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This chapter defines channels and explains their role in creating and exchanging knowledge assets. Channels are where many of today’s knowledge assets live. Knowledge is increasingly bundled with communication technologies in the chaotic and dynamic channel market. It challenges the preservation and curation of an organization’s knowledge assets. We cannot ignore channels because they are essential to knowledge exchange and flows and engaging in business. At the same time, knowledge preservation and curation strategies mandate that organizations make wise channel choices and manage knowledge assets in a channel-agnostic way. The chapter reviews the evolution and range of channels active today. It explains how channels create complex knowledge environments in scale and scope.

Furniture is among the important personal consumption expenditures for durable goods in the USA. Retailers and manufacturers offer different communication channels to assist consumers all through the process of acquiring furniture. The objective of the present study is to evaluate US consumers' channel use at different steps of the residential furniture‐buying process.

A cross‐section study was conducted by taking advantage of the structured nature of quantitative methods using a questionnaire for data collection and a socio‐demographic representative sample of US citizens. Consumers' use of six communication channels through five buying decision steps was assessed.

Results showed that the furniture retail store is the most important communication channel at each of the five considered buying process stages. Overall score of that channel was higher for females than males, indicating that women care more about communication when buying furniture. The internet was not of significant importance when buying furniture. Advertising was perceived as a significant means to gather information.

The study will help to orient companies' marketing strategies by making proper use of communication channels. It also shows marketing students the present state of consumers' communication channel preferences.

This paper gives unique insights into consumers' buying behavior that will help to design communication channels properly.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how digital communication tools are used for internal communication (IC) in multinational corporations (MNCs). Specifically, the study illustrates the role of digital channels in IC, the benefits they bring and the difficulties involved in using them.

This research features a single-case study focusing on a listed Finnish multinational industrial corporation with a long history. Data for the study come from semi-structured theme interviews and a workshop in which the results were discussed.

Digital IC tools are able to facilitate IC in MNCs, although some challenges may arise in relation to planning their utilization. Related to the role of digital channels in IC, these findings highlight the importance of face-to-face channels in everyday IC and the role of digital channels as more formal communication channels.

This paper focuses on a single organization. Additional research would be required to attain generalizable results.

The effective use of new digital communication tools requires common guidelines across all areas of an MNC. Despite the great potential of new tools, the importance of face-to-face communication should not be ignored.

Most of the research on IC in MNCs was conducted before the digital communications era. Recent advances in information technology have created new challenges and opportunities for IC.

The purpose of this study is threefold: To compare many old and new media channels in terms of a range of attributes such as perceived intrusiveness, reliability, trustworthiness, convenience, and entertainment value. To compare the perceived relative effectiveness of alternative communication channels in terms of how a marketing proposition is evaluated by recipients and thus to establish whether some channels are better than others for achieving engagement and persuasion. To additionally survey the senders of marketing communications, to examine potential differences between how senders think recipients perceive each channel and what recipients actually perceive. Moreover, it is proposed that the survey be conducted in both consumer and business markets.

First, in a survey, the channels are compared from the perspective of both receivers and senders of marketing communications and additionally from that of consumer and business markets. Second, by means of experimentally generated scenarios, the paper assesses the relative effectiveness of the 11 channels in eliciting responses to two typical B‐to‐C and two B‐to‐B promotion offers.

The paper finds that, although e‐mail is well established and widely used, the traditional channels of television, radio, newspapers and direct mail retain their historically favored attributes of trust and reliability of information that make them still preferred by consumer recipients of marketing communications, even by “tech savvy” younger consumers who use e‐mail and SMS extensively. Business receivers are more accepting of e‐mail marketing communications than are consumers but, like consumers, they are more likely to act on a marketing offer if it comes through traditional mass media or mail channels.

The paper enables marketing managers to assess the relative benefits of a number of marketing communication channels.

The purpose of this paper is to create a new understanding of industrial business-to-business (B2B) relationships by connecting the theoretical streams of marketing communications and relationship marketing. This study tests how various marketing communication channels and communication quality increase the transformation of customer-perceived value into customer loyalty.

The theoretical framework consists of links between customer-perceived value, marketing communication quality, channel effectiveness, and customer loyalty. The age of the business relationship is also taken into consideration. Empirical testing is based on global survey data (n=121) collected from customers of Finnish manufacturing companies operating in the paper, mineral, and metal-processing industries.

The effects of customer-perceived value on customer loyalty are both direct and indirect, as marketing communications partially mediate this relationship. The customer-perceived effectiveness of various marketing communication channels adds more to loyalty formation than the perceived quality of marketing communications.

Of special interest for marketing practitioners is the channel-specific approach to the effectiveness of marketing communications. Results suggest that personalized channels would be the most important mediators of the effects of perceived value on loyalty and also bring up the possibility of combining personalized direct communication with new cost-effective digital channels.

