In our current complex and mediatized society, trust in organizations cannot be taken for granted. We see that, across society, distrust in organizations has increased. Thus, organizations constantly need to (re)negotiate their legitimacy with various social actors to (re-)define their license to operate. Public legitimation happens in a communicative process, in which organizations and societal actors publicly discuss the value of (ethical) organizational conduct for society.
In this context, an analysis of the motivations, contents, and effects of organizations’ communication in terms of – amongst others – credibility, trust, transparency, and visibility is vital in several areas of corporate communication: leadership, corporate social responsibility and sustainability communication, combatting mis- and disinformation, ethical corporate communication, agenda setting and -building, the role of the news media, etc. Visibility is a topic of concern for organizations both internally in terms of information visibility and outside of the organization – e.g., public visibility of employees as well as organizations in the media and transparency of their communication. The Corporate Communication program group studies the interrelations between communicative legitimation, (dis)trust, and visibility from the perspectives of communication intermediaries, organizations, and stakeholders in different contexts (internal and external; micro, meso, and macro) and in light of recent (technological) developments.