Stakeholder relations as social capital in early modern international trade

Stakeholder relations that are available through networks of various sorts are one benefit from social capital. According to the stakeholder approach to organisations, those relationships that contain most of the important attributes – such as power, legitimacy, frequency of contact and urgency – hypothetically dominate the business environment. This has caused modern corporations to view chiefly the dominant stakeholders as important. This study tests the importance of these attributes in early modern international trade; in other words, which attributes played a major role in the relations between Finnish tradesmen and their foreign contacts? The archives of two major Finnish trading hous…

Towards a more dynamic stakeholder model: acknowledging multiple issue arenas

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to suggest that corporate communications is becoming less predictable as interaction with stakeholders is moving from organizational control toward “issue arenas”, places of interaction where an issue is discussed by stakeholders and organizations both online and within the traditional media. The role of corporate communications and public relations (PR) is broadening beyond the traditional relationship management to issue arena monitoring.Design/methodology/approachThe paper takes a theoretical approach with six axioms suggested.FindingsSeveral central theories of corporate communications are combined with issues management and stakeholder theory to argu…

Maturity in Leaps and Bounds : Organisational Listening for Customer Engagement

Much of organisational development occurs during times of crisis when answers and solutions are urgently needed. The research presented in this paper suggests that, during such times, what matters for organisational legitimacy is understanding stakeholders’ changing needs. This paper proposes that organisational listening become a core function for brands and organisations. Building on theories related to organisational listening, social media and stakeholder engagement in digital marketing, this article argues for incorporating mature online listening into the customer engagement in social media (CESM) framework introduced by Santini et al. (2020). In the practise of organisational listeni…

Generation Z and Organizational Listening on Social Media

Young people are avid users of social media and have appeared as a powerful force for social change, as shown by the ranks of those who have joined Greta Thunberg in the global climate movement. In addition to challenging political institutions and governments, young people today are also holding the corporate world accountable. To respond to young people’s expectations, brands, and organizations have turned to social media to interact and build relationships with them. However, critics have lamented that these attempts often fail and that young people’s trust in institutions, brands, and organizations continues to decline. This article asks how young people perceive organizational listenin…

Monitoring the issue arenas of the swine‐flu discussion

PurposeThis paper seeks to describe the changing organizational environment and stakeholder debate currently taking place in various “issue arenas” during a crisis. Organizations today need to find and monitor these arenas before being able to communicate with their stakeholders.Design/methodology/approachCommunications of authorities and discussions by citizens are studied and analyzed in a case study related to the 2009 swine flu or influenza A (H1N1) episode in Finland. The organizational point of view is studied through media releases of the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), and the citizen point of view through a content analysis of popular discussion online forums throu…

Ten facts about content marketing

Content marketing is facing what most trendy topics face: it is more publicly discussed than it is truly understood. Thus far content production has relied on case-specific, individual reports, and the final outcomes of content have provided surprises, both positive or negative. In hindsight it is easy to explain content success and failure, but academic studies on the logic of content creation and content life cycle have been missing. The ambitious goal of this research, Opening the Black Box of Content Marketing, funded by Business Finland, has been to systematically open up the logic of content marketing. In our project, we asked what constitutes content related expectations, how are con…

Särkymätön viestintä

Sector reputation and public organisations

PurposeEconomic pressures and rising stakeholder expectations have led public sector organisations to measure their reputation. The paper aims to highlight the importance of reputation for the public sector, define sector reputation and report findings on a quantitative study of sector reputations of four different types of Finnish public sector organisations.Design/methodology/approachInspired by stakeholder theory and the value of organisational reputation, a quantitative survey of stakeholder assessments on reputation was carried out in the 12 organisations from the field of the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health in 2003. The organisations represented four sectors: research, a…

Negative Engagement

Negative engagement has steeply increased on the scholarly agenda along with the introduction of real time and social media, though negative experiences and emotions are as such not new phenomena. This chapter takes a future perspective and focuses on negative stakeholder engagement online in the context of organizations and brands, which increasingly face visible forms of negative stakeholder emotions or even fierce "shit storms". It begins by defining what negative stakeholder engagement refers to in the context of organizations and brands. The chapter introduces the development of negative engagement via related concepts. After introducing the concepts, the process and the outcomes of ne…

