonomies for how peoplebelonging to a specific cultural group act or think. It does not distinguish between society and cultureand most often take the national culture as the point of reference.On the contrary, the interpretive, critical approach holds that culture is not embedded in the individualbut must be found in the relation between people. Culture and society are interconnected but indynamic ways where the individual’s culture both shapes and is shaped by the surrounding society.Consequently, culture is not a stable set of characteristics but constantly open for new interpretationsand constructions. The interpretive, critical approach says that culture cannot be analysed byuse of pre-defined dimensions – it can only be grasped on the basis of its own values (cultural relativism)and in relation to a specific context. Methodologically, it uses what Clifford Geertz termed“thick descriptions” through interviews and field research.I argue that the interpretive, critical approach is most relevant for issues management. It respectsthe dissertation’s hermeneutic paradigm that enables us to consider issues as social constructs ofPart 1 | 13

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYwhich stakeholders and companies do not hold fixed opinions. Their opinions are influenced byeach other and factors surrounding the debate. In addition, structural functionalism has evidentlimitations when it comes to analyse culture in a society where people are constantly subject tovarious cultural influences from a global media and where many issues are transnational (Wartick& Wood 1998: 80).Gudykunst is a key contemporary theorist within cultural theory, who can be classified within theinterpretive, critical approach. (Gudykunst 1998). He explains that we have different filters by whichwe interpret things and form opinion. These filters constitute a “system of knowledge”. The contentof each filter is not a set of fixed characteristics, but constantly open for redefinition. He illustratesthe filters in the following manner 6 :Gen. cultureEnvironmentSocioculturePsychocultureSystem ofknowledgeEnvironmentFigure 4: The cultural context. Source: Gudykunst 1992I will elaborate on how Gudykunst describes the different filters in part 2. For now, I should justexplain what it signifies that the stakeholder environment is multicultural. From Gudykunst we learnthat if refers to the fact that stakeholders have different “systems of knowledge”. The boundary of aculture is groups of people that share “systems of knowledge”. Gudykunst agrees with the interpretive,critical approach that “systems of knowledge” are constructivist.I do not believe we should entirely abandon the fact that our culture is shaped by the nation-state,because we live within an institutional system that influences our behaviour significantly. I argue fora more moderate interpretive, critical approach. Most often, national diversity also signifies culturaldiversity because national differences influence our way of seeing and interpreting things (Banks1995: 101). On the contrary, cultural diversity also exists within one nation-state, for example betweendifferent ethnic or occupational groups.Gudykunst introduces the concept of the “stranger” as a broad term referring to any type of culturaldiversity. He chooses this concept in order to find a common general concept referring to culturaldiversity both in terms of national culture, race, ethnicity etc. I find that the term is very useful ingrouping the different forms of culturally diversity that companies will experience between stakeholders.6 There is a problem in Gudykunst’s model in that it assumes that the socio-culture always exist within the national culture.Global activist, for example, may share “systems of knowledge” that are totally detached from the national culture and trulysupranational. This is why I draw dotted lines between the different layers.14| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYNevertheless, I should be even more precise about how to define cultural diversity in issues management.By studying different cases, literature and articles I come to the conclusion that issuesinvolve multicultural stakeholders when:! Stakeholders from different national cultures are involved in the issue! Stakeholders from different subcultures like ethnic, religious, racial or regional groupsare involved in the issue! Stakeholders from a non-managerial business culture are involved in the issue: 1)Stakeholders from different work groups, occupations etc. 2) Stakeholders from differentcommunity relations (organisations in the local community like women rightsgroups, political parties, etc.). 3) Stakeholders from different NGOs like environmentalgroups, consumer groups etc. 4) Other stakeholder groups representing a nonmanagerialbusiness culture.National culturesSubculturesNon-managerialbusiness cultureWork groupsCompanyNGOsCommunityrelationsOtherSubculturesNational culturesFigure 5: Cultural diversity of stakeholders. Source: Own with Inspiration from Banks 1995With the model, I strive to illustrate the layers of cultural diversity that may be represented in thebusiness environment. A Danish company may have to deal with an environmental group fromSouth Africa, a Muslim women rights group from Saudi Arabia or a trade union from Denmark. Anyof these represent degrees of strangeness to the company.The stranger concept is also useful because it explains that cultural diversity varies in degree accordingto the point of familiarity of strangeness we feel towards another person or group. Diversityis not a stigmatised difference but very variable. A Danish company is likely to feel more estrangedtowards the Muslim women rights group than towards the Danish trade union while both are culturallydifferent from the company.Banks (1995: 16) draws our attention to the fact that cultural diversity can be perceived as a difference,meaning that people identify themselves with one group and perceive other cultures as deviancefrom the normal. Instead, Banks ague that we should understand diversity as variance. Byseeing other cultures as variance of the normal, you become more open for fundamental modifica-Part 1 | 15

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYtions to your own culture. Diversity is not only a barrier to overcome but can serve as inspiration forchanges.OTHER PERSPECTIVESA number of other theoretical perspectives could have been added to my research. Most importantly,the corporate social responsibility literature could have been relevant because it shares similarobjectives with public relations: to enhance the quality of relationships of an organisation amongkey stakeholders. But the corporate social responsibility thinking only provides a tool for encapsulatingthe business environment and lacks effective communication methods. (Clark 2000). As concretemethods for communication practice are necessary to enlighten how companies can preventpublic relations crises, this perspective will not be treated here.REFINED RESEARCH QUESTIONThe research question was originally stated as: How should companies in multicultural stakeholderenvironments manage issues in order to prevent crises? The conceptual framework drawn aboveenables me to refine the research question in the following manner:Which generic principles for issues management in multicultural stakeholderenvironments should companies follow in order to prevent crises?To define such principles, my research must aspire conclusions on two levels:1. The first objective is to provide a more profound understanding of issues in multiculturalstakeholder environments, i.e. to identify generic principles for intercultural issuesmanagement on a conceptual level2. The second objective is to assert how cultural diversity in the stakeholder environmentinflicts upon the issues management practice, i.e. to identify generic principles for interculturalissues management on an operational level.This research question will guide the following pages of the dissertation at hand. In appendix 1,causal relations in the study are illustrated. For clearness, let me sum up the key concepts here:An issue “is a contestable point, a difference of opinion regarding fact, value or policy the resolutionof which has consequences for the organisation’s strategic plan” (Heath 1997: 84). It originatesfrom a legitimacy gap between stakeholder expectations and company performance.The public sphere comprises everything that takes place outside the business organisation. Issuesgenerally penetrate the public sphere through the media, the public, and the political agendas.Issues Management is a proactive organised business activity that seeks to manage issues byformulating creative alternatives to constraints, regulations, or confrontation. It seeks to manageissues as early as possible by the use of a methodological process that comprises identification,analysis, response development and evaluation. Issues management builds on strategic planningand control and is implemented by communication activities.16| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYA stakeholder is any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of thefirm’s objectives.Cultural diversity signifies variance in people or group’s “system of knowledge”. The “system ofknowledge” is the way specific people or groups interpret and ascribe meaning to what they experience.It is shaped by one’s cultural norms, values and rules, socioculture as well as psychoculture.The boundaries of cultures are dynamic depending on the context. The company environmentis multicultural if it comprises stakeholders that are part of different non-managerial business cultures,different subcultures or foreign national cultures.While the previous chapters have described the concepts individually, they have not explained theirdynamics. However, before attempting this analysis, some epistemological comments are indispensable.THE NORMATIVE STUDY TYPEThe dissertation leads towards a normative study. Normative studies describe how things shouldbe done or an activity carried out. In contrast, a positive study explains how and why things areactually done. The normative approach sets some directions for my research:“In developing a normative theory, theorists have no obligation to show that anactivity actually is conducted in the way the theory describes. They must showonly that if an activity were to be conducted as the theory describes, it would beeffective.” (Vercic in Culbertson & Chin 1996: 33)It follows that my starting point must be to develop an ideal model of how to conduct issues managementin a multicultural stakeholder environment. A normative study may provide guidelines thatare logical and sustained but are not practical in the sense that they could not be implemented inan actual situation. For instance, it could be the case if my solutions were very costly or timeconsumingfor a company to follow. In fact, nothing would be wrong about that theory in a scientificsense. But in addition to being normative, the dissertation has a strategic imperative. I hope toindicate ways to improve issues management practice. Therefore, my conclusions should be relevantfor those companies. That is in line with good scientific research in public relations. Massy andWeitz have revealed: “Useful normative theory should prove solutions under typical conditions inactual practice.” (Vercic in Culbertson & Chin 1996: 33).At this stage, I should draw a line back to the dissertation’s hermeneutic paradigm and the socialconstructivist nature of issues. Constructivism neglects that there is one recipe for how companies’should react or issues be managed. Therefore, the normative objective of this dissertation is toequip companies’ to better understand issue debates and stakeholders reactions on the premisesof each context, issue or stakeholder relation. That clearly disqualifies any clear-cut list of how toreact in any situations in respect to all stakeholders.Part 1 | 17

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYGENERIC PRINCIPLESI could have chosen to research how issues management is conducted in different regions of theworld or towards specific stakeholders. Instead, I want to propose some generic principles for issuesmanagement across cultural differences. I can explain the difference between the two studiesthis way: Cross-cultural issues management would explain the difference between how issuesmanagement is conducted in one culture in comparison to another. Intercultural issues managementinvestigates how issues management is conducted between people or groups from differentcultures. Obviously, I investigate intercultural issues management.I essentially research an approach between cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. A cultural relativetheory would say that issues management must be conducted differently towards each culturalgrouping of stakeholders. Contrarily, an ethnocentric approach would maintain that one single approachis applicable even though it is couched in the cultural values of its origin. I do not deny thatdifferent forms of issues management can be found in different locations. But I maintain that all ofthese forms of practice will not be effective in helping companies to manage issues (Vercic, Grunigand Grunig in Culbertson and Chin 1996: 34). Companies need a way to identify and analyse issuesglobally without loosing sight of the cultural differences that will affect the response of differentstakeholders and how issues develop. Therefore, in searching for generic principles, I explore transcendentelements for excellent issues management across cultures rather than specific elementsfor issues management in specific cultures.The issues management literature has developed a number of generic principles for excellent issuesmanagement. I must essentially investigate in which ways these generic principles, and theirpremises and logic, change when practice takes place in a multicultural stakeholder environment incomparison to a stakeholder environment where less cultural diversity exist. Or in theoretical terms,when issues management moves to an intercultural context.EPISTEMOLOGYThe scientific objective of the dissertation guides my epistemological approach 7 . The scientific objectiveis to conceptualise generic principles for issues management in multicultural stakeholderenvironments. Furthermore, as the hermeneutic paradigm indicates, I must focus on providingcompanies with an understanding of issues (legitimacy gaps) in the interface between their actionsand the expectations by a multicultural set of stakeholders.THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESSIn order to be able to study specific aspects of public relations and issues management it is necessaryto first obtain an overall understanding. Andersen describes that only by an understanding ofthe entire field can we make a qualified analysis of the selected aspects of that field (1997: 250).That reflects the scientific process I have been through in my research, because I have studied avery large extent of more or les well-founded articles, books and reports about public relations,crisis management, issues management and culture before narrowing down my research focus.7 This chapter draws on Andersen 1997.18| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYI do not work with specific hypotheses. This is because research into intercultural aspects of issuesmanagement is very scarce. Contrarily, my research is aimed at finding such hypotheses through atheoretical as well as empirical analysis. The scientific process has to a large extent been explorative.The dissertation will follow a deductive process - the point of departure will be a theoretical analysis.I then test the deduced propositions on empirical case studies. When that is said, it is evidentthat no research follows a pure inductive or deductive epistemology. Both deliberately and unconsciously,the theoretical focus has been shaped by my empirical observations. But my approach ispredominantly deductive, which needs some further argumentation that I present below.THEORYIt is striking how an overwhelming amount of authors have criticised public relations and issuesmanagement for its lack of grounded theory and academic knowledge (Banks 1995: 3, Culbertson& Chin, 1996, Hultbrugge 2001: 105, Ihator 2001: 38). They have argued that this negatively influencesthe professionalisation of the field. The lack of a solid theoretical foundation is especially truein respect to international and intercultural aspects of public relations and issues management.Banks says:“Practitioners need more information about the nature of diversity and a clearertheoretical understanding of cultural variability and what it implies for public relationscommunication.” (Banks 1995: 3).Culbertson and Chin have directed one of the better books about international public relations andstate:“What is needed is a foundation of principles and assumptions that come fromscholarly research and theory building on what comprises effective practice ininternational public relations” (1996: 19). “…most articles on international publicrelations have been anecdotal or descriptive.”(…..) ”..scientifically non-serioussources.” (1996: 18).In reviews of curricula in public relations studies, Tooth (1999) as well as Taylor (2001) havepointed out that more attention must be directed to multiculturalism and international perspectives.From my own research, I can only agree with these opinions. At least half of the books and articlesI have been through have been too weak to provide anything but entertainment. Much literature isfocused on practical guides often ending with an uncritical conclusion or a list of 10 golden rules.From the remaining half of the literature, maybe 10 pct. passes the test as being theoreticallysound.Many public relations practitioners have considered theory too longhaired but such a statementreflects a lack of understanding of what constitutes theory. Theory is a set of more or less systematicand empirically tested experiences. Actually, much of the published material about issuesmanagement and public relations is very interesting and based on genuine experiences but it suf-Part 1 | 19

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYfers from a systematic account of the corner stones in good theory: What are the causes of thephenomena under investigation, what are their affect and under which conditions do they prevail?On that basis, I feel there is a need for a thorough and academically profound analysis of theoriesthat can contribute towards answering my research question. In the theoretical loophole, my scientificcontribution is to produce new knowledge about issues management in multicultural stakeholderenvironments. I have chosen to do this in two ways: One, by taking a deep dig into the varietyof issues management literature to identify parts that focus on the intercultural aspect. And two,investigate theories from related fields and apply them to issues management situations.The dissertation will draw on a number of different theorists. Nevertheless, some literature will bepredominant in the writing of the interdisciplinary theoretical analysis. Within issues management, Imainly draw on Robert L. Heath combined with Chase & Jones and Crabble & Vibbert as concernsspecific issues management techniques. Gudykunst’s framework of cultural theory and interculturalcommunication will be used and complemented with Ting-Toomey. And finally, Wartick & Wood willbe central to the parts focusing on stakeholder relation theory. The dissertation’s theoretical orientationis illustrated below:Issuesmanagement(Heath)Stakeholderrelations(Wartick & wood)Interdisciplinary theoretical analysisInt. cult. Com.(Gudykunst)Figure 6: Theoretical disciplinesCorneliussen says that there are three ways we can think of theory linked to practice in issuesmanagement: Instrumental, where we find concrete solutions to problems by extensive empiricalresearch. Conceptual, where we find general frames, views and concepts that practitioners use toform their world-views. Or translational, where the practitioner translates theory, reinterpret it andassigns it new meaning. My contribution must be a conceptual approach. From the conclusions inthis dissertation, issues managers may, I hope, enlarge their world-views of the complexity thatcomprises issues management in a multicultural stakeholder environment.EMPIRICAL RESEARCHFollowing the theoretical analysis, I will conduct an empirical study. Let me clarify how the empiricalstudy is linked to my research:Andersen reminds us that there are different ways to utilize empirical data. We can gather data andseek to explain or interpret it from existing theory. We can try to find data that can elaborate on andextend theories. Or we can use empirical data to modify or discard theory.In this dissertation, the empirical data will primarily serve to test the generic principles that I inferredfrom the theoretical analysis, which is the last of the above examples. It is important to underlinethat I do not seek to make a survey of how companies generally perform issues management20| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYacross cultural boundaries and/or evaluate their efforts. In accordance with what I stated in thedescription of “the normative study”:The empirical research seeks to fulfil the objective of testing normative conclusionsin real life practice.I acknowledge that my subjective research approach leads me, inevitably, to classify certain observationsas information and others as exformation. Exformation is the information that I, on an instinctivelevel or voluntarily, do not pay attention to. Therefore, the empirical study therefore notonly addresses whether conclusions from the theoretical analysis are valid. It also investigateswhether I have addressed the right questions in the theoretical analysis in the first place. Consequently,I remain open to new generic principles during the empirical research.Empirical data are different from theory in that it is new and unsystematised experiential observations.A part of the analysis will be supplemented by secondary data, primarily from articles in professionaljournals. Nevertheless, the far most significant part of the analysis will be based on personalinterviews with 6 large European corporations.Andersen shows that if the scientific objective is interpretive, it compels a qualitative study becauseI need to get insight into people’s own interpretations. As a result, all empirical data are qualitative.PERSONAL INTERVIEWSI have selected 6 companies with whom I conducted personal interviews during a period of twoweeks. In order to obtain a high degree of relevance, the selection criteria have been the following:a) The company has subsidiaries in multiple countriesb) The corporate communication/public relations department must deal with international issuesc) The interview must be with a representative from the headquarter6 very interesting companies both in terms of experience and excellence in communication and interms of presence in the Danish and international public sphere participated in interviews. Thecompanies are Lego, IKEA, SAS, Shell, Novo Nordisk and Grundfos.All interviewees work directly with communication/public relations activities. I deliberately chose tospeak to daily practitioners of issues management or communication, rather than with the head ofdepartment. My assumption was that on the basis of their hands-on experiences, they would bemost qualified to critically evaluate conclusions from the theoretical analysis.The interviews have been what Andersen calls semi-structured. On beforehand, I defined a set ofquestions and thereby influenced (provided stimuli for) the answers. At the same time, I left muchspace for new perspectives put forward by the respondents during the interview, which becomesevident reading through the summaries. Such an approach must be considered appropriate in thisdissertation in order to achieve a concrete and relevant validation of the theoretical conclusionsfrom part 2. At the same time, I acknowledge that important aspects of reality might have beensuppressed by this research technique. I noticed that many interesting comments were only putPart 1 | 21

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYforward after I had turned off the dictaphone. This underlines the fact that structured interviewsinevitably limit respondents to a certain extent.I did not ask all respondents identical questions. It is very sensible for company representatives tospeak about public issues. There was a great risk that simply questioning any sort of public issuewould generate too superficial answers. Consequently, during the interviews I made reference tosome concrete examples of issues that the company had been involved in lately. The intention wasto make questions easier to relate to. This methodology explains some of the inconsistency in theinterviews. In addition, the respondents often jumped ahead in my interview guide. It could havebeen overcome by, on beforehand, outlining the entire interview and interrupting if respondentswent outside the plan. Nevertheless, many questions necessitated reflections and interpretationsand I felt the best way to achieve such answers was to allow a large margin of freedom in the interviewprocedure. Moreover, it proved out to be challenging to get the respondents from a level ofdescribing issues and issues management to a level of reflection. I did succeed to reach that level,but I feel that I could have been even more persistent in obtaining thoughtful answers.It is important to underline that only one interview was conducted in each company. In the analysis,it became clear that the respondents’ background influenced the answers. Obviously, it would haveprovided a greater degree of validity if I had interviewed several people in each organisation. Nevertheless,as one person was in charge of issues management in the companies, I am far fromconvinced that interviews with several people in each company would have provided new andvaluable information. Also, the project plan did not leave time for such extensive empirical research.It can be questioned whether interviews with six companies are sufficient to evaluate my theoreticalconclusions. A larger sample of interviews would have provided an even greater amount of dataand perspectives. Nevertheless, the interviews do not function to validate the theoretical conclusionsin a representative way. One respondent’s interpretation of issues management is valid eventhough the other respondents do not share that picture of reality. Consequently, a greater sampleof respondents would not have increased the validity of my study. Also, it would have limited thepossibilities to go into an in-depth analysis of the interviews, which I do in Part 3. Nevertheless,during my empirical research, I became very inspired by the people I spoke to and I feel that Iwould have gained even greater knowledge of issues management had I conducted more interviews.I guess balancing time, resources and the envy to carry out in-depth research once captivatedby a subject is every researcher’s dilemma.ANALYSIS OF EMPIRICAL DATAI have found it challenging to analyse the empirical data. Interpretation is a creative process thatdemands structure and openness at the same time. Especially, it has been demanding to find thecorrect balance between viewing my interview persons as “experts” while critically assessing theircomments in the light of their background and position.First I categorised information from the interviews on the basis of propositions deduced from thetheoretical analysis. I extracted small entities in each interview that made sense on their own andsorted them according to these categories. Then, a second level of categorisation was made withsubcategories within each proposition. It demands great effort in terms of not staying too blinded by22| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND EPISTOMOLOGYthe framework I had developed through the theoretical analysis. While reading through the interviewsover and over again, suddenly new perspectives were drawn to light. As intendedm this finallyenabled a critical assessment of the theoretical conclusions.GENERAL VALIDITYMy objective is to go a step further than other literature about issues management in multiculturalstakeholder environments. I seek to outline a new framework; both on a theoretical researchagenda but also the possibilities it has in practice.That is a serious objective and I am conscious that my contribution towards that end has to be of asomewhat limited character. A six-month study that the SPRØK program assigns to the dissertationwriting does not leave resources for an exhaustive analysis. Nevertheless, I do not think that theobjective is too ambitious. Firstly, I will be able to question the applicability of existing issues managementprinciples in multicultural stakeholder environments. Secondly, I can propose how othertheoretical fields can supplement existing issues management literature in areas where it demonstratesdeficiencies. And thirdly, I can speak to companies that have experience with issues managementin intercultural contexts in order to validate my conclusions. I leave it to the individualreader to determine whether I have succeeded. But I would like to outline some of the validity criteriathat I should be judged from.I draw some theories and their concepts together that, normally, are not treated in relation. I takethe concepts out of their habitual context and put them into a new with the objective to enlighten aproblem, that there is no unequivocal answer to. Consequently, it is of supreme importance thatthere is coherence between the concepts and how I use them both on a theoretical and empiricallevel. This is the first criterion. Next, I must be able to say something new about the concepts andthe problem from my analysis. I have to stimulate my knowledge so that a new reality occurs thatcan lead towards further generation of knowledge. This should be a second criterion.Part 1 | 23

PART 224| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORETICAL ANALYSISINTRODUCTION TO THE THEORETICAL ANALYSISPart 1 has set the scene for the following pages of this dissertation. It demonstrated which keyconcepts should shape the research and it described them individually. Part 1 concluded that inorder to answer the research question, I should investigate in which ways the generic principlesbehind issues management, and their premises and logic, change when practice moves to a multiculturalstakeholder environment. Part 2 will work towards that end.First, part 2 takes a look at existing literature. Then, it moves on to describe what stakeholder theoryand intercultural communication can add to issues management. These two chapters will providea more profound understanding of intercultural issues management on a conceptual level,stated as the dissertation’s first aspiration in the research question. (Refer page 16). The remainingsection of part 2 will focus on the second aspiration. I take the reader through a critical analysis ofissues management practices and tools and assess their applicability in multicultural stakeholderenvironments.Part 2 | 25

EXISTING THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONEXISTING THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONExisting literature that deals with the interplay between culture and issues management employsdifferent methodologies and draws on different theoretical traditions. Below, I have conceptualisedthe literature in a matrix on the basis of how the authors approach the concept of “culture”.On the horizontal axes I divide the literature into their type of study:1. Intracultural studies. (Study of one culture’s influence on issues management practice)2. Cross-cultural studies. (Comparison of two cultures’ issues management practice)3. Intercultural studies. (Study of issues management practice between different cultures)On the vertical axes I divide the literature into their theoretical approach 8 :a. A structural functionalist culture approachb. An interpretive, critical approachPart 1 explained that I make an intercultural study and that I should approach “culture” from aninterpretive, critical angle. Thus, literature that appears in the lower right side of the tables is mostrelevant. Nevertheless, contributions from the structural functionalist approach can be interesting ifapproached in a critical manner.INTRA-CULTURALCROSS-CULTURALINTER-CULTURALSTRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISTTaylor: People respond differently tosame issues in different cultures.Nigh & Cochran: International issuesmanagement is different from nationalissues management because itspremises change.INTERPRETIVE/ CRITICALHeath: The company culture influences the perception of issues.Winter & Steger: Actions legitimate in one social environment maybe illegitimate in another. Stakeholders have different importance indifferent social environments.Banks: Issues management with multicultural activists must bebased on an interactive communication model and they should seekcommon ground of reference through genuine dialogue.Heath: Differences between activists and companies are based oncultures, which are “zones-of-meaning”. Dialogue makes theboundaries of “zones-of-meaning” constructivist. Compatible andincompatible zones-of-meaning” are at the basis of legitimacy gaps.Wilson: To function well internationally, we must redesign issuesmanagement within the context of “strategic cooperative communities”.That term refers to forums organised around an issue wherecompanies and stakeholders meet in order to discuss and reachcompromises between their opinions. (in Culbertson & Chin)Figure 7: Literature about issues management and cultureBelow I draw a second table containing literature that focus on public relations and culture. Someof the general conclusions from public relations may be interesting in issues management as well.8 In the prior chapter “Cultural Diversity” the reader may find an introduction to these two theoretical traditions.26| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

EXISTING THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONINTRA-CULTURALCROSS-CULTURALINTER-CULTURALSTRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISTKent & Taylor: Public relations literature is based on American assumptions.Taylor: Cultures influence public relations communication.Taylor and Vasquez: Principles for excellent public relations mirrorAmerican values.Vercic et all.: European definition of public relations does not distinguishbetween relations and communication as do Americans.Coombs: Some parts of public relations are different in Norway,Austria and the US.Culbertson and Chin: Public relations practice varies across nationalities.Grunig, Grunig, Sriramesh & Lyra: Principles for excellent publicrelations are also valid in India, Taiwan and Greece but need someadaptation.Grunig, Grunig and Vercic: Same as above in Slovenia.Leichty and Warner: People have different world-views to which areattached different cultural topoi. That can help to understand valuebaseddebates. Companies need to move beyond ethnocentrism.Ihator: Knowledge of cross-applicable dimensions of culture, likethose identified by Hofstede or Hall, is necessary to lead effectivepublic relations between cultures.Vercic 1996: To be excellent, public relations share some genericprinciples across cultures but needs a culture-specific implementation.Zaharna 2000: Communication-related activities of internationalpublic relations can be seen as a form of intercultural communication,but public relations also functions in an institutional frame.Zaharna 2001: Each public relations activity represents a higherlevel or complex pattern of several culturally mediated behaviours.Hidden cultural assumptions leads to ineffective public relations.INTERPRETIVE/ CRITICALBanks: 8 propositions for a socialinterpretivetheory of public relationsin international, activist,employee and community relations.Concerns, and those thatadvocate them, will keep changingand activism varies multiculturally.Consequently, the effectiverelationship for identifying andmanaging issues is based oninteractivity rather than proactivityor reactivity. It sees stakeholdersas collaborators and engages thecompany in dialogue wit its environment.Figure 8: Literature about public relations and cultureFirst of all, figure X and x illustrate that few texts actually deal with issues management and cultureat all. In addition, none of them investigates, as their primary objective, the relationship betweenculture and issues management. Culture appears as a secondary perspective among many otherperspectives in these publications. Heath makes the most important conclusion about culture andissues management by saying that issues may arise because companies and stakeholders are partof different “zones of meaning”.Each text has some interesting conclusions but the tables clearly demonstrate that the literatureseems more that a little chaotic and random. For sure, they do not fully equip issues managers tomanage issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. I can conclude that no existing theory orexhaustive study provides a satisfactory answer to this dissertation’s research question. Consequently,I will search a satisfactory answer by looking at other theoretical fields.Issues management is already an interdisciplinary discipline that draws on three academic underpinnings:system theory, rhetoric and social exchange (Heath 1997: x). My contribution will be tointroduce two new theoretical fields that I find equally relevant when we study issues managementin an intercultural context: Stakeholder relations and intercultural communication theory.Part 2 | 27

STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTSTAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTThe “legitimacy gap” figure on page 8 showed that issues arise from a conflict between parties.Earlier, I identified companies’ stakeholders as anyone or any organisation with a stake in thecompany. In the following, I research in which ways knowledge from stakeholder theory may supportissues management.ISSUE HOLDERSFirst of all, stakeholder theory can reveal to companies the variety of sources from which issuesmay arise and give these sources a name. That makes the identification of issues less random.Many companies tend to focus on a narrow set of stakeholders like customers, shareholders andemployees. While these are important, it is only a small percentage of issues that arise in that interface.Examples could be falling stock prises or diversity in the workplace. But the majority of issuesappear in other stakeholder relations. Stakeholder theory divides stakeholders into the transactionaland contextual environment. Stakeholders in the transactional environment can influencecompanies through direct business relations while groups that belong to the contextual environmenthave no direct market or business relations with companies and use other means of influence.The two dimensions are shown below 9 .GroupCustomersEmployeesSuppliersShareholdersCreditorsInsurancesTransactional environmentPossible demandsProduct quality,service, valueSecurity, compensation,job,satisfactionRegular payments,continuityof businessDividens, capitalgrowth, safeinvestmentInterest, securitycapitalSafe operations,safe productsPossible pressuretacticsPurchasing decisionsDeparture, negativepublicity, reducedperformanceRefusals to meetorders, supplying tocompetitorsVoting and inspectionrights, buyingand sellingRefusing loans,calling in loansRefusing insurancecoverage and cancellingcontractsContextual environmentGroup Possible demands Possible pressuretacticsGovernmentsNon-outside-pressure groupsTaxes, employment,environmental protectionLegislation, legalfinesMedia Fair information Bad publicitySocial activistgroupsConsumerorganisationsOutside pressure groupsEmployment, nodiscrimination, socialjusticeProduct quality,environmental protectionPublicising issues,lobbying, influencingconsumersPublicising issues,lobbying, influencingconsumersFigure 9: Stakeholder groups. Source: Winter & Steger, 1998: 12.Consequently, stakeholder theory adds the knowledge to issues management that obvious partners,like customers and shareholders, do not raise issues alone. Company performance also dependsupon other stakeholders in society like governments and interest groups.9 The figure cites far from all stakeholders and their possible demands and pressure tactics but it gives an impression aboutwhat some of those might be. Stakeholder theory says that each company must draw its individual map of stakeholders,their interest and pressure tactics.28| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTIn addition, stakeholder theory points to the downfalls of overseeing important stakeholders in foreignenvironments. Wartick and Wood explain that there are intercultural differences in stakeholderenvironments (1998: 107). Managers make mistakes if they assume that a domestic stakeholdermap will tell them all they need to know about international stakeholder relations. Both the mapitself and the importance of various stakeholders will differ from country to country. This way,stakeholder theory elaborates on the issues management literature by pointing to the internationalvariance in which stakeholders may be involved in issues.UNDERLYING INTERESTSSecondly, stakeholder theory can lead companies to better understand the interests that drivestakeholders to support or attack specific company actions or policies. In the introduction to issues,I stated that interests are key to understand issues and why they arise. Wartick & Wood identifiessix stakeholder interests:Material int. Political int. Affiliative int. Informational Int Symbolic int. Spiritual int.Tangible or fungible.Financial ornon-financialDistribution anduses of wealthand power betweencompanyand public or incompany.Company fit withlocal communityvalues. Desire to“belong” to samesocial group aspeople in companyGreater transparency.Searchnews, facts,opinions, data,research findings.Broader concernwith company’simage in community.Conformitywith national orcultural values.Deep-meanings,religious or philosophicalvalues.Often underlieethical conflicts.Figure 10: Stakeholder interests. Source: Own with inspiration from Wartick & Wood 1998: 99.Wartick and Wood say that stakeholder interests are as intricate and broad as human interests. Aregular committed mistake by many companies is to debate an issue from a single or wrong perspective– predictably, from the material side. Instead, stakeholders’ interests may be political oraffiliative. This is illustrated in the Novo Nordisk case about access to medicine in third world countries.In the beginning, Novo Nordisk focused their communication on protection of patent rights.Confronted with pictures of African children with AIDS in the television, many stakeholders putpressure on Novo Nordisk on the basis of political interests, notwithstanding that Novo Nordiskproduces insulin and not AIDS medicine. Later, Novo Nordisk changed their argumentation.(Børsens Nyhedsmagasin 2001: 14).Consequently, this or similar lists from stakeholder theory describes the variety of underlying intereststhat may lead stakeholders to come forward in an issue debate. By use of this knowledge,issues managers may be able to increase their understanding of different perspectives in issuedebates.PRIORITISATION BETWEEN ISSUESThirdly, stakeholder theories can help issues managers to prioritise between issues. Some stakeholdersare more important to the company that others and some have greater clout in the publicdebate. Companies cannot be everything to everybody – their approach has to be strategic.Mitchel, Agle and Wood (in Wartick and Wood 1997) have proposed a model that can help compa-Part 2 | 29

STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTnies understand and predict if stakeholders become important. According to Mitchel, Agle andWood, three attributes determine stakeholder action:! The legitimacy of the group’s standing as a stakeholder or of its claim on the form! The power of the stakeholder to influence behaviour! The urgency of the stakeholder’s claim.If stakeholders possess all three attributes they are core stakeholders. Also, stakeholders are increasinglyimportant the more they retain of each attribute, Mitchel, Agle and Wood say.That framework can also be valuable in issues management. An analysis of relative stakeholderimportance will help issues managers to assess which stakeholder that are likely to put pressure onthe organisation in public debates and consequently which issues that will attract most attention.This is very important for issues managers to acknowledge because it indicates that not only thenature of the issue itself decides whether it may mature into a public relations crises for the company.The position of the issue holder – the stakeholder – is just, if not more, important.In many organisations, issues managers instinctively make such analyses. It is clear, that a claimcoming from Greenpeace, a global and very influential environmental organisation, will achievemore attention by an issues manager than an issue raised by a local environmental organisation.But too often, for example when it comes to prioritise between shareholders and other stakeholders,the issues manager’s prioritisation is made on the basis of whom the company normallycaters to (Winter & Steger 1998: 11). All the same, it is critical that proper analysis designs arelacking from issues management theories. Prioritisation between issues on the basis of relativestakeholder influence should take place on an explicit and structured level. In the end, this will increaseissues managers’ possibility of effectively preventing public relations crisis.UNIFIED AND CONFLICTING OPINIONSKnowledge about relations between stakeholders is another thing to draw from stakeholder theory.In some issues, different stakeholders will have competing interests that the company must balance.When Nestlé was criticised because its infant milk formula proved to be harmful to babies inmany third world countries, many competing interests were at play. Stakeholder expectations areoften pulling in opposite directions.Thus, I propose that issues managers could manage issues more successfully if they not onlycommunicate about the company position towards an issue but also informs about stakeholders’competing interests. This may move focus from the company or at least create an understanding inthe public for dilemmas the company faces.Additionally, stakeholders may come forward with competing demands simultaneously, in whichcase managers can give different attention to different side of issues.In other cases, stakeholders may unify to take a common stand against the company. This meansthat an issue raised by a rather insignificant stakeholder may need careful attention by the issuesmanager if the stakeholder is unified with some of the company’s most important stakeholders.30| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTTherefore, the analysis of issues should involve not only identification of the issue owners – thestakeholders – but also the web of relations that exist in the company’s entire stakeholder environment.This is an important contribution from stakeholder relations theory to the issues managementliterature.STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTI propose that the risk of global public relations conflicts and bad media coverage diminish if issuesmanagement seeks fruitful stakeholder dialogue and builds sustainable relations with stakeholders.This is even more essential when the stakeholder environment is multicultural. In that case, there iseven greater need for close stakeholder relationships where companies and different stakeholderstrough dialogue can reach mutual understanding of expectations and values that may be very diverse.STAKEHOLDER AMutual understanding of issuesCOMPANY XFigure 11: The aim of stakeholder dialogue. Source: OwnLaurie J. Wilson is one advocator for this argument. She writes:“Undoubtedly, conflicts will arise. Even in a cooperative environment, participantsdisagree. Nevertheless, when priority is placed on relationships, participantsare much more effective in developing compromises that benefit all communitymembers.” (Wilson in Culbertson & Chin 1996: 77)jWilson proposes a relationship model that she names “strategic cooperative communities”. Strategiccooperative communities are centred on a specific issue and involve parties having a stake inthat particular issue. In the community, parties discuss and exchange information and viewpoints.Wilson lists a number of characteristics on which the community must be build in order to be successful(In Culbertson & Chin 1996: 76):! Trust. Trust is a prerequisite for cooperation and a tangible result of relationships. Further,credibility emanates from the fundamentals of trust. Trust and credibility must be maintainedconscientiously and requires time and patience.! Predictability. The degree to which a member’s actions can be predicted is an indicator of therelationship’s strength. Greater predictability provides better opportunities to cooperate for mutualbenefit and thus to solve an issue to the benefit of all involved parties.! Mutual interest. Communities must be organised around issues that typify interests. It is meaninglessto create communities with stakeholders not having a real interest in the central issue.Part 2 | 31

STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT! Mutual gratification, or benefit. Issues managers must never try to manipulate the group foranything but a win-win situation. All participants must be benefactors as well as givers.! Proximity. Members need to be able to access each other easily. Today, this is not necessarilygeographical but can be by use of modern information technology.Consequently, stakeholder theory proposes that companies build strategic cooperative communitieswith stakeholders involved in a particular issue. The communities should be characterised bythe five values listed above. The ultimate goal of such stakeholder relations and dialogue is to createmutual understanding between companies and stakeholders. A key attribute for issues managementwill be the ability to early identify issues and closely monitor their development. In addition,solutions to issues can often be found that satisfy all publics if people work together with awillingness to compromise for the benefit of the community. Thus, I hold that creation of strategiccooperative communities could enforce the issues management process both in the identification,analysis and response. This way, a company may be able to solve an eventual disagreement longbefore it penetrates the public sphere.SUMMING UPTheory about stakeholder relations has much to offer to issues management. Issues managementfalls short in thoroughly defining which groups of people the company is dealing with. For that purposethe stakeholder concept is more precise.An issue may arise between a company and everyone or any organisation that have a stake in acompany. Issues are not “islands” in the public sphere. They exist because individuals or organisationsbring them forward. Thus, through this chapter I have argued that issues should not be studiedisolated from the different parties in the debate and their interests – the issue holders or simplythe stakeholders.Company-stakeholder relations are more complex and difficult but also richer and potentially morerewarding in multicultural contexts. Multicultural stakeholder environments are characterised by adiversity of values, expectations and interests. In order to accurately identify and analyse issuesand respond in an effective manner, issues manages will need a profound understanding of involvedstakeholders. I propose that an enhanced understanding of stakeholders can lead companiesto more successful issues management practices in multicultural stakeholder environments. Inaddition, such an understanding may be rewarding for the company in the long run and improvefuture issues management practices and business activities.On the basis of the interdisciplinary theoretical analysis, I conclude that at least four elements ofstakeholder theory can move communication practitioners towards a more profound understandingof issues and issues management. Again, these can be translated into to some principles for effectiveissues management practice, which are listed in the figure below.32| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTMore profoundunderstandingof issuesmanagementIssue holders - stakeholders- both reside inthe close businessenvironment (contextual)and the largersocietal environment(transactional). Stakeholdersmay differconsiderably acrosscultures.A variety of interestslead stakeholders toraise issues. Stakeholderinterests areoften different fromcompany interests.Interests can be material,political, affiliative,informational, symbolic,spiritual or other.Stakeholders havedifferent importanceto companies. Theirpotential influence ina public issue debatevary due to differencesin their power,legitimacy and urgency.Stakeholders haveinternal relationsindependently of thecompany. Stakeholdersmay competeor unify in specificissues and mutuallyinfluence each other.Propositionfor stakeholderanalysis inissues managementIdentify issue holders -stakeholders - from boththe contextual andtransactional stakeholderenvironment.Create individual mapsof stakeholders in differentcultural settings.Investigate underlyinginterests that leadstakeholders to raiseissues. Group theminto for examplematerial, political,affiliative, informational,symbolic orspiritual interests.Sustain a strategicprioritisation of issuesby assessing stakeholders’potentialinfluence through ananalysis of the power,legitimacy and theurgency of theirdemands.Identify the web ofrelations that exist inthe company’s entirestakeholder environmentand use suchmapping in the issueanalysis.PropositionforimplementationCreate sustainable stakeholder dialogue with stakeholders involved in key issues with the aim of exchanginginformation about issues and finding common solutions to them. Possibly use the model of“strategic cooperative communities”. Base the communities on the minimum characteristics of trust,predictability, mutual interests, mutual gratification or benefit and proximity.As the last box in the model explains, stakeholder theory proposes to issues management thatsustainable stakeholder dialogue is an effective way to gain better understanding of stakeholdersand thereby of issues. More specifically, the chapter has explored one relationship model labelled“strategic cooperative communities”. It distinguishes itself from other models by organising membersaround key issues. In addition, it is based on core principles of trust, mutual interests andmutual benefit. These principles are at the heart of issues management. I propose that buildingstrategic cooperative communities with stakeholders could strengthen companies’ issues managementpractice in multicultural stakeholder environments. Again, this can reduce the risk of crisisfor the business organisation.Stakeholder theory suggests that measurements of effectiveness in intercultural issues managementare abilities to accurately define stakeholders involved in issues, understand their interests,their possibilities of influence and their web of contacts. This should be coupled with the ability tobuild sustainable relations and dialogue with them. Such skills will equip issues managers to moresuccessfully reduce the risk of crises for the business organisation.Part 2 | 33

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTINTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTIn this chapter, I investigate in which ways theories of intercultural communication may supportissues management. I mainly draw on Gudykunst that is one of the pioneers within interculturalcommunication research (Gudykunst & Kim 1992; Gudykunst 2002).Intercultural communication involves communication between people from different cultures(Gudykunst 2002: 19). Intercultural communication theory can help us to understand what is specialabout issues management when it involves parties that are culturally diverse. Let me explainwhy:Heath points out that as companies and stakeholders begin to form opinions about an issue theyengage in intentional or unintentional communication. In that process, they come to share “evaluativeframeworks” with groups and unify with them in order to advocate their interests. Other groupswill have conflicting ideas. These last groups and the company then become part of different“zones of meaning” that lead them to form different opinions. (Heath 1997: 43). I attempt to replaceHeath’s notion of “zones of meaning” with that of “culture”. Actually, in the concluding chapter of hislatest very comprehensive book on issues management, Heath opens this possibility himself:“…we can see the challenge of issues management as being the satisfactoryreconciliation of conflicts that results from a clash of cultures – that of the organizationbeing represented and those of key publics whose expectations arisefrom cultural perspectives that are or at least seem to be different from those ofthe organization.” (1997: 364). “The agenda that arises from this array of perspectivemay lead us to refine our views of how corporate organizations….andother groups of stakeholders enact their self-interests…..so that opportunitiescan be exploited and threats avoided.”(…) “…the key to this process is thekinds of evaluative frameworks that operate as compatible or incompatiblezones of meaning.”(…) “These zones influence….and rationalize that kinds ofactions that are seen to be responsible or irresponsible.” (1997: 365)From the quotes, I understand that companies and stakeholders have different cultures (compatibleor incompatible zones of meaning) and consequently form different opinions (evaluative frameworks)about issues. So culture leads them to advocate a stand on an issue. Culture impacts theiropinion and provides the logic for that decision.I need to ask if the substitution of Heath’s notion of “zones of meaning” with that of “culture” actuallytakes us towards a more profound understanding of issues management in a multiculturalstakeholder environment? I believe so. Cultural theory and intercultural communication explain indepth the process by which cultures are created and how they influence opinion-making, actions,behaviour and communication pursued by companies and stakeholders in relation to issues. Interculturalcommunication theory may help us to understand sources of eventual agreement of disagreementthat lie beneath an issue. Such a deeper understanding can lead companies to takeadvantage of agreements and countervail the negative consequences of disagreement betweenthe business organisation and its environment.34| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTThe communicative aspect of intercultural communication is relevant because in addition to beingstrategic management, issues management is a communicative activity between companies andstakeholders (Heath 1990: 29). In saying this, I see communication in its broadest sense as aprocess that takes place both intentionally and unintentionally. All behaviour, verbal as non-verbal,between parties is communication. Zaharna argues, and I agree, that by breaking down publicrelations activities into communication elements, we can depict hidden cultural facets.“From an intercultural perspective, each public relations activity represents ahigher-level or complex pattern of several culturally-mediated behaviours. It isbecause of this complexity that public relations practices are ripe for hiding culturalassumptions. However one can expose cultural assumptions by breakingthese complex activities into basic communication components.” (Zaharna2001: 142).VALIDITYWhen undertaking the interdisciplinary analysis, it quickly becomes evident that intercultural communicationis a phenomenon while issues management is a process employed by practitioners – aprofession. I recognise that not all parts of the intercultural communication theory are valid whenstudying issues management. The majority of intercultural communication theory sets a person ateach end of the communication process. In my approach, I substitute the person for a companyand a stakeholder. It is debatable whether such a substitution is feasible.The question must be whether the same factors influence inter-group communication as interpersonalcommunication. In inter-group communication we cannot look at cognition at the personallevel alone. We also need to understand how information is processed through each group in theend forming a common response. At first, information is processed through representatives fromeach group (the personal level). But within a group, the final meaning or opinion (the group’s standin relation to an issue) is, in addition to personal cognition, based on power, institutional, economicand other structures in that group. Issues managers operate within a business organisation thatshapes the way they behave and the objectives they seek. They also function within a broaderinstitutional frame being subject to laws, economic measures, policies etc. (Zaharna 2000: 10).Below, I try to illustrate some contextual factors shaping the issues management practice.INSTITUTIONAL SYSTEMState-to-state relationsINTERNAL SYSTEMMain objectivesPolitical ideologyMedia developmentLevel of economicdevelopmentType of internationalpresenceManufacturing/ operationsIssuesManagersMarketingactivitiesOrganisationalstructureProductcharacteristicsSocietal toleranceStrengths of labour unionsRelation gov-businessOther factorsFigure 12: The internal and institutional context of issues management. Source: ownPart 2 | 35

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTAs Zaharna has pointed out, we can use intercultural communication theory to study the communication-relatedactivities of issues management but we must understand the broader frame issuesmanagement operates within. It is not my objective to show how the contextual factors influenceissues management. But in the remaining, I recognise that other dynamics but cultural causesshould be taken into consideration when explaining stakeholders’ and companies’ different standsand behaviour in respect to issues. In focusing on cultural aspects, I do not claim that other elementsare irrelevant.BASICS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIONHaving clarified this difference, I now turn to the interdisciplinary analysis. In the chapter “culturaldiversity” on page 13, I showed that culture should be conceptualised as our “system of knowledge”that determines how we understand and interpret things we experience.Basically, intercultural communication theory holds that the way we communicate and perceivecommunication is conditioned by our culture. Consequently, when we communicate across cultures,there are differences in how we communicate and the sense we make of that communication.Gudykunst shows this in his central model of intercultural communication, which elaborates onthe model I drew on page 14. He attempts to ground the communication process not only in theenvironmental context but also in relation to the cultural influences that affects the sender and receiver’scoding and decoding of messages.AGen. cultureSocioculturePsychocultureESystem ofknowledgeDEnvironmental ContextMessage/FeedbackMessage/FeedbackBGen. cultureSocioculturePsychocultureDSystem ofknowledgeEE= Encoding of messagesD= Decoding of messagesEnvironmental ContextFigure 13: Intercultural Communication. Source: Gudykunst 1992: 33Gudykunst’s model becomes useful in this dissertation because through its systematic methodology,I can study issues management as a sort of intercultural communication. First, I investigatecultural influences on the cognition of issues (the process within each circle). Then, I examine culturalinfluences on issues communication between companies and stakeholders (the lines betweenthe circles).36| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTCULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTIONGENERAL CULTURAL FILTERThe outer filter, the general cultural influences, refers to! Values, which are shared perceptions of desired ends of social life and the means to reachthese goals. Values indicate what is good and bad, important and unimportant.! Norms and rules that determine what we see as acceptable and unacceptable behaviour andexpected behaviours for particular situations.If we look at why issues arise, the legitimacy gap model illustrated that they originate from a disparitybetween expectations and corporate behaviour - differences in facts, values and interests. AsNäsi & Näsi has shown, legitimacy is “a social construct based on cultural norms for corporatebehaviour” (1997: 300). Consequently, corporate legitimate behaviour in one culture may be perceivedas illegitimate in another. Legitimacy is not an abstract definition about what is “right” but asocial perception about what constitute legitimate actions and policies. Heath shows that this is truein the relation between activists and companies:“Each activist group develops its unique view of what ought to be”….“Suchgroups form a culture that views the world and evaluates business activities interms that may be at odds with preferences of company executives.” (1997:158)As Wartick and Wood argue, the principles of corporate social responsibility are not particularlyculture-bound. Principles in the global market place or with regard to any stakeholder are the sameand refer to 1) society is a source of legitimacy and can withdraw that legitimacy; 2) business arenot responsible for all problems, but for the ones they have caused; 3) business managers havepersonal responsibilities for their own acts (1998: 76). What is culturally bound is what we put intothose principles, i.e. what constitute legitimate corporate performance and the way companieschoose to address them. Consequently, the first thing to conclude is that legitimacy is culturallybound. It becomes obvious that if the stakeholder environment is multicultural, the likelihood thatissues will arise increases simply because there will be more diversity in terms of what is seen aslegitimate corporate behaviour and what is not.The cultural anchor of legitimacy is also extremely important for how companies must manageissues. The arguments that stakeholders use in a debate may seem unsustained, wrongly definedor inconsistent in the eyes of the company. Often, arguments are not based on logic and lack scientificor technical justification. The essential thing is whether they have plausibility in the eyes ofstakeholders and the general public and match their values (Winter & Steger 1998: 34). The BrentSpar incident is evidence of that. Before deciding on the sea dumping, Shell conducted 30 studieson possible options that concluded that sea dumping would cause the least harm to the environmentin addition to being most cost-effective. Despite this, environmental activists and eventuallymost of the general public strongly opposed Shell’s decision. Shell’s norms were based on scientificlogic (we have to dump it in some way or the other and have chosen the least environmentallyharmful option) while the activists were acting upon more emotional norms (it is unacceptable todump an oil platform into the sea and cause damage on sea life). It is also striking that there wasPart 2 | 37

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTno political opposition to the decision, when Shell first went public with it because many politicianswere able to buy into Shell’s logic argument. The political response only occurred after criticismfrom activist stakeholders. (Winter & Steger 1998: 16).By looking at “general cultural influences” it is possible to see that some issues will occur in multiculturalstakeholder environments that would never arise in so-called unicultural environments. Thisis due to the fact that we generally distinguish between one-sided and two-sided topics (Nielsen2000: 29). To be an issue, a topic must be two-sided, i.e. there must be at least two conflictingarguments. Issues can be one-sided, let us say, in Scandinavian countries and two-sided in theMiddle East because the two regions experience differences in norms, rules and values. It followsthat if companies are not aware of those differences, they may consider an issue “dead”, while infact in may turn into a crisis. Nielsen explains an example:“The modern debate over feminism could be considered as an example of howsome groups try to define feminism as a zero-sided topic (“feminism is oldfashionedand irrelevant, drop it”), while others strive to define it as a one-sidedtopic (“we still do not have equal rights between sexes, let us discuss why”).And in other cultures it is a two-sided topic (“should we have equal rights betweensexes at all”).” (Nielsen 2000: 32) 10On the basis of extensive research, Coates, Coates, Jarratt and Heinz found that companies veryoften “downplay or deny deep-seated, lasting, and insoluble conflicts associated with its activitiesor re-interpret those conflicts as problems” (1986: 19). To stay with Nielsen’s terminology, they seeissues as zero-sided or one-sided. They automatically seek out definitive answers and solutions.Ignorance of the general cultural filter that shape companies and their different stakeholders respectivelyincreases that tendency, which, again, reduces organisations’ ability to anticipate emergingissues or even deal with them in an effective manner.Next, Gudykunst says that knowledge of strangers’ values can help us make more accurate culturalpredictions about their behaviour. Values indicate what is good and bad, important and unimportant.That supposition can enlarge our understanding of issues management. Many issues occurbecause of a disparity in “desired ends of social life and the means to reach these goals.” Thinkof work-related issues about race or sex or about an issue like child labour, which many Westerncompanies have had to solve in East Asia.The conclusion to draw from this chapter is that knowledge of stakeholders’ values helps companiesto better anticipate issues and stakeholders’ actions. If a company has some knowledge aboutits various stakeholders’ values or simply is conscious that diversity of values may exist, it will beable to see more faces of an issue and if not sympathise with stakeholders then at least understandtheir reactions. Ultimately, this should lead towards more effective issues management.Gudykunst also shows that norms and rules guide our behaviour. By understanding strangers’ aswell as our own norms and rules, we communicate more effectively, he holds. Norms and rulesguide what we think we or others “ought to be doing”. Definitely, many issues arise because ofdifferent perceptions of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in specific situations. To mention10 Translated from Danish38| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTan example: Is it acceptable to employ underage workers? Or even to get supplies from companiesthat do so? Opinions about that question are influenced by norms and rules in our culture. Thus,the last conclusion must be that if companies pay attention to stakeholders’ norms and rules theyshould be able to conduct better issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments.SOCIOCULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTIONThe second conceptual filter in Gudykunst’s model, sociocultural influences, refers to:! Memberships of social groups, which can be nations, companies, organisations or racial, ethnic,social class etc. It is any group with which we share factual characteristics (age, wage leveletc.), or value orientation (egalitarianism, environmental protection, pacifism etc.).! Role expectations, which signify “a set of behavioural expectations associated with a particularposition in a social group” (Gudykunst 1992: 75). It could be in terms of the occupational role,(an accountant should act differently than a human resource manager in the same company),managerial position or other. It guides how formal we think we should be, if we are high or lowin the hierarchy etc.! Self-conceptions that involves a process of self-categorisation where we group ourself intocategories with others that we see as similar on some dimensions. The perceived similarity is amajor factor deciding who we like to approach in communication.The sociocultural filter provides a more profound understanding of issues in multicultural stakeholderenvironments. Different parties in a public debate often come from different socio-culturalgroups like companies versus activists, NGOs, politicians etc. Gudykunst’s theory shows thatmembership of groups leads us to ascribe different meaning to the same issues. In addition, roleexpectations guide assumptions and prejudices that companies may hold towards other parties in adebate. A representative from an activists organisation may expect a manager from a multinationalcompany to only think of increasing profit while the manager may believe the activists lacks understandingof the conditions companies have to comply with to survive. Consequently, since rolestend to vary across cultures, it is necessary for issues managers to know stakeholders’ role expectationsif they are to understand and accurately predict their behaviour and manage issues effectively.The self-categorisation aspect also influences companies’ approach to issues. From Gudykunst’stheory I infer that it is a natural tendency for companies to approach stakeholders that somehowshare similar value orientations and worldviews. If companies are unaware of this fact, they mayundeliberately avoid engaging with stakeholders that are critical towards the organisation. Suchstakeholder engagement is paramount in order to detect issues in an early phase and managethem once occurred. From Gudykunst’s theory I can deduce that if companies are to mange issueseffectively, they must understand the way stakeholders categorise relationships and the expectationsthey have for people in each category. Without this knowledge they cannot correctly interpretor make accurate sociocultural predictions about stakeholders’ behaviour or resolve any conflictsthrough the issues management practice.PSYCHOCULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTIONThe last filter in Gudykunst’s model is the psychocultural influences, which refer to:Part 2 | 39

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT! The way information is ordered. It includes our stereotypes and attitudes that lead us to categorisepeople and make predictions about their behaviour. We treat data in a cognitive processwhere we both make generalisations and particularisations.What Gudykunst calls social stereotypes is very interesting when discussing issues management.The term refers to the stereotypes we share with other members of our so-called in-groups - inother words, the stereotypes that companies may rely on with regard to specific stakeholders andtheir representatives. Stereotypes tell different parties in an issue debate what representatives fromthe other parties are like or are supposed to be like.First, stereotyping originates in a tendency to overestimate the association between people’s behaviourand their membership of a specific cultural group. Companies may be too quick to ascribesome people’s reactions to the fact that they are from France, from a political party, from a NGO,from a specific company etc. Second, issues managers may tend to remember more favourableinformation about “in-groups” than about groups that are culturally very different from the company.There is a risk that messages from culturally very diverse stakeholders will be interpreted negatively.That is often the case when activist organisations put pressure on companies. Last, stereotypescreate self-fulfilling prophecies. If companies are not aware of the stereotyping process, theytend to see behaviour that substantiates their expectations and they disconfirm evidence of theopposite. As time passes, the company may end up with a misleading and erroneous perception ofits environment.It is common logic that companies’ initial predictions about other parties’ behaviour must be basedon some stereotype anchored in previous experiences or knowledge. To the degree the stereotypesare accurate, they are helpful in understanding conflicting opinions about an issue. Contrarily,if stereotypes are inaccurate they can lead to misinterpretations of stakeholders’ viewpoints 11 .Gudykunst writes:“In order to increase our effectiveness in communicating with strangers, weneed to increase the complexity of our stereotypes and question our unconsciousassumption that most members of a group fit a single stereotype.” (1992:93).I can conclude that the ability for issues mangers to first of all be conscious about the stereotypesthey hold and secondly constantly question if the stereotypes are correct will lead to a more effectiveissues management practice. They must particularise, rather than categorise, informationabout others, that is look closely at the unique attribute, attitudes and behaviour of each stakeholderbefore making predictions about them (Gudykunst 1992: 25).Ethnocentrism is another aspect within the “psychocultural filter” of relevance to issues management.Ethnocentrism refers to our tendency to view our own cultural values and behaviour as morereal or right (Gudykunst 1992: 95). Undeliberate, we measure other groups on the basis of our ownstandards and our own ways of doing things are often seen as superior. In order to lead effectiveissues management, companies must try to avoid such ethnocentrism because it blocks under-11 For further knowledge of the very interesting process of stereotyping refer to Gudykunst 1992: 91ff.40| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTstanding and exclude any hope of a mutually beneficial stakeholder relationship. Since it is naturalto be ethnocentric, issues managers must control affective responses when they communicate withdifferent stakeholders about an issue or strive towards some degree of cultural relativism whenthey analyse stakeholder behaviour.ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE PERCEPTIONGudykunst’s notion of environmental influences refers to elements surrounding the communicationlike place and setting. When discussing issues management, I wish to take that notion one stepfurther and characterise the environment as the public sphere. As I described on page 9, issuesoccur in the public sphere through the media, the public and the political agendas.Gudykunst says that the environment influences our perception of tings. The environmental influenceon cognition has been subject to extensive studies in the communication literature (Frandsen,Johansen & Nielsen 1997) Indeed, it holds true for issues communication as well. It makes senseto say that the conditions under which issues are debated in the public sphere influence the issuesmanagement practice. Does the issue debate take place in the medias? If so, in which kind of medias?Or does it take place in a stakeholder forum or a network set up by international organisations?If so, is it held at a company, or in a neutral setting? All these questions have a huge impacton the way people will perceive issues.I can conclude that to make accurate predictions about stakeholders’ reactions about an issue andcorrectly interpret their behaviour, issues managers must know how the person with whom they arecommunicating defines the setting in which the communication is taking place.DEGREES OF CULTURAL DIVERSITYAs explained in the introduction to cultural diversity, Gudykunst operates with the concept of the“stranger” referring to any person or group from which we feel culturally different. He cites Schutz’sdescription of the stranger:“…this is a shared world, it is an intersubjective one. For the native, then, everysocial situation is a coming together not only of roles and identities, but also ofshared realities – the intersubjective structure of consciousness. What is takenfor granted for the native is problematic for the stranger.” (Gudykunst & Kim1992: 20).The stranger concept is not fixed but variable. We may perceive some groups as culturally diversebut with a little degree of strangeness, while others may represent a large degree of strangeness tous. The degree of strangeness is determined by the extent to which we share elements in the conceptualfilters with the group we confront.From Gudykunst’s work, it becomes clear that it makes no sense to speak of culturally diverse andculturally similar stakeholders. Studied in detail, every stakeholder will represent some sort of culturaldiversity compared to the company. Therefore, it only makes sense to speak of degrees ofcultural diversity and for that purpose Gudykunst’s stranger concept becomes valuable. The extentPart 2 | 41

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTto which companies’ and stakeholders’ conceptual filters (general culture, socioculture and psychoculture)vary, will determine the point of strangeness between them.CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON ISSUE COMMUNICATIONAbove, I have described the conceptual filters that compose our culture and how a thorough understandingof these filters may lead issues managers to more effective practice in multicultural stakeholderenvironments. Now, I turn to the communication process between representatives from differentcultures (the lines between the circles in the intercultural communication model). Gudykunstsays that our“….culture provides us with patterned ways of dealing with information in theenvironment. It influences what we perceive, how we interpret, and how we respondto messages both verbally and nonverbally. Cultures shapes and colorsour image of reality and conditions the way we think. (1992: 133)That tells us that culture conditions how companies and stakeholders perceive issues, interpretthem, and respond to them. In order to understand how we have to look at the two processes framingcommunication – encoding and decoding.Encoding refers to the fact that in order to transmit them to others, we put messages into codesthat can generally be understood as verbal (language) and nonverbal (gestures, forms) codes.Language is not merely a medium of expression. What we say is loaded with implicit understandings.That is both in terms of actual wording and inherent discourses 12 .That is interesting for issues management. When a company wants to communicate its opinionabout an issue, it does so through either words or action. From the intercultural communicationtheory, we can learn that when a company communicates verbally, language differences have ahuge impact on the issue communication. This way it becomes important for issues managers toacknowledge the cultural and subcultural variations in the social meaning of verbal behaviour. Obviously,knowledge of other languages can lead issues managers to better understand other cultures.That also includes developing an ability to feel empathy and patience for people or stakeholdergroups whose primary language and modes of verbal behaviour is different from the company’sown. It could be a stakeholder that does not speak the “company language”, like an activistorganisation using sentimental and expressive terms. Paying attention to verbal differences enablesthe issues manager to study issues from multiple perspectives instead of an ethnocentricposition.Nonverbal encoding of messages plays a similar important role in how well the communicationflows between parties. Different cultures display emotions differently. They also differ in the type ofcontact they favour – face-to-face/impersonal, frequent/infrequent etc. Synchronisation, which refersto the sequence of messages, plays a role as well. Respondents that are culturally very differ-12 I will not elaborate any further on the link between language and culture. Refer for example to Tae-Seop Lim, “Languageand Verbal Communication Across Cultures” in Willam B. Gudykunst & Bella Mody’s International and Intercultural Communication,Sage Publications, London, 2002.42| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTent from us tend to have other expectations in terms of synchronisation and lack of synchronisationrenders the communication ineffective.These observations are highly relevant for issues management. Do companies approach stakeholdersby means of face-to-face communication, telephone, letter or other communication methods?Stakeholders will have different expectations about the type of communication. In addition,there are important differences in emotions build into the issues communication. Think of the BrentSpar issue again. Greenpeace and other activists were playing highly on the emotional side whileShell focused on scientific elements. Likewise, synchronisation is relevant for issues communication.If some stakeholders expect the company to react and it fails to do so, it most often leads tonegative impressions. This analysis leads me to conclude that in order to conduct effective issuesmanagement in multicultural stakeholder environments, practitioners must pay attention to accuratelyinterpret nonverbal behaviour and adjust accordingly.The second process in intercultural communication is decoding. It refers to our interpretations ofmessages. Attribution is the sense we make of people who are smiling, crying or shaking theirheads or how we understand their words. Naturally, we try to make sense of the world by attributingmeaning to what we perceive. The attribution process is social in its origin and we share ourway of making attributions with members of our culture (Hewstone & Jaspars 1984; Gudykunst &Kim 1992: 138). Consequently, there are differences in the attribution process between differentcultures.This tells us a lot about how different parties perceive issues or issues communication. Heath explainsthat different parties may hold contradictory opinions about an issue because they do notmake the same sense of the world. When companies or stakeholders make sense of an issue itinvolves a process of reality construction that allows them to see and understand events, actions,objects or situations in distinctive ways. Heath’s point-of-view is in line with the hermeneutic paradigmthat I discussed on the introductory pages (page. 7). I stated that I examine issues as a sensemakingprocess by companies and stakeholders and I wanted to look at the meaning that differentactors in the debate attach to issues, the difference between their meaning ascriptions andwhat intentions that drive them. Companies have to get insight into other stakeholders’ own interpretationof issues. Only by doing that, they will be able to anticipate future issues and understandtheir environment’s response once an issue has caught public attention.As the intercultural communication theory describes the attribution process as linked to culture, it ispossible to conclude that issues managers need to step beyond their own cultural line of thinking inorder to get that important insight into stakeholders’ interpretations. If they manage to put themselvesinto alternative cultural attribution processes, it becomes possible to anticipate which opinionsand reactions different stakeholders are likely to come forward with. Thus, to reduce the risk ofmisinterpreting stakeholders’ opinions about an issue, issues managers should be mindful of howthey decode stakeholders’ behaviour.HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION MODELIn the previous, I went into details about how Gudykunst’s intercultural communication model maydescribe issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments. Now, I look at issues man-Part 2 | 43

