Search results

This paper aims to introduce a new integrated strategic framework entitled, “The corporate identity, total corporate communications, stakeholders’ attributed identities, identifications and behaviours continuum” and elucidates the central and strategic importance of corporate identity apropos corporate communications, corporate image, attributed stakeholder identifications and resultant behaviours. The strategic importance of corporate identity is noted. The continuum incorporates a variety of disciplinary/theoretical perspectives.

The paper/framework is informed by corporate marketing and strategic perspectives; legal theory of the firm; social identity branch theories; and stakeholder theory. The effects and management of corporate identity are seen as a continuum. The framework accommodates Tagiuri’s (1982) scholarship on corporate identity.

This paper formally introduces and explicates “The corporate identity, total corporate communications, stakeholders’ attributed identities, identifications and behaviours continuum”. Corporate identity management is an on-going strategic senior management/strategic requisite. Notably, the legal theory of company law – routinely overlooked – and its impact on corporate identity management is accepted, acknowledged and accommodated. The importance of stakeholders and stakeholder identification (a derivative of social identity theory) is underscored.

Via the explication of the continuum, managers can comprehend the nature and importance of corporate identity; appreciate that corporate identity adaptation/change is on-going; comprehend its interface/s with corporate communications, stakeholder attributed identities, identifications and the business environment; understand the need for on-going fidelity to an institution’s legally based core purposes and corporate identity traits (juridical identity); cognise the efficacy of constant stakeholder and environmental analysis. Corporate identity sustainability requires corporate identity to be advantageous, beneficial, critical, differentiating and effectual. Stakeholder prioritisation is not solely dependent on power, legitimacy and urgency but on legality, efficacy, ethicality and temporality.

The resultant framework/approach, therefore, aims to make a meaningful advance on the territory and, moreover, seeks to be of utility to scholars and practitioners of corporate marketing, strategy and company law. Arguably, therefore, the framework is more ambitious than extant framework on the domain. The resultant framework/approach, therefore, aims to make a meaningful advance on the territory and seeks to be of utility to scholars and practitioners of corporate identity, communications, images, identification, stakeholder theory, company law and, importantly, corporate strategy.

This study answers the call for research and theorising exploring ethical communication and brand risk from the African continent. The study's purpose was to identify the challenges that strategic communication practitioners face in enacting ethical crisis communication in South Africa.

The researchers conducted ten in-depth interviews with South African strategic communication professionals.

The dominant theme emerging from the study is the marginalisation and exclusion of the communication function in decision-making during crisis situations. Communicators were viewed as implementers, technicians and not strategic counsel. The protection of organisational reputation was done at the expense of the ethics and moral conscience of practitioners. Practitioners were viewed and deployed as spin doctors and tools to face unwanted media interactions.

The article sheds light on the concepts of ethical communication and decision-making in a multicultural African context using the moral theory of Ubuntu and strategic communication. It demonstrates the tension professionals experience as they toggle between unethical capitalist approaches and African values. The practitioner's role as organisational moral conscience is hindered, suppressed and undermined by organisational leadership's directives to use opaque, complex communication, selective transparency and misrepresentation of facts.

This study, first, reviews the existing literature on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and, using communication theory, examines its impact on its readers’ decision-making processes. Second, this paper aims to propose some elements of eWOM communications that might be further researched.

A literature review of relevant academic articles produced 97 works related to social communication theory, eWOM and new artificial intelligence trends in hospitality. Thereafter, potential avenues for future research were explored.

The study results showed: valence, relevance, understandability and visual cues are the most important antecedents of message usefulness and the reader’s behavioral intentions; source credibility is the sender characteristic that most affects the reader’s behavioral intentions and consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence is the receiver characteristic that most influences their attitudes and behavioral intentions. In addition, the study highlights four relevant aspects for future research. First, more research into online fake reviews is needed to better understand sender motivations. Second, companies should actively manage negative reviews. Then, the careful choice of platforms on which companies promote their products/services. Finally, the role of artificial intelligence in increasing the effectiveness of eWOM in the hospitality industry.

This paper integrates – grounded on communication theory – results from previous studies about the central elements of communication (message, sender and receiver) and discusses the main trends in hospitality-related eWOM. In addition, the paper examines the potential of specific eWOM elements as future lines of research, in particular: fake reviews, strategies for dealing with negative reviews, the eWOM platform used and artificial intelligence applications.

Este estudio, en primer lugar, revisa la literatura existente sobre el boca-oído electrónico (eWOM) y, utilizando la teoría de la comunicación, examina su impacto en los procesos de toma de decisiones de sus lectores. En segundo lugar, proponemos algunos elementos de las comunicaciones eWOM que podrían investigarse más adelante.

Una revisión de la literatura de artículos académicos relevantes produjo 97 trabajos relacionados con la teoría de la comunicación social, eWOM y nuevas tendencias de inteligencia artificial en hotelería. A partir de entonces, se exploraron posibles vías de investigación futura.

