“They are always ambiguous when they don't know how it will turn out.” Dissemination, Practices, and Ethical Assessment of Strategic Ambiguity

Abstract

Strategic ambiguity increases an organization's scope for action. Ambiguous statements are, among other things, easier to deny; they also facilitate change. Strategic ambiguity has long been a theoretically well-established practice in organizational communication research. To date, the substantial number of theoretical and conceptual contributions has been contrasted by relatively few empirical studies of strategic ambiguity. This is the starting point of the present paper, which provides answers to the following research questions: How are the use and diffusion of strategic ambiguity perceived? What goals are pursued with strategic ambiguity? What ambiguous practices are used in strategic political communication? And finally: How is strategic ambiguity assessed ethically? To answer the research questions, semi-structured interviews were conducted. In addition to political PR practitioners, political journalists were also interviewed in order to contrast the self-assessments of PR practitioners with the external assessments of journalists. The results show that strategic ambiguity is perceived as very common in the field of politics. From an ethical perspective, strategic ambiguity is evaluated ambivalently: Protective motives, which are evaluated as legitimate, are contrasted with deliberately deceptive motives, which are evaluated as illegitimate.