Do Medium-Sized Companies Listen? The Importance of Corporate Listening in the Communication and Strategy Development of Medium-Sized Companies in Germany: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Medium-sized companies make up a large part of the German corporate landscape and have often been the subject of empirical research. However, the corporate communication of medium-sized companies has hardly been studied to this day. This paper, therefore, deals with the corporate communication of medium-sized companies in Germany. The concept of Corporate Listening is at the center of the study. The research interest lies in creating an overview of the use of Corporate Listening in medium-sized companies, including organizational prerequisites, measures, reasons, and effects. For this purpose, communication managers from eleven medium-sized companies were interviewed. Macnamara’s Architecture of Listening and the Communication Value Circle serve as the primary theoretical basis for this study. The results show that mid-sized companies possess a general awareness of the necessity of Corporate Listening and achieve listening to stakeholders and the public to at least some extent. Various reasons for this awareness could be identified. However, the existing prerequisites in the companies to carry out Corporate Listening measures still reveal potentials for optimization. The study shows that companies include insights gained through Corporate Listening in the planning of future actions; however, these insights are rarely considered for strategic measures.