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTagement and intercultural communication in a holistic manner. Gudykunst’s model shows that whatwe interpret is a function of what the sender encoded and what we previously decoded. It dependson the sender’s encoding, our own encoded messages, our conceptual filters and the context inwhich the message is received. The conceptual filters refer to the cultural, sociocultural and psychoculturalfilters, which delimit the stimuli we observe and tell us how stimuli are to be interpreted.In short, it is an integrated dialogical process. From the interdisciplinary analysis carried out above,I can conclude that intercultural communication explains issue debates as different cultures thatform different opinions on the basis of their conceptual filters. Through debate, people encode anddecode messages that are transferred between them, which again is culturally conditioned. Theprocess, by which companies and stakeholders evaluate issues, is a sort of intercultural communication.It is a “transactional, symbolic process involving the attribution of meaning.”Ting-Toomey describes intercultural communication as “a symbolic exchange process wherebyindividuals from two (or more) different cultural communities negotiate shared meanings in an interactivesituation” (1999: 16). We can see issue debates as such a process of symbolic exchangewith the aim of achieving a shared ground of meaning between companies and stakeholders. Theaim is to create harmony between the organisation and its environment (Heath 1997: 81). We learnthat a company can only achieve harmony in multicultural stakeholder environments by understandingand paying attention to cultural disparities that may distinguish it from its stakeholders.Moreover, I can deduce from the theoretical analysis that companies and stakeholders influenceeach other as they go along in an issue debate, for example if they engage in stakeholder forums.The interpretive, critical approach to intercultural communication that I apply in this dissertationholds that cultures are constantly being adjusted and reformed. This way, it becomes clear thatcompanies and stakeholders do not hold fixed standpoints about issues. In the exchange of viewpointsand through the creation of mutual understanding of the conditions under which each partyoperates, they may meet on common ground and adopt cultural elements of the other party. Theobservation I here draw from intercultural communication theory adds new knowledge to what differenttheorists describes as an “enacted environment”. Sutcliffe describes the way organisationsprocess information this way:“Enacted environments are socially created rather that concrete or material inthat the environment is the joint product of the actions of purposeful actors andaccompanying efforts to make sense out of these actions. Enactment transpiresthrough communication processes in that entities involved in interactive relationshipsread each other’s behaviour and make attributions to make sense ofsituations.” (Underscores added). (Sutcliffe in Jablin & Putnam 2001: 201).The enactment perspective says that issues penetrate a continuous communicative process thatinvolves: 1) the company pay attention to certain aspects in the environment, 2) data penetrate thecompany’s cognitive system, 3) employees give meaning to data, 4) they act on that interpretation,5) the resulting actions gives information to stakeholders in the environment, 6) they now ascribemeaning to that data and so forth. The notion of the enacted environment is also central to Heath’stheory of issues management (1990; 1994; 1997). With the knowledge from intercultural communicationtheory, I can conclude that issues exist in an enacted public sphere where different stakeholdersand companies shape and are shaped by each other.44| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTCULTURAL MINDFULNESS IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTThe greater the degree of strangeness a company feels towards a particular person or stakeholder,the greater the likelihood that misunderstandings will occur because they make faulty predictionsabout their motives, reactions and eventual public criticism. Consequently, the greater the degreeof perceived strangeness between a company and stakeholder, the greater the necessity to besensitive about the cultural differences.Two steps are important in order to manage cultural diversity in issues management. The first thingis simply recognising that cultural differences play a role in issues management – being aware.Gudykunst explains that we rarely notice that we perceive things differently from others. To borrowa frequently cited analogy: “The last thing the fish notices is water.” The cultural difference betweenthe company and the stakeholder is what cultural theory calls “out-of-awareness”. Companies maydebate an issue with stakeholders on the false assumption that they understand the issue by thesame logic or buy into same arguments. Companies may also be unaware of the cognitive processesthey apply. Thus, they engage in issue communication relying on habitual or scripted behaviourbased on past experiences or prejudice and stereotype images (Gudykunst 1992: 25). Actually,assuming that there are no cultural differences between parties when the context is multiculturalis a recurrently committed blunder when handling issues across different cultural groups (seeintroduction page. 5).The second step is issues managers’ competence to overcome and take advantage of culturaldiversity. As Zaharna has pointed out we can speak of intercultural competence in either of twoways: First, issues managers could learn about specific cultures, their values, norms etc. That approachhas serious limitations, primarily because cultures are not stable entities that can bemapped on beforehand. Cultures are dynamic features. This is why companies’ and stakeholders’culture must be studied in relation to the specific issue in question. Of course, if a company repeatedlydeals with specific stakeholders, knowledge about their way of acting will be accumulated. Butas the environment is rapidly changing and business organisations are put under pressure fromunexpected sides, the company cannot rely on s-called “culture-specific” competences alone.The second competence option is to adopt a broad range of intercultural communication skills. Withreference to, in particular, Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey, I call those skills cultural mindfulness.Ting-Toomey describes cultural mindfulness this way:“Mindfulness means the readiness to shift one’s frame of reference, the motivationto use new categories to understand cultural or ethnic differences, and thepreparedness to experiment with creative avenues of decision-making andproblem solving” (1999: 46)On the other hand, mindlessness means relying on habits and prejudices and ethnocentric beliefsystems. To engage in an issue debate with a culturally mindful competence means paying attentionto others’ self-conceptions and their conceptual filters (see Gudykunst’s intercultural communicationmodel). Issues managers have to develop the aptitude to change between identify constructionsand understand and perceive an issue from others’ cultural frame. Basically, cultural mindful-Part 2 | 45

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTness entails that issues managers must beware that multiple perspective typically exist in interpretingan issue (Ting-Toomey 1999: 46).Thus, to lead effective issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments, i.e. to identify,analyse and respond to the facts, policies and values that stakeholders apply (refer to Heath’smodel of the legitimacy gap on page.8), it requires awareness of cultural diversity and the competenceto be culturally mindful.From the two axes described above, I am able to say that issues managers may penetrate differentstages of intercultural communication competence. In the figure below, I illustrate these stages.1. Unconscious incompetence, where the company is unaware of the communication blunders itcommits in relation to stakeholders.2. Conscious incompetence, where the company is aware of its incompetence in managing issuesin multicultural stakeholder environments but does nothing to correct it.3. Conscious competence, where a company is aware if issues management’s potential interculturalcommunication blunders and is committed to integrate a culturally mindful approach. Thisis the “full mindfulness phase” in which issues managers are fully aware of their own way ofthinking, reasoning and experiencing issues and simultaneously attend to stakeholders’ culture.4. The last category is unconscious competence where issues managers move in and out of culturallymindful behaviour and no longer have to think about it. Truly competent issues managerswill move between the conscious and unconscious competence stage.ConsciousnessCompetenceUnconscious incompetenceUnconscious competenceConscious incompetenceConscious competenceFigure 14: Intercultural competence model. Source: Own with inspirationfrom Gudykunst 1992: 26; Ting-Toomey 1999: 51An interesting perspective in this discussion is what happens once the issues manager has achiveda level of conscious-unconscious competence. In fact, there is a risk that issues managers develop“culture specific” competences, which paradoxically, makes them incompetent over time. Stakeholdersmay change while the issues managers start to rely on stereotype perceptions. Thus, eventhough culture specific competences are accumulated, it is paramount that issues managers staytruly mindful in the sense that they are open towards new categories and frames of reference.In addition to speak of cultural mindfulness and mindlessness, I find that it makes sense to speakof degrees of mindfulness. A company may take some measures of mindfulness while it is showingmindless behaviour in other areas. I believe we should consider cultural mindfulness in issuesmanagement as operating on a scale from zero-sensitivity to full-sensitivity.46| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTThis dissertation aspires to help issues managers become consciously competent to handle culturaldiversity in issues management. Through Gudykunst’s model I have presented material thatillustrates why companies may misinterpret stakeholders’ behaviour and standpoints in multiculturalstakeholder environments. This way, I have intended to increase awareness. Once issues managersare aware or consciously incompetent (understand that they misinterpret situations), they canconsciously try to improve their effectiveness. It takes time and experience to develop interculturalcompetences. Gudykunst cites Langer’s definition of tree qualities of mindfulness that may bevaluable for issues managers:! Creation of new categories! Openness to new information! Awareness of more than one perspectiveAccording to Langer, being mindful requires making more distinctions and fewer generalisations.For issues management it requires that a company study stakeholders’ stand towards an issuefrom an open and non-prejudiced position.The next hurdle is how to adapt such a multiple-perspective approach. Some issues managers will,through experience, have developed cultural competences while others may benefit from makinguse of specific techniques. Cultural theory explores different cultural paradigms, perspectives andframeworks that can be helpful. One that I find plausible for issues management is Leichty andWarner’s notion of “cultural topoi” (Leichty & Warner’s in Heath 2001: 66). They say that instead ofrelying on cognitive models to describe the way stakeholders form and process issues, we shouldfocus on understanding which beliefs people buy into and predict the issues they will find importantand pay attention to. Leichty and Warner operate with 5 cultural biases, which are fatalist, egalitarian,hierarchical, autonomous and competitive. To these cultural biases belong different culturaltopoi described as: “systematic line of assumptions and arguments that reinforces a preferred patternof social relationships” (in Heath 2001: 62). Each topoi represents an argument structure,logic, and rationality. Issues managers may be able to develop a mindful approach by viewing anyissue from all of these five topoi and predict possible actions and standpoints within each topoi. It isimportant to stress that stakeholders should not be classified in any of the topoi. Their position willonly be determined once they react upon an issue. But an analysis from all five topoi may provide amulti-perspective overview of an issue. It is not my intention to go into details about each of thesecultural topoi. Refer to Leichty and Warner in Heath 2001. Other theorists’ groupings of culturalperspectives may be relevant in issues management as well. What I intend to stress is that a multiperspectiveapproach and an open attitude are necessary when conducting issues management inmulticultural stakeholder environments. In fulfilling that aspiration, the issues manager can makeuse of different multi-perspective frameworks.Finally, I want to make some few comments about desirable outcomes of a culturally mindful issuesmanagement approach. Ting-Toomey defines a set of required results of mindful interculturalcommunication (1999: 47) and it makes sense to reassign these criteria to issues management.Consequently, effective issues management in an intercultural context should achieve the following:Part 2 | 47

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENT1. Giving stakeholders the feeling of being understood. Understanding is a vigorous way of beingvalidated. Companies do not have to agree with stakeholders but they have to have an empatheticimpact. (“We understand your position on this issue and your working conditions”).2. Giving stakeholders a feeling of being respected. Stakeholders should feel that their behaviourand standpoints are deemed as legitimate and credible (“We respect that you have feelings towardsthis issue and let us discuss how we can harmonise our different interests”). It demandsthat issues managers pay attention when making value-based judgements in their externalcommunication. That is a difficult process because in many situations stakeholders may possessless encompassing knowledge about an issue or a company’s grounds for action than thecompany itself. Subsequently, stakeholders could easily be found not worthy to attend to.3. Giving stakeholders the feeling of being supported. Stakeholders should feel as worthwhile asthe company despite having different identities and ideas. If the company endorses stakeholders’identity they will tend to view the company positively, while the opposite will be thecase if they receive negative endorsement. A company typically expresses identity endorsementthrough verbal and nonverbal confirming messages. Confirmation entails respondingsympathetically to stakeholders’ affective position and accepting their experiences of an issueas “real”. To disqualify some stakeholders’ sense of an issue is bound to create conflict.Companies affirm stakeholders by the verbal and nonverbal actions they use in their communicationwith them – whether engaging in direct communication activities like stakeholder forums,round-table discussions and conferences or in indirect communication through, for example, publicmedias. In communicating mindfully about an issue, a company message must convey understanding,respect, and support for culturally diverse stakeholders on a holistic level. On the contrary,mindless issues management express evaluative attitudes, suspicion, and mistrust.Consequently, intercultural communication theory proposes that companies integrate measures ofcultural awareness and mindfulness in issues management. Ideally, issues managers should acton a level of “conscious competence” where they are both aware of cultural differences and able toact upon them. Culturally mindful issues management is capable of using a multicultural perspective.Towards that end, the issues manager could draw on past experiences with specific stakeholdersor make use of different cultural frameworks or “topoi”. One ultimate goal of this “awareness”and “mindfulness” is to give stakeholders the feeling that the company understands, respects,and supports the way they approach a specific issue. Another goal is the companies’ abilityto early identify and correctly analyse issues. And to respond to stakeholders in a way where misunderstandingis avoided and further conflict prevented. In sum, this leads to more effective issuesmanagement practice and thus the ability to avoid public relations crises for the business organisation.SUMMING UPIntercultural communication theory adds many central conclusions to the study of issues managementin multicultural stakeholder environments.48| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTCultural theory and intercultural communication can explain the process by which cultures are createdand how they influence opinion-making, actions, behaviour and communication pursued bycompanies and stakeholders in relation to issues. Issues debates can be seen as a “transactional,symbolic process involving the attribution of meaning.” Companies’ and stakeholders’ respectivecultural context must be seen as a “system of knowledge” that consists of cultural, sociocultural,and psychocultural conceptual filters through which they interpret issues. Intercultural communicationtheories show that companies and stakeholders assign meaning to issues according to theirrespective cultural context because facts, values and policies (causes of legitimacy gaps) are interpretedthrough cultural codes.At this point, I attempt to rewrite the way Gudykunst explains intercultural communication (seepage 46) into how culture affects issues management:Culture provides stakeholders and companies with patterned ways of dealingwith issues. It influences what they perceive, how they interpret, andhow they respond to issues both verbally and nonverbally. Culturesshapes and colours their image of reality and conditions the way theythink.It tells us that legitimacy is culturally bound. When the stakeholder environment is multicultural, thelikelihood that issues will arise increases simply because there will be more diversity in terms ofwhat is legitimate corporate behaviour and what is not.It leads me to propose that thorough understanding of cultural differences between stakeholdersand companies may lead to more effective issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments.It helps issues managers to understand sources of eventual agreement of disagreement.Such a deeper understanding can lead companies to take advantage of agreements and countervailthe negative consequences of disagreement between the business organisation and its environment.From the interdisciplinary analysis I can conclude that there is a large possibility that issuesmanagers construct wrong perceptions of the company’s own and stakeholders’ attitudestowards issues when they are not aware of cultural diversity. In issue debates, information passesthrough each party’s cultural context in which misunderstanding may occur as a consequence ofthe encoding and decoding process.At the same time, companies’ and stakeholders’ cultural contexts interact in a dialogical process.This way, all stakeholders and companies influence each other. Thus, over time, companies andstakeholders may come to share the same viewpoints or learn from each other.The above analysis brings exciting knowledge about issues facing contemporary European companies.As the number of stakeholders and the cultural diversity between stakeholder arise so dothe number and complexity of issues. Different issues will arise in different cultures. One issue maybe one-sided in one culture and two-sided in others. And one issue will be given different significancein different cultures. Thus, the greater the degree of “strangeness” of involved stakeholdersrelative to the company, the greater the risk of legitimacy gaps and thereby the creation and complexityof issues. The more challenging it also becomes to accurately identify, analyse and respondto issues. Therefore, there are greater risks that so-called “intercultural” issues evolve into crises.Part 2 | 49

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTThe following figure summarises key conclusions from the previous chapter.More profoundunderstandingof issuesmanagementAll stakeholders and companies exist in a culturalcontext. The cultural context consists of differentconceptual filters composed by a general culturalfilter (values / norms / rules), a socio-cultural filter(role expectations / value orientations) a psychoculturalfilter (stereotypes / ethnocentrism) and anenvironmental filter. In sum, the conceptual filtersinfluence how companies and stakeholders interpretissues and act upon those issues. To somedegree, differences in the conceptual filters maydescribe differences between different parties’interpretations, opinions and actions in relation toissues.Issues management in a multicultural stakeholdercontext is a dialogic intercultural communicationprocess involving encoding and decoding of informationexchanged between companies and stakeholders.Encoding and decoding are shaped bystakeholders’ and companies’ respective culturalcontexts. As a result of the communication process,issues exist in an enacted public sphere.Companies and stakeholders affect each other inhow they interpret issues and act upon thoseissues and the way the issues develop.Propositionsfor culturalanalysis inissues managementIdentify and analyse the cultural context of stakeholdersinvolved in a specific issue as well as thatof the company itself. Conduct analysis that take inthe four conceptual filters that influence how issuesare interpreted and acted upon. Reveal ownand stakeholders’ norms, rules and values, roleexpectations and the way to categorise relationshipsand expectations for people in each category.Avoid ethnocentrism.Be mindful of the interpretation of stakeholders’behaviour and opinions (decode) and own verbaland nonverbally communication (encode).Aim responses at creating mutual understandingbetween companies and all stakeholders. Designresponses as a dialogical communication processwith a balanced effect between companies andstakeholders. Consciously control attitudinal responsesin the communication)PropositionforimplementationBuild issues management on cultural awareness and cultural mindfulness. Mindfulness and awarenessentails a “conscious competence” to actively implement the propositions for effective issues managementmentioned above. Change worldviews / cultural paradigms along in the issues management process. Givestakeholders the feeling of being understood, respected, and supportedSolutions as to how to overcome the challenge to manage issues across cultural differences canalso be found in the intercultural communication theory. Intercultural communication theory indicatesthat through cultural awareness and mindfulness, reconciliation between cultures can beachieved. Heath states such reconciliation as pre-eminent for achieving harmony between companiesand stakeholders (Heath 1997: 364). I make two propositions for effective issues managementin multicultural stakeholder environments: One, issues managers should be aware that culturaldiversity exists. Two, they should be mindful to shift the company’s frame of reference or worldviewwith that of stakeholders representing another culture. Issues managers must look at issues frommultiple perspectives. In pursuing cultural mindful issues management, companies aspire to identifythe facts, interest and values that key stakeholders apply and the conclusions they draw fromthem. In other words: To understand the complexity of issues in multicultural stakeholder environmentsand reach reconciliation, issues managers will have to move out of their own cultural paradigm(beyond ethnocentrism) and seek an understanding of stakeholders’ own interpretations. Thegreater the degree of strangeness between a company and involved stakeholders, the greater theneed to be culturally aware and mindful in the issues management process.It is possible to conclude that issues management that is aware of and mindful about cultural diversityin the stakeholder environment and its influence upon issues communication will be more ef-50| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ISSUES MANAGEMENTfective. Companies must aspire to design responses to issues so that stakeholders gets the feelingthat their opinions and actions are understood, respected, and supported by the company.Measurements of effectiveness in intercultural issues management are the abilities to accuratelyunderstand and predict stakeholders’ behaviour and opinions and to respond to stakeholders withoutcreating misunderstanding. Such aptitude will, in the end, make it possible for an issues managerin multicultural stakeholder environments to reduce the risk of crises for the business organisation.Part 2 | 51

PROPOSING A CONCEPTUAL MODELPROPOSING A CONCEPTUAL MODELNow, I have conducted two interdisciplinary theoretical analyses that serve t conceptualise issuesin multicultural stakeholder environments. I have developed some theoretical propositions thatdescribe in which ways intercultural communication theory supports issues management. I havealso researched how stakeholder theory can add new perspectives to issues management. Thesepropositions are summarised on page 32 and page 48 respectively. The aim of the analysis hasbeen to show the relations and dynamics between the dissertation’s main concepts: “issues”, “thepublic sphere”, “companies”, “stakeholders” and “cultural diversity”.The first conclusion I make is that issues are anchored in the relation between companies andstakeholders and not as free-floating in the general business environment. This is important becauseit indicates that enhanced understanding and identification of involved stakeholders - theirorigin, interests, possibilities of influence and internal relations – will strengthen the issues managementprocess.The second conclusion is that stakeholders and companies are attached to their cultural context.The cultural distinctiveness can be conceptualised as a layer of general cultural (values, norms andrules), sociocultural and psychocultural belonging. This belonging creates different “systems ofknowledge”. Thus, stakeholders’ and companies’ cultural context influences how they interpretissues, form opinions about them and the actions they pursue in relation to issues. It reveals thatpaying attention to and understanding cultural differences and how they influence issues communicationare crucial for managing issues in multicultural stakeholder environments.Below, I show the two propositions in a model. The model combines Heath’s legitimacy-gap model(1997) with Gudykunst’s model of intercultural communication (1992) and stakeholder theory (Wartick& Wood 1998). The different agendas show that issues risk penetrating into the public sphere ifcompanies do not pursue issues management activities. On the next page, the full model is illustratedin a detailed manner. It is my intention that this model conceptualises issues in multiculturalstakeholder environments.CulturalNon-issueCulturalStakeholder CCulturalNon-IssueStakeholder BcontextStakeholder DcontextIssueIssueIssuecontextCulturalCulturalCulturalStakeholder AIssueCompanyIssueStakeholder EcontextcontextcontextMedia agendaPublic agendaPolitical agendaFigure 15: Issues in multicultural stakeholder environments – small model. Source: Own with inspiration from Heath1997, Gudykunst 1992 and Wartick & Wood 1998)52| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

STAKEHOLDER ACULTURAL CONTEXT(General cultural, socioculturaland psychocultural filters)NON-ISSUEInterestsEInfluenceDIssues in multicultural stakeholder environments – large modelCOMPANY XCULTURAL CONTEXT(General cultural, sociocultural andpsychocultural filters)DISSUEEInterestsInfluenceInterests InfluenceInterestsInfluenceEISSUEDE DISSUED EInterests InfluenceCULTURAL CONTEXT(General cultural, socioculturaland psychocultural filters)STAKEHOLDER BMedia agendaPublic agendaPolitical agendaDESTAKEHOLDER CInterestsInfluenceCULTURAL CONTEXT(General cultural, socioculturaland psychocultural filters)NON-ISSUEE = EncodingD = DecodingOrigin of issues (legitimacy gaps):! Differences of fact! Differences of value! Differences of policyFigure 16: Issues in multicultural stakeholder environments – large model

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSTHE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSSo far, part 2 has been concerned with the objective to provide a more profound understanding ofissues in multicultural stakeholder environments. The second objective of my research is to investigatehow cultural diversity in the stakeholder environment impacts the issues management practice.Thus, I now move on to the operational level.The previous theoretical analysis made some general propositions for more effective issues managementpractice. The propositions were:Intercultural communication:Propositionsfor culturalanalysis inissues managementIdentify and analyse the cultural context of stakeholdersinvolved in a specific issue as well as thatof the company itself. Conduct analysis that take inthe four conceptual filters that influence how issuesare interpreted and acted upon. Reveal ownand stakeholders’ norms, rules and values, roleexpectations and the way to categorise relationshipsand expectations for people in each category.Avoid ethnocentrism.Be mindful of the interpretation of stakeholders’behaviour and opinions (decode) and own verbaland nonverbally communication (encode).(Aim responses at creating mutual understandingbetween companies and all stakeholders. Designresponses as a dialogical communication processwith a balanced effect between companies andstakeholders. Consciously control attitudinal responsesin the communication)Build issues management on cultural awareness and cultural mindfulness. Mindfulness and awarenessentails a “conscious competence” to actively implement the propositions for effective issues managementmentioned above. Change worldviews / cultural paradigms along in the issues management process. Givestakeholders the feeling of being understood, respected, and supportedStakeholder relations:Propositionfor stakeholderanalysis inissues managementIdentify issue holders -stakeholders - from boththe contextual andtransactional stakeholderenvironment.Create individual mapsof stakeholders in differentcultural settings.Investigate underlyinginterests that leadstakeholders to raiseissues. Group theminto for examplematerial, political,affiliative, informational,symbolic orspiritual interests.Sustain a strategicprioritisation of issuesby assessing stakeholders’potentialinfluence through ananalysis of theirpower, legitimacy andthe urgency of theirdemands.Identify the web ofrelations that exist inthe company’s entirestakeholder environmentand use suchmapping in the issueanalysis.PropositionforimplementationPropositionforimplementationCreate sustainable stakeholder dialogue with stakeholders involved in key issues with the aim of exchanginginformation about issues and finding common solutions to them. Possibly use the model of“strategic cooperative communities”. Base the communities on the minimum characteristics of trust,predictability, mutual interests, mutual gratification or benefit and proximity.On the subsequent pages, these general propositions will be developed into concrete practicescompanies undertake in order to lead effective issues management - the practical tools and techniquesissues managers employ in their work. I will take the reader through a critical analysis of thePart 2 | 53

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESStools and techniques that contemporary issues management literature recommends. Such a reexaminationis in line with Zaharna’s proposals:“Straddling the tension between public relations universalism and relativity aswell as unearthing hidden assumptions may result in the very definitions of fundamentalpublic relations roles, functions and goals being re-examined” (2000:85).I identified an issues management process model on page 11 that synthesises different of the mostimportant issues management models. If we look briefly at the “large conceptual model”, the issuesmanagement process is carried out by companies in the exact interface with stakeholders were theencoding and decoding process takes place.EStakeholderDISSUEDCompanyEIdentifyScanAnalyseMonitorEvaluatePrioritiseRespondChangeoptionsEvaluateFigure 2: Issues management process modelI will run through each phase in the process model on the subsequent pages.54| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSIDENTIFICATIONThe issues management literature says that since issues rarely occur overnight, it is possible toidentify them by means of different techniques. The task involves scanning the environment todiscover developing issues that are likely to affect the company through the public policy process.In the identification phase, issues managers should identify crucial issues as well as identify involvedstakeholders in each issue.MEDIA AND TECHNIQUESFirst of all, existing issues management literature investigates different techniques for identifyingissues. Gaunt & Ollenburger mention seven ways companies designate an issue (1995: 207):1. An issue is designated an “issue” by the chief executive.2. Informal discussions among senior executives.3. Structured polling of senior management using a list of issues prepared in advance.Executives are asked to rank the issues they believe are important.4. An employed staff unit is charged with the responsibility to develop issues and setpriorities for senior management’s considerations.5. Issues are developed initially by division or profit-centre heads.6. A formal exploratory process which asks “what if” questions.7. Scanning of media sources for any discussion of an event or an idea that appears tobe emerging as an issue.Option one through to six are internal processes where managers identify issues. When companiesoperate in a multicultural stakeholder context, there is a risk that the use of such identificationprocesses alone will lead to an ethnocentric practice in which the company culture and policies aredominating. The previous chapter showed that it is a natural tendency for people to focus on factsand values that sustain their own culture. Secondly, as stakeholder theory describes, people on theday-to-day practical management level tend to only focus on the transactional stakeholder environment.On page 32 I concluded that in issues management it is of prime importance to identifylegitimacy gaps with stakeholders in the so-called contextual environment – groups and organisationsthat are not part of the obvious business environment. Consequently, I would like to add thefollowing new principles to the identification process:8. Local issues are identified by representatives from international divisions9. The contextual environment is scanned for issues by means of direct stakeholder contact,forums, networks, conferences etc.The last option mentioned by Gaunt & Ollenburger is: Scanning of media sources for any discussionof an event or an idea that appears to be emerging as a trend. The issues management literaturesays that such a method should look at articles that imply some relation to the long-range concernsof both society and the corporation. Coates, Coates, Jarratt & Heinz mention a long list ofmedia sources to be scanned ranging from artistic and poetic works, over statistical documents tolegislative/governmental report and newspapers (1986: 24). Renfro draws a model showing howissues spread through popular media (1993: 73). Please find the model and the list in appendix 2.Winter & Steger (1998: 63) mention that issues managers should monitor press agencies and in-Part 2 | 55

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSformation services by key words, scientific databases like research or legal databases, search engineson the internet by key words or chat groups as well as internal information sources like claimline and customer service department. The list of relevant scanning sources is long and the conclusionI draw is that each company will have to define a set of these that are most relevant for thatparticular organisation and industry.While there seem to be much focus on which media to scan, little is said about assuring the diversityof sources. I refer to diversity in terms of covering all stakeholder groups from both the contextualand transactional environment as well as the entire international media arena. Available environmentalscanning tools may be somewhat different across cultures. To mention an example:Companies will not obtain sufficient in-depth knowledge about an environmental activist organisation’sopinion about, let us say, global heating by reading about them in the national press. Thecompany would need to scan resources that provide tools for cultural relativism in order to reach aposition of “understanding”, “support” and “empathy” (see page 47) with the organisation’s opinionsand eventual actions. It could be the organisation’s own newsletter, their web page etc. To mentionanother example: It is very difficult to know what preoccupies governmental institutions in SouthEast Asia by looking at national television in Denmark. As a result of these concerns I would like tomodify the last principle to the following:10. Scanning of media sources representing a broad range of cultural diversity and allstakeholder groups for any discussion of an event or an idea that appears to beemerging as an issue.The above identification methods spot issues that have all ready appeared. Another discipline,futures research, aims at identifying issues before they occur or have matured from trends andsocial change into concrete issues. Futures research is distinct from issues management as it ismore broadly concerned with emerging issues, trends and future possibilities likely to occur in thenext tree, four, five years. As Gaunt & Ollenburger point out, “predicting the future is an impreciseart, to say the least” (1995: 208). Nevertheless, more than 150 forecasting techniques exist andmany companies have developed their own methods. One widely used technique is trend extrapolation,which is based on the logic than the past is prologue to the future. It involves monitoring afactor over time and extrapolating a line into the future. For more knowledge about futures researchtechniques refer to Renfro 1993. Again it should be remarked, which is absent from existing theory,that it is extremely important in futures research to be mindful towards the multiplicity of differentcultures view upon the company and their variability of perceptions and values.IDENTIFY RIGHT ELEMENTSAnother aspect addressed in the issues management literature is what in fact you need to scan inorder to identify an issue. To answer that, one needs to ask what makes an issue an issue. Amongothers, Wartick & Wood, Buchholz and Gaunt & Ollenburger speak about how companies mustunderstand issue creation and issue perception in order to early identify important issues. There isa common understanding in the issues management literature that issues are expectational gapsbetween the business organisation and some people or groups in the surrounding society. This isalso the definition cited on the Issues Management Council’s website.(www.issuemanagement.org). Issues arise when humans attaches significance to an issue. Asmentioned earlier, different interests lead people to raise issues.56| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSIn the previous chapters, I provided evidence that such observations are insufficient on their own tosustain issues managers’ identification process. The large conceptual model illustrates that companiesneed to understand the difference between the cultural context of the company and that ofopposing stakeholders. They also need to understand the cultural conditioning of the responsiveprocess by which issues are communicated between businesses and the surrounding society. Ifcompanies do not understand the characteristics of stakeholders’ cultural context, they may overlookimportant issues because different issues may arise in different cultures. While child labour isan issue in China or Pakistan it most likely will not be an issue in a production unit in Denmark.Western European companies do not have to guard their employees against outbreaks of Malaria,nor would they be expected to support research to prevent it. But Western companies in Africawould have to be concerned with this. In addition, one-sided issues may be two-sided in other culturalsettings, like feminism.Different areas of concern also exist in different cultures and same issues will subsequently begiven different significance in different cultures. While consumer safety is very important to Americans,environmental concerns preoccupy many Scandinavians. Another aspect is that issues mayhave ethnic, racial or historical undertones in some cultures.The impact of cultural factors on issues is explored in depth earlier in this dissertation. Here itshould just be pointed out that the cultural embedment of issues and issues communication rendersit important for the issues manager to scan different elements in different cultural settings.Cultural relativism is essential in that process.IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDERSWhile most of the issues management literature stops by the identification of issues, we know fromstakeholder theory that once an issue has entered on the company radar, it should identify whichstakeholders that are likely to put pressure on the company in that issue. Unfortunately, manycompanies consider issues management and stakeholder relations separate disciplines. Instead, Ipropose that companies should see them as supplementary functions. Winter & Steger show thatthe stakeholder identification should take its point of departure in identified issues and not viceversa, which is illustrated in the models below.Traditional modelNew model1 2 3OutsidepressuregroupsIssueDemandsIssue characteristicsIssuesStrength ofkey outsidepressuregroupFigure 17: Traditional model and new model for evaluating outside pressure. Source: Winter & Steger 1998: 29Part 2 | 57

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSTwo things can be said about the stakeholder identification process: First, once an issue has beenidentified, issues management must investigate eventual legitimacy gaps in relation to stakeholdersboth in the contextual and transactional environment. Second, the greater the degree of perceived“strangeness” of involved stakeholders, the greater the risk of legitimacy gaps between the organisationand its environment. Consequently, issues that exist in multicultural stakeholder environmentsbecome more complex and have more legitimate sides in the eyes of different stakeholders.Finally, stakeholders engaged in an issue may change from one national culture to the next. (Wartick& Wood 1998: 78). An issue about employee safety may involve the government in one country,trade unions in another and private organisations in a third. On the practical level, it could behelpful for companies to run through a complete list of possible stakeholders in any country thecompany is involved in when a new issue is detected. In particular, when companies operate incountries with less stable democratic regimes, it may have to confront stakeholders like public bureaucrats,political activists etc. that it is not accustomed to on its home markets. Even if companiesface generic stakeholder categories, these stakeholder groups can have radically differentexpectations and perceptions of corporate behaviour.ANALYSISAccording to the issues management theory, the analysis phase should determine the origin andhistory of issues, identify its phase in the life cycle, forecast further development and assess itseventual impact.DETERMINE THE ORIGIN OF THE ISSUEThis is a difficult process as few issues emerge neatly from one source. It becomes even morecomplex when an issue is intercultural in nature. Politicians in one national culture may deal with anissue, while the same issue may be subject to attention from activist organisations in another.The analysis must determine whether the issue originates from a discrepancy in fact, value or policybetween the organisation and involved stakeholders (see model on page 16). Managers shouldunderstand the competing ideas, interpretations, values and policies at stake couched in what maybe a very multicultural set of stakeholders. Issues managers should identify stakeholders’ expectationsand interests in the issue. The company must determine which stakeholders think the companyactions are illegitimate and which groups support the company (Heath 1997: 27). The interculturalaspect of issues in multicultural stakeholder environments complicates this process. As theintercultural communication theory showed earlier in this dissertation, issues managers have toreach an understanding of stakeholders’ own interpretation of issues.A key weakness, as I see it, is that issues management theory speaks very little about how toachieve such an understanding. It does not say anything about how people construct meaning andperceive information and how cultural differences inflict upon that practice. Facts, values and policiesare culturally conditioned as issues are social constructs based on cultural norms. Differentcommunities have different ideas about what constitute legitimate corporate behaviour, I concludedin the last chapter. From intercultural communication theory we know that issues managers arelikely to construct wrong perceptions of the company’s own and stakeholders’ stand on issues58| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSwhen cultural diversity is “out-of-awareness”. It becomes important for issues managers to base theanalysis on cultural relativism and to consciously reject any prejudice or ethnocentric considerations.One practical method mentioned in the previous section is to analyse each issue by use ofdifferent cultural topoi or other cultural frameworks especially if the issues managers has no “culturespecific” knowledge of involved stakeholders.IDENTIFY PLACE IN THE LIFE CYCLEThere is a common agreement in the issues management literature that in developing a thoroughunderstanding of an issue, it is important to understand where the issue is in its lifecycle. (Heath1997: 96; Renfro 1993: 30; Gaunt and Ollenburger 1995; Nasi & Nasi 1997: 299; Wartick & Wood1998: 177; Buckholz, Evans & Wagley 1989: 58). The fundamental relationship in any issues lifecycle is changing public attention over time. A clear weakness of the issues management theory isits lack of clarification of what is meant by “public attention or awareness”. By assembling experiencesfrom a large amount of firms practising issues management, Winter & Steger (1998: 60)found that public awareness can be seen as an aggregation of four factors:1. Number of events (events triggering outside pressure)2. Number of readers/receivers (expansion of tan outside pressure issue in the public)3. Level of importance (development of topics)4. Number of countries (stakeholder awareness in an international context)These factors should be multiplied into one model showing public awareness on the Y- axis andtime on the X-axis. Please see appendix 3.Social issues life cycle theory maintains that issues follow a predictable evolutionary trajectory. Thenumber of stages or periods through which the issue evolves varies from author to author. Nevertheless,most authors agree that issues progress for a period in which the issues was unthought ofor unthinkable to a period of increasing awareness and expectations for action and then to a periodwhere new standards for dealing with the issue become ingrained in the normal functioning of thecompany.Ackerman was the first to identify a lifecycle in the 1970s and it focused on how the organisationwent from a stage of policy through learning to commitment to an issue. In their models, Wartick &Wood (1998: 177), Renfro (1993: 32) and Crabble & Vibbert (in Gaunt & Ollenburger 1995: 205)focus on the development of the issue in the public sphere:Nascent stage: The first step is a nascent stage where a gap between company actions andstakeholder expectations develop. Public attention does not rise until some dramatic event or triggermoves the issue into is middle or developing stage. Triggers that move issues from the early tothe middle stages need not be dramatic and can be government reports, media attention, lawsuits,boycotts or the establishment of an NGO.Renfro (1993: 32) describes the early stages of issues development this way:Part 2 | 59

