Joep P. Cornelissen¹ & Phil Harris²

Leeds University Business School¹ 

Manchester Metropolitan University² 

The academic literature on corporate and marketing communication organisation is characterized by a comparatively large amount of conceptual work, with little detailed empirical analysis to support the theoretical perspectives offered. Following an established line of inquiry in organisational research; an information-processing perspective on organisational structure and design, the article develops and tests the hypothesis that interdependencies between marketing and public relations disciplines are correlated with choices for organisational arrangements. The findings of an exploratory analysis of organisations in the UK suggest, however, that in the majority of cases there is a lack of fit between information processing requirements brought about by the interdependencies between the marketing and public relations disciplines and the information processing capacity accompanying the actual design choices and organisational arrangements made. The practical implications of these findings for practitioners are discussed, and recommendations for further research are made.

Keywords: communication organisation, marketing organisation, public relations, inter-functional dependencies

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1362/026725704773041195