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Anthropomorphized brands have been widely used as marketing communication tools to engage consumers on social media, especially on Twitter. Guided by the social exchange theory (SET) and the dialogic theory, this study aims to investigate how anthropomorphized brands leverage different communication strategies on Twitter and how these strategies are related to consumer engagement.

Supervised machine learning was used to identify the communication strategies (i.e. message types and dialogic principles) of 125,887 tweets from 21 brand characters. Some statistical analyses (e.g. frequency analysis, Chi-square analysis and Poisson regression analysis) were performed to explore the relationships between communication strategies and consumer engagement (i.e. retweets and replies).

The majority of anthropomorphized brands’ tweets belonged to the socioemotional category and the most adopted dialogic principles were generation of return visits and conservation of visitors. Consumers engaged more with socioemotional tweets as well as the tweets that adopted the principles of dialogic loop and conservation of visitors. There were clear relationships between message types and dialogic principles in anthropomorphized brands’ tweets, and certain dialogic principles were found to effectively improve consumer engagement with certain message types.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the communication strategies of anthropomorphized brand characters on Twitter using computational research methods. It not only provides brand managers a systematic review of how current anthropomorphized brands communicate with consumers on Twitter and what strategies work more effectively to trigger consumer engagement but also contributes to theory building in brand management by integrating the SET and the dialogic theory in brand anthropomorphism research.

The study explores the role of dialogic public communication and information quality (IQ) in evaluating the operational performance of donation-based crowdfunding (DBC) tasks. These tasks are primarily used to support disaster relief operations. The authors also test the influence of cognitive trust and swift trust as moderating variables in explaining the relationship between both IQ and dialogic communication with operational performance.

The authors used a primary survey to test the hypotheses. A total of 203 responses were collected from multiple crowdfunding platforms. The authors used archival data from task creators on donation-based crowdfunding platforms, and a structured questionnaire is also used to collect responses. Data are analyzed using Warp PLS 6.0. Warp PLS 6.0 works on the principle of partial least square (PLS) structured equation modeling (SEM) and has been used widely to test path analytical models.

The authors found out that the operational performance is explained significantly by the quality of information and its association with dialogic public communication. The results support the arguments offered by dialogic public communication theory and trust transfer theory in assessing the operational success of DBC. The study also confirms that cognitive trust positively moderates the relationship between IQ and organizational public dialogic communication and operational performance. It is also revealed that the duration of the DBC task has no significant control over dialogic public communication.

The study lays practical foundations for task creators on DBC platforms and website designers as it sets the importance of both IQ and dialogic communication channels. The communication made by the task creator and/or the DBC platforms with the donors and potential donors in the form of timely and appropriate information forms the key to the success of any DBC task. The study also helps task creators choose a suitable platform to improve performance.

The authors propose a unique framework by integrating two theoretical perspectives: dialogic public relation theory and trust transfer theory in understanding the operational performance of donation-based crowdfunding tasks. The authors address DBC tasks catering to disaster relief operations by collecting responses from task creators on DBC platforms. The study uniquely positions itself in the area of information and communication.

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to group coaching in the workplace that can enhance shared learning in groups and teams through dialogue as opposed to group members’ individual positioning through discussion and debate.

An action research project conducted throughout one year in collaboration between the management groups of the Elderly Care in a Danish municipality, two organizational consultants and two researchers from the Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University. The dialogical approach to group coaching is developed in the interaction between dialogue theory and the performance and close analysis of 12 video-taped coaching sessions with four management groups. The development of the dialogic group coaching concept is further supported through common reflections between researchers and groups in initial meetings as well as during the coaching sessions and final interviews, reflections between researchers and groups in initial meetings as well as during the coaching sessions and final interviews.

The non-directive approach of dialogic group coaching is inspired by Transformative Mediation. This approach includes a focus on empowerment and recognition within the group in terms of promoting common reflection and learning. This also appears to diminish conflict talk and conflict-based relationships. Further, the dialogic approach emphasizes the importance of a coaching contract to create a common basis for reflection and action, which is found to reduce individual positioning.