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSBirth:Definition:Name:Champion:Group:Media recognition:In changing personal or social values, new technologies, new impacts,social change, and the like.An event that defines and focuses the issue in the public’s mind.The development and acceptance of a single word or phrase to identify allaspects of an issue – for example, Watergate.A person or persons who campaign the issue much like a politician withpress conferences, books and planned media events.Formal or informal groups of various publics which decide to participate inthe issue process.First local, then regional and national, the key step that moves an issue upthe public agenda, enhancing its priority over competing issues.Developing stage: The next stage in the issues lifecycle is an increase in the level of interests oractivism on the part of some stakeholders. Evidence may first be detected in the alternative press,public relations newsletters, or specialist interest groups. It then goes through a period of publicdebate and, often, redefinition. It occurs in public forums such as educational activities, media reportsor the popular press.Resolution: This phase is followed by some resolution of the issue, either voluntary or government-mandatedby the company and stakeholders in conjunction.Mature stage: The resolution moves the issue into a mature stage where three options exist. Theissue may re-emerge because the resolution is not satisfactory or stable, or new expectationalgaps open up from the resolution. The issue may reach equilibrium where it remains closed as longas the resolution is in place. The issue may disappear, often because societal change makes itirrelevant.While such models are always over-simplified, I believe they are a useful way of classifying issues.I propose that issues managers identify where in the lifecycle issues are situated and by use of thecycle anticipate its future development.For the company that operates in a multicultural environment, whether it contains stakeholdersfrom different countries, occupational groups, races, religious groups or other, issues analysis canpresent certain problems. First, the same issue can move through its lifecycle in very differentmanners in different countries or different stakeholder groups. The time from emergence of anissue to its resolution may take a year in one setting and a decade in another. Some internationalfactors, which contribute to this variability, include the nature of the mass media, the nature of thepolitical system, the maturity of interests groups, and the legitimacy and authority of public institutionsin different countries. Consequently, for the company facing stakeholders from different cultures,the impact of an issue can be much more spread out over time.Likewise, at the time when most of these lifecycle models were developed, the media picture wasmuch more fragmented to different countries and forums. Today, a NGO in Asia may publish itsstand on an issue on the Internet involving a Danish company and inspire activists in Denmark,local politicians or the Danish media. In addition, news travels very fast from one country to the60| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSnext. This is not to say that all issues appear at the same time in all settings, but companies operatingacross cultures most be prepared for the cross-cultural dynamics of the media. If we look at thelifecycle theory in a multicultural stakeholders environment, the lesson must be that issues proceedthrough a predictable series of phases, from an imminent stage to a mature stage. The series ofphases may occur on different times in different cultural settings and there may be cross-culturalimpacts.On the other hand, an international company experiences some advantages in issues analysis. Itcan apply knowledge and expertise gained from analysing and tracking the issue as it developsfrom one country to another. It can be alerted to some of the potential impacts the issue may haveon its operations in other countries. While no issue develops in exactly the same way in two countries,the lessons learned in one country can be transferred and adapted to another country.FORECAST FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE ISSUEOnce the underlying factors of issues have been identified, issues managers should develop forecasts,the issues management literature says (Buckholz, Evans & Wagley 1989: 58). The companyneeds to assess the significance of the issue by asserting its future impact. The company will haveto ask: Does it risk getting on the media, public or political agenda and how will the company’seventual position be to influence public opinion or change the company behaviour to meet publicexpectations?A number of factors decide whether issues have the potential to penetrate into the public sphere. Iwill not mention all of these factors but a short-listing of a few shows that they are all culturally conditioned:Nielsen demonstrates that in order to reach the public agenda, issues most have an issueproponent, which are individuals or groups fighting to draw attention to the specific issue from themedia, the general public, politicians or other decision-makers in the public sphere. Second, Nielsensays that there need to be a trigger event moving the issue from its nascent to its maturephase, which is in line with the lifecycle perspective. Such trigger events can appear very suddenlyor a company or stakeholders may plan them. Third, so-called real world indicators are variablesshowing the degree of significance a specific issue is given by the public. Fourth, the salience ofthe issue decides its future development. Fifth, the issue would have to meet some news criteria ifit is to be picked up by the media. It can be criteria of sensation, importance, conflictual or easyidentification by the public. Last, issues are competing against each other in the public sphere. Ifother big issues are dominating, it is less likely that the issue will achieve attention. On the otherhand, if a similar issue has just appeared, for example involving another company in the sameindustry, there are greater possibilities that the issue will escalate in public awareness.It is clear that all the factors mentioned above will vary depending on the cultural context in whichthe issue becomes subject to attention. If companies operate in a multicultural stakeholders environmentsit is likely that issues managers will have to make several forecasts for how the issue willdevelop. Cultural mindfulness will lead issues mangers to understand which stakeholders that arelikely to come forward in the future. For example, if an issue is at odds with Muslim values, it islikely that Muslim minority groups will try to have a voice in the debate.On the other hand, issues that rise to prominence also have some characteristics that are commonacross cultures. Renfro (1993: 36) mentions:Part 2 | 61

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS! good visuals - something people can see in TV! immediacy, clarity of impact! clearly defined players – victims and villains! articulate available spokespersons! good geography – easily accessible my major networks! confirmation of existing attitudes and beliefs! universality – it applies to everybody! randomness – it could happen to anybodyWinter and Steger (1998: 34) mentions eight questions that issues managers should ask in order todetermine the future prospect of an issue:1. Are the arguments against the issue plausible?2. Does the issue evoke emotions? Is it understandable – visual, touching – by the public?3. Is the issue media-friendly?4. Are there connections to other issues of the company or other companies?5. How strong is the key stakeholder?6. How isolated is the company?7. How far have the dynamics of the issue all ready evolved?8. How easy is the solution?I propose that these lists coupled with cultural awareness and mindfulness could be useful in forecastingthe development of an issue.ASSESS ISSUES’ EVENTUAL IMPACTThe ultimate outcome of issues analysis is an issues agenda – a prioritisation of issues for furthermanagement consideration. No company can address, in a meaningful way, all of the hundred ofissues that may have some impact on it. It must rank issues it has identified so that it can devoteresources to those issues that are likely to have greatest effect on its future business activities.Issues management theory suggests that companies divide issues into several categories. Thehighest category includes that handful of issues, which demand significant managerial attentionand continuous monitoring. The issues, which are out at the top of the issues agenda typically havea high probability of generating outcomes that will have a major impact on the bottom-line. The nextcategory contains lower ranked issues, which must be tracked but which require only periodic attention.The lowest category includes issues of potential interest. Information should be accumulatedon them as it becomes available.This prioritisation process remains the same whether companies confront a multicultural or aunicultural group of stakeholders. Nevertheless, tools from stakeholder theory are capable ofstrengthening the prioritisation. In addition to looking at the specific issue in question, stakeholdertheory proposes that it is important to determine the relative importance of each stakeholder’svalue position. Hereby, stakeholder theory shows that not only the urgency of a specific issue mustbe examined but also the position of the “issue owner” – the stakeholder - because their respectivepossibilities of influence in a public debate may be very different. In the previous chapter I showed62| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSthat an assessment of stakeholders’ value position, and thereby their possibility of attracting publicattention, could be based on an analysis of the power, legitimacy and urgency of the demandsstakeholder put on companies (see page 16). I propose that such factors should be subject to closeanalysis by issues managers when they prioritise between issues.RESPONSEWhen sufficient analysis is completed, the company must respond to stakeholders involved in issuesthrough communication and/ or action. The response should provide answers to stakeholderdemands and be designed in such a way that stakeholders understand the response the same wayit was intended by companies.THE BUSINESS ORGANISATION AND SOCIETYThe company’s development of responses to public issues builds on assumptions about how thebusiness organisation is supposed to communicate and build relations with its surrounding society.Some issues management models describe the public sphere in a deterministic fashion: as anaccumulated set of fixed characteristics that the issues manger can uncover if only he is bright andthoroughly enough. Other issues management models view the company as an open system. Forexample Broom and Dozier demonstrate that organisations are open systems that engage in exchangesof tangible and intangible values with its environment (1990: 8). The previous chapterconcluded that the company environment is not objectively defined but continuously constructed bycompanies and their stakeholders. It is not sufficient to understand some fixed characteristics of theenvironment.In the light of this knowledge, it becomes clear that the “deterministic description” of the publicsphere has limited credibility. Consequently, there is a risk that managers who regard companiesas closed systems will become insensitive to environmental change and it will be difficult to keepthe company attuned to stakeholder expectations. On the contrary, the open system perspectiveemphasises that the influence between companies and stakeholders is reciprocal: Companies arenot only influencing the environment but the organisation is also impacted by environmental conditions.That conclusion touches a fundamental principle in any public relations activity. Grunig’smodel of excellent public relations has achieved tremendous attention and is shown below (Grunig& Grunig 1992: 285).Characteristic Press agency Public Information Two-Way Assymetrical Two Way SymmetricalPurpose Propaganda Dissemination of Scientific persuasion Mutual understandinginformationNature of Comm. One-way; completetruth notOne-Way; truthessentialTwo-way; imbalancedeffectsTwo-way: balancedeffectsessentialCommunicationModelSource# receiver Source# receiver Source ↔ Receiver Group ↔ GroupFigure 18: Public relations models. Source: Grunig & Hunt 1984: 22Grunig roughly distinguishes between four types of response and advocates that the model labelledtwo-way symmetric is leading to must excellent public relations communication. In thismodel, the relationship between organisations and their environment is aimed at achieving mutualPart 2 | 63

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSunderstanding in contrast to conducting propaganda or persuasion. The communication is two-wayin nature rather than one-way.Ideally, issues management should build on generic principles of a similar two-way symmetricalresponse (Heath 1997: 5). Heath lists a number of criteria that issues management should fulfiltowards that end: Interdependence between organisation and interested parties; Openness to theenvironment; Dynamic adaptation to environment; Equity; Autonomy instead of control or dominance;And innovation.In order to conduct such two-way symmetrical response communication, issues managers mustrecognise that they cannot manipulate issues to their interest. It might be possible to turn a specificissue to the organisation’s advantage in the short run but such a strategy could cause damage toits public legitimacy in the long run. Savvy companies utilise issues management in a manner intendedto build and improve relationships with key stakeholders. As stated in the introductory explanationof issues management, the goal of issues management is to achieve harmony betweenstakeholders and the organisation.This summarises the state-of-the-art description of issues response. But if the company environmentis multicultural it may prove very difficult to conduct true two-way symmetrical issues management.The previous chapter concluded that the larger the degree of strangeness between acompany and a stakeholder, the greater the eventual complexity of an issue. It said that onlythrough understanding and paying attention to the cultural disparities that may distinguish a companyfrom its stakeholders, could issues managers achieve harmony. But even if issues managershold competencies of cultural mindfulness, the two-way symmetric model is difficult to realise.If we look at Banks theory on multicultural public relations, he says that most importantly, the communicationprocess must be based on genuine dialogue (Banks 1990: 89). Thus, dialogue is veryimportant, especially because the issues manager will need to increase his knowledge about thestakeholders’ culture. This sustains my previous conclusions from the interdisciplinary theoreticalanalysis between stakeholder theory and issues management. At the same time, it can be difficultto enter into direct dialogue with stakeholders from which the company may be separated physically.This could be one barrier to establish a genuine dialogue. Secondly, perfect mutual understandingcan be very challenging to achieve when the communication is intercultural. The previouschapter showed that communication across cultures easily results in misunderstandings. This is notonly due to cultural unawareness but also to the fact that no issues manager is able to know all thedifferent cultures he is likely to face.I addition, the previous chapter tells us that if a dioalogical two-way response to issues should succeed,cultural diversity must be seen as variance rather than difference. In this fashion, companiesremain open towards changes to its own fundamental way of doing things. Only by seeing othercultures on an equal level of ones own culture can issues managers make adaptations and eventualresponse to issues result in harmony between the company and its surroundings.Thus, a two-way symmetrical issues management model should function as an ideal model for acompany in a multicultural environment. Issues managers must beware of cultural differences thatare likely to create some barriers in the relationship-building thus rendering the model difficult to64| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSaccomplish. Measures must be taken in order to account for potential downfalls of such barriers.Open dialogue is an important mean to reduce barriers. The model for stakeholder dialogue mentionedin the previous section, “strategic cooperative communicates”, could be an option towardsthat end.STRATEGIC RESPONSE OPTIONSNow, we should move to the different strategic options for response. Chase and Jones identifythree so-called “Issue change strategy options” labelled Reactive, Adaptive and Dynamic response(Gaunt and Ollenburger 1995:207). There are a number of limitations connected to their responseoptions. They embrace the dynamic response as being generically superior to the other two withouttaking into consideration the characteristics of the issue in question. I addition, their categorisationprovides nothing but – categories. Earlier, I stated that good theory describes the causes of thephenomena under investigation, their affect and under which conditions they should prevail. Chaseand Jones do not fulfil these conditions.The same critique applies to Buchholz, Evans & Wagley’s generic response strategies that are:Reactive (fighting change), Accommodative (adapting to change), Proactive (influencing change)and Interactive (adjusting to and influencing change) (1989: 65). They draw a model showing thatthe choice between these options should be based on two dimensions: One, the issue’s stage inthe issues life cycle and two, its impact on the corporation. I can only find few arguments supportingthat the choice of response be based on these criteria. It is a short-term focus and it concentrateson how the issue materialises rather than from where it originates.By response is meant the way the organisation tries to close the legitimacy gap from which theissue originates. To resume, legitimacy gaps arise out of a difference in fact, value or policy betweencompanies and stakeholders. Consequently, I argue that a firm’s response to an issueshould depend on the nature of that gap. That leads me to present the following alternatives1. First, if the issue involves a discrepancy between stakeholders’ and companies’ informationrelative to the issues (fact), the company may try to make stakeholders’ aware of new informationabout the issue or to gain sufficient information itself. Stakeholders and companies mayalso perceive facts differently. In this case, the firm might be able to close the gap by movingstakeholder perceptions of facts towards their own perception. It could happen through ways ofcommunication about corporate performance and issues.2. Secondly, if the issue appears from a discrepancy between stakeholder expectations and actualcorporate behaviour (value), the following alternatives may be pursued alone or in combination:- The company could alter its behaviour sufficiently to reduce or eliminate stakeholderpressure. This could involve changing corporate values and strategy in various functionalareas. This can be a very effective strategy for dealing with social pressure.Firms that are perceived as flexible and taking voluntary steps are often spared morerigid and costly legislative or regulatory strictures.Part 2 | 65

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESS- Another option is to try to alter stakeholder expectations in order to bring expectationsof corporate performance closer to actual corporate performance. This may involve“educating” stakeholders about the range of realistic corporate behaviour eitherthrough additional information or by changing the symbols used to describe businessperformance. (Näsi & Näsi 1997: 301)- Last, the firm may choose to contest the issue in the public opinion arena. Somestakeholders have what amounts to very sophisticated strategies for influencing heevolution of public opinion with respect to a particular issue. Firms must respond withat least equal levels of sophistication.3. Thirdly, the gap may originate for a discrepancy between the way companies actually approachand manage an issue and the way stakeholder expect the company to act (policy). In this case,they may share objectives but hold different opinions about ways to reach those goals. The followingalternatives may be pursued alone or in combination:- The firm could alter its policy to correspond with stakeholders’ suggestions. This pathis only advisable in the case that consensus exists in the entire stakeholder environmentabout alternative policies. If consensus does not exist, the company must alter itspolicy in ways that satisfy most stakeholders without jeopardising with its own corporateculture and strategy.- A second option is to change stakeholder expectations to policies. It may be obtainedby openly communicating about grounds for the company policy and this way aspirestakeholders’ understanding and support.- In the case different expectations to company policies prevail, the company maychoose to juxtapose expectations in the public and this way publicly debate alternativepolicies.I can conclude that determining the response to an issue involves choosing and implementing oneof the above strategies. Consequently, the three points above describe the generic principles fordifferent strategic response options.But are the same strategies feasible in a multicultural stakeholder environment? Companies mayfind it difficult to influence stakeholder perceptions and expectations in foreign cultures. Somecompanies may face negative attitudes because it is regarded as a “foreigner”. For example, it maybe seen as acceptable for a local firm to lobby members of the legislature but entirely unacceptablefor a foreign-owned firm to do so. It may be equally difficult for a company to get through to a verycompany-unfriendly activist group. In addition, the means by which a company can influence publicopinion or governmental policy can vary tremendously across cultures. Separate sets of unwrittenrules apply to different cultures. Furthermore, the wording of the response or the way it is representedcan be misunderstood in foreign cultures. In the previous chapter, intercultural communicationtheory showed that people in different cultures communicate by means of different implicitsigns and symbols that lead them to make separate conclusions. Finally, I developing its responseto issues the company may find itself caught between conflicting expectations of two or more66| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSstakeholders. The more it changes its behaviour to close the expectational gap with one group ofstakeholders, the more it widens the gap with the other.Such cultural differences pose additional challenges to the company to develop knowledge andexpertise necessary to formulate and implement appropriate externally directed responses. Forexample, it is obvious that a company must respond differently towards an association of femaleemployees in South America than towards a political party in Denmark. Nevertheless, in practice,the actual job to design different responses is very challenging because most often the issuesmanager will not possess sufficient in-depth knowledge about all of the cultures he is respondingto.From intercultural communication theory we can deduce that in order to effectively manage issueresponses, companies operating multiculturally need to acknowledge the potential risk of miscommunication,i.e. to be culturally aware. This should lead the company to consider the possibility ofdesigning culturally adapted versions of their response to different stakeholders. Again, that necessitatesa thorough analysis of stakeholders involved in the issue. In that process, stakeholder theoryillustrated earlier that it is eminent to respond to stakeholders both in the contextual and thetransactional environment. The fact that they do not all have the same interest in the issue is anotherlesson from the interdisciplinary theoretical analysis. One stakeholder may have a politicalconcern while another holds some symbolic interest in the issue. Failure to determine this variety ofinterest could lead the issues manager to respond to sides of the issue that the stakeholder findirrelevant. An often-committed mistake by companies is to argue from a business perspective witharguments grounded in economic considerations. These may have little or no significance in theeyes of the public. Obviously, it is not possible to design separate responses to all stakeholdergroups on every market. But some sort of rough grouping should be considered.In some issues, it can be necessary for a company in a multicultural environment to respondthrough other parties – for example a local association or organisation with whom it collaborates. Alocal NGO could be a very valuable communication channel in order to successfully respond tospecific parts of the public.To conclude: Management should adopt one of the above-mentioned strategies in order to closethe legitimacy gap. But the creation of the response and the implementation of the communicationprocess both demands cultural mindfulness and sufficient knowledge about the target of the communication.Only this way may issues managers be able to close legitimacy gaps between companiesand stakeholders representing significant degrees of “strangeness”. Thus, any of the strategyoptions mentioned must be sustained by cultural mindfulness in order to succeed.EVALUATIONThe last phase in the issues management process is to evaluate the success of the implementedpolicies and programs in order to determine future strategy on this and related issues.I ssues management theory says that managers must compare the objectives of the organisationwith the results of the program it has been through (Gaunt & Ollenburger 1995: 208). Some of thePart 2 | 67

THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSquestions they could ask are: How well did the company perform and what is the result in terms ofthe corporate image in the public and the relationship with specific stakeholders?Gaunt & Ollenburger also draw the attention to the fact that a second imperative step is to continuouslyre-analyse the issue. Societal changes may resurrect the issue. In that continous monitoring,it is imperative to stay attuned to sensitive topics in different cultures. Changes do not occur at thesame time around the world or in different settings. Often, an issue may be resurrected in a foreigncountry before this happens on a company’s home market. Again, cultural awareness and mindfulnessare pre-eminent for an effective evaluation process.Stakeholder theory emphasised how good stakeholder relations could strengthen the entire issuesmanagement practice around key issues. Thus, in the evolution process, issues managers couldconsider the possibility of setting up “strategic cooperative communities” around key issues engagingkey stakeholders in order to continuously monitor its development.68| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

IDENTIFY (Scan)Objective: Identify crucial issues and involved stakeholdersTasks:! Design a comprehensive set of scanning techniques and media sourcesthat cover both the contextual and transactional environment. Assignlocal issue identifiers in international divisions. Assure cultural diversityof sources scanned.! Reach understanding of different cultural contexts the company faces aswell as the company’s own cultural context. Separately scan those areasof concern, interest and matters given most clout in each culture.! Identify key stakeholders once the issue has been identified. Createmaps of issue holders. Beware that issues involve different stakeholdersin different cultural settings. If necessary, create individual maps of issueholders for each cultural setting.Potential risks:! Important issues dismissed! Important stakeholders dismissedCultural awareness and mindfulnessSakehodetlrdialogueANALYSE (Monitor, evaluate, prioritise)Objective: Determine origin and history of issues and stage in the life cycle.Forecast further development and assess eventual organisational impact.Tasks! Unveil if issues originate from discrepancy of fact, value or policy.! Unveil underlying interests that lead stakeholders to raise issues.! Seek understanding of stakeholders’ own interpretation of issuesthrough cultural relativism and rejection of prejudices and ethnocentrism.Use multiple perspectives, possibly different cultural frameworks.! Understand how issues suit into the web of relations that exist amongstakeholders.! Identify the issues’ place in the life cycle depending on public attentionover time. Distinguish between nascent, developing, resolution andmature stages. Where necessary, develop separate life cycle fordifferent cultural settings and beware of staggered stages.! Design methods to predict future development, including: 1) Analyse lifecycles. 2) Analyse agenda setting factors. Beware of different factors indifferent cultures. 3) Analyse if typical hot issue characteristics arepresent. 4) Run through list of W&S’s 8 key questions. Possibly, askquestions for each cultural setting.! Prioritise issues on the basis of issue characteristics as well as thepower, legitimacy and urgency of stakeholder demands.Potential risks! False perception of issue development and of stakeholders’ standpointsand interests! Wrong issues prioritisedCultural awareness and mindfulnessEVALUATEObjective: Evaluate the success of implemented policies and programs inorder to decide future strategyTasks:! Critically assess practice! Judge whether issues could re-emerge in different cultural settings! Set up long-term stakeholder dialogue around most important issues forongoing monitoring.Potential risks:! Importance of evaluation dismissed and not pursued! Committed mistakes not corrected in future strategies! Issues re-emerge when thought deadCultural awareness and mindfulnessSakehodetlrdaogueilakehodetlrdaogueilRESPOND (Change options)Objective: Respond to stakeholders involved in issues throughcommunication and/ or action.Tasks! Aim responses at creating mutual understanding between companiesand all stakeholders.! Design responses as a dialogical communication process with abalanced effect between companies and stakeholders.! Consciously control attitudinal responses in the communication! Enter into open stakeholder dialogue with culturally differentstakeholders.! Choose between alternative strategic response options depending onthe kind of legitimacy gap. Difference of fact: inform about issue, changesymbols used to communicate. Difference of value: alter companybehaviour, alter stakeholder expectations through information oreducation, contest the issue. Difference of policy: alter policy, changeexpectations to policy through open communication; contest policy in thepublic by juxtaposing alternative stakeholder expectations.! Consider developing separate responses if there are significantdifferences between stakeholders’ interests in the same issue.! Consider designing culturally adapted versions of responses if there aresignificant cultural differences between stakeholders.Potential risks:! Communication causes misunderstanding! Responses focus on wrong interests in issuesStakeholderdialogueCultural awareness and mindfulnessFigure 20: The issues management process in multicultural stakeholder environmentsS

PROPOSING A PROCESS MODELPROPOSING A PROCESS MODELThe previous chapter has proposed that issues management should be a structured process thatincludes identification, analysis, response development and evaluation with the aim of early identifyingissues and finding suitable responses to them. In the light of contemporary European companies’multicultural stakeholder context, I have taken the reader through a re-examination of theprocess and I have pointed to obvious insufficiencies in the way existing literature describes theprocess.I have indicated ways that issues managers can improve practice. On a general level, I have appliedprinciples from stakeholder theory and intercultural communication theory. First, I can concludethat all actions pursued by the issues manager - identification, analysis, response developmentand evaluation - need to incorporate cultural awareness and mindfulness. This means being“consciously competent” to unveil how cultural differences influence issue debates and act uponthat knowledge. Next, I conclude that the issues management process should be supported bysustainable dialogue between companies and stakeholders. This dialogue will strengthen the entireprocess because more and better information is gathered more easily and common solutions maybe found. Issues managers could choose to establish so-called “strategic cooperative communities”around key issues in order to structure the dialogue.The figure below illustrates how I imagine the process should be carried out. The full model on thepage to the left shows how I propose that “cultural awareness and mindfulness” and “stakeholderdialogue” materialise into concrete actions carried out in each stage of the process.IDENTIFY(Scan)Objective: Identify crucialissues and involved stakeholdersCultural awarenessand mindfulnessS dt ia ak le oh go ul ederANALYSE(Monitor, evaluate, prioritise)Objective: Determine originand history of issues andstage in the life cycle. Forecastfurther developmentand assess eventual organisationalimpact.Cultural awarenessand mindfulnessEVALUATEObjective: Evaluate thesuccess of implementedpolicies and programs inorder to decide future strategyCultural awarenessand mindfulnessS dt ia ak le oh go ul ederS dt ia ak le oh go ul ederRESPOND(Change options)Objective: Respond to stakeholdersinvolved in issuesthrough communicationand/or action.Cultural awarenessand mindfulnessS dt ia ak le oh go ul ederFigure 19: The issues management process in multicultural stakeholder environments - small modelPart 2 | 69

CONCLUSION PART 2CONCLUSION PART 2In part 2, a theoretical approach to issues management grounded in multicultural diversity hasbeen examined. I can conclude that theorists like Banks, Heath and Wilson have drawn interestingperspectives to light but no existing theory or exhaustive study provide a satisfactory answer to thedissertation’s research question.Inspired by these scattered perspectives, I have given emphasis to an interdisciplinary methodologythat enables a more profound understanding of the diversity of the everyday character of issuesby bridging theories of issues management, stakeholder theory and intercultural communication.Secondly, I have used this enhanced understanding to redefine the issues management practice,i.e. the practice of issue identification, issue analysis, issue response development andevaluation.The original research question sounded: “Which generic principles for issues management in multiculturalstakeholder environments should companies follow in order to prevent crises?” Below, Iprovide a comprehensive conclusion of the theoretical analysis 13 . The two key models on page 52and page 69 sum up these conclusions and should be beared in mind when reading through thefollowing.PROPOSITION 1: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTThe first proposition I make concerns the business environment:Larger European corporations are part of multicultural stakeholder environments. Companiesshould effectively manage issues in this environment in order to reduce the risk that issues matureinto crises for the business organisation.The fact that European corporations are facing a culturally diverse set of stakeholders is the foundationfor all research carried out in this dissertation. I argue that corporations are accountable totheir stakeholders and that these stakeholders put demands on companies. As the environment isbecoming more multicultural, the number of stakeholder demands increase and so the variancebetween them. These demands should be taken serious and responded to if the company wants toavoid potential crises. In the dissertation, I seek out ways to accomplish that.PROPOSITION 2: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTSThe large “conceptual model” on page 52 shows how I conceptualise issues in multicultural stakeholderenvironments. First, it demonstrates that:Issues are anchored in the relation between companies and stakeholders and are not detachedtopics in the business environment. Issues arise because stakeholders and companies show interestin them, give them significance and there are legitimacy gaps arising from discrepancies of fact,value or policy.13 It should be possible to read this conclusion independently from other parts of this dissertation. Therefore, some overlappingwith earlier sections is unavoidable.70| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

CONCLUSION PART 2The analysis revealed that issues should be studied and analysed with much attention payed to theparties who raise issues – the stakeholders. Issues arise because there is a legitimacy gap betweencompany performance and public expectation. This gap arises from a discrepancy of fact,value or policy between the corporation and one or more stakeholders.If attention is payed to stakeholder analysis it opens up for interesting new dimensions of issuesmanagement. First, it reveals that not only obvious business partners, like customers and shareholders,generally termed as part of the “transactional business environment” raise issues that willaffect corporate performance. Other stakeholders in society like governments and interest groupsthat are part of the so-called “contextual environment” may also initiate influential issues. Secondly,companies become alert to the fact that stakeholder groups vary across cultural settings and thatissues may be raised from unexpected sides abroad.Thirdly, the analysis has demonstrated that “issues” and “stakeholder interests” are closely related.Interests that lead stakeholders to bring up issues are as intricate and broad as human interestsand may be material, affiliative, political, informational, symbolic, spiritual or other. Awareness ofthis diversity will prevent companies from debating an issue from a single or a wrong perspective(often from the material side) when in fact other aspects are more important in the debate.Further, I am able to conclude that an assessment of relative stakeholder importance will help issuesmanagers to foresee which stakeholders that are likely to put pressure on the organisation inpublic debates and consequently which issues that will attract most attention. Some stakeholdersare more influential than others and companies cannot and should not be everything to everybody.Three attributes determine stakeholder influence, which are “legitimacy”, “power” and “urgency”.Finally, the analysis demonstrates that in some issues, different stakeholders will have competingor unified interests that the company must balance. The more stakeholders unify, the more isolatedthe company becomes.This was the first part of proposition 1. Now, the large conceptual model also demonstrates that:Companies and stakeholders are attached to their cultural context, which conditions what theyperceive as legitimate corporate performance. The cultural context conditions how they perceiveissues, interpret them, which opinions they create and how they respond to them verbally and nonverbally.Studied in detail, every stakeholder will represent some sort of cultural diversity compared to thecompany. Thus, cultural diversity or simply the degree of “strangeness” must be seen on a continuum.Cultural differences between stakeholders and companies are comprised by a number offactors and by looking into those factors we learn new things about issues and issues management.First, “values” indicate what is good and bad, important and unimportant and desired ends of sociallife and the means to reach these goals. “Norms and rules” guide what we think we or others“ought to be doing”. Their norms, rules and values strongly influence how stakeholders and com-Part 2 | 71

CONCLUSION PART 2panies perceive issues and the opinion they form. Values, norms and roles are referred to as “thegeneral cultural filter”.Secondly, “role expectations” guide assumptions and prejudices that companies may hold towardsstakeholders in a debate and vice versa. People expect certain things from each other becausethey believe they have a certain role. Roles tend to vary across cultures, which may lead companiesand some stakeholders to create very different expectations towards each other. I can alsoconclude that it is a natural tendency for companies to approach stakeholders with whom theysomehow share similar “value orientations” and “worldviews”. If companies are unaware of thisfact, they may decide not to engage with stakeholders that are critical towards the organisation.Role expectations, categorising and value orientations are termed as “the sociocultural filter”.Thirdly, I can conclude that companies may rely on “stereotypes” with regard to specific stakeholdersand their representatives. Stereotypes tell what other parties in issues debates are like orare supposed to be like. Companies may be too quick to ascribe some people’s reactions to thefact that they are from a specific culture. Moreover, issues managers may tend to remember morefavourable information about “in-groups” than about groups that are culturally very different fromthe company. There is a risk that messages from stakeholders that are very different from thecompany in cultural terms will be interpreted negatively. Stereotypes create self-fulfilling prophecies.If companies are not aware of the stereotyping process, they tend to see behaviour that substantiatestheir expectations and they disconfirm evidence of the opposite. As time passes, thecompany may end up with a misleading and erroneous perception of its environment. In addition,“ethnocentrism” refers to our tendency to view our own cultural values and behaviour as more realor right. Issues managers must try to avoid such ethnocentrism because it blocks understandingand exclude any hope of a mutually beneficial stakeholder relationship. Stereotyping and ethnocentrismis referred to as “the psychocultural filter”.In issue debates, stakeholders and companies “encode” and “decode” what each other do and say.Encoding means the “codes” we put into our own messages. There are cultural and subculturalvariations in the social meaning of verbal and nonverbal behaviour. Decoding refers to our interpretationsof messages. The attribution process is linked to culture and there are differences in theattribution process between different cultures. As issue debates in multicultural stakeholder environmentsare communicative processes, culture (the cultural filters) provides stakeholder and companieswith patterned ways of dealing with issues. It influences what they perceive, how they interpret,and how they respond to issues both verbally and nonverbally. Culture shapes and colourstheir image of issues and conditions the way they think. This way it is possible to conclude thatcultural diversity between stakeholders and companies partly describes why they may form differentopinions about an issue and why misunderstandings may be created when they debate thatissue.I can conclude that legitimacy is culturally bound. When the stakeholder environment is multicultural,the likelihood that issues will arise increases simply because there will be more diversity interms of what is seen as legitimate corporate behaviour and what is not. In addition, the greater thedegree of “strangeness” a company feels towards a particular person or stakeholder, the greaterthe likelihood that misunderstandings will occur because they make faulty predictions about theirmotives, reactions and eventual public criticism. Harmony is the ultimate goal of effective issues72| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

