Communication for Stakeholder Leadership in the Post-pandemic Digital Era

With COVID-19, the communication area of the main companies in Argentina has become more relevant for the CEOs. Mainly in its function of containing the internal public and maintaining the relationship with the stakeholders during the crisis. This can be deduced from two studies covering the period of the pandemic presented in this chapter. In 2018, Austral University and AMCHAM developed the KCI © (Key Communication Indicators) instrument that measures all the communication functions of a sample of the main companies operating in Argentina. It consists of a survey of eighty performance indicators organized in nine dimensions. Repeated for four years, the project has gathered information on deficits, consolidated best practices and innovative actions. In 2020 and 2021 the survey asked the Communication Managers about the management of the crisis caused by COVID-19. During 2020, Austral University’s Business School conducted 101 in-depth interviews with CEOs of Latin American companies. From the analysis of this material also emerges the role that CEOs assign to communication, mainly in the management of the context and the relationship with new stakeholders. The technological revolution is accelerating change and the internal impact of social change, and the pandemic crisis becomes evident. The comparison between the two studies leads us to the hypothesis of a convergence between the evolution of organizational communication practices and the CEOs’ post-pandemic priorities. The approach of the communication area to the business perspective during the pandemic should evolve into transforming the communication function in a systemic intelligence of the company’s context.