Los resultados del estudio señalaron: 1) la valencia, la relevancia, la comprensibilidad y las señales visuales son los antecedentes más importantes de la utilidad del mensaje y las intenciones de comportamiento del lector; 2) La credibilidad de la fuente es la característica del emisor que más afecta las intenciones de comportamiento del lector; 3) La susceptibilidad del consumidor a la influencia interpersonal es la característica del receptor que más influye en sus actitudes e intenciones de comportamiento. Además, el estudio destaca cuatro aspectos relevantes para futuras investigaciones. Primero, se necesita más investigación sobre las reseñas falsas en línea para comprender mejor las motivaciones del emisor. En segundo lugar, las empresas deben gestionar activamente las críticas negativas. Luego, la cuidadosa elección de las plataformas en las que las empresas promocionan sus productos/servicios. Por último, el papel de la inteligencia artificial en el aumento de la eficacia de eWOM en la industria hotelera.

Este artículo integra –con base en la teoría de la comunicación– resultados de estudios previos sobre los elementos centrales de la comunicación (mensaje, emisor y receptor) y analiza las principales tendencias en eWOM relacionadas con la hostelería. Además, el artículo examina el potencial de elementos específicos de eWOM como líneas futuras de investigación, en particular: revisiones falsas, estrategias para lidiar con críticas negativas, la plataforma eWOM utilizada y aplicaciones de inteligencia artificial.

Palabras clave: eWOM, Teoría de comunicación, Revisiones falsas, Revisiones negativas, Inteligencia artificialTipo de artículo: Revisión de la literatura

本研究, 首先, 回顾了现有的关于电子口碑（eWOM）的文献, 并利用传播理论, 研究了它对读者决策过程的影响。其次, 我们提出了一些可能需要进一步研究的电子口碑传播的要素。

对相关学术文章的文献回顾产生了97篇与社会传播理论、eWOM和酒店业新的人工智能趋势有关的作品。此后, 对未来研究的潜在途径进行了探讨。

研究结果显示。1）价值、相关性、可理解性和视觉线索是信息有用性和读者行为意图的最重要的前因; 2）来源的可信度是最能影响读者行为意图的发送者特征; 3）消费者对人际影响的易感性是最能影响他们态度和行为意图的接受者特征。此外, 该研究还强调了未来研究的四个相关方面。首先, 需要对网上虚假评论进行更多的研究, 以更好地了解发送者的动机。其次, 公司应该积极管理负面评论。然后, 谨慎选择公司推广其产品/服务的平台。最后, 人工智能在提高酒店业eWOM的有效性方面的作用。

本文以传播理论为基础, 整合了以往关于传播中心要素（信息、发送者和接受者）的研究结果, 并讨论了与酒店业相关的电子WOM的主要趋势。此外, 本文还研究了特定的eWOM要素作为未来研究方向的潜力, 特别是：虚假评论、处理负面评论的策略、使用的eWOM平台和人工智能应用。

关键词：eWOM, 传播理论, 虚假评论, 负面评论, 人工智能。

This research aims to examine and understand the rationales and modalities behind the use of disclosure before, during and after a corporate governance scandal involving CPA Australia (CPAA).

Data beyond CPAA's annual reports were collected, such as news articles, media releases, an independent review panel (IRP) report, and the Chief Operating Officer's letter to members. These disclosures were manually coded and analysed through the word counts and word trees in NVivo. This study also relied on Norbert Elias' conceptual tool of power games among networks of actors – figurations – to model the scandal as a power game between the old Board, the press, concerned members, the IRP and the new Board. This study analysed the data to reveal a collective and in fieri power balance that changed with the phases of the scandal.

A mix of voluntary, involuntary, requested and absent disclosures was important in triggering, managing and ending the CPAA scandal. Moreover, communication and disclosure fulfilled a constitutive role since both: mobilised actors, enabled coordination among actors, contributed to pursuing shared goals and influenced power balances. Such a constitutive role was at the heart of the ability of coalitions of figurations to challenge and restore the powerful status quo.

This research introduces to accounting studies the collective and in fieri dimensions of power from figurational theory. Moreover, the research sheds new light on using voluntary, involuntary, requested and absent disclosures before, during and after a corporate crisis.

The aim of the paper is to bring together the state-of-the-art research and theory from the communication and service research fields to examine the implications of new technologies for the future of service communication.

The authors apply the media affordances perspective to develop an overarching framework that facilitates theoretical conceptualization and research question formulation on the constantly evolving technology-enabled communication formats.

Central to the forward-looking framework of service communication facilitated by new technologies, this paper identifies various affordances at the service frontline where service customers and providers interact with the technologies. Customers are empowered to expand their roles blurring the role distinction between service providers and customers. Depending on what kind of relationships service providers form with the emerging technologies, they may develop new service communication strategies and new interaction possibilities with customers. As a result, the technologies' affordances would facilitate value creation outcomes that can manifest in the external (whether it is in the physical or digital space) and/or internal (one's own mind) spaces. Applying the affordances framework, the authors map out four key areas of future research regarding new technologies in service communication: (1) social media technologies; (2) multisensory reality-enhancing technologies; (3) AI-enabled voice assistants; and (4) AI-driven service robots.

This paper proposes an original theoretical framework to stimulate and guide future research and theory development regarding the implications of new technologies in the constantly evolving and complex service communication landscape.