CONCLUSION PART 2management. But to create harmony in multicultural stakeholder environments, it entails understandingand paying attention to cultural disparities that may distinguish a company from its stakeholders.PROPOSITION 3: THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSThe third proposition concerns the issues management practice. “The large process model” onpage 69 indicates ways that issues management could be practiced effectively in multiculturalstakeholder environments. First, it demonstrates that:Issues management should be a structured process of identification, analysis, response andevaluation with the aim of early identifying issues and finding suitable responses to them.The analysis has shown that issues management consists of separate activities that must be carriedout at different steps. By systemising and making issues management a structured process,there are greater possibilities that all necessary actions are undertaken enabling practitioners tolead more effective issues management. It also makes it possible for individual companies to judgehow well they perform in each step in the process and reveal if important elements are missingfrom their approach. This conclusion is parallel to the dominant issues management literature.Nevertheless, I conclude that the process of identification, analysis, response and evaluation isinsufficient on its own in multicultural stakeholder environments. Thus, as it is illustrated in themodel on page 69, I make the following proposition:It is paramount that all issues management actions are supported by genuine “stakeholder analysisand dialogue”. It is equally paramount that all actions are supported by “cultural awareness andmindfulness” towards involved stakeholders. Communication practitioners must translate and integratethese two measures into day-to-day issues management practices.The analysis has shown that the risk of global public relations conflicts and bad media coveragediminish if issues management seeks fruitful stakeholder dialogue and builds sustainable relationswith stakeholders that are involved in key issues. This way, the issues management process –often regarded as a purely communicative discipline - will be strengthened if it is undertaken in anintegrated manner with stakeholder analysis and dialogue. The ultimate goal is to create mutualunderstanding between companies and stakeholders about issues. The aim should be to exchangeinformation about issues and finding common solutions to them. A key attribute for issues managementwill be the ability to early identify issues and closely monitor their development. In addition,solutions to issues can often be found that satisfy all publics if people work together with awillingness to compromise for the benefit of the community. I propose that the dialogue is carriedout in a so-called “strategic cooperative community” centred on key issues. These communitiesmust include key stakeholders involved in the issue and be based on the minimum characteristicsof “trust”, “predictability”, “mutual interests”, “mutual gratification or benefit” and “proximity”. (Findmore information about strategic cooperative communities in the specific chapter).Intercultural communication theory indicates ways that the issues management process may accountfor cultural differences between companies and stakeholders. I have been operating with theterm “cultural awareness”, which refers to the fact that we rarely notice that we perceive thingsPart 2 | 73

CONCLUSION PART 2differently from others. Companies are likely to debate an issue with stakeholders on the false assumptionthat they understand the issue by the same logic or buy into same arguments. I have alsoemployed the term “cultural mindfulness”. Mindfulness has three parameters. One is the ability andreadiness to shift one’s frame of reference. The second is the motivation to use new categories tounderstand cultural or ethnic differences. And the third is the preparedness to experiment withcreative avenues of decision-making and problem solving. Ideally, issues managers should act ona level of “conscious competence”, meaning that issues managers are both aware of cultural differencesand able to act upon them (mindful). Being “consciously competent” they have the aptitudeto change between identify constructions and understand and perceive an issue from others’ culturalframe. It requires making more distinctions and fewer generalisations. Issues mangers shouldbe conscious about the stereotypes they hold and constantly question if the stereotypes are correct.They must particularise, rather than categorise, information about others and look closely atthe unique attribute, attitudes and behaviour of each stakeholder before making predictions aboutthem. Culturally mindful issues management is capable of using a multicultural perspective. Towardsthat end, the issues manager could draw on past experiences with specific stakeholders ormake use of different cultural frameworks or “topoi”. The ultimate goal of this “awareness” and“mindfulness” is to give stakeholders the feeling that the company understands, respects, and supportsthe way they approach a specific issue. On the contrary, the incompetent issues managerexpresses evaluative attitudes, suspicions, and mistrust. I conclude that if issues managers areculturally “aware” and “mindful” they will be able to see more faces of an issue and if not sympathisewith stakeholders then at least understand their reactions and anticipate some of their expectations.In the analysis, I have put emphasis on translating the general concepts of “stakeholder analysisand dialogue” as well as “cultural awareness and mindfulness” into operational practices. Theseconcepts are not useful unless they materialise into concrete activities undertaken by issues managers.In the large “process model”, I have rewritten each step in the issues management process.Each company must draw a similar process model in which similar concretisation is pursued. Iconclude that if “stakeholder analysis and dialogue” as well as “cultural awareness and mindfulness”are integrated into the issues management process it increases the possibility to effectivelyidentify and correctly analyse issues. And to respond to stakeholders in a way where misunderstandingis avoided and further conflict prevented. These propositions should make it possible toreduce the risk of crises.With these three propositions, part 2 has fulfilled the aspiration to identify generic principles forintercultural issues management both on a conceptual level and on an operational level. Thepropositions should be tested in an empirical analysis, which is the objective of part 3.74| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

PART 3Part 2 | 75

INTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL ANALYSISINTRODUCTION TO THE EMPIRICAL ANALYSISThe purpose of part 3 will be to present the practice of issues management at a number of largeEuropean corporations. The objective is to provide empirical data that assess the theoreticalpropositions. The data has been obtained through personal qualitative interviews with practitionersof issues management at 6 large European corporations:! One interview was conducted with Kim Klastrup (Danish) at Grundfos. Kim Klastrup is brandand marketing manager. Grundfos manufacturers and markets high technology electronics andelectric motors for pumps and separate merchandising.! A second interview was carried out with Marianne Barner (Swedish) from Ikea. She is head ofPR and Communications at Ikea International A/S. Ikea offers home furnishing in its warehousesaround the world. In addition to own production, Ikea receives supplies from a worldwidenet of manufacturers.! A third interview was with Jette Orduna from Lego (Danish). She is employed in the communicationdepartment at Lego and responsible for issues management. Lego produces toys and isknown worldwide for the traditional Lego brick.! A fourth interview took place with Bo Wesley (Danish) from Novo Nordisk. Bo Wesley is managerof trendspotting and dialogue in the Stakeholder Relations Department. Novo Nordiskmanufactures and markets a number of pharmaceutical products, mainly within diabetes care.! SAS participated in a fifth interview. The interviewee, Carl Karlsson (Swedish), is vice presidentof Corporate Communication at SAS Sweden. SAS is the biggest airline in Scandinavia. In addition,it has a large number of hotels, Rezidor SAS Hospitality, around the world.! Finally, I spoke to Matthias Glischinski-Kurc (German) from Shell Europe. He is employed asissues manager and communication specialist in Shell’s European External Affairs Departmentin London. Shell finds, produces and markets oil and gas in all parts of the world.The full interview summaries stand as interesting examples of contemporary issues managementpractices and may be of particular inspiration to other companies. It is not prerequisite for the understandingof the subsequent chapters to read through the summaries but they will provide a moreprofound understanding. It is evident that the sort of propositions this dissertation has developeddoes not translate into concrete yes and no questions. It has been my objective to get answers tothree very general questions: How do the companies experience their business environment andthe risk of crises? How do the companies conceptualise issues? How do the companies manageissues? In the end of the dissertation, you may find the interview guide including the questionsasked during the interviews. The intention has been to let issues managers describe how they conceptualiseissues in their business environment and how they conduct issues management – withtheir own words. The three propositions structure the analysis.76| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESPROPOSITION 1: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTThe first observation tested on the 6 companies concerns the business environment. It sounds:Larger European corporations are part of multicultural stakeholder environments. Companiesshould effectively manage issues in this environment in order to reduce the risk that issues matureinto crises for the business organisation.CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE ENVIRONMENTIn the interviews, all companies described their stakeholder environment as being multicultural. Thebackground information about the 6 companies presented in the interview summaries also providesevidence that all 6 companies indeed are part of multicultural stakeholder environments. Below, Ipick out four issues from each company that illustrate the many different stakeholders involved. Ifwe look at how I described cultural differences on page 15, it is clear that a large degree of culturaldiversity exist in each of 6 companies’ respective environments.Company Issue 1 Issue 2 Issue 3 Issue 4Grundfos Anti-globalisation demonstrationsby groupslike “Attac”Local politics, like infrastructureand education.Production in China – thediscussion about China’sviolation of human rightsExports to Arab world vs.Israel – the Jewish-Palestinian conflictIkeaLegoNovoNordiskSASGreenpeace allegationsof PVC (formaldehyde) inproducts.The use of religiousMaori names for toycharacters.Access to medicine inpoor countries and patentrightsAccusations of poolsharing with Maersk Air.Ikea suppliers in Pakistanemploying underageworkers.Instruction book withreference to September11 attacks in the US.HIV infected blood.Sustainable tourism athotelsDiscussions of woodsupplies from ancientrain forests.Toy safety and PVC inproducts.Genetic modification asbasis for research.Critique of safety onboard flightsLocal resistance towardslarge warehouses in theUS.Allegations of dismissalof older employees inDenmark.Animal testing of pharmaceuticals.Frequent flyer programlimiting competitionShellDumping of the BrentSpar Oil platform in theseaOil exploration in Nigeriaand government hangingof 8 agony activistsEnvironmental damagescaused by oil or gasExploration of poorcountries’ oil resourcesOne company worth mentioning is Lego that is facing a large amount of demands from its environment.The majority comes from customers and the company gets about 2 million enquiries a year.Most enquiries are product specific but Lego has experienced an increase in other sort of questions.One example was a very upset American mother who had bought some Lego toy for her son.Pictures in the instruction book could be compared to the September 11 attacks on the WorldTrade Centre. The much-discussed issue with the Maoris from New Zealand also demonstrates thefact that Lego is part of a multicultural stakeholder environment. Representatives from some Maoritribes accused Lego of using sacred Maori names for figures in their new Bionicle toy series. Thecase attracted very high media exposure in Denmark. In addition to the Maori tribes, the issuesinvolved stakeholders like national politicians in New Zealand and UNICEF. These examples, thatJette Orduna pointed to during the interview, stand in opposition to the following statement: “Thereis so few stakeholders that it has to be because people have confidence in what we do. We knowPart 3 | 77

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESabout the cultural differences in the world, but we have astonishingly few demands from stakeholders.”On the other hand, she also said: Today, there is so much focus that it is difficult to cheaton anybody.” This confusing situation most likely arises because Jette Orduna conceptualises“stakeholders” as interests groups while I refer to the concept as “anybody or any group with astake in the company”.Novo Nordisk is often in the limelight in the Danish media. Not at least the so-called South Africacase illustrated the multiplicity of demands this pharmaceutical company is facing. In the SouthAfrica case, Novo Nordisk was dealing with activist organisations and especially international activistorganisations. According to Bo Wesley from Novo Nordisk, activist organisations have becomevery professional in their international cooperation over the past years. They are very effective intaking concerted action and coordinate campaigns across national boundaries. They are also veryprofessional in terms of fundraising capacities and communication experts are borrowed from industrialcompanies or public relations agencies. Bo Wesley feels that many issues will becomeinternational in the future. “In issues management we are aware that most issues will arise internationally,especially on the political arena.” Bo Wesley referred to the debate in the European Unionat the moment about commercials for pharmaceuticals and another debate about price settingstandards.For Shell, the circle of stakeholders has widened the past 10 years and the company now faces agreater diversity of stakeholder. Most of the time, oil exploration leads to direct confrontation orcollaboration with stakeholders like politicians, local inhabitants, NGOs and others. There is nodoubt that Shell’s stakeholders represent all types of cultural differences. Contrarily to the othercompanies, the international integration of the media has been an important driver making Shell’sstakeholder environment more multicultural. A common example is when Shell starts new operationsthat may cause local resistance. Often NGOs chose to jump on that bandwagon and make itan international issue. But it can also have positive outcomes: “I don’t think outside pressure mustbe by definition negative. It can be very positive because it helps you to identify how to improveyour own processes and standards.”(...) “NGO’s internationalisation of issues isn’t all that bad becausesome of the outside pressure has helped the industry actually improve and continue to improvetheir own standards. Today, we approach projects in a different way than we did 10 or 15years ago and I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 years time we approach them even more differently.”One Danish article sums it up this way: “Through time, businesses have been given a more powerfulposition in society and function as governmental aids in many respects today.” (…) “If the environmentdoes not assess that the company meets its obligations in a satisfactory way, a crisis mayeasily appear, become unmanageable and pose a threat to the company image in the long term.”(Translated from Danish. Schønnemann 2002).INCREASE IN DEMANDS PUT ON COMPANIESSome of the companies pointed to the fact that more demands are put on companies today thanbefore. Kim Klastrup from Grundfos explained: “Today, there are more opinion makers that raisesubjects. There are also more medias that have to take a very critical stand in order to have animpact at all. The paradox is that in the 70s and 80s industrial companies had a negative image inthe public but it was rarely confronted by critical voices. During the 90s the industrial sector hasbecome “in” again.” Industrial companies have gained a greater societal acceptance. But on the78| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESother side, a greater number of critical medias and critical interests occur that all have an agendawe cannot avoid.”For Ikea, it is relatively new to manage issues. First, the company was caught by surprise in a caseabout the use of PVC in some of their products. Concerning the allegations that Ikea supplierswere using child labour, Marianne Barner explained in the interview: “If we take the child labourissue, Ikea just fell. I had just started and I felt awkward and I thought why do we not know moreabout this issue…” During the interview, Marianne Barner explained that Ikea has come to learnthat its role is bigger today than it was ten years ago. Lego has experienced the same increase inpublic demands as Ikea. One example of such new demands was an enquiry from a critical consumerwho wanted Lego to stop supplies from Bayer in Germany. In the interview, Jette Ordunaexplained about the Bayer issue: Bayer must take responsibility for its other activities. We haveforwarded the enquiry to Bayer. I do not want to get involved with what Bayer does in third worldcountries. Somehow, it is not my pigeon. But we sit down and estimate what is behind this issue. Itcould be a forerunner of an NGO or a larger organisation that want to test our standpoint”.Bo Wesley from Novo Nordisk pointed to this increase in demands as well. He referred to a studyshowing that private companies fulfil a very large percentage of traditionally public tasks. “It is asliding transition of roles that nobody has defined or wants to define. That is why businesses nowface extraordinary demands. At a moment, it was almost expected that companies had the responsibilityfor the entire sum of people they engage with.” In an interview with the Danish NewspaperPolitiken, Lise Kingo, Executive Vice President at Novo Nordisk, explained that she has clearlynotified a rising awareness in society about problems with an ethical character (June 1997). NovoNordisk has identified a number of so-called environmental stakeholders. Eight to nine years agothere were three – the authorities, the neighbours and environmental NGOs. Today, there are tento twelve, Lise Kingo said in the interview. These include investors, customers, suppliers and employees.The fifth company I interviewed, SAS, has experienced an equal multiplication of expectations fromthe environment: “There are very big demands and the development is that we should take agreater responsibility.” To mention an example, SAS faces greater demands from suppliers, likecoca cola and more and more often, shareholders require that SAS live up to certain standards.ISSUES WITH LITTLE RELATION TO CORE BUSINESS ACTIVITIESA general trait for the 6 companies is that more issues appear with only periphery connection to thecompanies’ core business. General topics are picked up and stakeholders “use” companies to drawattention to the topic.Grundfos is a good example of this. The Danish media often demands that the company developseffective responses to very general public issues. As a large company, Grundfos has to take aposition in that issue even though it does not concern its business as such. Kim Klastrup believes itis about getting an outside-in perspective on the organisation and he says that is a process manycompanies now go through. Before, companies used to have a low profile. “The one that live insilence will die. The consequence is that you have to see and anticipate new issues”. In the BrentSpar issue, Grundfos was pressed to make a standpoint and decided that it would cut businessrelations with Shell unless Shell found another solution to the dumping of the Brent Spar oil plat-Part 3 | 79

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESform. The decision was based on the fact that Grundfos had signed ICC’s (the International Chamberof Commerce) environmental charter that advised companies to be critical towards suppliers.Legohas experienced a similar proliferation of demands with very little relevance to Lego’score activities. In the interview, I referred to an issue where Lego was criticised for exporting toBurma. Jette Orduna answered: “There has to be a limit for trivial matters. We said: Ok, so what,once again we are used in a play that does not concern us.”Matthias Glischinski-Kurc from Shell confirmed this general picture. Often, when Shell starts a newexploration of oil, it takes place in countries outside Western Europe that may have faced or facesproblems with political instability. When Shell moves in, some organisations use the Shell brand toattract attention from the general public: “All of a sudden organisations can attach a name thateverybody knows to a problem. Nobody else would be interested in what is going to happen in, let’ssay, the African Delta but if you have a high street name coming in then all by a sudden all peoplecan understand. You can attach a face to a problem that has nothing to do with the face.”INCREASED FOCUS ON ISSUES MANAGEMENTAt Grundfos, the increase in stakeholder expectations has driven the company to put greater focuson issues management, not a more integrated media, as was my point in the introduction: “I thinkthe Danish media is surprisingly uninterested in Grundfos issues abroad.” Kim Klastrup mentionedan issue in the UK about allegations of monopoly. The case received great media coverage in theUK but no journalists in Denmark picked it up. Nevertheless, Kim Klastrup pointed to the fact thatthe Internet has paved the way for more international integration of the media: “More and moreissues get picked up on the Internet. The Internet is open for everybody, no matter whether argumentsare legitimate. It can be results of research reports, competitors that publish negative newsabout you etc. The Internet is still based on anarchy.” Grundfos has dealt with critical issues on theInternet. Kim Klastrup finds it difficult to respond to such issues, because it is not clear who to respondto.At Lego, the communication department also pays more attention to issues management than earlier.All enquiries receive an answer and consumer service pays more attention to identifying enquiriesthat have a moral or ethical side to it. A couple of years ago, Lego was less sensitive towardsissues like the Bayer case. “We used to think: Well, too bad. You have your opinions, wehave ours.” Since the Maori issue, Lego pays more attention to potential public relations conflicts:“What concerns moral, we have got the warning that we have to pay more close attention to that”.At Novo Nordisk, issues management achieves great attention. Bo Wesley devotes all his time toissues management and stakeholder relations and colleagues in the same department are dealingwith futures research and trend spotting. Issues management has become increasingly importantfor SAS as well despite the fact that there is no actual issues manager employed. Not at least becauseSAS is part of an industry where minor crises like safety or job dissatisfaction easily haveconsequences on the operational level (cancellation or delay of flights).With the realisation that Ikea occupies a broader role today than ten year ago, the company hasstarted focus more on proactively looking for upcoming issues. Marianne Barner said: “These issueshave learned us something. We should try to see things coming. Even though we do not do itin a very systematic way, we are out and seeing and doing things before somebody come knocking80| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESon our door”(….) “No one will ever be the masters of this, but we are much much better now thanten years ago.” Compared to a couple of years ago, IKEA management are much more concernedabout non-commercial issues and about identifying them.Finally, issues management has achieved greater clout at Shell in recent years, Today, the companyruns regular seminars for the 150 top managers in Europe to assure they have a proper introductionto reputation management. The seminar teaches that what managers do in terms of runningtheir business, always has two impacts: A reputational impact and a business impact. MatthiasGlischinski-Kurc said: “There are no illegitimate questions. Ideally, you should always be able toanswer any question from the public – and be it by admitting that you don’t have the answer yet.”Matthias Glischinski-Kurc is employed as full time issues manager with Shell.ISSUES MANAGEMENT, SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND/OR COMMUNICATIONNot all companies confirmed that the intensification of public demands has lead to more focus beingpaid to issues management. The interview with Marianne Barner demonstrated that Ikea hasput more focus on creating partnership and changing business activities to become more responsiblerather than to strengthen communicative efforts. Actually, Marianne Barner seemed quite resistanttowards treating issues as a communication activity. Instead she puts emphasis on letting theissues become part of the company’s sustainability work: “If it is a communication activity, then it isshort term and not sustainable business. That does not correspond with our way of working.” Thus,in opposition to most literature and the way I have presented issues management in this dissertation,Marianne Barner does not see social responsibility work and issues management as complementarydisciplines. Instead she believes there is a risk that issues management leads to a superficialand short-term approach to issues. In the introduction to issues management I pointed to therisk that issues management is perceived as spin doctoring or defensive delay activities which isthe fault of some unserious parts of the issues management literature (page 19). Issues managementmust be understood as Wartick & Wood define it – as a way to broaden the framework ofbusiness exposure to include threats and opportunities in social and political environments (1998:195).In opposition to Marianne Barner, Carl Karlsson from SAS does not agree that the intensification ofstakeholder demands translates into greater focus on social responsibility in the company. He believesSAS has been working with a broad range of topics like the environment, social responsibilityand community relations for a long time. The great change is that today companies need to beopen and communicate about what they do. In a television program, SAS was accused of puttingaside safety issues. Media coverage like this one does not lead SAS to focus more on safety, as itis all ready very important in all SAS activities. But it leads to greater efforts put into communicatingabout safety, both internally and externally, Carl Karlsson said. Kim Klastrup from Grundfos agreedwith Carl Karlsson, that the urgency to communicate about business activities is the biggestchange: “In general, I believe our work in society has something to do with our world view. Thepublic attention to companies’ social responsibility only really began in the 1990s but for Grundfos ithas been part of business since the company was established. The difference is that now we haveto be open and communicate about it.” The remaining 3 companies said that issues managementhas lead to greater focus both on social responsibility work and effective communication. Askedabout what to do in order to avoid public relations crises, Jette orduna from Lego answered that themost important part was to behave morally and to allocate resources and manpower to issuesPart 3 | 81

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESmanagement. Bo Wesley from Novo Nordisk said: “The first thing we should do is to behave correctly.Show that what we say is what we do and build trust in the public. We should take our responsibilityseriously and use resources to improve ourself. The second thing is to notice whatgoes on in the surrounding society, take it seriously and react upon it. These are two very importantelements.” The quote demonstrates that at Novo Nordisk, like at Lego, social responsibility goeshand in hand with effective communication as means for reducing crises.In addition, the respondents drew my attention to another interesting aspect. If companies are openabout company values and social responsibility it seems likely that they face more issues thanmore “silent” companies. The following quotations are evidences of that: “You want your customersto fall in love with the company. But the more emotions that come into play, the greater is the risksthat emotions turn around.”… “It is clear that a higher profile, a sharper profile, leads to greaterrisks to get overthrown.” (Kim Klastrup Grundfos). “We are aware that the more we poke our noseinto discussions, the greater the blows we receive. That is why we are actually quite reticent.”(Jette Orduna, Lego). “By being open about your social responsibility, public expectations to yourcompany rise. If you do not live up to it, you get beaten up. But we believe that it pays off to beopen in the long run.” (Bo Wesley, Novo Nordisk). These arguments are sustained in a Danisharticle: “Only the naïve manager believes that the company image is guaranteed simply becausethe company is branding itself in terms of soft values, holistic management and responsibility towardsdevelopments in the global society. One the contrary, the many bottom lines increase thecompany’s sensitivity towards criticism…” (Translated from Danish. Schønnemann 2002). Consequently,the interviews indicate that the general trend towards more open communication aboutcorporate values and social responsibility may increase companies’ legitimacy in the public. But inorder to reduce the risk that critical issues jeopardise with this image of being responsible, effectiveissues management is increasingly important for today’s European companies.I may illustrate the way the different companies described the relation between issues management,social responsibility and communication this way:More end new demandsput on companies.Issues arise.Issues managementidentifies and analysesissuesMake business activitiesmore socially responsibleCommunicate more effectivelyabout bus. activitiesFigure 21: Communication and social responsibilityPRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONThe preliminary conclusion I draw is that all companies described their stakeholder environment asbeing multicultural, while the diversity and number of stakeholders varied from company to company.The 6 respondents feel more demands are put on companies and more issues arise as aconsequence, especially broad issues with periphery connection to core business. I also concludethat the companies believe effective issues manage activities could reduce the risk that these issuesevolve into crises for the organisation. Though it is paramount, the interviews showed, thateffective communication and changing business operations into more sustainable practices arecomplementary ways of responding to issues.82| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESPROPOSITION 2:ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTSThe “conceptual model” on page 52 shows how to conceptualise issues in multicultural stakeholderenvironments. It demonstrates that:! Issues are anchored in the relation between companies and stakeholders and are not detachedtopics in the business environment. Issues arise because stakeholders and companies showinterest in them, give them significance and there are legitimacy gaps arising from discrepanciesof fact, value or policy.! Companies and stakeholders are attached to their cultural context, which conditions what theyperceive as legitimate corporate performance. The cultural context conditions how they perceiveissues, interpret them, which opinions they create and how they respond to them verballyand nonverbally.ISSUES – CONFLICTS OF INTERESTI wrote in the theoretical analysis that “issues” and “stakeholder interests” are closely related. Interestslead stakeholders to bring up issues and can be material, affiliative, political, informational,symbolic, spiritual or other. Awareness of this diversity will prevent companies from debating anissue from a single or a wrong perspective (often from the material side) when in fact other aspectsare more important in the debate, I argued. The examples below quite clearly illustrate that this istrue in the 6 companies.Kim Klastrup mentioned an issue where Grundfos became subject to criticism of racial discrimination.In order to protect activities in Arab countries, Grundfos had decided not to make permanentagreements with Israeli distributors. In several Arab countries, Grundfos had been forced to signagreements not to provide products to Israel. The issue arose because the editor of the Danishnewspaper Politiken was Jewish and Grundfos refused to sign a contract with an acquittance of hisin Israel. Politiken printed an article saying that Grundfos refused to trade with Jewish people. Itwas eventually picked up by the national television. Grundfos was obliged to react promptly andopenly declared that it did not want to trade with Israel because it had to protect a turnover of 300million DKK in the Arab world. Concerning that issue, Kim Klastrup said: “It is evident that there is aconflict of interest. But as a company you should be prepared that some people will question youractivities. Borrowing terms from the theoretical analysis, the above case is an evident example of asituation where the company logic is based on financial considerations (material interests) while theIsraeli distributor and the Danish media picked up the issue from a political and a racial angle.Matthias Glischinski-Kurc from Shell pointed to the fact that issues are not only about conflictinginterests between a company and a stakeholder. Often there are a whole variety of interests involved.Matthias Glischinski-Kurc said: “Usually issues are not very straightforward and clear. Issuesmanagement is not a scientific laboratorial exercise where you can isolate one element. Usuallyan issue is complex and interrelated with other policy arenas or policy issues.”(….)“You have tosee NGOs as one stakeholder group and not forget about all the others like the political arena forexample. Politicians and NGOs have to be able to explain the issue to THEIR supporters. Theyhave their own agenda. Sometimes, it is hard for them to say publicly that what the company isdoing is bloody good because their supporters don’t like to hear that.”(….)“Various stakeholdersPart 3 | 83

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIEShave various interests not only in terms of demands but also in aspects of an issue.” He mentionsnew operations as an example: Human Right groups want Shell to respect human rights in adictatorial political regime. An environmental NGO might be interested in gas flaring, biodiversityetc. A development agency might be interested in how Shell contributes to the local development ofresources of the people. There are also differences between political stakeholders. Localgovernment might be interested in getting local revenue while a national government might see theneed to let other regions participate in the wealth created. And governments in Europe or politicalorganisations might choose to put pressure on that government because of various reasons.Matthias Glischinski-Kurc verifies that it is imperative in issues management to understand theinterests that drive stakeholders to raise issues and to put yourself in the stakeholder’s feet. Healso extents on the proposition 2 by pointing to the potential downfalls if issues managers focus toonarrowly on interest conflicts with one stakeholder and overlook other important interests in thesame issues.Marianne Barner from Ikea had a different perception of interest conflicts than the other companies.She confirmed that some stakeholders and Ikea may be driven by different objectives in their dayto-daywork: “..of course we are business companies and we are here to make a business and weshould use our business.” But she believes the discussion of conflicting interests is often misunderstood.Marianne Barner does not ascribe the “child labour issue” to conflicting interests betweenIkea and some stakeholders. Ikea was simply unprepared that society was putting new demandson companies to assure that their suppliers respected principles of social responsibility: “We do nothave different interests. And that is my key point. Save the Children do not accept child labour. Ikeadoes not accept child labour. Other companies do not accept child labour. So what can we do?”(…..) “The lesson is that we have the same goals but we have different roles. It does not have to bethat we agree on everything during that journey and I don’t think that we shall because we havedifferent roles in society.” You could say that in the “child labour issue” the true interest conflict wasbetween some Ikea stakeholders: The supplies wanted to reduce costs in order to be competitiveand maintain contracts with Ikea while NGOs wanted to stop the use of underage workers. Ikeabeing a globally known corporation was expected to actively take part in that conflict.CONCRETE DESCREPANCIESMarianne Barner’s statement directly leads to another conclusion from the theoretical analysis. Anissue does not arise from conflicting interests alone. They only arise if there are concrete discrepanciesof fact, value or policy.Kim Klastrup from Grundfos made this distinction between interests and concrete gaps: “There arenot that many areas of conflicts between Grundfos and its various stakeholders but it is evident thatwe each have our foundation and interests. Grundfos wants to foster sustainable development andso does organisations like Greenpeace. So where is it that we have different interests? It is when itcomes to the company existence and what it takes to lead a company.” (….). “You have to rememberthat we have a raison d’être as a company which is to be a leading company on our markets.Of course this is another objective than NGOs like Greenpeace. They operate on a much broaderarena.” An example of a discrepancy of fact is Grundfos’ confrontations with anti-globalisationgroups. These groups hold that through global dominance, Grundfos participates to increase localunemployment. On the other hand, Grundfos maintains that it contributes to the creation of jobsthrough international expansion.84| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESThe “South Afric issue” involving Novo Nordisk illustrates a discrepancy of policy. Novo Nordiskbecame subject to immense media coverage in this case. “Oxfam”, an international confederationof NGOs, started the debate about medical companies’ intellectual property rights vis-à-vis accessto life-saving medicine for people in developing countries. Novo was accused of limiting access tomedicine for diabetes patients. Novo Nordisk felt that stakeholders had a very narrow approach byfocusing on intellectual property rights. Bo Wesley explained: “The activists have led a very narrowdebate. At Novo we feel you need to take a much more holistic approach in order to assure accessto life-saving medicine. Many parties should do something positive at the same time and togetherin order to create sustainable solutions.”(…) “They say they want to achieve the same as we do:assure access to heath for as many people as possible in poor regions of the world. But there is abig difference between our solutions and we discuss a lot about that. In the South Africa case,some activist organisations thought that moving intellectual property rights would solve all problemsbecause other companies would be allowed to develop genetic medicine and prices would fall. Wecannot accept that solution because intellectual property rights is key in our business model. If theydo not exist it will be catastrophic for innovation in the pharmaceutical industry.” The ground pillarsin Novo Nordisk’s business model are to develop unique expensive medicine that can be patented.Novo firmly believes that it is in the best interest of the public to continue such up-front innovation.In order to, at the same time, assure access to medicine Novo has chosen to follow WHO’s solutions.Oxfam and other stakeholders like Danish “Mellemfolkelig Samvirke” and “Læger udengrænser” believe a very different policy is needed to assure equal access to medicine.The following is an example of a discrepancy of “policy” between Shell and some NGOs: SomeNGOs say: Stop oil tomorrow, because oil creates climate change. We have to say: This is thelogic yes BUT there is also an economic or social impact. You can’t simply switch off the oil supplyfrom the third world. You need to develop alternatives and that takes time. If we want to avoid socialor economic eruption in the world system we need to find a reasonable why to migrating fromeconomy A to economy B.”STAKEHOLDER INFLUENCEIn the theoretical analysis I argued that stakeholder theory could contribute to issues managementby analysing which stakeholders the company should pay most attention to. I wrote that not allstakeholders are equally important because they have different possibilities of influence.Carl Karlsson from SAS confirmed that conclusion. He said: “Instead of just talking about the environment,we have to become more aware which of our stakeholders are important to us and buildour work with different issues on that basis.”(….) “As our operations spread, new stakeholders areintroduced. Society put new demands on us. New expectations are created. New customers arrive.We develop our relations.” He points to the fact that it is not enough to analyse the environment.Companies must be strategic in choosing which forces in the environment they pay attention to.Ikea is aware of the potential downsides of paying too much attention to specific stakeholders.Marianne Barner said in the interview that companies should beware not to blindly follow what onestakeholder is saying just because it is influential. Otherwise, the company risks reacting in a waythat does not correspond with its policies in the long run. Thus, Ikea puts emphasis on always obtainingknowledge about a specific issue and forming an independent standpoint on that basis.Marianne Barner mentioned an example: “I can give you one example and that is the red mark. It isPart 3 | 85

