eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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Objective of the study

This study seeks to construct a concept that explains the nature of communication in growth companies, i.e. organizations undergoing the transition from start-up to a corporation. The goal is to converge recent theoretical findings related to managing communication in start-ups with existing theories of corporate communication so as to identify those which are suitable for the environment of growth organisations. The academic intent is to conceptualize the practice that bridges the existing research gap between start-up and corporate communication. The outcome is intended to help both communication and business practitioners better understand the nature of growth organizations and thus the most appropriate communication strategy and practices to apply within such environments.

Methodology and analytical framework

The research design for this study is qualitative, based on a conceptual framework derived from recent academic theories in start-up and corporate communication as well as data collected from interviews based on structured and semi-structured questions with members of four (4) Finnish growth companies. Directed content analysis is used to code and analyze the data collected.

Findings and conclusions

This study finds that there is a clear divergence between the practice of corporate communication and start-up communication, and identifies key patterns specific to communication practices in growth companies from the findings of the data collected. Furthermore, a definition for the concept of growth communication is proposed, as follows: ''Growth communication is the practice of ensuring effective internal and external knowledge transfer at the macro and micro level of a rapidly expanding organization via continuous stakeholder identification & channel formalization, with the goal of strategically building and establishing the organization's internal and external corporate identity.''