Mapping the Convergence of Communication Disciplines: A Conceptual Study

A positive reputation of an organization is needed in order to ensure the organization sustainability. Therefore, communication with internal and external stakeholders become important.  The main objective of this paper is to visualize how the concept and practice of organization-communication, corporate-communication and public relations are combined in the process of organization reputation development. Focus group discussion were used to collect data. The participants of the focus group discussion were professionals in communications, upper and middle management, who are member of Indonesia Public Relations Association, and communication academics, who are member of Indonesia Communication Higher Education Association. Result of the study shows that those three concepts are applied together and complement each other in the process of organization reputation development. First step, in the development of internal reputation, the implementation of organization communication concept plays a significant role. Second step, in the external communication process, the concept of public relations played more dominant role. Third step, combining those two processes where communication strategy and its practical execution needed, corporate communication concept played more dominant role. Analyzing these steps, it can be understood that there is a convergence of the three concepts in the process of reputation development. Based on this result, academic in communication discipline should be aware and go beyond in order to prevent continuous misunderstanding across boundaries.