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESa label that was very much discussed for carpets. It was a very good initiative, but we saw theweaknesses. And we said we will not participate.” The initiative came from very influential stakeholdersin Ikea’s environment. But had the company followed these stakeholders’ suggestions, itwould have jeopardised with its other policies and programs related to the child labour issue.The conclusion must be that it makes sense to closely take into consideration potential stakeholderinfluence before deciding which issues to pay attention to and which stakeholders to focus on. Atthe same time it is paramount that issues managers are capable of assessing whether catering tospecific stakeholders is in balance with overall corporate policies and values in the long run.CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN FOCUS ON ISSUESMoving to the intercultural aspect of issues management, the first thing that springs in the eyes inthe interviews is the fact that there are substantial cultural variations in which issues people focuson. Cultural variations may appear along many dimensions, which I illustrated in the model on page15. The following are examples of two of those dimensions - national cultures and subcultures.Kim Klastrup from Grundfos made the following observation: “Culture and cultural understandingvary a lot in different locations. People pay attention to different things.” He pointed to national culturaldifferences as one aspect: “…there is a difference between which issues the individual countriesfocus on. It has something to do with values and traditions in each country and what movespeople to action. Like in the US, there is a hysterical consciousness in relation to food.” (…..)“Many themes are global. But there is a great difference in how much focus the issue achieves oneach market.” It is interesting that Kim Klastrup spoke about “values” and “traditions”. It correspondswith what I wrote about “the general cultural filter” in the theoretical analysis. I stated thatvalues indicate what is good and bad, important and unimportant and “desired ends of social lifeand the means to reach these goals” while norms and rules guide what we think we or others“ought to be doing”. Thus, Kim Klastrup confirms that these cultural variations lead people to focuson different issues or different aspect of an issue.Bo Wesley (Novo Nordisk) further substantiated this. He explained that he has experienced largedisparities in the attention different countries pay to medical diseases. In India, diabetes is not considereda priority because it is a slowly evolving illness. Many patients in non-western countries donot take diabetes seriously either. They are fundamentally sceptical towards medicine and nutritionadvices from Western doctors.The Maori issue is a further example: “When you look at cultural differences, we said that the US isone place we really can come into trouble with the Maori issue because Americans often havedouble standards. At that time, we had a very big McDonald campaign coming up in the US andMcDonald did not want to get their fingers burned so we had clammy hands. But it never occurred.”The fact that Lego had to withdraw a product from the shelves that contained controversial picturesin the instruction book is another example of cultural variations. Jette Orduna described this incidentas very “American”: “You can say that in issues like this one we go in and think about the culturebecause on the one side we think this is A BIT exaggerated, to be honest. On the other hand,we had to say, ok, we have offended someone in the US, and it is likely that more people will beoffended if they get hold of the product. So we must withdraw it.”(…)”Again, the culture is decisive.86| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESBecause here in Europe we would say it was very unlucky but nobody would have made the connection.”These are examples of national cultural variations. Subcultural variations between stakeholdersinfluence which issues they focus on as well. In the interview, Shell distinguished between socalledevent-driven NGOs (for example Attac) and scientific NGOs (for example research institutes).“Event driven NGOs tend to select potential areas to get involved in a different way thanorganisations that are more into the background and substance and structure of an issue.”(…)“Contrary to other stakeholders, scientific organisations tend to focus on how to get sound informationto make very informed and knowledge-based decision.” In the first type of organisation, creatinghigh media attention, maybe trough demonstrations, is considered most valuable and “right”. Inthe second type of organisation, the culture may value research that disapproves corporateperformance. In this case, it becomes decisive whether the NGO is part of an “event-driven culture”or a “scientific culture”.Novo Nordisk is currently going through a similar recognition of subcultural variations in ways ofcommunicating about issues. Bo Wesley explained that the organisation has been focusing tooheavily on NGOs, political organs and other formal stakeholders. Now, the company wants to createdialogue with individuals and patients and it has recognised that it has to move its rhetoric outof this “informed and special universe” and jump to “a second level of competence”.In sum, I conclude that the interviews provide evidence that culture, both at a national and subculturallevel, is a decisive driver for which issues or which aspects of an issue people focus on.CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN DEALING WITH ISSUESIn part 2, I concluded that bases of issues – discrepancies of fact, value or policy – are couched incultural beliefs and attitudes. This way, cultural differences between stakeholders and companiesmay explain why some discrepancies arise. If this conclusion is true, issues are likely to occurwhen there are cultural, sociocultural or psychocultural variances between stakeholders and companies.All 6 companies touched upon cultural variations in the way different stakeholders approach andmanage issues. Below, I mention a few.At a general level, Kim Klastrup (Grundfos) said: “There is a clear difference between our threeregional blocks, Europe, Asia and the Americas, in how they approach different issues. This goesfor example for themes like environmental consciousness, human rights, and social responsibility.”Kim Klastrup argued that issues are more complex when they have an international perspective: “Itis obvious that when an issues is transnational or even global, it is difficult to manage. Some issuesoccur abroad that you can manage locally. One example was an issue in the US about water pollution.It is relatively easy to understand an issue within one country. What is really difficult is when itinvolves a number of countries.”Indeed, Grundfos have concrete experiences that so-called one-sided issues are two-sided in foreigncultures. Grundfos’ mission-vision manifest explains company policies and one part says thatthe company does not accept violations of human rights, which also concerns business partners.Part 3 | 87

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESEspecially the US has been positive towards the human-rights part while in Asia, there have beensome problems. At Grundfos’ subsidiary in China, Chinese employees have found it intricate toexplain the policies to governmental relations. Grundfos’ mission-vision manifest is translated intoall the languages of the countries where it operates. At one point, employees in China thought itwould be easiest if it just was not translated into Chinese. Kim Klastrup said: “It creates problemswhen you are persistent in your demand to apply the same values and policies around the world.”Another formulation in Grundfos’ policies says that close relations should be created with all businesspartners - also employees. Employees are characterised as family members. It has beensharply criticised by American subsidiaries. In the American culture, there is a clear distinction betweenthe company realm and private life, Kim Klastrup explained. Contrarily, this policy compliesvery well with the Asian culture. In these two cases, there definitely seem to be a clash of culturalvalues (“general cultural filter”) between the company (Grundfos) and some stakeholders (Chinesegovernmental bodies / American employees).The interview demonstrated that Grundfos finds it very challenging to ague with anti-globalisationgroups. This is not only due to the fact that Grundfos as global company is unable to meet thegroups’ demands. It is also due to the fact that values and norms vary tremendously between theseNGOs and companies like Grundfos. There is a huge lack of understanding from the two sides.Kim Klastrup showed very little respect for their arguments in the interview and said that to hisopinion, some of the anti-globalisation activists are unaware of what the globalisation discussion isactually about. Studied in the light of the large conceptual model on page 52, you could say thatboth Grundfos and the anti-globalisation groups suffer from a lack of mutual understanding of eachparty’s cultural contexts. This results in a lack of understanding and respect of the other party’sarguments. Again, this is not to say that Grundfos should agree with the anti-globalisation groups.But if issues are to be resolved, there need to be some sort of mutual understanding. It makessense to interpret the difficulties of dialogue and mutual understanding between these groups andGrundfos as a clash of cultures.Issues are really about a discrepancy in the perception of what is seen as “right” and “wrong”, BoWesley said in the Interview. Many times he has assisted in meetings between Novo Nordisk andstakeholder where huge differences between the two parties “worldviews” existed. “We think: Whydon’t they understand that what we do is important and right? Why do they react differently than weexpected?” It is not only opinions that distinguish Novo Nordisk from some stakeholders, but alsothe arguments’ structure and content. “In the round table discussion with NGOs we can sit 4 hoursand try to understand each other’s languages. Sometimes, discussions are at that level.”I asked Marianne Barner form Ikea whether she finds it more difficult to deal with a stakeholderfrom Scandinavia that someone from East Asia or The Middle East. She answered: “Of course it isalways easier to work with people coming from your own culture. First of all you have the language.I think we have a tradition to sit down and speak in our culture and not start with the confrontation.”(…)“Of course we are coming from different environments. Here from the Nordic countriestrust is very important. If we say one thing we trust each other. But in many other countries that isnot common. But you have to respect that too.” She pointed to differences in the way various culturalgroups communicate about issues – through confrontation or dialogue.88| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESI would also like to mention Lego. The company owns production sites in China where expectationsto corporate behaviour vary tremendously compared to Denmark. Lego does not pay wages similarto Danish levels in China and standards are generally much lower. While this is accepted in China,Jette Orduna said in the interview that the company may become subject to criticism by Danish orinternational stakeholders who disapprove the fact that Western companies move manual intensiveproduction to poorer regions of the world. The interview with Jette Orduna also revealed that culturalvariations exist within companies. There may be great differences between how differentgroups of employees look upon an issue: “An understanding of the entire picture is also necessaryin order to understand cultural differences between different departments in Lego. There are biginternal cultural differences in ways of dealing with things and you have to take care of that in acompany as well. You have to be on the top of that. Respect other people’s way of acting.”The Brent Spar issue may be the best example that culture strongly influences how different stakeholdershandle and form opinions about issues. The following quotation where Matthias Glischinski-Kurcanalyses the Brent Spar issue is key to understand the connection between culture andissues management: “This was one example that one of the great strengths of the organisation inthe past – its highly decentralised nature - didn’t really work out very efficiently this time because itwas very hard for one operating unit, the country organisation, to understand what the hell wasgoing on in another country. All proper regulatory procedures had been followed. Local consultationhad taken place. This was identified as the best way. The company had fixed the regulations by thecomma and why the hell is anybody on the Continent starting to complain? What it showed is thatjust sticking to the law is not enough. It’s also about the expectations of society. And as we saw,these could be very different in individual countries. I don’t know whether you can call it a culturalgap….”Another Shell example is climate change. There are important differences between how differentcorporations deal with that issue. Shell and BP early supported an international mechanism likeKyoto whereas other international energy companies did not – namely Esso. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc believes there are very distinct differences in terms of cultural approach to climate change: “Iwould tend to say there is a different cultural mindset that influence the approach to issues and thatbecome even more distinct when you come to other parts of the world.” He referred to a study pursuedby the consulting company Edelman (Deri & Wootliff 2001) that demonstrates huge differencesbetween the US and Western Europe in perceptual trust in stakeholders like NGOs andpoliticians. Businesses are hardly trusted in Europe and NGOs are very trusted. The picture is theopposite in the US. It is evident that it influences how people in these two regional blocks managecertain issues.The interview with Matthias Glischinski-Kurc changed my understanding of when issues are mostcomplex. Before conducting the interview, I instinctively assumed that the more stakeholders areinvolved in one issue, the more complex it is to handle. Instead, Matthias Glischinski-Kurc explainedthat the degree of diversity between stakeholders involved is more important that the numberof them. Consequently, if there is a large degree of “strangeness” between relatively few stakeholdersit may be complicated to lead effective issues management. At the same time it may be arather uncomplicated process if a large number of stakeholders are involved that share similarcultural orientations.Part 3 | 89

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESAbove, I have spoken about how the 6 companies perceive cultural variation in their environment.But the interviews also revealed something about how they look upon their own cultural contextand its influence on issues management. Grundfos, SAS and Ikea seem to pay much attention tocorporate values. In the theoretical analysis, I did not discuss corporate culture and values. Butfrom the interviews I clearly get the impression that they are valuable ways of characterising andunderstanding the cultural context of the company. Within the last 10 years, businesses havepayed greater attention to corporate culture and to explicitly define company values. Concurrently,the interviews showed that companies rely on their internal values in searching for responses toexternal issues. That is an interesting observation. Carl Karlsson has experienced that SAS’ Scandinavianculture is perceived negatively. “We know that when you say Scandinavian some peoplemay perceive it as discriminating. But when we say Scandinavian we refer to a set of values thatencompass that we, in our position, should try to be multicultural.” “The Scandinavian image can beperceived in such a way that we only favour Danish, Swedish and Norwegian men and women inour jobs.” This example validates the proposition’s message - that companies and stakeholders arepart of distinct cultural contexts that influences how they understand issues and respond to them.ROLE EXPECTATIONS AND STEREOTYPESThe interviews with Novo Nordisk, Ikea and Grundfos showed that understanding role expectationsis important in issues management (“the sociocultural filters”). Role expectations signify “a set ofbehavioural expectations associated with a particular position in a social group” (Gudykunst 1992:75). In part 2, I argued that role expectations might guide assumptions and prejudices that companiesor stakeholders hold towards other parties in a debate. In addition, I have concluded that peoplehave a sort of “psychocultural filter” that create stereotype perceptions about what others arelike or are supposed to be like.In the stakeholder relations department at Novo Nordisk, Bo Wesley has often experienced thatmistrust is created because NGOs and companies expect there should be a difference of interests.When NGOs only focus companies’ objective to make profit, mistrust occurs, he said. Novo Nordiskhas not been able to show that social responsible business behaviour is financially sound. Butthe company has put efforts into contesting the myth that good economic results automatically is inopposition to behaviour that satisfy broader societal expectations. It is difficult to stay open-mindedand positive towards stakeholders who are persistent in rejecting any initiatives taken by companiesbecause they are supposed to have a certain role, Bo Wesley said. He referred to a web siteon the Internet called Corp Watch. The web site explains that the Johannesburg Summit is a jokebecause companies have green-washed or blue-washed themselves into the UN and have set thesummit’s agenda, which makes it untrustworthy. “It is not always easy to have a real dialogue.Many NGOs do not want it. Like Greenpeace. It is hard to believe but we have had dialogue withthe organisation called Shac, who goes crazy over animal testing. We are the only company whohave spoken with them.” Recently, Novo Nordisk has considered that it has to act more like NGOs.It means taking a more proactively role, for example in campaigns. It does not have to be NGOsthat initiate campaigns and catch companies on the wrong leg each time, Bo Wesley explained inthe interview. Bo Wesley imagines a campaign chaired by Nike and Novo: “Get up from the couchand run”. This way, Novo Nordisk wants to turn roles upside down and become the offensive part.The following shows that Novo Nordisk and their stakeholders also have some stereotype perceptionsof each other: “Activist organisations are some of the most undemocratic institutions you can90| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESfind. They decide to pursue an issue in the public. But nobody has elected them. Who do they represent?Maybe they do not even represent the people they say they do. Despite that fact, it is organisationslike these we invite into dialogue because they are so effective. It is an undemocraticbalance. They turn it around and say that companies have become so powerful in society that theycan make changes that the public administration no longer is able to.”Earlier in this empirical analysis, I pointed to the fact that issues do not only appear in cases wherethere is a dispute about goals. In fact, companies and stakeholders often share objectives. Nevertheless,discrepancies may arise because expectations about which roles to fulfil in order to meetobjectives are different. I mentioned that Marianne Barner ascribed the “child labour issue” to thefact that the company was unprepared that the environment expected Ikea to fulfil a societal role ofimproving working conditions in poor countries. In many occasions of stakeholder dialogue,Marianne Barner has experienced that role expectations become a barrier to find solutions to issues– for example that companies should react in a particular manner because they are companies:“Sometimes you feel that a company has to be different from a non-governmental organization.But we are all people. Sometimes I feel that you make this difference bigger that it is”(…)“Ithink that the most difficult part was this…not trusting each other. It was a threat. It was negative.”Marianne Barner explained in the interview that for some people it is an enormous step to startworking together, which this quotation illustrates: “I have a contact at a local NGO in India. I went tosee her in 1998 and when I came into the room she said: Marianne, had you come two years ago, Iwould not have let you into the room. Because I came from a company. She speaks a lot abouthow this confrontation was not good. That was created by certain trade unions and certain NGOs.”Kim Klastrup from Grundfos agreed with Ikea’s perspective. In the interview he expressed that toomuch focus on roles can be a disadvantage: “Of course we are not a NGO and we do not work inthe same way.” But “…you have to take care not to get the impression that you have defined thedistribution of roles on beforehand. I do not think it is like that. To a great extent, the roles canchange. You should not have a too narrow or predefined opinion about how you are supposed tothink and act as a company or a NGO. You can change roles. Often it is the role of the NGOs toraise issues and set the agenda. Companies come rushing behind to defend their viewpoints andshow they act responsibly. The politicians or the press play similar defined roles. I do not believe inthat and I think it is very dangerous if you accept it because companies will always become thedefensive party. Intercultural communication theory demonstrated that people make social stereotypesabout people from other cultures. Stereotyping originates in a tendency to overestimate theassociation between people’s behaviour and their membership of a specific cultural group. KimKlastrup’s statements certainly validates that such considerations are relevant in issues management.The previously mentioned issue about Grundfos’ human rights policies in its mission-vision statementis another example that expectations about societal roles vary across cultures. Chinese employeesand government relations did not assume a company to interfere in matters related to humanrights. On the other hand, Western activist organisations and customers expected just that. Itillustrates that companies may face conflicting role expectations in its environment that it will haveto juxtapose these. The theoretical analysis showed that in that process, it is paramount that thecompany does not follow the role expectations of its own culture blindly. It has to be capable ofunderstanding role expectations that prevail in stakeholders’ culture – for example the ChinesePart 3 | 91

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESsociety. Many different perceptions about what role is “right” will most often exist in a multiculturalstakeholder environment. The theoretical analysis demonstrated that ethnocentrism leads us toview our own cultural values and behaviour as more real or right. Ethnocentrism must be avoidedas it blocks understanding and the creation of sound stakeholder relationships.It is possible to say that the interviews provided evidence that roles tell one party in a debate whatrepresentatives from the other parties are like or are supposed to be like. Further, the interviewsconfirmed that roles tend to vary across cultures. It is necessary for issues managers to knowstakeholders’ role expectations if they are to understand and accurately predict their behaviour andmanage issues effectively. If a company are unaware of the process, and do nothing to move beyondthese role expectations, it may experience itself in a static role, with fewer possibilities of actionin relation to an issue.EMOTIONS VS. RATIONALEA significant cultural difference between companies and their stakeholders is the sort of argumentsthey rely on. This became evident when I went through the 6 interviews. Companies’ cultural contextsupports rather rational and logic arguments while that of many stakeholders, especially activistorganisations, sustains more emotional attitudes. In various cases, companies have found itdifficult to create understanding about issues because it has kept arguing from the rational point ofview that did not really affect the public.The Brent Spar issue is a very good example of that. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc described it veryclearly: Quite extensive local consultation in the UK with various environmental NGOs, fishermen,the government and many other stakeholders – including other European governments - precededthe regulatory approval granted by the British government to sink the installation in the North Atlantic.The issue showed us, from a company point of view, that rational arguments absolutely don’tget across in a very heated and emotionally driven atmosphere. Interestingly enough even Greenpeaceconcluded in the end that the original proposal of deep-sea disposal was on balance thebest option. From all aspects of sustainable development that would have been the best mean.They said so two years later. But what it really showed all interested parties: Public expectationswere different – for whatever reasons – and we had learnt to listen and take the public perceptioninto account.”The South Africa case is another god example. On the one hand, pharmaceutical companies cannotexist if intellectual property rights are not respected. On the other hand, poor patients are notcapable of buying expensive patented medicine, which creates a serious gap in the world betweenwho can and who cannot get medical aid. Generic medicine could supply cheaper medicine. Againthis would force pharmaceutical companies that lead up front research out of the market. In thebeginning, Novo Nordisk was certain that the public would understand arguments to protect intellectualproperty rights and it was very surprised that it triggered such tremendous opposition in thepublic. Bo Wesley explained: “It is because we think in a rational way, while an issue like this rarelyfollow a rational logic in the medias and in the interface between the medias and other parties.Activist organisations think they are rational as well, but they use emotional means. We find it verydifficult to respond to that because we think it isn’t serious. But maybe it is not unserious at all inthe world where we live. It has been a lesson for us.” Novo Nordisk came to understand that logicarguments do not always get through. What matters is what the public buys into.92| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESA third example was Grundfos and the “Israel issue”. The company openly declared that it had toprotect a turnover of 300 million DKK in the Arab world. From an economic point of view, this is asound argument. But in the eyes of the public, Grundfos distinguishes between customers on thebasis of their race, which is unacceptable from an emotional standpoint. Again, an example of rationalityvs. sensitive arguments.From the interviews I get the picture that issues managers should debate issues in the public byunderstanding and using arguments that are supported by the other parties’ cultural contexts. JetteOrduna from Lego pointed to the fact that such relativism is principal: “When I give an answer tosomeone, I would never dream of using legal arguments. Because everything that has to do withNGOs are fundamentally about feelings.”(…)“Actually, I do not think it is difficult to understand thelogic and moral that drive different people to criticise Lego, but it demands an effort. You HAVE totake all enquiries serious.”(…)”…nothing is too small.”MUTUAL INFLUENCE BETWEEN COMPANIES AND STAKEHOLDERSThe last thing I find important to stress from the interviews relates to the mutual influence betweencompanies and stakeholders. By the arrows going back and fourth between companies and theirstakeholders, the “conceptual model” illustrates that issues exist in an enacted public sphere wheredifferent stakeholders and companies shape and are shaped by each other.At least, Grundfos, Ikea and Shell confirmed that. Kim Klastrup said that in some issues, boundarieshave been removed between Grundfos and stakeholders. They have approached each other’sstandpoints because stakeholders have brought forward perspectives that Grundfos has notthought about. Marianne Barner told that in the “child labour issue”, Ikea learned a lot and movedits standpoint after speaking to stakeholders: “..I must say that I have had wonderful experiencesmeeting people in South East Asia and other places. Actually, I have learned more from themabout the complexity of issues. There have been occasions for me where I really had to sit backand say hey, wait a minute, and think things over to understand.”Matthias Glischinski-Kurc agreed: “In general, I would tend to say yes, there are movements onboth sides. Sometimes it is just by exchanging your information which really didn’t happen to thatextent a few years ago when companies were very secretive about what they do and therebymaybe perpetuating the kind of mistrust development. If you want to get the perception of being anopen and transparent company you need to act in this way.” He mentioned the “Nigeria issue”which, among others, involved church groups and human rights groups in Germany. All partiesinfluenced each other in that issue, he said.PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONIn sum, the “large conceptual model of issues in multicultural stakeholder environments” correspondswith how the 6 interviewed companies perceive issues in their environment. The respondentsexpressed that an issue arises because companies and some stakeholders have interests inthe issue and there is a concrete gap between what the company does and what the public expects.They validated that stakeholders’ potential influence vary a lot. Moreover, the interviewsprovide evidence that culture decisively impacts which issues or which aspects of an issue compa-Part 3 | 93

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESnies and stakeholders focus on, the opinions they form and which actions they take. Cultural differencesmay occur along a range of dimensions. The more different cultural dimensions that existand the greater the degree of “strangeness” between companies and stakeholders, the more complexthe issue becomes. On the other hand, in engaging with culturally different stakeholders, thecompany may come to adopt values or roles of the other party, which may motivate changes thatdevelop into advantages to the company in the long run.PROPOSITION 3: THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSThe “process model” on page 69 shows how to practice issues management in multicultural stakeholderenvironments. It demonstrates that:! Issues management should be a structured process of identification, analysis, response andevaluation with the aim of early identifying issues and finding suitable responses to them.! It is paramount that all issues management actions are supported by genuine “stakeholderanalysis and dialogue”. It is equally paramount that all actions are supported by “culturalawareness and mindfulness” towards involved stakeholders. Communication practitioners musttranslate and integrate these two measures into day-to-day issues management practices.So far, I have spoken about how the 6 respondents conceptualised issues and how they have experienceddemands from their stakeholder environment. Now, I move to the next level of the analysisand investigate in which ways they actually go about performing issues management on anoperational level. As the following will show, there are great variances between these practices. Inaddition to investigate proposition 3, it has been my intention to outline a framework that othercompanies may use to get inspiration for their own issues management practices. This is why thereader will find a number of tables in the following that, in key words, describe the issues managementprocesses at Grundfos, Lego, Ikea, Novo Nordisk, SAS and Shell Europe.THE ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSIn the theoretical analysis, I synthesised the most dominant issues management techniques into amodel containing four phases: identification, analysis, response and evaluation. I argued that issuesmanagement should be a structured process involving all these phases and that the aimshould be to identify and manage issue as early as possible.I start by addressing the four phases. I have picked out the activities the companies described inthe interviews and grouped them into my framework. The result is shown in model 22 on the next 2pages. In the right hand column, I include activities that my model does not contain.94| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

COMPANY IDENTIFY ANALYSE RESPOND EVALUATE SUPPLEMENTARYPROCESSGrundfos 1) Management in local subsidiariesreports about competitors and generalmarket development, rumours, trendsand the environment’s changingexpectations to the company. 2) Patentdepartment gathers product-orientedinformation. 3) Analyses and reportsfrom external institutes read by DanishCom. Dep.Ikea Once a year: public relations and communicationexecutives brainstorm “issuesof tomorrow”. Continuouslythroughout the year: 1) Business travelsto suppliers around the world. 2) Stakeholderdialogue. 3) Purchasing officesoverview suppliers’ working conditions.4) General alertness by managers. 5)Communication personnel study thepress and articles and go to seminars.Lego 1) All enquiries to Customer Serviceregistered and centrally gathered in theUS and the UK. Special enquiries pickedout. 2) Membership of central union andorganisations. 3) Legal office scan forjudicial issues. 4) Independent institutesto perform field research at productionunits and test products.NovoNordisk1) Librarian monitors international media,media web sites, activists web sites andnews groups through key words. 2)Stakeholder dialogue – formal and informaldialogue and focalised partnerships.3) Experts within specific fields forexample human rights or diabetes. 4)Participation in forums and seminars. 5)Press Dep. receive general enquiries1) Summary of intelligence from subsidiariesmade every three months by the Danish communicationdepartment. 2) Once a year aconfidential “hate list” made by the managementof Grundfos including issues to “avoid inthe public”. Issues are prioritised into a) observe,b) follow closely and c) act upon.Once a year: a list of next years’ most likelyand important issues.1) Communication department discuss if aspecial answer or action is need.2) Form a group of people to manage a keyissue and name spokes persons at regionaloffices.1) Stakeholder Relations Dep. extracts mostimportant issues in the general monitoring andwrites weekly newsletter distributed on theintranet to key personnel centred around fivemost important Novo Nordisk themes. 2)Stakeholder Relations Dep. makes brief researchpapers with detailed analysis of keyissues – esp. in run-up to dialogue sessions. 3)Issues discussed in stakeholder dialogue.4) Assignment of issue committees around keyissues. 5) Committees group issues into a, b,and c issues. 6) Issues management plandrawn for potential critical issues containingNovo’s standpoint, contact persons, possible q& a and potentially involved stakeholders.Central corporate response to issuescoupled with local adaptation. Subsidiariesresponsible for local presscontact and relations to local stakeholders.1) Making use of mediators in reachinglocal stakeholders, for examplelinking local NGOs and suppliers.1) Written responses by communicationpersonnel sent through CustomerService. 2) Responsible public relationspersonnel in each region incharge of response but in close cooperationwith the Corporate CommunicationDep. at headquarter. 3) Wording,but not meaning of press releasestranslated and adapted locally.1) Solutions to issues articulatedthrough stakeholder dialogue. 2)Corporate Press department writespress releases. 3) Not content butwording and form adapted accordingto country and type of stakeholder.Following issuesafter respondingto themBefore step 1 in the IMprocess: identify companypolicies and values.After step 4 in the IMprocess: make sure thatwhat you say is what youdo.? Look at business ideaand company values tofind suitable responses.Crises plan ifresponse isineffective.Response based on Legovalues.? 1) Forming of issuesmanagement committeesin key issues. 2) Make atotal issues managementplan between the analysisand response stage.

SAS 1) News telegrams from news agenciesincluding the SAS name.Shell 1) Local operating managers and personnelin the entire business line stayalert to potential issues and report toEuropean External Affairs Dep.2) Stakeholderdialogue at local and Europeanlevel. 3) First identify issue, THEN implicatedstakeholders.? Corporate Communication Dep. developsresponse.1) Analysis by use of issues matrix based onlikelihood of occurrence and potential organisationalimpact. One matrix for each businessunit. 2) Develop base understanding of issuesthrough stakeholder dialogue. 3) Prioritiseissues through matrix. 4) Establish issue “owners”in the organisation. 5) European ExternalAffairs Dep gathers country matrices and identifycross-country effectiveness. 6) Every sixmonth a total European issues matrix communicatedto European Management and VPs. 7)European External Affairs Dep. develops strategy.8) Be alerted to issues with emotionalpictures, god visualisation, easy messages andevent driven media appeal.Develop positions, messages centrallyand communication plans in EuropeanExternal Affairs Dep. and monitorsimplementation locally.2) Search common solutions withstakeholders you engage in dialogue.? 1) Using SAS values as amirror to identify andanalyse issues and findingsolutions.2) Crisis plan in case ofaccidents.Evaluate successor failure ofdevelopedstrategy.1) Identify extensivestrategy involving avariety of responsesbefore response phase.2) Define company cultureand values to assureconsistencyFigure 22: The issues management process in 6 companies

COMPANY KEY IM IDEOLOGY RESPONSIBLE IM PERSONNEL “HOBBYHORSES”IN IM PROCESSIM PROCESSGrundfos General: Openness. Clear policies and values. Consistency.Identification: Preparedness. Anticipation.Response: Clear communication. Targeted communication. Quick responses.Consistent responses. Local adaptations.Evaluate: Continuously monitor issues.Ikea General: Openness. Respect for implicated parties. Work with and seek helpsfrom others. Long-term focus. Clear policies and strategy.Identification: Anticipation.Analysis: Obtain knowledge. Independent decision-making within organisation.Think things over before communicating.Response: Admit mistakes. Show that you correct mistakes. Pure standpoints.Honesty in the media. Be trustworthy. Demonstrate knowledge of issues. Selectivein choosing partners to cooperate with.Lego General: Holistic view.Identification: Take all demands serious. No issue is too small. Coordinate andsystematise enquiries. Differentiation individuals/organisations.Analysis: Do ground homework. Use common sense.Response: Consistency. Adaptation.NovoNordiskGeneral: Openness about social responsibility. License to operate. Trust betweenimplicated parties.Identification: Palette of supplementary im techniques. Stakeholder identification.Analysis: Intelligence is valuable. Develop knowledge. Stakeholder engagement.Use network. Engage with critical stakeholders. Prioritise. Systematise and plan.Response: Experts as door-openers to stakeholders. Partnerships. Solutions incooperation with stakeholders.SAS General: Openness. Honesty.Analysis: Careful planning.Response: Promptness. Integrated communication.Shell General: Central coordination. Right organisational set-up to support im process.Structured and clear process. Make im task of operational managers. Not the improcess but the management of it most important. Openness.Identification: Anticipation. Bottom-up rather than top-down. Im part of every daylife in the organisation. Coordination. Business line responsibility. Absorb allfeedback.Analysis: Accept conflicting interests. Base information/knowledge. Structuredanalysis. Prioritisation. Issue analysis precedes stakeholder analysis. Stakeholderengagements. Listen.Response: Mutual understanding for company response. Coordination. Consistency.Accuracy. Understandable.Identify: Managers at local subsidiaries, CorporateCommunication Dep. Analysis: Corporate CommunicationDep., Corporate Management. Response:Corporate Communication Dep. and executive staffat local subsidiaries.Continuos work of Corporate Communication Dep.and Social and Environmental affairs. Purchasingoffices overview suppliers. General task of management.Identify: Customer Service, Legal Service, CorporateCommunication Dep. Analysis: Corporate CommunicationDep. Response: Corporate CommunicationDep, spokes persons at local offices, local publicrelations personnel. Evaluate: corporate CommunicationDep.Identify: Library, experts, Stakeholder RelationsDep., Press Dep. Analysis: Stakeholder RelationsDep., assigned im committees. Response: StakeholderRelations Dep., Press Dep.Brand management SystematisedField trips and concreteNGO dialogueConsumer serviceand internationalmarketing teamPartnerships andstakeholder networksContinuous work of Corporate Communication Dep. Integrated communicationGenerally: European External Affairs Dep. in Londoncoordinates and supports local issues managementactivities. Local operational managers report toLondon, get support and make local implementation.Issues matrices andline management IMresponsiblePartlyunsystematisedPartly systematisedidentificationand response.UnsystematisedanalysisSystematisedidentification andanalysis. Partlysystematisedresponse.Unsystematised.Very systematised.Figure 23: Perspectives of the issues management process

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESFigure 22 clearly shows differences between issues management practices in the 6 companies.The interesting question becomes in which way they are different.First, there are disagreements between the companies to which extent issues management is astructured process. Grundfos and Shell described their actions as a very structured process:Grundfos: “First of all you need to have internal policies in order to avoid any doubt about what isthe organisation’s standpoint. It is also a matter of anticipating issues by scanning and monitoringand staying attuned to movements in the company environment. Then you need to respond to issuesthat occur. Time is a very important factor in globalisation. Subsequently, you need to make acomplete adaptation in order to make it relevant. Adaptation does not necessarily signify that youmodify facts, but just that you get a local angle on things. Finally, it is a matter of following the issuesafter you have responded to them.” Shell: “The issues management process consists of 7steps: 1) Identify the issue. 2) Monitor its development. 3) Prioritise the various issues to see whatyou need to focus on. 4) Analyse it in more details. 5) Develop a strategy. 6) Implement the strategy.7) Evaluate success or failure.”At Novo Nordisk, issues management also seemed to be a quite structured process. The identificationand analysis parts at least. A palette of techniques is applied to identify issues, which then areanalysed and structured into newsletters and research papers. They are prioritised and issuecommittees are nominated. The response phase was less clear according to Bo Wesley’s description.The same picture is true at Lego. Here, the identification phase and the response phase werevery systematised. The analysis phase, on the other hand, seemed a little random based on thejudgement of few persons in the Corporate Communication Department.At the other end of the spectrum stands Ikea. Marianne Barner said that the company is “out andseeing and doing things before somebody come knocking on the door” but she admits that Ikeadoes not do it in a very systematic way. It is an on-going task for communication personnel andspecific actions are only taken if an issue emerges. Marianne Barner expressed that she feels toomuch discussion is about monitoring. She pointed to the risk that companies are pushed to believethat effective issue monitoring techniques and a code of conduct are safeguards.Based on my analysis of the interviews I find convincing evidence to support that issues managementpreferably should be a structured process. It shows in the interviews that in cases where thecompanies employed a structured process, the respondents’ consciousness was more insightful inrelation to explain past issues and account for what actions should be undertaken tomorrow if anemergent issue would appear. On the other hand, the analysis shows that it is not enough to havea set of structured issues management techniques. The decisive point is the way these techniquesare applied. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc summed it up by saying: To be frank, it is no rocket scienceby the end of the day. The question is how do you apply this process and how stringently. How aremedias scanned, how are issues analysed, with which mindset etc? Thus, good techniques andproficient competences to pursue them are both needed if the issues management process shouldbe effective. There are no reasons to believe that relying on structured techniques stand in oppositionto achieve a sound understanding of issues.Now, moving to the objective of the issues management process. I wrote in the theoretical analysisthat the goal is to detect issues as early as possible and ideally before they enter the public spherePart 3 | 95

