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As the number of corporate blogs has continued to increase over the years, this study examines the use of relationship cultivation strategies of Fortune 500 companies on their corporate blogs. Moreover, it focuses on how companies use corporate blogs as interactive online communication channels to create a sense of community among their publics.

A content analysis of Fortune 500 company corporate blogs was conducted to examine the use of relational cultivation strategies and their methods of promoting a sense of community.

Findings indicate that networking and sharing tasks are used most frequently among all relational cultivation strategies on corporate blogs, and that there are statistically significant differences among industries for using relationship cultivation strategies on corporate blogs. The most frequently used dimension of sense of community on corporate blogs is shared emotional connection.

Studies analyzing social media as public relations tools have not yet focused on community building. In fact, few studies have examined the community building aspect of corporate blogs in the public relations field. To fill this gap, this study focuses on community building and analyzes how companies use corporate blogs as an interactive online communication channel to create a sense of community among their publics.

Using political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) as a theoretical framework, this study aims to examine how multinational corporations (MNCs) can function as nonstate actors in public diplomacy efforts during the Russia–Ukraine war.

A thematic analysis using qualitative content analysis was conducted on 98 new releases from the websites of the top 50 MNCs listed in the Fortune Global 500.

The findings indicate that MNCs elucidate their initiatives aimed at providing a secure environment for war victims through their news releases, with notable variations in responses based on the companies' geographical location. MNCs also mentioned strengthening the power of public authorities by rebalancing power dynamics between governments and intergovernmental initiatives under war conditions.

This study is one of the first empirical investigations to research corporate diplomacy and explore the theoretical implications of PCSR for corporate diplomacy.

Organizations are communicating with the public about their thoughts and behaviors relevant to the environment via social networking sites. The purpose of this paper is to explore for-profit and nonprofit organizations' Twitter messages to understand their environment-related messages and their influences on the publics' responses.

This study conducted a content analysis adopting four message classification systems: environmental message orientation, message specificity, message framing, and environmental issue. Guided by attribution theory, this study also explored how the organization's environmental messages influence social media (Twitter) user responses, likes, retweets, and replies.

The analysis showed that for-profits' messages tend to discuss their green products and manufacturing processes with specific numeric evidence, while nonprofits are disposed to describe a severely degraded environment. In addition, the study revealed that tweets yield a high number of likes and replies when the organizations are for-profits and the messages emphasize green products.

The findings of this study showed that the green message categorization systems are applicable to the social media context. But, this study focused on Twitter only. Future studies need to examine various social media platforms.

The study findings recommend communication practitioners use substantive green messages highlighting actual pro-environmental performances. Also, practitioners might need to make a linkage between the discussed environmental issue and the organization (e.g. a water issue by a wildlife-related nonprofit, an energy issue by a home appliance manufacturer, an air pollution issue by a bicycle company). In addition, regarding the message specificity, infographics can be present specific information that audiences can readily understand because it is described visually.

Scholars investigated environmental messages in advertising and cautioned that environmental messages that are not substantive or specific can cause audiences to perceive the messages as greenwashing. However, these previous studies focused on conventional media, and they have not been replicated in the age of social media. Thus, it is important to explore the current status of organizational environmental messages on social media.

The present study aims to identify how firms positioned their corporate reputation (i.e. impressiveness vs respectability) in their initial public offering (IPO) communication based on the impression formation model. Further, the study examined whether this presentation of corporate reputation was related to IPO success (i.e. stock price and volume of trading).

The present study analyzed 248 IPO prospectuses that were submitted to the major US stock markets. Specifically, various substantive and symbolic information and cues in IPO prospectuses were content analyzed.

The results suggest that bigger (in terms of revenue) IPO companies featured more “impressiveness” in their IPO prospectus, leading to greater IPO success. Bigger (in terms of both revenue and number of employees) IPO companies featured more “respectability” impressions in the IPO prospectus, although they did not achieve direct IPO success on the first day of IPO. Different types of industry used different information cues to feature “impressiveness” and/or “respectability,” suggesting that different types of firms view different cues to be important to IPO communication.

The results also suggest some practical guidelines for the strategic use of contents, tables and illustrations. Using more charts, tables and illustrations in IPO prospectus summaries was associated with a higher volume of trading on the first day. The more illustrations included in the IPO prospectus summaries, the less investors were willing to pay for initial stock prices.

IPO communication is a generally understudied area in corporate communication and strategic communication scholarship. The results should help to explain which communicative aspects and PR strategies effectively manage the firm’s impression to maximize the chances of an IPO success as well as initially build the financial reputation of a company. By doing so, the findings contribute to the broader advancement of financial communication within the strategic communications domain.

Previous studies have empirically examined the positive outcomes organizations can achieve by engaging in environmentally responsible actions, but the underlying mechanism of the reasons why publics engage in supportive behaviors for those organizations has not been examined in light of theoretical foundations. To fill this gap, this paper builds on a foundation of norm activation theory to explore the effect of publics' awareness of environmental consequences on perceived environmental responsibility of organizations and organizational norm, which can have an impact on publics' supportive behavior toward environmentally responsible organizations. The potential relationships between social media use for environmental information and other variables are also explored.

