Mid Sweden University

Purpose: This study explores the understanding of the term ‘strategic communication’ and how it has evolved in the accounts of communications managers, communications executives and organizational executive managers in a local government organization that centralizes the communications department, aiming to work strategically.

Design/methodology/approach: The findings are drawn from seven interviews from 2011 during the centralized period and four interviews in 2016 two years after decentralization.

Findings: Strategic communication mostly had a symbolic positive impact on the legitimacy of communication professionals. However, strategic communication was also understood as an organizational threat, as executive managers were not engaged in what it would imply for their organizations/offices to work strategically with communication.

Research limitation/implication: The study gives insight into why strategic communication is pursued as a work method more than a field of study.

Practical implications: This study provides insights into the strategy chosen to establish strategic communication with implications for communication professionals’ legitimacy within the organization.

Originality/value: This paper presents insights into the implementation of a communications department that was formed with the specific objective of working strategically. Due to that, strategic communication can have a strong symbolic meaning for legitimating communication professionals’ position.