Relatively little research has examined the mediating role of marketing communications in the relationship between perceived value and loyalty in the B2B context.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the preferred communication channels to foster energy conservation behaviour among office building users. Energy demand from the commercial sector in Malaysia is, at 33.2 per cent, the highest after the industry sector, at 45.1 per cent. The country’s progress in actively practising energy conservation is lacking, despite various energy conservation programmes having been launched in recent years. A large amount of energy is wasted by users’ poor energy conservation behaviour. To market voluntary energy conservation behaviour, the delivery of energy conservation messages using the appropriate communication channels remains an important strategy.

This paper involves two-stage data collection. The communication categories associated with a set of channels identified from expert interview serve as the basis for the second stage of empirical data gathering using conjoint analysis. A choice-based conjoint analysis assisted by Sawtooth Software is used to analyse the 525 usable empirical data gathered from a final questionnaire survey among the office building users in Malaysia.

This paper has identified five communication categories associated with a total of 19 channels. The mass media is acknowledged as the most preferred communication channel among office building users in the marketing of energy conservation behaviour, while the least preferred channel to communicate energy conservation information is audio-visual media.

This study contributes to existing literature with a novel case in Malaysia office building by identifying the preferred combination of communication channels in fostering energy conservation behaviour. The findings could benefit the building managers in marketing energy conservation behaviour among office building users to effectively achieve the desired change for sustainable development.

The paper identifies the factors that shape the intensity and perceived effectiveness of communications between heads of manufacturing units of multinational corporations (MNCs).

The paper is based on a survey of heads of MNCs’ manufacturing subsidiaries in Russia.

The authors found that the intensity of most inter-unit communication channels depends on the speed and magnitude of the changes experienced by manufacturing subsidiaries in products and production technologies. The assessment of the efficiency of a communication channel with high media richness strongly correlates to the intensity of its use.

Subsidiary managers are quickly mastering most easy-to-use channels (i.e. e-mail exchange, talking on the phone, reading corporate magazines) by themselves, but are minimizing their participation in time-consuming activities (i.e. corporate-wide and special conferences, arranging informal meetings with foreign peers) unless they have to manage rapid changes in products and production technologies. Thus, to intensify the voluntary use of inter-unit channels with high media richness, headquarters should instill in subsidiary managers the value of cooperation between manufacturing units. Moreover, the effectiveness of inter-unit channels with high media richness should be properly demonstrated to subsidiary managers to assuage their initial reluctance.

This paper presents communications between manufacturing units of multinational corporations not as the transfer of abstract knowledge but as routine processes of exchange of detailed information on valuable improvements of the existing practices and solutions to technical and organizational problems common in facility development and mastering new products.

This paper investigates the proposition that communication channel usage differs by gender. First the results of a communication channel exploratory analysis are reported which examined perceptions of communication channel usage in a group of office workers. These results are then examined in light of existing information processing theory. While these findings are limited in generalizability, this study shows the lack of gender specific information processing research. Researchers may find it useful when examining information processing and communication channel usage, in particular, to control for gender differences.

The study attempts to extend the current scholarship in the field of employer branding. Integrated communication is about consistent communication that is synergistic through multiple communication channels. Employer branding activities that involve multiple internal communication channels aim to attract employees. The study proposes that the perceived impact of effective integrated communication in employer branding shapes employee attitude and hence employee attraction. Employee perception of the choice of communication channels is also proposed to have an impact on employee attraction.

An exploratory qualitative study in the form of interviews and a preliminary survey was conducted in the first phase. The main study involved a questionnaire survey to empirically test the proposed hypotheses. The respondents were information technology–business process management (IT-BPM) employees (n = 520) in India.

The direct and interaction effects of integrated communication and usefulness of communication channels on employee attraction within the organization were empirically validated to suggest a positive impact on employee attraction.

The study extends the current body of knowledge on talent attraction to include present employees. Similarly, the study on integrated communication and its impact on employee attraction is an important addition to the literature on employer branding, internal communication and talent management, given the present coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation.

The purpose of this paper is to distinguish the corporate communication channels by typology, by the designation of their characteristics and features of application, as well as to institutionalize the concept of corporate media.

In the theoretical part, with the help of general review, critical analysis, systematization and generalization, the main scientific works devoted to corporate communications have been studied. In practical part, the method of typology there has been used and descriptive analysis of types of communication channels has been carried out.

The research distinguishes the types of channels used in modern corporate communication. It reveals that corporate communication channels can be divided into two main types according to the criteria of relation to the company: outsiders and insiders. Then the channels can be divided into broad functional subtypes: events, advertising, media and a specific category – social media. The typological separation also can be based on the auditorium and communication technologies indications.

This study makes a significant contribution to the development of studies of corporate communication through structuring communication channels. The establishment of types, features and prospects for the development of communication channels, in particular such specific ones as corporate and social media, contribute to a more systematic approach to the methods of their use. From a practical point of view, companies can be guided by the results of this research during the formation of a mix of corporate communication.