Drawing on norm activation theory, an online survey was conducted among 288 adults in the United States. Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Findings indicate the impact of individuals' awareness of environmental consequences on their ascription of responsibility to organizations, which influences organizational norm and supportive behavior intention toward organizations.

This study is one of the first attempts to explore the underlying mechanism of publics' support for environmentally responsible organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the congruence effect of the product and claimed environmental issue on green advertising on consumer responses as well as the moderation effect of the perceived green reputation of the product on the congruence effect.

A two-by-two designed experiment (high/low congruence × high/low green reputation) with a covariate (ad skepticism) was conducted via online survey recruiting 179 college students.

High congruence of green issue and product category generated positive ad attitude, sponsor attitude, behavioral intention (BI), sponsor credibility and message credibility. Low green reputation positively affected ad attitude and BI. An interaction effect of congruence and green reputation on BI occurred.

This study contributes to suggest a new approach to green reputation by examining a perception of a product category in terms of green reputation. The study findings recommend marketing communication managers to keep high congruence of their product category and claimed environmental issue to maximize communication effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to explore British Petroleum’s (BP) crisis response on Facebook and factors contributing to its stakeholders’ perceptions of its crisis response strategies during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Applying crisis response strategies, this study content analyzed BP’s crisis communication messages and Facebook users’ comments on BP America’s Facebook page.

The results revealed that information giving strategies dominated BP’s crisis response, and Facebook users were more likely to comment favorably when BP used information giving strategies and accommodative strategies. Bolstering strategies and third-party endorsement did not achieve anticipated effectiveness.

The findings of this study will contribute to effective application of crisis response strategies.

This study was designed to test two models linking relationship perception, attitude, and behavior‐based involvement in a membership organization. This study helps fill a gap in the relationship management literature by exploring the hierarchy of effects among a strategic public some of whom could be characterized as having low involvement.

After a couple of pilot tests, a state‐wide mail survey was conducted. As recommended by several studies, the mail survey for this study was included in a packet with a cover letter and a pre‐addressed, pre‐stamped return envelope mailed to 2,100 randomly selected current members of the organization. Of the 2,100 members who received questionnaires, 493 usable responses were collected, resulting in a 23.4 per cent response rate.

For the four relationship quality dimensions used in this study – i.e. control mutuality, satisfaction, trust, and commitment – current members' perceptions of relationship trust and commitment positively influenced their attitudes toward the organization. More importantly, this study demonstrates that the public's perception of commitment can also directly engender supportive behavior toward the organization among members of a key public.

This study was designed to empirically test two models that link relationship quality perceptions, attitude, and behavioral intentions with members in a membership organization based on their levels of involvement. By testing a model of standard sequential order (relationship perceptions → attitude → behavioral intentions), this study found that the originally tested model met the criteria. However, the model was revised based on the modification index and theoretical justification. A new path directly connecting commitment of the relationship quality outcomes to behavioral intentions was added.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how public relations practitioners perceive investor relations itself and what the potential is in terms of public relations with empirical results.

A web‐based survey was conducted by using systematic random sampling with a probability sample of 5,000 public relations practitioners drawn from the 2004 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Directory. The survey consisted of three sections, investor relations functions at organizations with a multiple‐answer format, perceptions on specific activities of investor relations with a seven‐point Likert scale, and demographic information.

Practitioners conceived that counseling with top management the most important investor relations activity and that earning a reputation for honesty the most significant result the activity can create. Moreover, practitioners considered direct involvement with top management a highly effective investor relations strategy for achieving goals. However, for handling investor relations, practitioners showed contrary attitudes regarding qualifications and undergraduate courses, indicating that public relations qualifications would be more needed for entry‐levels, while basics for finance would be more necessary for undergraduates.

This research acquired an extraordinarily low response rate, 3.54 percent and targeted the US public relations practitioners only.

This study is the first to directly investigate public relations practitioners' perceptions on investor relations as well as fairly in accordance with the current consensus that investor relations and public relations should be convergent.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how organizations enact positivity, openness, access, sharing of tasks, and networking through their web sites. The paper also aims to investigate whether, different types of industries display different levels of relationship strategy.

A content analysis of 286 web sites was conducted to determine how corporations use their site as a communication medium for building and nurturing relationships with publics. Company web sites were selected from the Fortune 500 list according to industry type. The sites were analyzed for the presence and quality of variables identified in the public relations literature as measures of relationship maintenance strategies.

The study's first research question addressed how the sampled organizations display use of relationship maintenance strategies through their web sites. The results revealed that openness was the strategy used most frequently. The quality of the openness dimension also was rated more highly than it was for any of the other strategies. The second research question explored whether industry type made a difference in organizations' use of the relationship maintenance strategies. A statistically significant difference among industry type was found for three of the strategies – positivity, openness, and access.

This study gives guidelines as to how companies can use their web sites more proactively to build and maintain relationships with their publics. The study also provides some insights into why some types of organizations might be more likely than others to use web sites for relationship maintenance. This study's primary contribution to public relations theory is its original focus on strategies for organization‐public relationship maintenance and this study also sought to identify and measure the quality of maintenance strategies.