The study of internal communication in the context of the degree of advertising and PR at the University of Cádiz.

Abstract

The importance and the need of communication with the stakeholders that organizations is growing but the attention that they pay to internal communication is still limited. Taking in consideration a material level, internal communication suffers from poorly consolidated budgets and unskilled employment for management. Also, on a psychological level, internal communication receives little attention from the head of the organizations. Many authors (Piñuel , 1997 : 103; Villafane, 1999 : 301; Hernandez, 1991 : 268 ) have shown the low importance given by companies to internal communication. Training competent university students in this type of communication should help to resolve this situation. According to the White Book in Communication Sciences, Advertising and Public Relations the degree students, as corporate communication managers, should be able to manage the internal communication of the company correctly. In this paper we analyse the learning process of the students of the degree in Advertising and Public Relations from the University of Cádiz, focusing in the internal communication training. Reflexing about this process, improvement will reflect on the learning process of internal communication and deficiencies detected can help to forecast future shortfalls. 119 students of the subject Business Communication Systems were chosen to this study. They were tasked to develop an internal communication plan for a small and medium sized businesses, created for themselves, in which they should carry out a situation analysis, strategies, goals, and tools to perform the plan. The results show difficulties defining the organization’s internal stakeholders that result in objectives and tools unsuitable for the internal communication plan. This confusion could justify the low awareness with internal communication detected