Evolution of strategy narration and leadership work in the digital era

This paper examines the evolution of strategy narration, contributing to ongoing discussions in this field. Our empirical data, gathered from a large Finnish co-operative bank, cover three decades. According to our findings, digitalisation has brought about an epoch change in strategy narration, as top management has strongly adopted digital media in their leadership work, which has replaced ‘traditional’ face-to-face strategy meetings and public presentations by gatherings on digital platforms, including webcasting, intranet and Skype. This has brought about a leadership vacuum, and left organisational members long for their superiors to ‘exercise’ some traditional leadership practices, su…

Do public sector mergers (re)shape reputation?

Purpose – The public sector worldwide is under pressure to downsize, which has led to mergers of public sector organisations. This paper seeks to bridge the unstudied gap of what happens to organisational reputation after a merger. The paper discusses change and reputation in the public sector, and reports findings of a longitudinal study on stakeholder assessments of four public sector organisations undergoing mergers recently. Design/methodology/approach – Following a theory-driven content analysis, this longitudinal study compares stakeholder assessments of four public sector organisations' reputations a year before an organisational merger with assessments of the two resulting organisa…

Online authority communication during an epidemic: A Finnish example

Abstract Social media are creating new challenges for authority communications during crises, such as a pandemic. This study examined Finnish citizens’ opinions about authorities as crisis managers during the swine flu epidemic of 2009–2010 and examined the success of authority intervention to online discussion forums. Through a content analysis carried out at the discussion forums, the study showed that though authorities are highly trusted in general in Finland, this trust is not extended to the online environment. Online, civilians did not trust authorities and the protective actions taken. Moreover, the authorities’ intervention to the discussion forums aimed at correcting false informa…

Corporate Reputation and the Theory of Social Capital

Osallistava viestintä

Osallistaminen, osallistumisen mahdollistaminen viestinnän ja vuorovaikutuksen keinoin, on yhteistyön edellytys. Osallistuminen luo perustan yksilön sitoutumiselle, toimijuuden kokemukselle ja yhteenkuulumisen tunteelle. Viestinnän digitalisoitumisen nähdään lisänneen osallistumisen mahdollisuuksia, mutta samanaikaisesti odotukset osallisuudesta ja vaikutusmahdollisuuksista ovat kasvaneet. Tässä artikkelissa avataan osallistamisen merkitystä organisaatioiden strategisessa viestinnässä ja kuvataan osallistamisen eri muotoja erityisesti viestinnän ammattilaisten näkökulmasta. peerReviewed

Expectation management for public sector organizations

Abstract Transparency and collecting stakeholder feedback are becoming the norm also in the public sector. Though much of feedback is related to stakeholder experiences, we propose that it is more beneficial to study expectations than experiences, as expectations affect future satisfaction. This study reports a process of collecting and analyzing stakeholder expectations in one health-care oriented public sector organization in Finland, and reports how these expectations and their implications were assessed by the organization's top management. The study suggests that to ensure stakeholder satisfaction and organizational success, top management should be guided to work through the feedback.…

Public relations as expectation management?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess how expectation management can contribute strategically to communication management, and how understanding and managing expectations can increase organizations’ sensitivity toward stakeholder voices and concerns. Design/methodology/approach – An example of mapping and identifying expectations is presented as a result of a thematic analysis of qualitative interview data, collected from six stakeholder groups of the media industry. Findings – Expectation types and gaps can be identified through the use of systematic expectation mapping, conceptualized in this paper as “expectation management.” Expectation management analyzes expectation types …

Understanding Stakeholder Engagement: Faith-holders, Hateholders & Fakeholders

Stakeholder engagement has risen on the agenda of public relations recently mostly due to the introduction of real-time media and new hybrid forms of marketing, advertising and public relations. Engaging stakeholders is not a simple task in the information rich environment, and can be compared to a pinball match; organizational messages now have direct access, but often bounce randomly around in the online environment. To simplify measurement of public relations in this complex, unpredictable environment, this article distinguishes between three different types of stakeholder relationships: the positively engaged faith-holders, the negatively engaged hateholders, and fakeholders the unauthe…

