COMMUNICATION AS STRATEGY

A basic aspect of all acts of communication is that they direct attention (Cartier

& Hanvood, 1953). Directing attention might be done intentionally or unin-tentionally. Miller (1966) emphasised the notion of conscious intent related to communication. When communication is intended, a sender attempts to in-fluence a receiver to act in a certain way. In other words, the sender attempts to predetermine the effects of his or her communication.

Because communication directs attention and because this can be done inten-tionally, communication is also a strategic discipline. Communication can be used strategically to attain specific goals, of which this thesis is an example.

Exploring how to optimise the dissemination of scientific knowledge to SMEs is also a strategic endeavour. The university has an intention to optimise SMEs’ use of scientific knowledge. This intention is brought on by something.

As mentioned in Chapter 1, the increased societal and political attention on universities’ responsibility to stimulate a greater awareness and exploitation of scientific knowledge outside academia has changed the societal role of univer-sities and has placed an enormous resource pressure on them. Scientific knowledge has become a societal affair (The Ministry of Science, 2004) and, accordingly, universities need to do more to disseminate their scientific know-ledge to different target groups, including SMEs. In that perspective, this en-tire PhD project can be seen as a strategic endeavour.

The concept of strategy is derived from the Greek word, stratēgía, which means generalship and is a compound of the two words, strat(ós), which means army, and ágein, which means to lead. The concept was originally used in military theory and has since been adopted as a research discipline focussed on strategic communication as a phenomenon, i.e. to describe, explain, criti-cise and understand the practice of strategic communication and its impact on society, organisations and individuals (Falkheimer & Heide, 2014). When the Prussian general and military strategist Carl von Clausewitz first published the now classical work on warfare in 1832, he defined strategy as the employment of the battle as the means towards the attainment of the object of the war (Clausewitz, 1968). Strategy, he said, must give an aim to the whole military action, which must be in accordance with the object of the war. This applies to communication as well. Based on the perspectives above, I understand that to communicate strategically is to communicate purposefully, to have a goal and make sure that all actions are in line with the main objective. To com-municate strategically is to comcom-municate with the purpose of changing a situ-ation and to have a direction (or at least attempted direction) for these changes.

Strategy is about having an intended effect and choosing the resources and actions that allow for that effect to be realised. In the context of this thesis it

means that if the dissemination of scientific knowledge to SMEs has to be op-timised, actions that will make it more likely will have to be taken. This could, for example, be to understand the preferences of SMEs and change the dis-semination pathways accordingly.

According to Kornberger (2013), strategy is a device for disciplining the future.

Its proliferation, he stated, reaches into nearly all strata of society (firms, not-for-profit organisations, political parties, cities, states or networks); they all strategise to mitigate the influence of the future on their present. However, strategy is a two-sided coin: “On the one hand, strategy appears to be a scien-tific endeavor that provides theories, propositions, models and frameworks to master the future. The strategist is a technocrat who claims jurisdiction over the future (…) On the other hand, strategy is an engine of change, a mecha-nism to transform the present and mold it in the image of a desired future to come” (Kornberger, 2013, p. 104). By that, strategy is political – and powerful.

If the strategist claims jurisdiction of the future, he or she is able to execute power. Actually, according to the classical work of Machiavelli, first published in 1532, strategy is the intentional execution of power (Machiavelli, 2001). De-ception, he states, can be a legitimate means to reach the goal. Habermas (2000) would call this ‘strategic action’, which stands opposed to communica-tive action. Unlike communicacommunica-tive action, where a basis of mutually-recog-nised validity claims is presupposed, strategic action is goal-oriented and could be said to include manipulative features, which means that it has a somewhat dishonest intention that is not apparent to the receiver of the communication.

Communication can thus be considered distorted (Habermas, 2000). By that, an ethical dimension is added to the concept of strategy.

