Communication professionals: Important Internal Agents for Realizing Strategy Processes within the Organization

The purpose of this paper is to describe and produce a more profound understanding of how communication professionals perceive that they realize strategic communication in organizations. Another aim is to deepen the understanding of what consequences the strategic work with communication has for the co-creation of meaning in which the organization is constituted. The paper is based on a qualitative study of communication professionals in Sweden. Influenced by a constitutive view on communication, a strategy as practice view on strategy, and theories of sensemaking and sensegiving, I complement and challenge existing research on communication professionals’ strategic work with communication and introduce the concept of sensefacilitation as an interpretation of what communication professionals do when they realize strategic communication processes within the organization. The concept sensefacilitation emphasizes facilitate, “to make easier”, rather than manage, “to control”, as an attempt to steer away from definitions which emphasize direct control and regulation over meaning making through communication management.