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESbecause companies then have more possibilities of action. Shell was the only company to commenton that directly. On the other hand, the other companies emphasised, in their description ofthe identification phase, that the objective was to identify issues at an early stage. Matthias Glischinski-Kurcsaid: ”…the earlier you manage to identify a potential issue that could arise and try todo the full process of proper stakeholder identification, stakeholder analysis, stakeholder engagement,the more you can avoid getting into that confrontational shoot-out kind of situation.” The objective,according to Shell, is to enter the debate: “…at a stage where you still have an opportunityto discuss and engage, to try to find new ground, before the issue actually escalates leading into acampaign or whatever.” An example of this was when Shell had to find a new way of reportingalong sustainable development. They turned to various stakeholders to ask which performanceindicators they recommended the company to use. This way, Shell was sure to use indicators thatstakeholders approved which made it easier to meet eventual criticism later.Next, I found great variation between the companies in which part of the organisation that wasresponsible for different issues management activities. In this dissertation, I do not focus on the socalled“program focus” (see page 10) but it is interesting to observe this difference. The generalpicture is a number of centralised issues management activities at a corporate level (often theCommunication Dep.) coupled with different activities carried out at a local level (local subsidiary orbusiness unit). It also varies in the individual companies to what extent executive management isinvolved in the issues management process. It is not possible to draw out a conclusion about “bestpractice” in terms of the organisational design from this analysis. Only, I can conclude that the organisationaldesign has an important influence on how well the issues management process iscarried out. I come back to this point in the last chapter of the dissertation describing perspectivesfor additional research.Another very interesting observation is the fact that the 6 companies appeared to rely on different“hobbyhorses” when explaining their issues management activities. One put emphasis on aligningissues management with brand management (ex: Grundfos), another on stakeholder engagementand partnerships (ex: Novo Nordisk) and a third on customer service (Lego). My conclusion is thatthe diversity originates from two things. One, each company comes from very separate industries.And two, the position and background of the respondents have an impact on which methods theyfavour.Finally, it is possible to spell out some concepts that characterise the issues management “ideology”that each company relies on. In the theoretical analysis, I stated that the overall objective ofissues management is to achieve harmony between companies and their environments. The ideologiescan be seen as key measures to obtain that harmony. It is out of my hands to discusswhich of the ideologies that are more correct or effective. But it is possible to identify those thatmost of the companies point to and to sum up the different ideas.At a general level the respondents pointed to openness. The company should be open about whatit does, how it does it and why. As Marianne Barner said in the interview, companies and stakeholdersshould not agree on everything. But they should be open about their intentions in order tofind common points where they can cooperate. Openness also entails honesty and trust in theentire issues management process. Of course, companies engage in issues management in orderto migrate issues to own benefit and to avoid criticism in the public. But it is important that in it is96| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESdone with you could say “good manners”. This point is parallel to what I wrote in the theoreticalanalysis. The objective of issues management is to create a win-win situation and to search solutionsthat are sustainable in the long run (two-way symmetrical, Grunig, see page 63). Companiesshould not turn issues to their own side if it seriously deteriorates relations to important stakeholders.In the identification phase, the respondents emphasised anticipation. Issues must be identifiedjust when they are on the edge of really appearing in the public. In order to do that, Shell and Ikeapointed to three important competences. The first is to assure that the organisation is set up in away where feedback is absorbed. That is to say that so-called issue-identifiers are appointed,whether it is personnel in the Corporate Communication Department or in line management in localsubsidiaries or business units. The second is to take all demands serious. It is not until the analysisphase that it is judged wether issues are important or not. In the identification phase, such discriminationmust be avoided. The third is to register and systematise all issues and enquiries that theorganisation receives. Large corporations need a central mechanism to register issues.The 6 companies have a number of recommendations for the analysis phase as well. To developa sound understanding and knowledge about the issue seem to be the central ideology. The companymust understand all aspects of the issue before deciding on a specific response. Shell developsinformation bases and Novo Nordisk writes short research papers. Ikea and Lego just pointedto using “common-sense”. Generally, the companies also recommend that you seek out help fromothers to learn more about the issue. Especially Marianne Barner from Ikea is very keen on thatmodel, but also Novo Nordisk and Shell are very much into stakeholder engagement in the analysisphase. Nevertheless, the company must stay independent from these stakeholders in developingits eventual standpoint, some of the respondents said. Otherwise, the organisation might jeopardisewith its own policies and business idea in the long run.Last, consistency is emphasised by multiple respondents as very important in the responsephase. There need to be a red line in all actions and communication. Issues managers need clearpolicies and strategies they can rely on to pledge that consistency. The respondents refer to consistencyin terms of assuring that standpoints and actions to different issues are reliable and notconflicting over time. In addition, they refer to consistency in terms of making sure that responsestowards different stakeholders and in different countries are coherent. Adaptation is needed becausedifferent stakeholders pay attention to different things but there must be consistency betweenthese different responses. Promptness - to react in time – is another important element inthe good issues response according to the companies.In order to provide an overview, figure 23 summarised the considerations I have discussed above.Part 3 | 97

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESCORPORATE VALUES AND BUSINESS OPERATIONSAbove, I went through the four phases in my issues management process model and I have shownwhich activities and ideologies the 6 companies apply in each phase. This grouping made it mucheasier to understand each company’s issues management strategy. Naturally, the companies donot undertake all activities included in the “large process model” on page 69. The important conclusionis that the model is valuable as a way to structure companies’ issues management activities.Nevertheless, two dimensions of issues management are lacking from the model:Earlier, I stated that the interviewed companies seemed to rely on internal values and corporatepolicies in searching for responses to external issues. Kim Klastrup from Grundfos stated as thefirst task in issues management: First of all you need to have internal policies in order to avoid anydoubt about what is the organisation’s standpoint. Marianne Barner said that the way IKEA dealswith issues has much to do with the IKEA culture and vision. In situations like the child labour case,Ikea relied on its corporate values of “modesty” and “humbleness”, which led to early cooperationbetween IKEA and “Save the Children”. “We must put down our ground values. Study an issue andsay: how can we do something better within the framework of our values and our business”,Marianne Barner said. Also Lego and SAS explained in the interview, that they rely on corporatevalues throughout the issues management process – much like a mirror ensuring that what thecompany says and does stay within its core business. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc said that a clearperception of the company culture and values is needed in order to navigate in many different milieusand to be consistent in all communication. “In terms of our position as a multinational companyacting in 130 countries in the world you need to stand for something – for certain values –which need to be very precise and consistent and clear.” On the basis of these statements, I concludethat in order to assure companies’ integrity and consistency, corporate values/culture shouldbe the frame within which issues management must be pursued. Values become the way to makesure that issues and public responses to them do not lead the company off the track of its corebusiness. Of course, there is a risk that such a framework leads to ethnocentrism. In the theoreticalanalysis I argued that by all means, ethnocentrism must be avoided in issues management. In theinterviews, I find no evidence to support that relying in corporate values in the issues managementshould lead to an ethnocentric approach. Nevertheless, it is imperative that issues managers keepthe “outside-in” perspective on the organisation that signifies all good public relations activities.The second dimension lacking from my model has to do with responsible business behaviour: Earlier,I concluded that there should be a back-and-fourth mechanism between issues managementand communication (response) on the one side and responsible business activities on the other.Matthias Glischinski-Kurc explained it quite clearly: “You cannot fool any external or even internalstakeholders by having very nice corporate brochures if what you do is not perceived to be in compliancewith what you say. Otherwise you increase your problems.” At Grundfos, the same perceptionprevails: “You can never communicate a set of values if they do not rest solidly on the actualcompany performance. The public will quickly perceive them as contrived. Responsibility is deeplyrooted in our company.”I find that these dimensions put forward by the 6 companies are very relevant. In any academicresearch, there is always a risk that when you focus on one specific discipline you loose sight ofthe overall picture. Studied from a general level it becomes obvious that issues managementshould function within the frames of corporate values/culture and responsible business behaviour.98| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESThis is why I propose to justify “the process model” in the manner showed below. Here, you seethat the identification phase is preceded by a clarification of company values and policies. Whenthe company reaches the response phase, business activities and strategies must be evaluated. Inthe theoretical analysis I listed a number of “strategic response options” (see page 63). Roughly,the company has the choice between 1) arguing that its performance is sound or 2) changing itsway of operating. It is paramount, the interviews have shown, that what the company communicatesis eventually taken into effect. Then, after the evaluation phase, corporate values may be reevaluated.During the issues management process, the company may come to justify its perceptionof what it wants to stand for as a company. If it changes activities in significant ways, it is possiblethat the values need to be readjusted.EvaluateAnalyseCorporatevalues andcultureIdentifyRespondBusinessoperationsFigure 24: The issues management process model refinedI could illustrate the new model by the example of Ikea and the “child labour issue”.Values and policies: “Furniture at modest prices to the many people.”Identification: Ikea learns that child labour exists in some suppliers’ factories and certain international NGOs publiclycriticise the company.Analysis: Ikea searches out knowledge about child labour. Engages with “Save the Children” and various other NGOs.Makes business travel to India and Pakistan.Response: Publicly admits mistakes and informs about the complexity of the issue. Explains that measures are beingtaken to assure child labour is avoided in suppliers’ factories.Business operations: Suppliers to comply with a code of conduct. Economic funds to NGOs.Evaluate: Ikea assesses that the company has a new and greater role in society and Ikea must readjust accordingly.Accepts that other issues related to child labour may occur.Values and policies: “A better everyday life for the many people” by having products that add good quality and goodservice at low prices so that many people can afford it and by assuring responsible business behaviour all way throughthe company pipeline.STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUEWith these corrections I mind, I move on to analyse whether the 6 companies support that genuinestakeholder dialogue strengthens companies’ issues management practice in multicultural stakeholderenvironments. I have argued that issues managers should be capable of accurately definestakeholders involved in issues, understand their interests, their possibilities of influence and theirweb of contacts and have the ability to build sustainable relations and dialogue with them. Theymust do it in an integrated manner with the issues management process, I concluded in part 2.Part 3 | 99

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESAll 6 companies mentioned stakeholder engagement and dialogue as a tool in managing issues.Naturally, it varied to what extent they engage in stakeholder dialogue. Lego and Grundfos onlyoccasionally take part in such dialogue, while still being favourable of its value. On the other hand,Novo Nordisk and Shell are very keen on all types of stakeholder dialogue, partnerships and networks.The table below provides a short overview of different ways the 6 companies pursue stakeholderdialogue. It also summarises in which way they believe the dialogue could be an advantageto issues management.COMPANY MEASURES OF STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE ADVANTAGE TO ISSUES MANAGEMENTGrundfos Dialogue with local and national politicians in relation toimmigration, environmental policy, social networks,research resources etc.Local partnerships instead of ethical standards.Identify other parties’ interests.Respect for the diversity of interests.Less standards and more understanding.IkeaLegoNovoNordiskField trips to suppliers.Cooperation with Save the Children about child labourRegular meetings with NGOS like Greenpeace, WWFand Unicef, with trade unions and with IFBWW.Independent institutes to test products.Chairs the TIE.WIPO collaboration chaired by Unesco.Sponsoring.Network of specialists and experts within variety of fieldsfrom human rights to diabetes.Dialogue with Oxfam and various Danish NGOs about“access to medicine”.Dialogue with NGOs about genetic modification.Variety of partnerships.Early identification of issues.Learn from each other. Exchange ideas.Obtain knowledge about issues.Mutual respect.Understand common goals.Create openness.Stakeholders as mediators in conflicts.Stakeholders as mediators in conflicts.Early awareness of new regulations and products.Identify competitors’ issues and learn from that.Network informs about new issues.Obtain knowledge about issues and the businessenvironment.Experts and specialists as door openers.Mutual understanding.Find points for cooperation. Concerted action.SAS Sponsoring to some NGOs. Show that you live up to corporate values.Shell Stakeholder forums held if important issues appear –with all stakeholders from media to politicians andacademics.Always engages stakeholders from the identificationphase through to the response.Stakeholder dialogue when opening new oil explorations.Platform to build mutual understanding.Provide understanding for company dilemmas.Understand local issue. Obtain knowledge.Better informed decisions.Create trust and honestyMitigate conflict as information is sharedFigure 25: Stakeholder dialogue in the 6 companiesIt varied in which phase of the process each of the 6 companies pursues stakeholder dialogue andhow structured the dialogue is set up. But there seem to be consensus about how dialogue supportsissues management. First, the respondents pointed to the fact that it is possible to pick upissues at an early stage. One example is Lego that participates in various industrial organisationsexactly to do that. Secondly, companies may obtain knowledge about issues from stakeholders andexchange ideas about avenues for resolving issues. Shell does this deliberately when setting upnew oil explorations, Matthias Glischinski-Kurc explained. Ideally, mutual understanding is createdbetween the company and involved stakeholders. The parties may even find common points orobjectives that make it possible to take concerted action instead of working against each other. Theway Ikea went into dialogue with “Save the Children” and other Western firms operating in Indiaand Pakistan is evidence of that: “It is a good example of a group going from a situation ofthreat….and to a group where we now exchange ideas and say: hey, we have been there anddone that. Maybe you would like to know. That is quite a journey.” (Marianne Barner, Ikea). On amore general level, stakeholder dialogue makes it possible for companies to proactively raise issuesinstead of always being the defensive part. At many occasions, Grundfos has raised issuesrelated to local infrastructure in Denmark and Denmark’s educational policies through network100| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESmeetings. Finally, Lego and Ikea have used some stakeholders as mediators to reach other stakeholderswith whom they had a conflict. It can be difficult for a company to interfere in some mattersbut through for example NGOs they can find solutions to the conflict. Looking at the “large conceptualmodel” from the theoretical analysis, it can be illustrated by the company going through stakeholderA, which uses its web of contacts to stakeholder B. Hereby, the issue between stakeholderB and the company is resolved.Nevertheless, there are also risks involved in close stakeholder collaboration. Jette Orduna fromLego said that companies risk loosing their independency. In addition, creating a good dialoguewith the right stakeholders can prove to be more complicated than it sounds. Marianne Barner saidthat she has experienced huge barriers for some stakeholders to start to cooperate. And, as describedearlier, some stakeholders, like NGOs, look upon companies with massive distrust. Evenwhen the dialogue is established, it can be very hard to create that mutual understanding. It takespatience and open-mindedness if the stakeholder dialogue is to be of any value to issues management.There is a risk that companies only set up dialogue with stakeholders who have a rather positiveimage of the company. As some of the respondents pointed out, it is paramount that the most criticalstakeholders are engaged as well: “…it is not just looking for those that support you 100 pct. ofthe time but also those that are critical and can actually bring in a value to the project. If people saywhat you do is always great then they can’t really advice you.” (Matthias Glischinski-Kurc, Shell). “Irather want to learn something from NGOs that are against us. What do they want and how do theywork? I cannot use NGOs that are too positive. Then we are not in conflict and that is when it becomeschallenging.” (Jette Orduna, Lego).In a Danish article, Schønnemann wrote that: “Company relations are as personal relations. Strongrelationships are build on loyalty, trust and security.” (2002). In the theoretical analysis I proposedthat stakeholder dialogue is set up as so-called “strategic cooperative communities”. They are centredaround key issues (like “child labour”, “access to medicine” etc.) and built on the key characteristicsof “trust”, “predictability”, “mutual interests”, “mutual gratification or benefit” and “proximity”. Ofthese characteristics, “trust” and “mutual interests” were mentioned by some of the companies. Inaddition, Matthias Glischinski-Kurc mentioned one example where “mutual gratification or benefit”was created. Shell has a gas development in the Peruvian rain forest close to a national park with ahuge biodiversity. The company lined up with various organisations like ministries and NGOs tohave scientific research done about biodiversity in the region because little knowledge and dataexisted about that. World-renowned institutes gathered with local Peruvian organisations to carryout a study. Matthias Glischinski-Kurc described it as a win-win situation for the company, the society,and the environmental and scientific organisations.It is possible to conclude that stakeholder dialogue does support traditional issues managementactivities in a constructive way in the interviewed companies. The majority of the issues managementliterature sees stakeholder relations and issues management as separate disciplines, whichis partly due to the fact that most issues management techniques are developed more than 10years ago – at a time where stakeholder engagement was less widespread. An integration of issuesmanagement and stakeholder dialogue can be recommended on the basis of the theoreticalanalysis and the 6 interviews. At the same time, the individual company will have to set up thePart 3 | 101

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESstakeholder dialogue in specific ways that support their business, their stakeholder relations andindustry characteristics. And they must be patient and persistent because mutual trust is imperativeto a valuable dialogue process.CULTURAL AWARENESS AND MINDFULNESSEarlier in this empirical analysis, I provided evidence that culture is a decisive driver for which issuesor which aspects of an issue people focus on, the opinions they form and which actions theytake. Consequently, it becomes important that issues managers are capable of understanding andacting upon that knowledge.The theoretical analysis was operating with the term of “conscious competence” which means thatissues managers are both aware of cultural differences and able to act upon them (mindful). Being“consciously competent” they have the aptitude to change between identify constructions and understandand perceive an issue from others’ cultural frame. Thus, two steps are important: One isto recognise and see the cultural differences and how they distinguish parties in issue debates.Another is to behave in a way where miscommunication is avoided.Unequivocally, the respondents agreed that cultural awareness and mindfulness are very importantin the issues management process. Nevertheless, this is not sufficient evidence to support proposition3. I should take a closer look at how the 6 companies actually describe and integrate this culturalcompetence in practice:Kim Klastrup from Grundfos said that cultural understanding is important in all aspects of the issuesmanagement process. When companies operate around the world, as Grundfos does, the centralcommunication department is incapable of identifying all emergent issues. ”I think it is important tohave people with the local cultural understanding in the scanning process. These people havegreat experience with the local market and can better understand issues.” Jette Orduna stronglyagreed with that perspective. She said that understanding the logic and moral that drives differentpeople to criticise Lego is not reached unless you are aware that different perceptions might prevail.It demands an effort. As a consequence, Lego puts much emphasis on taking all enquiriesserious. “We have colleagues around the world and we are a global company and we travel. Weknow what the world is like. Therefore, nothing is too small.” Especially after the “Maori” issue,Lego has become alerted to being culturally aware and mindful in all parts of the process. Prior tothe launching of the Bionicle products, the legal office had checked if the trademarks were registeredbut they did not investigate the moral aspect.Bo Wesley from Novo also demonstrated that he is aware of the potential blunders in being culturallyinsensitive: “I think we could become less Danish in our approach. We are prone to seeing theworld through very Danish glasses. It makes sense to have people with different glasses on involvedin the issues management process. It is very important to take on intercultural glasses inorder to understand stakeholder reactions and expectations.”Several of the companies referred to this about “applying another mindset” or “taking on differentglasses”: “When doing this kind of research, we should try and look upon things with other eyesand that way see how new issues may affect our business and then decide if it is something thatwe have to take care of.”(…) “Maybe reading an article not with the company eyes but that of a102| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESprivate interests.” (Marianne Barner, Ikea). “…cultural sensitivity is important. If we had managedthe Maori issue from Denmark with our glasses and our narrow mindedness, or I would not evensay that because actually I think we have a very good cultural understanding here, it would neverhave worked. We would just have said: There is no legal problem and you are down in New Zealand.Who cares? But we are so used to be a global company. We are so used to have on thatcultural set of glasses that of course, it is natural.”Also in the response phase, cultural awareness and mindfulness are imperative, Grundfos, Lego,ad Shell stated. Kim Klastrup said: “The only way you can make communication coherent, is, if onthe one side you have identified your company culture, to the extent it is possible across nationalcultures, and on the other side you make some adaptations. You have to appear with a local facein cultures where you operate.” The “Maori” issue shows how important it is to manage issues withcultural mindfulness. “Exactly in this case, we knew that you couldn’t manage issues like this onefrom Denmark. We can sit down and say, yes, they are angry and apparently we have done somethingwrong morally which we are sorry about. Instead, we quickly got contact to some Maoris andasked what this was all about. We also had a lawyer in New Zealand and our New Zealand officewas very much involved. All the time, we had the finger on the pulse on the spot where the issuetook place.”(….) “With the Maori issue, we managed it in one fashion in Europe and Asia while inthe US we followed the same line but adapted it to their culture.”All the way down to actual press releases, cultural awareness and mindfulness are needed accordingto the interviews. For communication professionals it becomes the task of finding a coherentresponse across all stakeholder groups and countries and to adapt the response in such a way thatit actually responds to stakeholders’ interests and that misunderstanding is avoided. At Lego, localsubsidiaries are welcome to adapt the content but not the meaning. In the US and Europe for example,two different persons are cited for saying the same thing. Shell has a similar practice ofadapting not the content but the communication form to different national cultures: “When it comesto the cultural aspect, it is the question of how you get it across – how you word the content.”(…)“The core content of what you need to get across in your messages to various stakeholders needsto be consistent.”(…) “If I go to Greenpeace in Germany and say our position on issue x is a, b, c,and a colleague of mine goes to Greenpeace in Spain and say it is d, e, f – guess what is going tohappen in that organisation. The two departments speak to each other.”(…) “But how to get itacross and who needs to be informed, that is something the local people are best equipped to decide.”SAS was the only one of the companies that did not make this cultural adaptation in its pressreleases. In the interview, Carl Karlsson said that the most important thing is to communicate in anintegrated manner, which is why the same communication tools are employed and responses toissues are identical no matter where they take place and towards whom they are directed.Another aspect addressed by the 6 companies was how you develop this “cultural competence”. Ingeneral, they pointed to the fact that issues managers should have some basic understanding ofother cultures, for example through travels or by working in an international environment. I addition,they should use the expertise within the organization. As Matthias Glischinski-Kurc said, it is difficultto understand issues and stakeholders when you “sit in the ivory tower”. It is likely that someemployees somewhere in the organisation understand the cultural context of specific stakeholdersbetter than a central issues manager. This aggregated intelligence must be used constructively inthe issues management process. If I refer back to the theoretical analysis of cultural mindfulness, IPart 3 | 103

ISSUES MANAGEMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COMPANIESspoke about two levels of competence – a culture-specific competence and a general cultural competence.Matthias Glischinski-Kurc has such a general cultural competence while he draws onculture-specific competences of employees in the organisation.As a last point, I concluded in the theoretical analysis that “mindful” companies should give stakeholdersthe feeling of being “understood”, “supported” and “respected”. Marianne Barner explainedthat the villages in India and Pakistan that IKEA have dealt with through UNICEF are very remote.Despite this, the company must have a lot of respect for the country where it is going and the employeesthey meet, she said. Bo Wesley spoke about respect too. He said that even though NovoNordisk and NGOs still speak different languages, they have managed to reach a certain level ofrespect. When Jette Orduna explained how important it is for Lego to take all enquiries seriously,she conveys the attitude of support towards stakeholders. By writing personal answers to all customers,Lego shows that the company considers their opinions worthwhile to pay attention to. Iwrote in part 2 that if the company endorses stakeholders’ identity they tend to view the companypositively, while the opposite will be the case if they receive negative endorsement. Finally, MatthiasGlischinski-Kurc from Shell confirmed that is very important to convey attitudes of understandingtowards other parties involved in issues: “…as a company you need to be able to stand up andsay: We have listened to various dilemmas. We cannot accommodate everybody. It is impossible.This is the decision we make based on all that kind of information and expectations we received.And that is usually something where people say: I may not entirely like what you do but at least Isee you have been reasonable in making that decision.”The following statement by Jette Orduna from Lego sums up the way cultural awareness and mindfulnessmay support issues management in a holistic fashion: “Understanding other people’s differences.That is incredibly important. Many communication people find it hard to see the entity andgoes into details. They have difficulties stepping beyond their own perspective and say: What if Iwas in his chair or in his? Unfortunately, many people do not have that ability. They can come withfancy educations but the ability to empathise with other people’s world view and understand theirvalues – that is important.”PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONDespite the fact that there are significant differences in individual companies’ practice, issues managementtechniques and tools can be classified within the framework of identification, analysis,response and evaluation. The “issues management process model” must be regarded as a valuableway of categorising and systematising the issues management process rather than as a prescriptionof which exact actions to pursue in each stage. A second dimension must be added to themodel, which indicates that issues management should function within the frame of corporate values/cultureand responsible business behaviour. In addition, stakeholder dialogue should be pursuedin parallel to more technical issues management practices, which will be valuable to the effectivenessof the overall process. Similarly, cultural awareness and mindfulness are important in theentire process from identification to the wording of press releases. The general conclusion is thateach company should draw a process model including those activities most relevant for that particularcompany. In addition, they should define concrete ways to integrate cultural awareness andmindfulness and stakeholder dialogue into day-to-day issues management activities.104| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

CONCLUSION PART 3CONCLUSION PART 3The conclusion in part 2 provided a theoretical answer to the research question: Which genericprinciples for issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments should companiesfollow in order to prevent crises? Part 3 has aspired to provide an empirical answer to the samequestion. Models and propositions from the theoretical analysis have guided the analysis. Someparts have been validated, some parts modified and a couple of new perspectives have beenbrought to light.HYPOYTHESIS 1: THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AND ISSUES MANAGEMENTThe first conclusion is that proposition 1 applies to all of the 6 interviewed companies. All companiesdescribed their stakeholder environment as being multicultural. It seemed that different factorshad opened up for this “multiculturalism” in the companies’ stakeholder environment and the mediahas played a less important role than I anticipated. Instead, it is an evolution provoked by acombination of many different drivers in society.Practical examples of issues involving the 6 companies further sustained proposition 1. Naturally,the diversity and number of stakeholders vary from company to company. The interview with Shellgave the impression of the most multicultural stakeholder environment amongst the interviewedcompanies.A general trait for the 6 respondents is that they feel more demands are put on companies andmore issues arise as a consequence. They have all experienced an intensification of issues thatonly have periphery connection to their core business. All 6 companies verified that effective issuesmanage is important to reduce the risk that these many issues evolve into crises for the organisation.Not all companies referred to issues management specifically but mentioned different activitiesthat should be considered issues management practices.The interviews provide interesting new perspectives to proposition 1 as well. Some of the respondentslooked upon issues management as a communicative discipline while others believe it isconcerned with corporate social responsibility. Some said that communicative activities of issuesmanagement are insufficient to prevent crises alone. Concrete business operations must accompanycommunicated standpoints. Others argued that communication is needed in order to allaypotential crises as the “responsible” company becomes more vulnerable to criticism. The conclusionmust be that effective communication and sustainable business practices are complementaryresponses in issues management. This is parallel to what I wrote in the theoretical analysis. Nevertheless,it is an important message that the 6 companies here put forward.PROPOSITION 2: ISSUES IN MULTICULTURAL STAKEHOLDER ENVIRONMENTSThe second conclusion to draw is that in sum, the “large conceptual model of issues in multiculturalstakeholder environments” corresponds with how the 6 interviewed companies perceive issues intheir environment.Part 1| 105

CONCLUSION PART 3On a general level, the respondents expressed that issues are not general topics in the publicsphere – they arise because of two things: One, that companies and some of their stakeholdersshow interest in the issue. Here, the 6 companies extended on knowledge from the theoreticalanalysis by pointing to the fact that companies and stakeholders often share interests and objectivesin an issue. Next, issues arise because there is a concrete discrepancy between the companyand these stakeholders. Referring to the theoretical framework, such discrepancies materialise intoso-called legitimacy gaps between corporate performance on the one side and pubic expectationson the other. Different examples of issues brought forward by the 6 respondents could be classifiedwithin Heath’s notion of discrepancies of fact, value or policy.In addition, the companies validated that potential stakeholder influence vary tremendously. At thesame time, issues managers should not be blinded by this potential influence. They must independentlyassess whether catering to specific stakeholders is in balance with overall corporatepolicies and values in the long run. There are risks that issues managers focus too narrowly on onestakeholder and overlook other important aspects in the same issue, the interviews revealed.Next, I conclude that the interviews provide evidence that culture is a decisive factor that impactswhich issues or which aspects of an issue companies and stakeholders focus on. Culture stronglyinfluences how they deal with that issue as well. The interviews demonstrated that cultural differencesarise a long a number of different dimensions. National cultures have huge impacts on issuesand issues management in all 6 companies. Secondly, some respondents pointed to workoccupations. Thirdly, role expectations seemed to be very decisive for conflicts between especiallycompanies and NGOs. And finally, stereotype perceptions of specific stakeholders or companieshad a negative impact on the effectiveness of the issues management process. Referring back tothe theoretical analysis, it becomes clear that all three dimensions in Gudykunst’s interculturalcommunication model - the general cultural, sociocultural and psychocultural filters - are decisivefactors deciding why issues arise and how companies and stakeholders deal with those issues.One concrete way cultural differences materialise is the sort of arguments stakeholders and companiesrely on. Companies’ cultural context supports rather rational and logic arguments while thatof many stakeholders, especially activist organisations, sustains more emotional attitudes.In addition, the interviews showed an interesting new dimension lacking from my framework: Corporatevalues and corporate culture are important factors impacting how companies approach andinterpret issues. Companies often rely on such values across its international operations. Thus, theinternal corporate culture may be as decisive for companies’ approach to issues as factors residingin the external cultural context where they operate.I want to emphasise another interesting conclusion from the empirical analysis: The bigger culturaldifferences between involved stakeholders, the more diversity is likely to exist in terms of what theyperceive as legitimate corporate behaviour. The 6 companies explained that it could be a trickyprocess to balance all of these different expectations. My attention was brought to the fact that it isthe degree of “strangeness” between stakeholders and companies that decide how complicatedissues become. Not how many stakeholders that are involved.Finally, the empirical analysis shows that issues managers should be cautious not to see culturesas stigmatised differences. Companies or stakeholders may come to adopt values or roles of the106| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

CONCLUSION PART 3other party. Such dynamics often push companies or industries to change in ways that are actuallyadvantageous to them in the long run. That observation is parallel to the theoretical analysis, whichargued that issues are part of an enacted public sphere.PROPOSITION 3: THE MULTICULTURAL ISSUES MANAGEMENT PROCESSThe third significant conclusion is that the “issues management process model” that I drew in thetheoretical analysis is valuable as a way to structure and describe the issues management practicein the 6 interviewed companies. Its main potential is its way of categorising the issues managementprocess into four phases of identification, analysis, response and evaluation rather than as an indicatorof the exact process to go through. The model does not manage to catch all the perspectivesthat the companies brought forward neither do the 6 companies pursue all of the actions describedin the model.In figure 22, I showed how issues management is practiced in the 6 companies, which demonstratedquite significant differences. First, there are disagreements to which extent issues managementis a structured process. Based on the analysis of the interviews, I find convincing evidenceto support that issues management preferably should be systematised and structured. Secondly,I found great variation between the companies in which part of the organisation that wasresponsible for issues management. Another very interesting observation is the fact that the 6companies appeared to rely on different “hobbyhorses” in issues management, which could be“brand management”, “partnerships” or “sustainability”.The empirical analysis revealed some very interesting indications of a successful issues managementprocess that can be of inspiration to other practitioners. At a general level, openness is ofprime importance. This is in accordance with the theoretical conclusions, which recommended thatissues management ideally be based on “two-way symmetrical” communication. In the identificationphase, the respondents emphasised anticipation. Issues should be unveiled as early as possible.To develop a sound understanding and knowledge about the issue seemed to be the centralideology in the analysis phase. Last, consistency was emphasised by multiple respondents as veryimportant in the response phase. It is the classical matter of standardisation vs. localisation thathas been discussed in international marketing for many years. On the one side, issues managersmust lead effective communication by adapting responses towards different stakeholders. On theother side, the company must show consistency in what it stands for. Companies must balancecultural adaptations with the need to have a clear and consistent policy and some values theystand for. The 6 companies agreed that adaptations should take place in ways that are not at oddswith other company policies even though it may satisfy critical stakeholders sin the short run.It varied in which phase of the process each of the 6 companies pursues stakeholder dialogue andhow structured the dialogue is set up. But unmistakably, they all recommend that stakeholder dialogueis pursued parallel to more technical issues management practices. There seemed to beconsensus about how they believe dialogue supports issues management. First, you can pick upissues at an early stage. Secondly, companies may obtain knowledge about issues from stakeholdersand exchange ideas about avenues for resolving them. Ideally, mutual understanding maybe created between the company and involved stakeholders and the parties may even find commonpoints or objectives. Finally, some stakeholders may be used as mediators to reach otherstakeholders that the company is prevented from speaking to directly. On the other hand, some ofPart 3 | 107

