Purpose This study examines strategic issues, capabilities and professional development among communication professionals in three African countries, addressing a significant gap in global research on how capability development enhances practitioners' integration into organizational leadership. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative cross-sectional survey of 530 communication professionals across Ghana, Ethiopia and Tanzania assessed perceived strategic issues, channel importance, capability levels and training needs using an adapted questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA tests were used to analyze country-level differences. Findings Digital evolution and the social web emerged as dominant concerns, but capability development remained uneven. Professionals expressed greater competence in operational tasks, such as content delivery, but weaker performance in strategic positioning, financial management and measurement and evaluation. Ethiopia reported stronger analytical capabilities, while Ghana emphasized digital deployment and Tanzania interpersonal communication. Practitioners across the countries perceived a misalignment between development needs and organizational training support, with evaluation and strategic advisory roles receiving consistently lower self-assessment than operational capabilities. Originality/value The study extends global communication management scholarship by demonstrating that capability development is context-dependent rather than universal, with African institutional conditions advancing theory beyond a Western context.
Anani-Bossman et al. (Tue,) studied this question.