Editorial 31.1: Communication as organisational work: flexibility, technology and moral evaluation

Abstract

I became an editor of Corporate Communications: An International Journal (CCIJ) in December 2020, and as I write this editorial, it is December 2025, marking five years of my editorship. Over the past five years, CCIJ has continued to develop as a forum for scholarship that treats communication as central to organisational life. Throughout this period, we have foregrounded research that understands communication not simply as a managerial function or messaging activity but as relational, behavioural and ethically consequential work. As a journal, we have consistently positioned communication as a practice through which organisations build relationships, negotiate trust and become subject to public evaluation. The editorials I wrote during this period (started in 2022; Topić, 2022) reflect our commitment to moving beyond instrumental and transmission-based models of communication. Instead, they emphasise listening, engagement and behaviour, recognising publics as active sense-makers rather than passive recipients of organisational messages. During my 5 years as an editor, I have sought to maintain and extend this orientation by encouraging scholarship that connects theory with lived organisational experience. We have also sought to broaden the scope of corporate communications scholarship by foregrounding the organisational contexts in which communication work is carried out. Workplace culture, leadership, inclusion, gender equality and employee wellbeing have been treated as communicative phenomena shaped through everyday interaction and organisational structures. In this way, internal communication, emotional labour and employee experience have been positioned as integral to organisational legitimacy rather than peripheral to it. Technological change has been another recurring concern. Rather than approaching digital transformation and artificial intelligence as neutral tools or efficiency drivers, we have examined their implications for trust, relationality, responsibility and human experience. Communication technologies have been treated as embedded within practice, reshaping how communication work is organised and how organisational behaviour is interpreted and evaluated.The editorials have consistently reflected an editorial vision that is integrative, critical and attentive to social relevance. We have encouraged interdisciplinary perspectives, welcomed new and emerging research areas and consistently sought to connect scholarly inquiry with the realities faced by communication practitioners and organisations. In doing so, we have reinforced CCIJ's role as a journal committed to scholarship that is theoretically grounded while remaining sensitive to ethical, cultural and organisational complexity. Marking five years of editorship offers an opportunity for reflection and also for reaffirmation. The challenges that have shaped this editorial agenda – flexible work, technological transformation, moral evaluation and demands for inclusive and responsible organisational behaviour – continue to define the field. As a journal, we remain committed to providing space for research that critically examines these conditions. As an editor, I remain committed to leading a journal that understands communication as relational, behavioural, dialogic and moral work at the heart of organisational life.This issue continues in the same spirit. Indeed, communication scholarship has long been concerned with relationships, legitimacy and responsibility. Yet, the conditions under which communication works take place have changed in ways that require renewed attention. Flexible and remote working arrangements, the increasing integration of artificial intelligence, along with rising expectations that organisations behave ethically and responsibly are no longer peripheral developments. They now form part of the everyday context in which communication is enacted, interpreted and evaluated. The contributions brought together in this issue examine communication not as a technical function or messaging activity but as work embedded in organisational structures, cultures and moral expectations. The contributions draw on diverse organisational settings and communication contexts yet collectively point to shared challenges around trust, responsibility and relational work under contemporary conditions. The articles in this issue foreground communication as relational, behavioural and emotional work carried out under conditions of organisational flexibility and technological mediation, extending earlier work published in CCIJ that positioned communication as fundamentally behavioural and relational organisational practice (Topić, 2024). Rather than treating work arrangements, technology or ethics as separate areas of inquiry, papers in this issue demonstrate how these dimensions intersect in practice. Communication emerges here as a site where organisational behaviour becomes visible and subject to interpretation by both internal and external publics. From this perspective, communication is not oriented toward control or persuasion but toward ongoing engagement, responsiveness and the possibility of mutual understanding under conditions of scrutiny. Research in this issue also illustrates how communication professionals navigate new organisational conditions through intensified relational labour. Maintaining relationships, sustaining a sense of belonging and supporting shared purpose become ongoing communicative tasks. At the same time, flexible work arrangements redistribute responsibility for managing boundaries between work and non-work, emotional availability and professional identity. Communication work thus absorbs new behavioural and affective demands, often without corresponding organisational recognition. These developments challenge instrumental views of communication as coordination or information transmission. Instead, they foreground communication as constitutive organisational work. When physical presence is limited, communication becomes central to how organisations maintain their cohesion. Flexibility does not simply alter where communication takes place; it reshapes what communication becomes, positioning it as continuous relational work under conditions of fragmentation (Putnam and Nicotera, 2009; Ledingham and Bruning, 1998).Alongside changes in work arrangements, artificial intelligence has become increasingly embedded in communication practice. Early discussions often framed AI in terms of efficiency, automation or substitution. The contributions in this issue suggest that such perspectives are insufficient. AI systems participate in communicative environments where meaning, credibility and trust are negotiated. Communication work increasingly involves navigating the relationship between human judgement and algorithmic output, particularly in contexts where publics evaluate authenticity and responsibility. From this perspective, integration of AI reshapes how communication work is organised, how decisions are justified and how responsibility is attributed. Rather than positioning AI as external to communication, the research assembled here highlights its role within communicative practice itself, complicating distinctions between human and technological agency. As communication work becomes more flexible, its emotional dimensions become more visible. Sustaining morale, wellbeing and organisational culture under conditions of distance and uncertainty requires deliberate communicative effort. Tone, empathy and emotional responsiveness shape how communication is experienced and evaluated. The contributions in this issue position emotional labour not as an incidental aspect of communication work but as a central feature of how organisations function.Communication work is also increasingly subject to moral evaluation, responsibility and judgement, with tangible social consequences for organisations and their publics (Topić, 2023). Organisations are expected not only to communicate effectively but also to act in ways that align with articulated values and social expectations. Communication professionals, therefore, operate at the centre of organisational sense-making processes, translating behaviour into meaning while anticipating public scrutiny. Efforts to demonstrate responsibility or advocacy are frequently contested, particularly in digitally mediated environments where publics actively interpret organisational actions (Kent and Taylor, 2002). Taken together, the contributions in this issue point to an integrated understanding of communication work as situated at the intersection of flexibility, technology, emotion and moral judgement. These dimensions do not operate independently. They shape the conditions under which communication is produced, interpreted and trusted.This issue invites a reconsideration of communication itself. Communication should be understood not solely as a managerial function or strategic resource but as a form of work that is inherently relational, emotional, dialogic and moral. Through communication, organisations enact their values, shape relationships with publics and become subject to judgement. Understanding communication in these terms is essential for engaging with the realities of contemporary organisational life.