Strategic communication as practiced across disciplines today is not limited to manipulation nor distorted communication in a purely negative sense. While morality is an essential part of human communication today, strategic com-munication can at the same time be understood as a method for persuading or convincing receivers to change. In our society today, we face strategic com-munication everywhere we go. The fight for people’s attention is big, and it can sometimes be difficult to see the intention behind it. In a critical perspec-tive, strategic communication can therefore be perceived as containing ma-nipulative features. A more positive choice of words would be ‘conscious com-munication’. The communication might even be so convincing that the re-ceivers suddenly want to change, although they initially had no desire for it.

Kornberger (2013, p. 105) calls this a “convincing performance of the future in the here-and-now”.

Creating a ‘convincing performance of the future’ is, however, the research aim of this thesis. Exploring how scientific knowledge can be disseminated to

SMEs is to purposely (or consciously) attempt to create a change and improve SMEs’ use of scientific knowledge. According to Falkheimer and Heide (2014, p. 10), a “fundamental starting point in strategic communication is that com-munication is not a simple tool for transmitting information and knowledge between people in an objectified world, but is the very means for producing and a resource that produces the social world”. Accordingly, the objective of this thesis is a change, and in order to achieve this change (and direct it), the thesis will strategically launch different initiatives, which will be presented in Chapter 3. In examining, developing and evaluating a new generic pathway (which is a communication channel) for the dissemination of scientific knowledge to SMEs, the university seeks to change their communication and presentation of knowledge, thus attempting to make it more desirable to SMEs. In a negative framing, this could be called a manipulative feature:

SMEs have not asked for this and they are (seemingly) doing fine without it.

Why try and convince them into doing it? In a positive framing, the answer could be that communicating differently could create an awareness of the pos-sible use of scientific knowledge, of an untapped potential, which SMEs could draw great benefits from, which in turn would be beneficial to society at large.

However, it is interesting that the initiative for the improved communication comes from the university. Actually, according to Lynskey (2004), much of the impetus for closer university-industry links is driven not by enterprises but by universities. Understanding the dissemination of scientific knowledge as stra-tegic communication then means to establish SMEs’ potential incentives for engaging in a dissemination process. This could create a ‘pull’ for information (Bielak et al., 2008) from those who need it. It is part of the strategy of this thesis to build the communication up around the preferences of SMEs, thus diminishing the ‘manipulation’ and replacing it with ‘motivation’.

2.2.4 MEDIUMS AND PATHWAYS FOR COMMUNICATION

As the discussion above illustrates, communication requires mediums (or channels). Just as communication can not only be done by humans (interper-sonal communication), the mediums for communication are not limited to lan-guage or speech, although Habermas (2000) found lanlan-guage to be the medium to reach understanding and therefore ignored nonverbal actions and bodily expressions. However, nonverbal actions and bodily expressions such as ges-tures, body language, music, poetry, paintings, dance, signs, physical spaces, designs and so on can also be pathways of communication (mediated commu-nication). A painting or a ballet, for instance, can convey a message, although it can be interpreted in more than one way, hence Habermas’ dismissal of it as media for ‘true’ communicational actions. According to Oates (1964) the many media of communication poses ‘the problem of the medium’: Certain

things can be communicated in certain media while certain things cannot. In order to achieve understanding, the medium must be carefully selected.

In a university-industry context, scientific knowledge can be disseminated nu-merous ways. Although researchers themselves for the most part continue to disseminate their findings in traditional ways (Cook, Cook, & Landrum, 2013), i.e. through journal articles or conference presentations, change is happening and more and more channels emerge. While patenting has also traditionally been considered the formal channel for transferring knowledge from univer-sity to industry (Agrawal, 2001), newer literature tends to focus on knowledge dissemination through collaborations, that is interpersonal communication (relational pathways) as opposed to through broadcast media, or mediated communication (generic pathways). Bruneel et al. (2010) call these two types of channels ‘face-to-face interaction’ and ‘arm’s-length interactions’. How-ever, a basic understanding of relational pathways being more suited for this type of communication appears to be prevalent – and considered more mod-ern. This comes across both implicitly, when publications that lists channels to knowledge dissemination mainly mention relational pathways (see for example Abbasnejad, Baerz, Rostamy, & Azar, 2011; Geuna & Muscio, 2009; Lock, 2010), or explicitly, for example when Cronholm and Sandell (1981, p. 92) write that “It has been well established that personal communication may be more effective than mass communication for certain purposes, and this might be particularly true about difficult topics such as scientific news”.