The paper develops a dialogic concept of group coaching in theory and practice, while focusing on the learning processes and development of the participating management groups.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how participatory budgeting (PB), as a form of dialogic accounting, is produced in practice.

This is a qualitative case study of PB development for the period 2013-2016 in one Russian municipality. Based on triangulation of in-depth semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis, videotape data and netnographic observation, the authors employ ideas of dialogic accounting and institutional work.

The study shows that the PB experiment, which began with dialogic rhetoric, in reality, had very limited dialogic effects. However, the authors also observed that the PB dynamics over time made the practice neither inherently monologic nor dialogic. The authors explained such transformations by the way in which the individual reflexivity of actors altered when carrying out institutional work. Curiosity reflexivity was the most essential, triggering different patterns of institutional work to set up the PB experiment. However, further, the authors demonstrated that, over the course of the experiment’s development, the institutional work was trapped by various actors’ individual reflexivity forms and in this way limited PB’s dialogic potential.

The study shows the importance of understanding and managing individuals’ reflexivity, as it shapes the institutional work performed by different actors and, therefore, influences the direction of both the design and materialization of dialogic accounting experiments such as PB. In a broader sense, this also influences the way in which democratic governance is developed, losing democratization potential.

The purpose of this paper is to review the current research program in agonistic dialogic accounting and to reflect on future possibilities for broadening out and opening up accounting and accountability systems, especially as they relate to social and environmental accounting (SEA).

The authors describe an ethic of accountability as a context for dialogue and debate intended to broaden out and open up new imaginings of accounting for democracy. The authors review the accounting literature addressing dialogic accounting and agonistics as the precursor of what has evolved into agonistic dialogic accounting. The authors discuss their work to date on agonistic pluralism and engagement, recognizing the necessity of linking the normative framework to an effective political program. The authors review prior studies applying science and technology studies that have addressed these issues.

The authors consider how the application of agonistic ideas might facilitate the development of multiple accountings that take pluralism seriously by addressing constituencies and perspectives often marginalized in both SEA and mainstream accounting. An ethic of accountability and science and technology studies are useful for stimulating dialogue and debate regarding democratic and civil society institutions as they relate to economic entities, especially corporations.

Agonistic dialogic accounting in conjunction with other disciplines such as science and technology studies can be used in formulating, implementing and evaluating policy for advancing a progressive social agenda.

A reflective view of the current work in agonistic dialogic accounting highlights considerations for further research regarding the possible interdisciplinary work particularly with science and technology studies in broadening out and opening up accounting and accountability systems as facilitators of progressive social agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to clarify the conceptual building blocks of relationship building between non-governmental groups (NGOs) and news media, which is essential for the development of civil society where dialogue is a product of ongoing communication and relationships.

The paper is based on an online survey with a sample size of 296 NGOs from India. The data are analyzed with SPSS to test six hypotheses related to dialogic orientation, media relations, relationship quality and the NGOs’ structural characteristics.

The study found that an organization's dialogic orientation has a positive impact on media relations knowledge and strategy but not on the action dimension that focusses on providing information subsidies to journalists. A stronger dialogic orientation is also associated with better organization-media relationships. A stronger engagement in media relations also has a more positive impact on the quality of organization-media relationship. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The findings of this study are limited to a sample of NGOs from India. Future research should address more diverse samples to better understand the dynamics of media relations in NGOs, and how their patterns of media relations, use of information subsidies, culture and media choice shape news coverage and their impact in developing civil society.

By approaching media relations from an organizational perspective to investigate media relations in the NGO sector to address an under-researched area, the study is able to draw out the significant relationships between and among three distinct and yet connected conceptual building blocks of public relations.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a definition for dialogic performance management and investigate the managerial choices that dialogic performance management necessitates from public managers.

The research strategy was based on a narrative analysis grounded in relativism and constructivism. Multiple data collection methods were used in this case study to examine a local government in Finland.

The paper proposes a definition and provides practical illustrations of the concept of dialogic performance management. The empirical findings are a set of managerial choices used to orchestrate dialogic performance management.

