Conclusion : future roles of digital corporate communication

Abstract

This concluding chapter reflects on five future corporate communication roles emerging from complex developments in technology affecting organisations: (1) Corporate communication as digital community builder (responding to the challenge of polarization and diverse user bubbles affecting organisations’ tangible and intangible assets); (2) Corporate communication as organizational conscience for AI (ensuring AI developments adhere to emotional, empathic and ethical guidance); (3)Corporate communication as digital co-creation enabler (empowering stakeholders’ creative contributions to brands and organisations); (4) Corporate communication as boxturner (moderating stakeholders’ public investigations of the facts behind organizational or brand claims); and (5) Corporate communication as global diplomat (responding to stakeholders’ sociopolitical and nationalistic judgments about organisations’ behaviours in global markets). The chapter critiques these roles and proposes future research directions investigating the positive and negative impact of these emerging roles in different organisational, cultural and societal contexts.