However, what type of pathway is best suited for the dissemination of scientific knowledge should be based on considerations about what characterises scien-tific knowledge as a message. This is the essence of ‘the problem of the me-dium’ (Oates, 1964). In the context of the dissemination of scientific know-ledge, the problem of the medium calls for considerations about what channels are best for disseminating the specific type of knowledge, which, in turn, calls for considerations about what type of knowledge scientific knowledge is. As argued in the first part of this chapter, this thesis explores the dissemination of explicit, encoded and demonstrative scientific knowledge, which requires ge-neric pathways channels. However, that is not what is most common in this area of study. Rather, addressing the dissemination of tacit and embodied sci-entific knowledge is more prevalent. And because of this, a tendency to prefer relational pathways for the dissemination of scientific knowledge can clearly be identified. Consequently, an extensive amount of literature is prone to sider relational pathways (such as collaborative research, joint ventures, con-sultancy work, student placements or graduate employment, networks or shared facilities) as the preferred channel through which to disseminate scien-tific knowledge (Abbasnejad et al., 2011; Alexander & Childe, 2013; Ambos et al., 2008; Meyer-Krahmer & Schmoch, 1998; Monjon & Waelbroeck,

2003; Perkmann & Walsh, 2007). It appears to be a basic assumption in much existing literature within this area of study that if personal relations are not part of the dissemination process, and if the pathway is not relational, then the com-munication is automatically linear and does not allow for interaction and feed-back. This is not true. Disseminating scientific knowledge through generic pathways does not equal linear or sender-oriented communication, nor should it be considered traditional. Using generic pathways, for example through dig-ital media, is very relevant and contains a lot of possibilities (Bang &

Dalsgaard, 2008). It might also be what SMEs request, which the analysis of my empirical data will indicate in Chapter 5. According to Iskanius, Niiniko-ski, Jokela and Muhos (2014, p. 97), “effective knowledge creation and sharing depend on an enabling context with physical, virtual, and mental aspects”.

This can be provided by relational and generic pathways alike. Generic path-ways can be a consequence of an interactive communication process and fur-thermore they are potentially capable of offering interactive and dialogical communication where meaning is created by both communication partners.

It is, however, true that it can be more challenging, which will be discussed again in Chapter 10, when the new generic pathway is presented.

While relational pathways might offer rich opportunities for knowledge dis-semination, a downside to them is that they require high levels of co-ordina-tion and sustained interacco-ordina-tion. Generic pathways, on the other hand, rely on impersonal forms of dissemination and are thus less demanding for the in-volved parties. Disseminating scientific knowledge through generic pathways could potentially save time and resources for both university and industry (SMEs), although it will limit the disseminated knowledge to the scientific knowledge that has been codified. The latter is, however, not necessarily a problem. For example, Cohen, Nelson and Walsh (2002) find that published papers and reports are the most important channels through which universi-ties can have an impact on industrial research and development. Bielak et al.

(2008), however, state that effective science communication should include the full spectrum of approaches, from broadcast media to iterative dialogue. This indicates that multimodality is in fact the best procedure.

Because a common understanding in existing literature is that relational path-ways. i.e. collaborative research, is the preferred way to disseminate scientific knowledge between university and industry, there is a lack of research explor-ing how it can be done through generic pathways. Accordexplor-ingly, this thesis de-liberately explores how it is done through generic pathways, which – within the limits of this thesis – requires scientific knowledge to be explicit, encoded and demonstrative. By that, this thesis will contribute to the research area by adding a focus on generic pathways as media for knowledge dissemination.