The Role of Social Capital in Shaping Consumer Engagement within Online Brand Communities

Jana Lay-Hwa Bowden, Jodie Conduit, Linda D. Hollebeek, Vilma Luoma-aho, and Birgit Andrine Apenes Solem

Monitoring the issue arenas of the swine-flu discussion

Purpose: This paper seeks to describe the changing organizational environment and stakeholder debate currently taking place in various “issue arenas” during a crisis. Organizations today need to find and monitor these arenas before being able to communicate with their stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach: Communications of authorities and discussions by citizens are studied and analyzed in a case study related to the 2009 swine flu or influenza A (H1N1) episode in Finland. The organizational point of view is studied through media releases of the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), and the citizen point of view through a content analysis of popular discussion online forums …

Creating a National Brand for Finland: "Consider It Solved!"

The transparent communicative organization and new hybrid forms of content

Abstract Building on the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management’s Melbourne Mandate’s understanding of a communicative organization consisting of organizational character, responsibility and listening and engagement, this paper explores these principles in the context of new hybrid forms of online content. This study asks about the role of transparency in the context of commercial hybrid content. Through theoretical consideration as well as interviews of representatives of public relations and marketing communication associations and agencies in Finland, the article presents the practitioners’ perceptions and experiences using the literature on transparency. To be…

Recognizing definitive stakeholders in corporate environmental management

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present four examples of stakeholder relationships related to issues of corporate environmental management (CEM) and analyze them based on the model of Mitchell et al. (1997).Design/methodology/approachSecondary data are used in the case studies.FindingsThe four cases presented show that basically any stakeholder can become definitive over time in the complex network of stakeholders with mutual relationships. The definitive stakeholders in CEM are no longer merely the NGOs and policymakers but now include many diverse groups such as customers, locals and suppliers.Research limitations/implicationsThese case studies cannot be generalized, but they could…

Alert but somewhat unaligned: public sector organisations' social media listening strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, public sector organisations produced thousands of social media messages weekly answering citizens questions and informing the public on safety related matters. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the pandemic shaped social media listening in Finland's public sector organisations and how these organisations aligned their listening and strategic communication to address emerging questions, news (real and fake) and rumours during the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on a theoretical background from strategic communication, organisational listening, digital marketing and public sector communication, qualitative interview data include…

Young Consumers’ Boycotting Profiles in the UK and Finland : A Comparative Analysis

This study uses latent profile analysis to identify boycotting subgroups within Finland and the UK and to explore their potential differences across countries. These subgroups are based on how young British and Finnish consumers assess that reference groups and their personal experiences have influenced their boycotting decisions. This study is based on comparative data obtained from the UK (n = 1,236) and Finland (n = 1,219). We identified four boycotting profiles: unlikely to be influenced, influenced by personal things, likely to be influenced, and moderately likely to be influenced. Our findings are especially relevant to consumer researchers, brands, and companies. peerReviewed

Broadening the concept of expectations in public relations

Expectations have been connected to many central concepts of public relations research, yet, definitions of what is meant by expectations are lacking. This article aims to broaden the understanding of expectations by taking into account their multi-dimensional nature, suggesting that there are several explanations to expectations depending on what the expectation is based on. We suggest that in organizational context expectations are two-fold assessments of what is considered good or desirable (expectation tone ranging from positive to negative) and the confidence placed in the organization (organization-specific context ranging from high to low confidence). As a result of the conceptual re…

Added Value of Intangibles for Organizational Innovation

The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical basis for a measurement and improvement system that will help organizations create a more innovative climate. The role of intangible assets in contributing to organizational innovativeness is clarified within six hypotheses on the basis of a cross-disciplinary literature review combining studies from psychology, human resources management, communication, information technology, and marketing. These factors range from the individual level to interaction with the environment surrounding the organization, and involve (a) individual psychological flexibility, (b) institutional and interpersonal trust, (c) diverse human resources, (d) strat…