CONCLUSION PART 3the companies had a warning concerning stakeholder dialogue. Companies may risk loosing theirindependency. Companies should independently analyse all information, ideas and intelligencegathered from stakeholders before an eventual response to an issue is chosen.Good stakeholder dialogue is not achieved over night especially because it is important that verycritical stakeholders are engaged in dialogue, the companies emphasised. It is a complicated processthat demands patience. They pointed to the fact that it is imperative to build trust and showrespect in the dialogue and that mutual benefit (to create a win-win situation) must be the objective.The two other key success factors for good stakeholder dialogue mentioned in the theoreticalanalysis were not touched upon in the interviews.Unequivocally, the respondents agreed that cultural awareness and mindfulness are very importantin the issues management process. All the way from identification to the actual wording of pressreleases, cultural awareness and mindfulness are needed. In return, the companies’ way of applyingintercultural competencies to actual issues management practice is much less coherent. Allseem to have found a way about the task. At the same time, they also agree that new and morestructured methods for true intercultural issues management could render their practice more effective.A number of concrete issues demonstrated ways the 6 companies have applied such culturalcompetences. The companies referred to “applying another mindset” or taking on “a different set ofglasses”, which is directly comparable to the way I described cultural mindfulness and cultural relativismin the theoretical analysis. The interviews validate that any positivist approach to culture inissues management must be rejected. No clear-cut list can explain cultural differences. Only culturalrelativism and openness may uncover hidden cultural assumptions that influence opinions,actions and policies pursued by companies and stakeholders in issue debates. From the interviewsI get the picture that issues managers should debate issues in the public by understandingand using arguments that are supported by the other parties’ cultural contexts. Independent commentsby three different respondents pointed to the importance of conveying attitudes of “understanding”,“support” and “respect”. Thus, also on that dimension, recommendations from the theoreticalanalysis can be validated.The empirical analysis has briefly touched upon how to develop cultural competences in the organisation.From the interviews with especially Lego, Grundfos and Shell it is possible to concludethat a central communication department or external affairs function should rely on so-called generalcultural competences while it should draw on culture-specific competences of employees inspecific parts of the organisation that have the direct stakeholder contact.Now, a new dimensions of the issues management process was brought to light through the interviews.The 6 respondents had a much more general approach to issues management that I haveused in the theoretical analysis. They argued that issues management should function within theframes of corporate values/culture and responsible business behaviour. I have all ready describedhow corporate culture is a valuable way of characterising companies’ cultural context. It showedout that cultural values also inflict directly upon the issues management process. They serve as asort of frame that assures the company’s integrity and consistency across many different businessunits and subsidiaries. In addition, the companies were very persistent in underlining that what yousay as a company must be in accordance with what you do. Thus, if you communicate that you108| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

CONCLUSION PART 3want to change operations in ways stakeholders suggest, you must change those operations accordingly.I have justified the process model as a consequence of those propositions.The conclusion to draw is that a company should draw a process model similar to the one I developedin the theoretical analysis including those activities most relevant for that particular companyand industry. In addition, they should closely consider in which ways it is possible to continuouslyintegrate cultural awareness and mindfulness and stakeholder dialogue into day-to-day issuesmanagement activities.Trough an empirical analysis of 6 European companies, part 3 has fulfilled the objectives to conceptualiseissues in multicultural environments and to indicate ways issues management should bepracticed in order to prevent issues from evolving into crises. Conclusions from the theoreticalanalysis have been refined. Hereby, I have aspired to live up to good normative research that Istated as a goal in the beginning of dissertation: “Useful normative theory should prove solutionsunder typical conditions in actual practice.” (Vercic in Culbertson & Chin 1996).Part 4 presents the final conclusions to the entire study. In addition, some perspectives for additionalresearch are outlined. During the study, especially through this empirical analysis, a numberof interesting perspectives came to light, which may aspire future research into issues management.Part 3 | 109

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CONCLUSIONCONCLUSIONSETTING THE STAGELarger European companies are acting in multicultural stakeholder environments. They are confrontedwith a range of expectations and demands and some are only peripherally related to thecompany’s core business. It requires, that companies are competent to effectively communicateabout their activities and responsibility. At the same time, the enlarged openness and communicationresult in more focus being directed towards companies’ social responsibility, which makesthem more exposed to public criticism. It is especially true for companies with a well-known brand.The globalisation of the media gives rise to a situation where local conflicts potentially may matureinto global issues for international companies on all markets with consequences for all employees,investors and other stakeholders. The dissertation’s topic stems from this self-perpetuating processin the business environment between openness and responsibility.The dissertation asks how companies’ public relations function handles a situation, where companiesmust manage issues with parties, who are very different in cultural terms. Focus is directedtowards the field within public relations that through identification, analysis of and communicationabout issues intend to prevent crises in the public sphere. This discipline is named ”Issues Management”.The report’s pivotal point is an investigation of how companies should manage issues inmulticultural stakeholder environments in order to prevent crises.FINDINGSThe dissertation brings forth conclusions at two levels – a conceptual level and an operationallevel.On a conceptual level, the dissertation argues that issues are so-called legitimacy gaps betweencorporate behaviour and stakeholders’ expectations to this. An issue arises when companies andstakeholders show interests in the issue (which can be the same or different) and there are discrepanciesin: 1) Facts the parties hold about corporate behaviour. 2) Values from which the partiesjudge the behaviour. 3) Policies the parties believe are most appropriate to follow. The conclusionis that issues are not detached topics in the public sphere. They are always anchored in theinterface between companies’ and stakeholders’ subjective opinion formation. To begin with, thatconclusion gives birth to exiting acknowledgement that draws on stakeholder theory. To mentionthe most important: Stakeholders who are part of the “contextual business environment” are just aslikely to initiate issues as stakeholders in the “transactional business environment”. Stakeholders’interest in an issue may be very diverse and range from material to political or more emotionallyaccentuated concerns. And stakeholders have very different clout in the public sphere dependingon their power position, the legitimacy of their demand and how urgent the issue is.The next key conclusion is that stakeholders’ and companies’ respective cultural context impactstheir subjective opinion formation about proper corporate behaviour. Their cultural attachment thensignificantly impacts which issues or aspects of an issue they focus and how they act in relation tothat issue. The cultural context may be dismantled into a number of dimensions. The national cultureframe with its inherent values and norms, expectations about the distribution of roles (thePart 4 | 111

CONCLUSIONsocio-cultural frame) and the stereotype we hinge on to understand foreign cultures (psychoculturalframe) are those dimensions with greatest significance in issues management. When differencesbetween companies’ and stakeholders’ cultural dimensions are present, it may be part ofthe explanation why different opinions are formed, the difference between their patterns of actionand why misunderstanding may occur when they debate an issue. It materialises in different ways.One way is that companies often make use of rational reasons while stakeholders, especiallyNGOs, employ more emotional arguments. Another consequence is different perceptions of whichrole companies should occupy in general societal questions like human rights, welfare and environmentalprotection.The last conclusion on the conceptual level is that the public sphere is characterised by a processof dynamic and mutual influence between debaters through which a public opinion is formed. Companiesdo no participate in that mutual influence if they remain passive – do not engage in issuesmanagement activities – once an issue appears. When they are directly confronted with the issuethey are left to reactive strategies because the issue has all ready penetrated the public sphere anda public opinion has been formed. Based on findings from this analysis, the dissertation has developeda conceptual model for issues in multicultural stakeholders environments, which can be foundjust after this conclusion.On an operational level, the tentative study of six case companies reveals relatively great differencesbetween the issues management process in individual companies. It signifies that generalpractice is characterised by individual preferences and “mudding through”. There seems to be aneed for more fundamental principles for issues management in multicultural stakeholder environments,which companies can depend on. The dissertation concludes that issues managementshould strive to anticipate issues. At an early stage, companies should search solutions to issues ata time where there are more possibilities to impact the development of the issue and public opinion.It must take place through a set of activities and techniques and by competent execution ofthose tasks. The dissertation suggests some concrete activities, which are synthesised in the relevantchapter. They should be grouped into a systematic and structured process containing fourphases: identification, analysis, response and evaluation. In the identification phase, the aim is toidentify important issues and involved stakeholders. “Anticipation” is the most important ideologyhere. I the analysis phase, the company determines the history and origin of the issue, its stage inthe so-called life cycle, predicts its further development and assesses its influence on the organisation.“To develop a sound understanding and knowledge” about the issue is important at this stage.In the response phase, companies formulate their answer to those stakeholders involved in theissue through communication or action. At this point it becomes essential that the company is “consistent”in its communication while being able to adapt the response to the various interests or aspectsin the issue different stakeholders have focused on. In finding a response to an issue, companiesmay roughly choose between altering business practices or to create understanding of andsupport to corporate behaviour through communication. Companies must be open for new ways toact but the aim should not be to satisfy critical stakeholders in the short term if a solution is contradictoryto company policies in the long term. All together, the issues management process shouldfunction within the superior frame of corporate values / culture and business operations. Issuesshould always be related to the values a company stands for or wishes to stand for. Corporatevalues should be reformulated if responses to issues point in directions that are at odds with thepresent value foundation. Likewise, it is essential that companies’ responses to stakeholders com-112| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

CONCLUSIONply with true business operations. The credibility of the organisation is diluted if disparities existbetween what the company says and what it does in practice.As issues are anchored in the subjective opinion formation, which is influenced by the parties’ culturalcontext, cultural understanding becomes a fundamental competence to manage issues and tocomprehend stakeholder reactions – thus, for the entire way companies pursue activities in theprocess above. The six case companies put great emphasis on that argument. On the other hand,they did not agree how cultural competences could be translated to issues management in practice.The dissertation argues that cultural understanding entails the ability to understand the culturaldimensions mentioned previously and how they affect issues and company-stakeholder relations. Itis concerned with developing “general cultural competences”. In an issues management situation, itis suggested that cultural competence is divided into “cultural awareness” where the company realisesthe cultural differences, wherein they lie and how they materialise. We rarely notice that weperceive things differently from others and mistakenly assuming that no cultural differences existbetween parties is a recurrently committed blunder in communication. The other competence is“cultural mindfulness”, which has three parameters: One is the ability and readiness to shift one’sframe of reference. The second is the motivation to use new categories to understand cultural orethnic differences. And the third is the preparedness to experiment with creative avenues of decision-makingand problem solving. Fundamentally, issues management should strive to achieveharmony between the organisation and its environment. But the dissertation demonstrates that acompany may only achieve that harmony by understanding and paying attention to cultural disparitiesthat may distinguish it from its stakeholders. The company’s communication practitionersshould be able to step beyond their own opinion formation and understand opinion formations anchoredin other cultural contexts. In practice, it may be explained as the ability to “put yourself inother shoes” or “take on another pair of glasses”. The dissertation concludes that a cultural competenceis vital in order to identify the right issues, understand them correctly and to react in a waywhere misunderstandings are precluded. Regardless wether companies comply with stakeholders’expectations and demands, companies should regard it as an objective to give stakeholders thefeeling that the company understands, respects and supports their opinions. Such positive endorsementis likely to have positive effects on the management of issues. In addition, in concreteissues, employees in the central communication department should draw on the operational staffs’specific knowledge of particular stakeholders, for example a subsidiary’s knowledge of a nationalculture.The dissertation holds that the entire operational issues management practice is strengthened ifstakeholder analysis and dialogue are integrated into the process. It demands that involved stakeholdersare identified and those relations they may have to other groups in society are revealed. Itmust be acknowledged that different stakeholders groups are likely to exist in different countries.Interests that stakeholders attach to the issues must be investigated. Moreover, the company’sprioritisation of issues should be supported by an analysis of respective stakeholder influence.Dialogue must be initiated at an early stage with most important stakeholders including very criticalstakeholders as well. The dissertation argues that the dialogue should build on deep-seated valuesabout mutual trust where the aim is to create a so-called win-win situation so that a solution isbeneficial to all parties. In reality, it could be a challenging and time-consuming exercise. On theother hand, there are convincing advantages by integrating stakeholder dialogue into issues management.You can early identify important issues, companies can obtain valuable knowledge aboutPart 4 | 113

CONCLUSIONissues from stakeholders and they can exchange ideas about avenues for resolving the issue. Inaddition, stakeholder may be used as mediators to solve conflicts with groups in society that companyis unable to reach directly. On the other hand, there are risks that companies loose their independencyand uncritically cater to stakeholder demands. Obviously, it should deliberately beavoidedConsequently, companies should share a conceptual understanding of issues as anchored in thesubjective opinion formation between stakeholders and companies, which is influenced by the parties’cultural context. Through a structured issues management process, companies should seek toidentify and analyse issues as early as possible and find solutions to them that are satisfactory tothe principal parties. In multicultural stakeholder environments, that objective is only feasible if theprocess integrates more technical activities and tasks with cultural awareness and mindfulness aswell as stakeholder analysis and dialogue.The dissertation concludes that companies, which share this conceptual understanding and havethe right operational issues management set-up in place, are equipped to lessen the risk that issuesmature into crises. The risk that issues undermine the company legitimacy and deterioratesits reputation is reduced accordingly.This conclusion is followed by two models, which encapsulate the fundamental conclusions: 1) Aconceptual model for issues in multicultural stakeholder environments. 2) An operational model, bywhich companies may structure and specify the issues management process. The dissertationrecommends that companies develop an individual model containing the defined phases and thoseactivities most relevant to them.114| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

PERSPECTIVESPERSPECTIVES FOR ADDITIONAL RESEARCHAfter having researched theoretical and empirical aspects of issues management, which mainlydrew on communicative theories, some evident questions arise which have not been given clout inthis dissertation. The most important of these are concerned with the organisational and structuraldimensions of issues management.I have come to realise that the competence to lead effective issues management in multiculturalstakeholder environments depends upon both a communicative competence and an organisational,structural competence. A central communication department cannot possess knowledge about allthe different cultures the company may encounter when managing issues. An issues managermust have some general competences of cultural mindfulness but he must be able to draw on culture-specificknowledge of local employees in different parts of the organisation. Moreover, it is notenough that the central issues manager contacts employees if questions occur during his analysisof an issue. The entire organisation must be integrated in the issues management process all theway from identification to evaluation. People in different parts of the organisation are able to seeissues arising much quicker because of their in-depth knowledge of specific cultures and they areable to get the eventual response through with less risks of misunderstanding.I will give space to some key quotations from the 6 interviewed companies, which touches upon theorganisational, structural perspective:Marianne Barner, Ikea:“I feel our advantage is that we have worked so closely wiht our suppliers in these countries and foryears we have had local staff, so we are not coming as totally new –as a foreigner from far away,we have been THERE, like in India or Pakistan, for so many years. That is an advantage.”Jette Orduna, Lego:“…we cannot sell our products in the same way all over the world. So we have different ways ofdividing the world. This is why there are different perceptions of Lego in different locations anddifferent communication messages are employed. There are differences in the world and we knowthat. And we also know it when we respond to public issues. We have a lot of experience in managingcultural diversity. We try, to the extent it is possible, to unify our messages but we also knowit is not possible in all places.”(…) “We have responsible local public relations people with knowledgeabout how to manage public relations in each region. At the same time, they cooperateclosely with our communication headquarter here in Billund. We visit each other a lot. Therefore weknow each other’s backgrounds. And we really try to minimise those cultural differences as muchas possible because it is actually quite expensive to make different campaigns depending on whereyou are. It would be easier to make one press release that you translate into x number of languagesand that’s it. But you cannot do that. We have known that for many years.”Bo Wesley, Novo Nordisk:“This department consists of Danes, Swedes, Brits, a Frenchman and an African. We are morewomen than men. We are very diverse. And the department’s objective is to become increasinglyPart 4 | 115

PERSPECTIVESinternational despite the fact that we are quite international already. We use a lot of money on travelsin this department.”Matthias Glischinski-Kurc, Shell Europe:Identifying and understanding issues can only really be done by people on the ground who comprehendthe local sensitivity, the local values that are driving the particular stakeholders. This,again, was one of the motivations when I said: We actually have to turn the whole process up-sidedown. We really have to come to a point where we have that bottom-up approach rather than topdownapproach in order to capture all this cultural sensitivity”. (…) “It’s harder to do when you sit inthe ”ivory tower”. Of course, having worked in different environments and different countries in theworld that have different mindsets and ideas, and having your network of local contacts helps youto do that. But that’s just a little bit of personal skill or character that frame the issues managementprocess. The real added value you can only create by using the organisation. And that is using thediversity that we have within the operating company to make sure we capture this”. (…) “Externalcontacts are usually very strongly owned and lived on the local level where we have the customerand stakeholder interface. And this is where the human interaction really takes place. Of course,there is also a European office that is dealing with the EU parliament for example and relations toEuropean industry association. But the main interface, were you have interaction and contact, isthe local level. We do have a European level of issues management that provides services to acertain extent but you cannot substitute for real local interaction.”A thesis that arises out of this knowledge is that you cannot lead an effective issues managementprocess without the right organisational structure to support that process. That thesis generates anumber of interesting questions for further research.If this research were carried out, the researcher would have to conduct interviews with more respondentsfrom the same companies. It could be interviews with employees in local subsidiariesand business units in order to unveil to what extent they are engaged in the issues managementprocess and in which way they could contribute. In addition, the researcher should perform an indepthanalysis of feedback systems set up in the organisation and investigate the internal processby which responses to issues are formulated and communicated to stakeholders.116| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

APPENDICESPart 1| 117

APPENDICESAPPENDICESAPPENDIX 1: CAUSAL RELATIONS IN THE STUDYCauses Problem variables Consequences! Integration of the mediaacross cultures and countries.! Issues mature into crises. ! Lack of harmony betweenthe organisation and theenvironment.! Companies met with newand unexpected demandsfrom a variety of stakeholdersin a multiculturalenvironment.! Bad image in the public.! Undermining the company’spublic legitimacy.! Lack of framework and toolsto identify, analyse and respondto issues involvingstakeholders from differentcultural contexts than thecompany.118| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

APPENDICESAPPENDIX 2: MEDIA SOURCES IN THE IDENTIFICATION PROCESSVISIONARY UNINHIBITEDRENDERING IDEA TO SPECIF-ICSDIFFUSION OF IDEA AMONGIOPINION LEADERSINSTITUTIONAL RESPONSEMASS MEDIAPOLITICISING THE ISSUEINSTANTANEOUS COVERAGEFOR MASS CONSUMPTIONEDUCATING THE PEOPLE OFTHE NEW NORMHISTORICAL ANALYSISArtistic, poetic worksScience fictionFringe media, underground pressUnpublished notes and speechesMonographs, treatisesScientific, technical, professional journalsHighly specialised, narrow-viewpoint journalsStatistical documents (social indicators, statistical services)Abstracting services, journalsDatasearch composites (predicast)Egghead journals (e.g. Science, Scientific American)Insider “dopesheets” (e.g. Product Safety Letter)Popular intellectual magazines (e.g. Harpers, Atlantic)Network communications (Bulletins, Newsletters)Journals for the cause (e.g. Consumer Reports, Asbestos Reporter)General interest publications (e.g. Time, Newsweek)Condensation of general literature (e.g. Readers Digest)Poll data, public opinion, behavioural and voter attitudesLegislative/governmental services, reportsBooks (fiction, novels provide social analysis of the times; non-fiction, pulltogether discordant parts into easily understood whole)NewspapersRadio & televisionEducation journalsHistorical analysesTraditional doctoral thesisIdentifying Emerging Issues. Source: Coates, Coates, Jarratt & Heinz 1986: 24General News Stories – TV – Radio - NewspapersScience Section of Newsweek/time/U.S. NewsNew York Times “Science Times”ScienceTVSpecialsOmniScienceDigestHighlyspecializedliteratureHighTechDiscoveryNatureAll Things Considered (NPR)60 Minutes 20/20Readers DigestNovaLife LookThe Oil Spot Model: The Spread of issues through Popular Media. Source: Renfro 1993: 73Part 4 | 119

APPENDICESAPPENDIX 3: LIFECYCLE CURVESEvents triggering outside pressureNo. of eventsExpansion of an outside pressure issue in thepublicNo. readers/receiversTimeTimeStakeholder awareness in an internationalcontextDevelopment of topicsNo. of CountriesLevel of importanceTimeTimeAggregated public awarenessPublic awarenessTimeLife Cycle Curves. Source: Winter & Steger 1998: 60120| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

APPENDICESAPPENDIX 4: CONCLUSION IN DANISHSPECIALETS UDGANGSPUNKTStørre europæiske virksomheder agerer i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer og konfronteres medmange forskelligartede forventninger og krav, hvor nogle kun er perifert relateret til virksomhedensegentlige forretning. Det kræver, at virksomhederne er i stand til effektivt at kommunikere om deresaktiviteter og ansvarlighed. Samtidig indebærer den øgede åbenhed og kommunikation, at der erstigende fokus på virksomheders sociale ansvarlighed, og at de dermed er mere udsatte for offentligkritik. Det gælder særligt virksomheder med et kendt brand. Mediernes globalisering betyder, atlokale konflikter har potentiale til at udvikle sig til globale debatsager for en international virksomhedpå alle dens markeder med konsekvenser for alle medarbejdere, investorer og andre stakeholdere.Specialets emne udspringer af denne selvforstærkende proces i virksomhedens omverdenmellem åbenhed og ansvarlighed.Specialet spørger, hvordan virksomhedens public relations-funktion klarer en situation, hvor virksomhedenskal håndtere debatsager med aktører, som er forskellige kulturelt set. Specialet fokusererpå det område inden for public relations, som via identifikation, analyse af og kommunikationomkring debatsager (”issues”) har til formål at forebygge kriser i den offentlige sfære. Dette områdebetegnes ”issues management”. Opgavens omdrejningspunkt er altså en undersøgelse af, hvordanvirksomheder skal håndtere debatsager i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer for at forebygge kriser.FORSKNINGSMETODEForskningen i dette problemfelt er udført ved en omfangsrig scanning af eksisterende teori og litteraturinden for issues management. Specialet tager kritisk stilling til issues management litteraturensanvendelighed i forhold til debatsager, som opstår i spændet mellem kulturelt forskellige debattører.En interdisciplinær teoretisk analyse mellem issues management, stakeholder relationsog interkulturel kommunikation afdækker områder, hvor issues management litteraturen er mangelfuldog nye aspekter tilføres fra disse to supplerende teoretiske discipliner. Herefter foretager specialeten empirisk analyse af seks case virksomheder. Den empiriske data er indsamlet via personligekvalitative interviews med praktikere af issues management i seks større europæiske virksomheder:Grundfos, Ikea, Lego, Novo Nordisk, SAS og Shell Europe.RESULTATERSpecialet fremkommer med konklusioner på to niveauer – et begrebsmæssigt niveau og et operationeltniveau.På det begrebsmæssige plan konkluderer specialet, at debatsager udgør en såkaldt legitimitetskløftmellem virksomhedens måde at handle på og stakeholderes forventninger til dette. En debatsagopstår, når virksomheder og stakeholdere har interesser i forhold til sagen (som kan være enseller forskellige), og der er forskel på: 1) De fakta, parterne har om virksomhedens handlinger. 2)De værdier, parterne vurderer handlingerne ud fra. 3) De politikker, parterne vurderer er rigtige atfølge. Debatsager er altså ikke løsrevne emner i offentligheden, men altid forankret i spændet mellemstakeholdere og virksomheders subjektive meningsdannelser. Den konklusion giver i førsteomgang anledning til en række spændende erkendelser, hvor der kan trækkes på stakeholderPart 4 | 121

APPENDICESteori. F.eks. kan nævnes, at stakeholdere, som er del af det ”kontekstuelle miljø”, kan iværksættedebatsager i lige så høj grad som stakeholdere i det ”forretningsmæssige miljø”. At de interessersom stakeholdere har i en debatsag kan være meget forskelligartede fra materielle over politiske tilmere følelsesmæssigt betonede. Og at stakeholdere har meget forskellige muligheder for indflydelsei offentligheden afhængig af deres magtposition, legitimiteten i deres krav og hvor presserendedebatsagen er.Den næste centrale konklusion er, at stakeholderes og virksomheders respektive kulturelle kontekstpåvirker den subjektive meningsdannelse. Dermed får aktørernes kulturelle forankring storbetydning for hvilke debatsager eller hvilke aspekter af en debatsag, de fokuserer på, og hvordande handler i forhold til sagen. Den kulturelle kontekst kan nedbrydes i en række dimensioner. Dedimensioner, som har størst betydning for issues management, er den nationale kulturramme meddens indgroede værdier og normer, forventninger omkring rollefordelinger (den socio-kulturellekulturramme) samt de stereotyper, vi støtter os til (den psyko-kulturelle kulturramme). Når der erforskel på virksomheder og stakeholderes kulturdimensioner, kan det være en del af forklaringenpå de forskellige meninger, de danner, forskellen på deres handlingsmønstre og hvorfor misforståelserkan opstå, når de diskuterer en debatsag. En konkret måde hvorpå det kommer til udtryk er,at virksomheder ofte benytter sig af rationelle begrundelser, mens nogle stakeholdere benyttermere følelsesbetonede argumenter. En anden konsekvens er forskellige opfattelser af, hvilken rollevirksomheder spiller eller bør spille i generelle samfundsspørgsmål som menneskerettigheder,velfærd og miljøbeskyttelse. Den sidste konklusion på det begrebsmæssige niveau er, at detoffentlige rum er karakteriseret af dynamisk gensidig indflydelse mellem debattørerne, hvormedden offentlige mening dannes. Virksomheder tager ikke del i denne gensidige indflydelse, såfremtde forbliver passive - ikke foretager issues management aktiviteter – straks en debatsag opstår.Virksomheden overlades dermed til reaktive strategier, når den konfronteres direkte med debatsagen,fordi debatsagen allerede har penetreret den offentlige agenda, og en offentlig mening erdannet. På basis af disse resultater, udvikler specialet en begrebsmæssig model for debatsager imultikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer, som findes i forlængelse af specialets konklusion.På det operationelle niveau afslører det tentative studie af seks case-virksomheder, at der erforholdsvis store forskelle mellem issues management-processen i de enkelte virksomheder, hvilkettyder på, at generel praksis er karakteriseret af individuelle præferencer og “muddling through”.Der synes at være behov for mere fundamentale principper for issues management i multikulturellestakeholder-miljøer, som virksomheder kan støtte sig til. Specialet konkluderer, at issues managementskal have til formål at foregribe debatsager. Virksomheder skal finde løsninger på debatsagerpå et så tidligt stadie som muligt, hvor de har flere muligheder for at påvirke sagens udvikling ogden offentlige mening. Det skal ske gennem et sæt aktiviteter og teknikker og ved kompetent udførelseaf disse opgaver. De konkrete aktiviteter er syntetiseret i det pågældende afsnit. De skalgrupperes i en systematisk og struktureret proces, som består af fire faser: identifikation, analyse,svar/kommunikation og evaluering. I praksis er denne strukturerede issues management-procesdog sjældent lineær. I identifikationsfasen skal formålet være at identificere de vigtigste debatsagerog involverede stakeholdere. ”Foregribelse” er den vigtigste ideologi her. I analysefasen skal virksomhedenbestemme debatsagens historie og oprindelse, dets stadie i den såkaldte livscyklus,forudsige den videre udvikling og vurdere dets indflydelse på organisationen. ”At udvikle en solidforståelse og viden om debatsagen” er vigtigt i dette stadie. I svar/kommunikationsfasen skal virksomhedenformulere sit svar til de stakeholdere, som er involveret i debatsagen gennem kommuni-122| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

APPENDICESkation eller handling. Her bliver det essentielt, at virksomheden er konsekvent i sin kommunikation,men samtidig i stand til at tilpasse svaret til de interesser eller aspekter i debatsagen, som forskelligestakeholdere har fokuseret på. I udviklingen af en løsning på en debatsag kan virksomhedengroft sagt vælge mellem at ændre sine forretningsmæssige metoder eller gennem kommunikationat skabe forståelse for og tilslutning til de nuværende metoder. Virksomheden skal være åben fornye måder at agere på, men formålet må ikke være at tilfredsstille kritiske stakeholdere på kort sigt,hvis en løsning står i modsætning til virksomhedens politik på lang sigt. Overordnet set skal issuesmanagement-processen foregå inden for den overordnede ramme af virksomhedens værdier/kulturog forretningsdriften. En debatsag skal altid sættes i forhold til de værdier, virksomheden står foreller ønsker at stå for. Hvis svaret på en debatsag peger i en anden retning end det nuværendeværdigrundlag, bør virksomhedens værdier omformuleres. Ligeledes er det essentielt, at det svar,som virksomheden giver stakeholdere efterleves i den egentlige forretningsdrift. Troværdighedenundermineres, såfremt der er kløft mellem det virksomheden siger, og det den gør i praksis. I denempiriske analyse findes to tabeller, som opsummerer issues management-praksis i de seks case -virksomheder. Disse kan være af særlig interesse for andre praktikere.Idet debatsager er forankret i en subjektiv meningsdannelse, som påvirkes af debattørernes kulturellekontekst, bliver kulturforståelse en fundamental kompetence for at håndtere debatsager ogforstå kulturelt anderledes stakeholdere – altså for den måde aktiviteterne i ovennævnte procesangribes. De seks case-virksomheder lagde stor vægt på den konklusion. Derimod var der ikkekonsensus omkring, hvordan kulturelle kompetencer kunne overføres til issues management ipraksis. Kulturforståelse indbefatter evnen til at forstå de kulturdimensioner, som nævntes tidligere,og hvordan de påvirker debatsager og forholdet mellem virksomheder og stakeholdere. Det handlerom at udvikle en ”generel kulturel kompetence”. I en issues management-situation kan denkulturelle kompetence opdeles i ”kulturel opmærksomhed”, hvor virksomheden er klar over de kulturelleforskelle, hvori de består, og hvordan de udmøntes samt ”kulturel sensitivitet”. Kulturel sensitivitethar tre parametre: Evnen til at skifte ens referenceramme; motivationen til at bruge nyekategorier til at forstå kulturelle forskelle; og viljen til at eksperimentere med alternative mulighederfor beslutninger og løsninger. Målet i issues management er at skabe harmoni mellem organisationenog dets omverden. En virksomhed kan altså kun opnå denne harmoni ved at forstå og væreopmærksom på kulturelle uligheder, som måtte adskille den fra sine stakeholdere. Virksomhedenskommunikatører skal kunne sætte sig ud over egen meningsdannelse og forstå meningsdannelserforankret i andre kulturelle kontekst. I praksis kan det forklares som evnen til at ”sætte sig i andressted” eller ”tage andre briller på”. Denne kulturelle kompetence er både vigtigt for at identificere derigtige debatsager, forstå dem korrekt samt at reagere på en måde, så misforståelser undgås.Uanset om virksomheden efterkommer stakeholdernes forventninger og krav skal målet være, atstakeholderne gennem den måde debatsagen håndteres sidder tilbage med følelsen af, at virksomhedenviser empati, respekterer og støtter deres holdninger. I konkrete debatsager bør ansattei den centrale kommunikationsafdeling desuden trække på et specifikt kulturkendskab til særligestakeholdere hos linjestaben i organisationen, f.eks. et datterselskabs kendskab til en nationalkultur.Hele den operationelle issues management-praksis vil styrkes, såfremt stakeholder-analyse ogstakeholder-dialog integreres i processen. Det indebærer, at de involverede stakeholdere identificeres,og de relationer de måtte have til andre stakeholdere afdækkes. Herunder er det vigtigt aterkende, at forskellige stakeholdergrupper typisk vil forekomme i forskellige lande. De interesserPart 4 | 123

APPENDICESstakeholderne har for debatsagen skal undersøges. Desuden skal virksomhedens prioritering afdebatsagerne understøttes af en analyse af de respektive stakeholderes muligheder for indflydelse.En dialog bør igangsættes på et tidligt stadie med de vigtigste stakeholdere, og det er essentielt,at også kritiske stakeholdere inviteres til dialog. Specialet konkluderer, at dialogen bør byggepå grundlæggende værdier omkring gensidig tillid, hvor målet er at skabe en såkaldt vind-vind situation,så en løsning er til gavn for begge parter. Det kan i praksis være en svær og tidskrævendeproces. Til gengæld er fordelene ved at integrere stakeholder-dialog i issues management, at mantidligt kan opfange vigtige debatsager, at virksomheden kan få værdifuld viden om debatsagernefra stakeholdere, og at de kan udveksle ideer for, hvordan debatsagerne kan løses. Stakeholderekan motivere forandringer i virksomheder, som viser sig at være værdifulde på lang sigt. På denanden side er der risiko for, at virksomheder bliver for afhængige og ukritisk efterlever stakeholdereskrav, hvilket bevidst må undgås.Virksomheder bør altså have en begrebsmæssige forståelse af debatsager som forankret i en subjektivmeningsdannelse mellem stakeholdere og virksomheder, der påvirkes af aktørernes kulturellekontekst. Virksomheder skal gennem en struktureret issues management-proces søge at identificereog analysere debatsager så tidligt som muligt og finde løsninger på dem, som er tilfredsstillendefor de vigtigste parter. Det mål kan kun opnås i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer såfremtprocessen integrerer mere tekniske aktiviteter og opgaver med kulturel opmærksomhed og sensitivitetsamt stakeholder-analyse og -dialog.Det er specialets konklusion, at virksomheder som har denne begrebsmæssige forståelse samt detkorrekte operationelle set-up vil være i stand til at mindske risikoen for, at debatsager udvikler sig tilkriser i forhold til den offentlige sfære. Dermed begrænses risikoen altså for, at kritiske debatsagerunderminerer virksomhedens legitimitet og forringer dens offentlige omdømme.Denne konklusion efterfølges af de to centrale modeller, som opsummerer specialets hovedkonklusioner.1) En begrebsmæssig model for debatsager i multikulturelle stakeholder-miljøer. 2) Enoperationel model, hvormed virksomheden kan strukturere og konkretisere issues managementprocessen.Specialet anbefaler, at hver enkelt virksomhed udvikler en proces-model bestående afde nævnte faser og de issues management aktiviteter, som er mest relevante og mulige inden forvirksomhedens ressourceramme.124| Issues Management in Multicultural Stakeholder Environments

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