The concept of dialogic performance management encourages practitioners to ask themselves whether their current performance management practices are based on managerial monologues, rather than dialogues that incorporate staff into the performance management. The results also show that managerial choices shape the form of dialogic performance management.

The previous accounting and performance management literature has not examined the managerial choices that are used to shape dialogic performance management. In this research, the authors identify these types of managerial choices in the case organisation. The research is valuable because only after explicating managerial choices can one start to examine why dialogic performance management either fails or succeeds when public managers orchestrate it.

With the prevailing use of online communication platforms, this study revisits the definitions of trust in an online context. By exploring organizational online communications from a practitioners' perspective, a conceptual framework that illustrates the nature of trust and its relationship with dialogic communication between organizations and organizations' stakeholders in the digital era is proposed.

A total of 27 in-depth interviews were conducted with public relations and marketing practitioners involved in coordinating organizational online communications in Hong Kong.

From the practitioners' perspective, stakeholders' online trust toward an organization, which is a hybridity of initial and rapidly evolving trust, begins with stakeholders swift and initial judgment of the organization according to category-based cues (including knowledge-based attributes of the organization, institutional cues, and particular attributes of online dialogic communication) available on online platforms and further develops over time. Practitioners regard the integration of online and offline communication platforms to be the most effective way to build trust in organization–stakeholder relationships in the digital era, while dialectical tensions can hinder trust formed in online communication.

Along with the proposed conceptual framework, this study advances the discussion of online trust in public relations practices from the practitioners' perspective. A qualitative approach provides rich descriptions that may help to enrich theories in public relations and communication management regarding the interplay of trust and dialogic communication in organizational practices in the digital era.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the dialogic theory of public relations can help strategic communication practitioners support and enhance the relationship between individuals and organizations.

This inquiry applied the dialogic theory of public relations by investigating leading media companies’ context-based strategic use of Twitter. Researchers conducted a qualitative content analysis of 1,800 tweets from 18 top-performing media organizations.

This study identified strategies, rooted in dialogic theoretical principles that media organizations used to engage stakeholders. Media companies employed strategies based on dialogic principles, including promoting organizations as industry and thought leaders, integrating social media, and using an interactive, synergistic organizational voice.

These strategies support the need to expand theoretical conceptualizations and use of dialogic principles to study online communication.

Findings offer practical strategies for practitioners managing organizations’ Twitter communication to foster engagement. In particular, practitioners should consider organizational context and subsequent content advantages.

Findings offer practical and theoretical contributions to the debate of interactivity.

The article aims at analyzing narratives discourses to project dialogic storying as relevant in a mode of narrative research in English language education.

As an English language teacher and researcher, the author adopts narrative analysis as the research method for doctoral study, so this article delves into narrative research methods, especially in the context of English language education. The author found various existing notions on narrative research from Clandinin and Connelly (2000) and Barkhuizen et al. (2014), who contend that narrative is a mode of processing experiences and events in the form of a story. The author corroborated various notions on narrative research in English language education as an argument that narratives can be a strong data source in English language educational research. Since it has been a research focus for English language educators, the author explored seven dissertations that were submitted to a Nepalese university in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The article aims at analyzing narratives discourses to project dialogic storying as relevant in a mode of narrative research in English language education. While examining the dissertations, the author found that the subjective and ideological exploration of narratives is in practice; however, they need further in-depth analysis under a specific framing. The author argues that the concept of dialogic storying can be strong narrative research in English language education.

It has examined prospective applications of the dialogic storying process using dissertations submitted to a University in Nepal. In terms of conceptual discussions on narratives and narrative analysis, it is more interpretive.

It provides an initial framing to get into narrative research in English language education. It allows academics to go further into subjective and ideological inquiries in order to discuss more categorical elements in narrative research.

It is a more thematic and interpretive discussion so it discusses existing and appropriate practices in narrative research methods to defend the dialogic storying approach. It has not counter argued the existing knowledge; however, it provides insights to clarify dialogic storying as a research approach.