Towards a typology of negative engagement behavior in social media

Extant literature on consumer engagement has focused on positive manifestations of the construct, rather than on its negative dimension. Yet, many brand interactions are negative in nature. The purpose of this conceptual study is to develop a typology of negative engagement behavior in social media by using the multi-grounded theory (MGT) approach on a sample of 12,429 tweets extracted from Twitter. The analysis shows that negative engagement behavior with a brand or service provider as the object focus or target can be categorized according to (a) the manifestation of the negative engagement and (b) the emotional intensity of the negative engagement. Four categories of negative engagement …

Digital strategic communication through digital media-arenas

Digital technologies have empowered an increasingly participatory communication environment that challenges the ability of organizations to maintain control over their messages. In this new environment, stakeholders not only receive these messages through organizational digital media, which this chapter argues are typically understood as transmission channels, they also are able to re-interpret and re-communicate these messages across multiple participatory, omni-directional digital arenas seemingly beyond organizational strategic control. This chapter examines the tension in strategic communication between a traditional message-controlling approach through digital media and a more nuanced …

Kuluttajaboikotit ja cancel-kulttuuri

Organisaatiot, brändit ja yhteisöt ovat viime aikoina törmänneet yhä nopeampaan ja monikanavaisempaan kuluttajaboikotointiin ja sen aiheuttamiin viestinnällisiin haasteisiin. Tässä niin kutsutussa kansanomaisessa käänteessä, joka sosiaalisen median myötä on tuonut keskiöön tavallisten ihmisten vaikutusvallan ohi instituutioiden, piilee organisaatioilla aikaisempaa suurempi riski joutua boikotin kohteeksi. Boikotoinnin eri muodot: ostoboikotti, perinteinen boikotti ja epäsuora boikotti ovat kaikki vaikuttavia toimintatapoja tuotteiden ja palveluiden kysynnälle. Boikotoinnin uusina ilmentyminä ovat viime aikoina yleistyneet cancel- ja woke-aloitteet, jotka voidaan nähdä yksilöiden uudenlaisen…

Transparency for Sponsored Content : Analysing Codes of Ethics in Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising and Journalism

As sponsored content is gaining ground globally, the boundaries between strategic communication, advertising and journalism are blurring. As sponsored content becomes more common, it raises novel ethical concerns that no industry alone can answer, such as How much disclosure is needed for transparency? Self-regulation via codes of ethics has been suggested as a remedy to meet the rising transparency expectations, and this article analysed 40 codes of ethics in the fields of communication, advertising, and journalism (United States and Finland) related to sponsored content. The results indicate that there remains excessive variation within the codes of ethics of how transparency of sponsored…

Brand Hijacked : Why Campaigns and Hashtags are Taken over by Audiences

‘You really are a great big sister’ – parasocial relationships, credibility, and the moderating role of audience comments in influencer marketing

This study examines the moderating role of audience comments in influencer marketing. A YouTube vlog entry by a social media influencer featuring the endorsement of a brand was studied, and an experimental design featuring two conditions related to audience comments was created. The results indicate that a parasocial relationship with the influencer builds the perceived credibility of the influencer, while comments by other audience members moderate the effect. Influencer credibility positively affects brand trust and purchase intention. The findings enhance the understanding of the role of an active audience in influencer marketing. peerReviewed

Kuinka suomalaiset motivoidaan torjumaan korona

Pandemian selättäminen vaatii yhteisen tahtotilan. Siihen tarvitaan selkeää, yhtenäistä viestintää. nonPeerReviewed

The Role of Social Media Influencers in Public Health Communication: Case COVID-19 Pandemic

During public health crises, public organizations face a variety of strategic communication challenges, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is an extreme example. In Finland, the Prime Minister’s Office initiated a communication campaign that utilized social media influencers to communicate timely instructions regarding the pandemic. However, it is uncertain how social media influencers adapt to briefings of public organizations given that they typically work with brands that align with their own interests and expertise, which rarely is epidemiology. We use the two-step flow of communication model and social influence theory to analyze research data that consisted of 96 Instag…

