Communication policy, corporate language policy and corporate information portal A Holy Trinity in corporate communications? Henrik Simonsen Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark Abstract Purpose – The aim of this paper is to discuss a theoretical framework for increased integration of a company’s communication policy, corporate language policy and corporate information portal with a view to facilitating communication management. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on selected theoretical contributions on corporate language policy with special emphasis on theoretical considerations on the type of language policies developed and implemented in companies and organisations and on corporate communication with special emphasis on van Riel’s common starting points. The empirical basis of the paper is a triangulation of questionnaire data, content analysis data and interview data. Findings – The paper argues that corporate communication has not sufficiently included the operational part of a company’s corporate communication. The paper makes the case for a theoretical integration framework based on van Riel’s common starting points (CSPs), and argues that corporate communication also needs to include the corporate language policy and the corporate information portal, defined as a modern information directory offering communicators concrete communication data for use in concrete text production situations. Originality/value – The paper proposes a CSP-based theoretical integration framework and makes the case for a Holy Trinity in corporate communications based on the communication policy, the corporate language policy and the corporate information portal. Keywords Language, Corporate communications, Information strategy, Business policy, Communication management, Denmark Paper type Research paper Introduction The last ten to 15 years have seen a large number of theoretical contributions on the design and development of corporate language policies (CLP), for example Bergenholtz et al. (2003), Bergenholtz and Johnsen (2006), Dhir and Go `ke `-Parı ´ola ´ (2002) Kristensen (2003) and Lauridsen (2008) to mention just a few, and a large number of Danish companies and organisations have in fact designed and implemented different types of CLPs as discussed by for example da Silva et al. (2003), Sørensen (2006) and Lindquist (2007). All these theoretical contributions are no doubt very useful, however one crucial aspect needs further theoretical attention; the integration of the communication policy (CP), the corporate language policy (CLP) and the corporate information portal (CIP), which will be further defined and discussed below. The data collected also seem to indicate that theory formation is needed and that the situation in the Danish corporate sector leaves much to be desired, because CLPs are rarely sufficiently operationalised in practice, first of all because they are neither linked The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1363-254X.htm JCOM 13,3 200 Journal of Communication Management Vol. 13 No. 3, 2009 pp. 200-217 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1363-254X DOI 10.1108/13632540910976662