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Issue management evolved from environmental scanning and other precursors to help business organizations recognize and respond proactively to an increasing variety of external issues beyond traditional economic and business-competitive challenges. Some early business scholars and practitioner advocates of issue management perceived an important link to strategic planning but their formative vision remains only partly realized in operational practice. This paper considers and compares the two disciplines, including the almost careless use of the word strategic and the need for a more versatile taxonomy. It then explores reasons why the early promise of integration has gone largely unfulfilled, and suggests ways forward to achieve greater alignment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While a great deal of academic and practitioner effort has been devoted to understanding and formalizing objective setting in corporate strategic planning and in strategic communication, far less effort has been committed to objective setting for issue management. Within this context, setting a proper objective is sometimes swept aside in the 'rush for results' and, as a consequence, issue management efforts can be misdirected, misapplied and poorly evaluated. Objective setting for issue management has unique requirements which distinguish it from broader corporate planning processes, and this paper develops a rationale and proposes specific guidelines to help to establish strategic objectives for effective issue management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most issue management practitioners and scholars accept that issue manage ent has progressed substantially over 25 years,from primarily a reactive crisis prevention tool to a aturing strategic management discipline.But the terminology used within issue manage ent to de .ne the di .erent management positions has not kept pace with that evolution.In fact some of the language used heavily in .uences responses to issues and limits the apparent framework of choice. This paper reviews some past e .orts to develop appropriate terminology and proposes an alternative lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]