Engagement valence duality and spillover effects in online brand communities

Purpose Online brand communities (OBCs) are an effective avenue for brands to engage consumers. While engaging with the brand, consumers simultaneously interact with other OBC members; thus engaging with multiple, interrelated engagement objects concurrently. The purpose of this paper is to explore both positively and negatively valenced consumer engagement with multiple engagement objects, the interplay between these, and the spillover effect from consumers’ engagement with the OBC to their engagement with the brand. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on 16 in-depth interviews with OBC members of a luxury accessory brand, a constant comparative method was adopted using axial and selectiv…

The Legitimacy of the Media Industry – What do Advertisers Expect?

AbstractAs the media industry is globally affected by changes, we fill a gap that exists in understanding stakeholders’ expectations about the future of media by examining the perceived legitimacy of the media industry through advertisers’ expectations. Expectations contribute to stakeholder assessments and behavior, and unmet expectations may hinder organizational legitimacy. The qualitative study consisted of interviews of the 10 biggest media advertisers in Finland and social media observations. The results show that both traditional and new expectations may pose threats to the legitimacy of media, calling the industry to engage the central stakeholders in future planning and scenarios.

Public sector reputation and netpromoter score

AbstractReputation of public sector organizations is increasingly formed through Word of Mouth (WOM) as citizens and stakeholders share their experiences with others both online and offline. Understanding and measuring WOM is a challenge for many public sector organizations, who often resort to measurement tools designed for the private sector. This paper looks at a popular WOM measurement tool, namely the Net Promoter Score (NPS) in the context of public sector organizations. In this paper, we ask how well does the NPS describe public sector reputation, and look at what the different stakeholder groups categorized by NPS are like in the public sector. As an illustrative case, we report fin…

On Putnam : Bowling Together - Applying Putnam’s Theories of Community and Social Capital to Public Relations

Although the concept of Social Capital is by no means new, it has certainly spread more widely due to the writings of Robert D. Putnam. His writings have underlined the importance of civic engagement and social ties for the welfare of individuals and societies at large. Putnam’s theories lay the foundation for an understanding of the broader societal functions of public relations, and offer useful concepts and ideas for both theory and practice. Putnam’s theory of social capital posits that the success of societies greatly depends on the horizontal bonds of collaboration: only trust-filled long-term relations, such as associations and clubs, are able to generate the cohesion that brings soc…

Faith-holders as social capital of Finnish public organisations

Vilma Luoma-aho tutki väitöskirjassaan suomalaisten julkisten organisaatioiden sidosryhmäsuhteita. Luoma-ahon mukaan olemme siirtymässä maineyhteiskuntaan, jossa sosiaalisilla suhteilla ja mielikuvilla on keskeisen tärkeä rooli. Väitöstutkimus osoitti, että sidosryhmien luottamus oikeuttaa suomalaisten julkisten organisaatioiden toiminnan. Luoma-ahon mukaan Suomessa sidosryhmät luottavat julkisorganisaatioihin niin paljon, että luottamus voidaan tulkita jopa sosiaaliseksi pääomaksi. Sosiaalinen pääoma tarkoittaa resursseja, joita organisaatio voi hyödyntää. Organisaatiotutkimuksen alalla sosiaalisen pääoman käsite on liitetty lähinnä organisaation sisäisiin suhteisiin. Väitös laajentaa näkö…

Neutral Reputation and Public Sector Organizations

Despite the strides taken in reputation research during recent decades, the reputation of public sector organizations has remained rather neglected. Public sector organizations often measure intangibles with instruments designed for corporations, although their raison d’etre differs fundamentally from that of the latter. This paper attempts to fill the gap in reputation research on public sector organizations by developing the proposition that for public sector organizations a neutral rather than excellent reputation is ideal, as neutrality enables a critical operating distance, and the resources for maintaining an excellent reputation are scarce. To test the idea of neutral reputation in p…

