Strategic Listening (PDF)

Mats Heide (Ph.D.) is Professor of Strategic Communication at the Department of Strategic Communication, Lund University, Sweden. Heide together with colleagues introduced the field of strategic communication in Sweden. He has also, together with colleagues, driven the development of the Department of Strategic Communication at Lund University. For over 20 years, he has researched social media and organizational learning, change communication, crisis communication and conducted professional studies of communication practitioners. During 2014-2018, he was project manager for one of the world's largest research projects on communicative organizations. It was in this project that Mats discovered the importance of strategic listening. During the years 2020-2022, Mats had a three-year continuation project »Communicative public organizations together with Charlotte Simonsson and Rickard Andersson. The focus of this project was the trust of organizations, which was studied based on three areas: employees, digitalization, and the communicator's changed role as a business developer. In this project too, listening was an important factor. Heide is the author and co-author of 16 books and many book chapters and articles. He has written several textbooks on strategic communication, organizational communication, and crisis communication. Recently the following books have been published. Strategic Communication: An Introduction to Theory and Global Practice (together with Jesper Falkheimer, Routledge, 2023), Strategic Internal Communication (together with Susanne Dahlman, Routledge 2020) and Internal Crisis Communication (together with Charlotte Simonsson, Routledge, 2019). Heide is also editor together with Jesper Falkheimer for Research Handbook of Strategic Communication (Elgar Publishing, 2023) with 59 international chapter contributors. Mats also works as a consultant with lecture, advisory and networking assignments for both private companies and public