Generative AI has been a part of our lives for a few years now. How do communications professionals use it, and what role does it play in the digital transformation of organisations? In this edition of Ask the Expert, lecturer, researcher and consultant Katharina Krämer gives us exclusive insight on the latest edition of the trend study "Communication in the digital transformation" of the IAM Institute of Applied Media Studies at the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
I am a lecturer, researcher and consultant in the field of organisational communication and management at the ZHAW. I also co-lead the CAS Corporate Communications programme with a colleague, which is aimed at newcomers to communication. My thematic focus is on the role of communication in digital transformation, internal communication, school communication and the communication of social service organisations. In general, you could say that communication is simply my passion. I really enjoy researching these areas and generating new knowledge that I can then incorporate back into my teaching and consultancy projects.
We have been conducting the trend study ‘Communication in the digital transformation’ at the IAM Institute of Applied Media Studies at the ZHAW every two years since 2018. The aim is to examine the role of corporate communication in the digital transformation of organisations and also to observe it over time. To this end, my colleagues Prof. Dr Nicole Rosenberger, Markus Niederhäuser and I conduct an online survey of communication officers (CCOs) from companies, administrations and non-profit organisations in German-speaking Switzerland. We supplement the results with in-depth guided interviews with experts from the fields of communications, strategy consulting, law and ethics. This gives us a comprehensive picture every two years of where communication departments stand with regard to digitalisation and automation, which digitalisation topics they focus on in their communication with internal and external stakeholders and what challenges they face here.