Monelta kantilta : Ilkka Nummelalle omistettu juhlakirja

Finland PR Country Landscape 2014

“Thanks for Watching.” The Effectiveness of YouTube vlogendorsements

This study examines the effectiveness of brand endorsements in vlogs (video blogs) by assessing the role of audience participation, parasocial relationship, and valence toward vlog endorsements on the perceived credibility of the vlogger and brand attitudes. Four experimental conditions were created on Qualtrics based on a YouTube vlog where the endorser reviewed a few products. The data were collected using Mturk and analyzed with 203 usable responses. The findings indicate that audience participation in the vlog enhances para-social relationship with the vlogger, thus further fostering the vlogger's perceived credibility as an endorser. Additionally, the valence of the audience's attitude…

Sector-based corporate citizenship

This paper approaches the much-debated issue of corporate citizenship (CC). Many models depict the development process of CC, and yet attempts to find one extensive definition remain in progress. We argue that more than one type of citizenship may be needed to fully describe the concept. So far, social factors have dominated the definitions of CC, but citizenship functions can also be found in other areas. In fact, for maximum benefit, the type of citizenship should be tied to the sector and business field of the corporation in question. Using data drawn from three internationally operating corporations headquartered in Finland, we introduce three different types of CC that are in line with…

Crisis response strategies in Finland and Spain

Crises are common in today's unpredictable environment rising the importance of crisis response strategies. Two societies in Europe are chosen: Finland, where trust in society is generalized to institutions, and Spain, where trust in society remains on the level of individuals. Using the results of the European Communication Monitor 2013 survey on crisis communication, we explored three hypotheses: “certain types of crises are often met with certain types of strategies,” “cultural context makes some crises more likely than others,” and “cultural context makes some response strategies more likely than others.” We find evidence for all three hypotheses and discuss our findings about perceived…

Monitoring the complexities: Nuclear power and public opinion

Interaction between organizations and stakeholders today takes place on virtual and physical ‘issue arenas’. This study examined opinions on nuclear power and asked who are the players discussing nuclear power in Finland? Through content analysis, surveys and interviews, the study concluded that politicians, power companies and regulators were the ones with voice, as NGOs and citizens were hardly heard. The paper suggests the future role of PR practitioners to be to find the right issue arenas and facilitate corporate voice and reputation on those arenas. peerReviewed

Taylorism on steroids or enabling autonomy? A systematic review of algorithmic management

AbstractThe use of algorithmic management systems is rapidly changing organizational models and practices, as millions of workers in multiple sectors worldwide are managed by computer software. Despite receiving increasing academic interest, little summarizing literature exist on the ways algorithmic systems are used in management. This article aims to fill this gap by systematically reviewing and qualitatively analyzing 172 articles on the topic. Our research contributes to the existent algorithmic management literature in three ways. First, we provide a descriptive overview of algorithmic management as a field of research. Second, we identify and synthesize the discussion on the key conce…

Public Sector Reputation

Viestintää Koronan aikaan

Julkisen sektorin viestintä on koronapandemian aikana kansalaisten erityisen tarkkailun alla. Miten viestintää pitäisi muuttaa, kun poikkeustila nostaa kansalaisten odotukset korkeammalle kuin mihin julkisen sektorin viestinnässä ollaan valmiita vastaamaan? nonPeerReviewed

Hateholders and Brandjacking : Negative Engagement of Customers and Stakeholders

Social and real-time media allow customers and other stakeholders to easily voice their opinions online when brands or organisations fail to meet their expectations. Such outbursts, which are often addressed through corporate public relations and crisis communication, are labelled negative stakeholder engagement. This study focuses on negative stakeholder engagement behaviour on the social media platform Twitter. Data collected from discussions on two telecommunication companies’ Twitter accounts, one in Finland and the other in Australia, are used to illustrate the different forms of negative engagement behaviours. peerReviewed

Exploring citizens’ judgments about the legitimacy of public policies on refugees

