ABSTRACT
The extensive and lengthy analysis of practitioner roles in this chapter is driven by three factors. First, this constitutes the only extensive review of previous roles research in more than a dozen years (see Dozier, 1992). Second, the Excellence study examined practitioner roles at several levels of analysis. Roles were measured in terms of departmental expertise or knowledge to enact various roles, the actual roles enacted by each department’s top communicator, and the role expectations of the organization’s CEO (or other senior-ranking executive). To make sense of findings at these multiple levels of analysis requires considerable deconstruction. Third, practitioner roles play a central role in the overall Excellence of communication departments and organizations.
