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The paper examines how corporate affairs departments can use content analysis techniques. It does so by showing how Precis, the system developed by the author's company, was used to monitor the impact of media coverage in three examples: the disposal of Brent Spar; the management of a corporate brand in an adverse regulatory environment; and a new car launch.

“Guerrilla marketing” describes unconventional marketing strategies with which to achieve significant effects – with a fraction of the budget of “traditional” marketing campaigns. This article aims to give an introduction to “guerrilla marketing” principles and discuss suitability of this marketing approach for information services.

Whether guerrilla marketing strategies may be suitable for introducing information services and the necessary prerequisites for that are explored based on applying cross‐case analysis findings from industry examples to information services. This is based on a conceptual framework illustrating differentiating and positioning hypotheses for information services.

It is argued, that guerrilla marketing strategies may be applied for information services whenever a product‐like representation for such a service can be developed and a link to emotional values be established. Furthermore, for the product‐like representation there must be coherent target groups to be identified and relevant user scenarios be created for them.

This article provides a conceptual framework related to the question of how to increase acceptance and degree of utilization of information services in their relevant target groups. By discussing the possibilities of marketing strategies with limited resources, this article provides alternative ways of thinking and acting for information services mediators such as, for example, librarians. This is of particular relevance for this community, as information services mediators generally need marketing efforts to gain spread for their information services offer – but usually are faced with strictly limited marketing budgets.

Business reputations have become more exposed as companies and the media have globalized. At the same time, the importance of reputation is growing. It takes a long time to build a reputation, but it can be destroyed in a single event, as shown in the case examples of Royal Dutch Shell, Unocal, Texaco, Nike, and others. Reputation must now be viewed as one of the key results of the business, not just an incidental by‐product. This article describes the ways in which business leaders can be alert to a potential crisis and form an acceptable response in order to maintain a company’s reputation.

Little more than a decade ago, Shell was a by‐word for corporate mistrust. Not only had it caused public outrage with its plans to sink the Brent Spar oilrig in the Atlantic, but the energy giant was also facing intense opposition to its activities in Nigeria (where it was perceived to be plundering this developing nation). Consequently shareholders were boycotting the company and international suspicion was running high. Yet, according to many critics, these outcomes were the fault of no one but Shell itself, which has learned the hard way the value of social awareness, ethics and trust in a world that appears to be finding less and less time for greed or corruption.

It is indubitable that society expects organizations “to employ their assets in a socially responsible manner” (Cordeiro, 1997, p. 1390) and also to be seen to be doing so. BP is a case of interest as in July 2000 the company launched a public relations campaign to appeal to the public as an environmentally-friendly “green” energy company. The company rebranded with “Beyond Petroleum” as a tagline, alongside a new logo of a fresh sunburst replacing the solid shield of BP. In the wake of the consumer boycotts of Exxon and Shell that clearly demonstrated how intense public feeling was about environmental issues, BP made a decision to invest in renewable energy. Although it was only a small investment compared to their commitment to fossil fuels, it was widely promoted. Their stated quest was to produce the cleanest burning fossil fuels and to become a producer of solar energy that would provide sustainable fuel to reduce carbon emission levels with products that were “safe, practical and affordable” (Verschoor, 2010).

To discuss organizations’ approaches to company values and ethics, an important aspect of which should be finding out from employees what their perceptions are – asking them “What do we stand for?”

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

If you are a big company like Shell, getting front‐page news and mentions on prime‐time TV for all the wrong reasons, it's understandable why you make massive efforts to give priority to ethical strategies and to make sure they're well understood and accepted both externally and internally. The fact that Shell was already working on the studies and actions which crystallized into its present stakeholder approach to management well before it was rocked by the Ken Saro‐Wiwa and Brent Spar controversies did nothing to lessen the negative impact, but few would doubt that the vociferous criticism hurried the process along.

The experiences noted in the articles provide a basis of discussion for organizations to decide the values, ethics and principles that they will adhere to as they go about their business.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the complexities and tensions that international organisations face in managing ethics.

Three levels of ethics are identified and discussed in the paper in the context of three international strategies.

The study finds that an organisation's approach to ethics depends on its level of ethics and the type of international strategy adopted. These two dimensions have the potential to create identifiable tensions between head office and subsidiaries that will need to be understood and managed.

The paper offers practical guidance to managers by providing a framework for better understanding the tensions and challenges faced by head office and subsidiaries when operating in international markets. Hence, it makes explicit an aspect of strategic management that may not be obvious, but that could influence the organisation's ability to achieve its strategic goals.

This paper extends previous research on ethics and international business by proposing that an organisation's approach to ethics depends on the level of ethics at which it operates and the type of strategy it has adopted.

To better understand the key issues surrounding Global Ecopolitics, it may be beneficial to examine the background to the environmental movement over time. The environmental movement is perhaps the most significant contemporary global movement to have emerged in recent decades. The relationship between humankind and nature has been the subject of much debate and enquiry over time. The environmental movement had its cultural origins in literary accounts of humanity's relationship with nature, beginning from the romantic poets such as William Blake, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, whose works were concerned with the reconciliation of man and nature. This aesthetic could also be found in subsequent transcendentalist American literature, such as Henry David Thoreau's Walden, published in 1854 (Shabecoff, 2003, pp. 37–71). The transcendentalists were interested in the spiritual connections that connected humankind and nature with God and could be seen as the forefathers of deep green ecologists. Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species was published in 1859, creating further interest in the understanding of nature. George Perkins Marsh wrote of the destructive impact of agriculture in his book Man and Nature in 1864. President Teddy Roosevelt would develop the National Parks with Gifford Pinchot of the Forestry Service in the early 1900s. In the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, concerns about protecting wildlife led to the emergence of a progressive conservation movement, alongside federal regulation of natural habitats and the establishment of national parks. Influential conservation groups included the National Audubon Society, founded in 1886, and the Sierra Club, founded by John Muir in 1892. Muir and Pinchot would become adversaries in the campaign to prevent the building of a dam in Yosemite National Park in the early decade of the nineteenth century (ibid.).

The paper aims to show how resource‐based views of the firm inadequately address the strategic importance of acquiring and using symbolic capital within the wider discursive institutional environment.

A single case using publicly available data on the strategic activities of the oil and gas firm BP was constructed.

Combining case data with a review of literature on firm capabilities and organization studies, the paper identifies a previously unacknowledged foundational strategic capability: securing a licence to act. It finds BP strategists understanding this capability as the realization of credibility and authority arising from the conscious and skilled articulation of firm commitments and activities.

Generalising from the case, the paper argues for the importance to firm performance of an understanding of how capabilities evolve in relation to the use of symbolic capital within inherently complex institutional environments. This leads beyond a purely economic view of institutional settings to cover market‐based political and social interests.

This paper analyses the Mohammed cartoons controversy, the boycott of Danish products in the Middle East, and the consequences for the Danish companies involved.

The objectives have been achieved by means of a ideology‐critical discourse analysis of Danish newspaper articles on the subject.

The wider ramifications of an insult and freedom of expression discourse are shown. Managerial consequences of the boycott are outlined for Jyllands‐Posten and Arla Foods.

The paper is of value for researchers and managers who want to understand the politicisation of markets and the major consequences for management and marketing strategy.