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is threefold: to introduce a theoretical frame regarding the meaning of legitimacy as an intangible asset of the public sector; to test a way of operationalizing legitimacy typologies that allows exploring and comparing how citizens from two countries evaluate the legitimacy of public policies; and to suggest implications for governments’ legitimacy-building strategies in shared international crisis, such as the refugees coming from the Syrian region.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on Suchman’s typology, it was defined and categorized different types of legitimacy into concrete measurable, communication related statements concerning consequential, proced…

Ethical Challenges of Hybrid Editors

In times of turbulence in the media industry, media organizations are looking for new business models. Digitalization has led traditional news media organizations to testing new forms of advertisement, such as sponsored content and native advertising, whereas others, such as lifestyle magazines, have a longer history in collaborating with brands. Editors are key players in these developments, since they are journalist–managers and decision makers within those daily practices that shape policies and influence new product innovation and development. In this study, we examine from the editors’ point of view, how they see the process of adopting novel forms of advertisement and what ethical cha…

Setting the agenda for research on issue arenas

Purpose– This paper seeks to contribute to the field of corporate communication by clarifying the theoretical basis of communication in issue arenas and proposing an agenda for research on issue arenas.Design/methodology/approach– Drawing on insights from stakeholder thinking, network theory, issues management, and agenda-setting theory, the authors identify different levels of analysis that could explain the behaviour of organisations in the public debate on current issues.Findings– The organisation-centred approach is replaced by a strong emphasis on interaction in networks of organisations, groups and individuals. Decision-making on communication strategies can be further developed by an…

Public relations and expectation theory : Introducing Relationship Expectation Theory (RET) for public relations

Expectations provide organizations with information and cues about their stakeholders’ and publics’ values, interests, experiences, and knowledge. This chapter argues for a move that takes expectations beyond the current cursory level for different areas of public relations—reputation management, corporate responsibility, issues management, and legitimacy—toward explicit theoretical understanding and models for addressing expectations. The chapter introduces expectations as an intersecting phenomenon in public relations research and builds postulations for theorizing expectations in public relations by reviewing theories that address expectations in relationships, and by exploring different…

What Drives Negative Electronic Word-of-Mouth Online?

The online environment has highlighted the role of negative experiences and emotions by enabling fast and widespread publicity. Recent research has introduced both word-of-mouth and engagement as central concepts relating to negative communication online. In the field of public relations, the previous literature has mostly addressed negative engagement through individual topics such as reputation and crisis communication, but there has been little attention to the different forms it takes. By utilizing recent literature on word-of-mouth (WOM), negative word-of-mouth (nWOM), and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication, we propose negative electronic word-of-mouth (neWOM) as a rising ph…

Facebook discussion of a crisis: authority communication and its relationship to citizens

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the authority communication and its relationship to citizens during a disaster. This analysis is crucial for organisations to help them understand the different ways in which crises are perceived by citizens, and the reactions they may cause. The results will help authorities in planning their crisis communication. Design/methodology/approach Facebook comments written by authorities and citizens are studied and analysed in an exploratory case study related to the 2011 catastrophe in the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant via content analysis. Findings The analysis of Facebook comments revealed that authorities have to be prepared for …

Global Public Sector and Political Communication

Public and political organizations exist to maintain societies in more or less democratic settings. Both political and public sector organizations have traditionally been blamed for several ills in society including inefficiency, bureaucracy, serving their own needs above others’ and corruption. Though each public sector and political organization is a product of its own time and environment, there seem to be certain global trends that challenge them: rapid change, use of social media, citizen diversity, and novel forms of citizen activism for example question the more traditional means of communication. How public entities and politicians communicate with citizens and publics is of strateg…

Ethical Hateholders and Negative Engagement. A Challenge for Organisational Communication

Primed Authenticity: How Priming Impacts Authenticity Perception of Social Media Influencers

Though organizations increasingly collaborate with social media influencers, such as bloggers and videobloggers, little is known as to how the contextual cues related to sponsored content affect the authenticity perception of the social media influencers among audience members. This study explores how positive and negative priming of sponsored content shapes the authenticity perception of the vlogger among its audience members. Four different manipulation conditions were constructed to study a U.S. based travel vlog on Qualtrics, with data collected via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. A theory-guided content analysis of 211 open viewer responses was conducted to compare perceptions of authenticit…

Reputation and financial reporting in Finnish public organizations

PurposeThis article analyzes the links between financial reports and reputation in the context of Finnish public sector organizations. In general, the paper discusses the accounting treatment of intangible and tangible assets and the quality and relevance of public sector financial reporting.Design/methodology/approachFor data, we combine three data sets: financial statement information of eight anonymous Finnish public organizations, the results of a reputation survey among their key stakeholders (N = 914) and a sample of the social media sentiment around the organizations.FindingsOur findings suggest that a decrease in spending and, surprisingly in the nonprofit sector, an increase in the…

Theorizing expectations as enablers of intangible assets in public relations: Normative, predictive, and destructive

Expectations intersect with many areas of public relations, yet conceptual and theoretical understandings of expectations have not been strong in public relations research. In fact, expectations are often discussed at a cursory level, expectation theories are seldom applied, and the concept of expectations is not problematized. In this article, therefore, we explore the role of expectations in public relations and illustrate how expectations shape organizational relationships, particularly by enabling or destroying the creation of organizational intangible assets. We identify gaps in how expectations are addressed in public relations, present the results from a literature review of 159 acad…

Conquering the liminal space : Strategic social media influencer communication in the Finnish public sector during the COVID-19 pandemic

Public sector organisations have traditionally used mass media and their own communication channels to communicate urgent matters to citizens. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced these organisations to look for new communication approaches. In Finland, several public-sector organisations collaborated with social media influencers (SMIs) to maximise their efforts in communicating about the measures needed to constrain the spread of the virus. Using a multiple-case study design, this chapter scrutinises four public-sector organisations and their collaboration with SMIs during the pandemic in 2020. We found that public organisations turned to SMIs through influencer marketing and influen…

Making and breaking relationships on social media: the impacts of brand and influencer betrayals

This study considers how the relationships between social media influencers, brands and individuals are intertwined on social media and analyses the spill-over effects of feelings of betrayal. An experimental design with two transgression scenarios (influencer vs. brand) was created, and 250 individuals were recruited to participate in the study. The results show that a perceived betrayal by a brand can negatively affect the perceived coolness of the social media influencer that has endorsed the brand, as well as the parasocial relationships that followers have with the influencer. Accordingly, a perceived betrayal by a social media influencer can negatively affect attitudes, trust and purc…

The brighter side of materialism : Managing impressions on social media for higher social capital

Individuals adjust their behavior on social media to varying extent, and commonly in their idealized way. Most studies have focused on the problems associated with materialism and social media use, yet their potential positive contributions remain less clear. In fact, impression management holds potential for both negative and positive: it has been linked with materialistic attitudes, but also increased amounts of self-reported social capital. This study examines how young people's materialistic values connect with status-seeking impression management on social media, and subsequently to social capital, within the same model. Eight hundred Finnish participants aged 15–19 participated in our…

Bowling together - applying Robert Putnam’s theories of community and social capital to public relations

Although the concept of Social Capital is by no means new, it has certainly spread more widely due to the writings of Robert D. Putnam. His writings have underlined the importance of civic engagement and social ties for the welfare of individuals and societies at large. Putnam’s theories lay the foundation for an understanding of the broader societal functions of public relations, and offer useful concepts and ideas for both theory and practice. Putnam’s theory of social capital posits that the success of societies greatly depends on the horizontal bonds of collaboration: only long-term relations, such as associations and clubs, are able to generate the cohesion that brings societal benefit…

Towards a more dynamic stakeholder model : Acknowledgning multiple issue arenas

Purpose – The paper suggest that corporate communications is becoming less predictable as interaction with stakeholders is moving from organizational control toward ‘issue arenas’, places of interaction where an issue is discussed by stakeholders and organizations both online and within the traditional media. The role of corporate communications and public relations is broadening beyond the traditional relationship management to issue arena monitoring. Design/methodology/approach – Theoretical approach with six axioms suggested. Findings – Several central theories of corporate communications are combined with issues management and stakeholder theory to argue for a multiplicity of new ‘issue…