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This paper aims to compare the Greek and Chinese rhetorical traditions and explore their influences on today’s business and marketing communication across relevant cultures. In particular, it uses the Aristotelian persuasive orientations as reference points to introduce the Chinese rhetoric, and interpret cultural differences in persuasion from a historical and sociocultural perspective. It has been found that Greek and Chinese rhetoric and persuasion were developed to meet the needs of the social and cultural environments and this rule still applies to today’s business communication. The logical approach has been emphasised in the English rhetorical tradition while both qing (emotional approach) and li (logical approach) are the focus of persuasion in the Chinese tradition. This difference is also the root of cultural differences in modern business communication. Findings from both English and Chinese texts and data are examined to substantiate our focal argument.

The purpose of this article is to share emerging evidence about the qualitative and economic benefits of integrating care, based on an innovative population‐based approach across a small region of Germany. The article aims to discuss the features that have similarities to the international discussion around managed care and accountable care, e.g. the use of a “gain share” model to incentivise all the main partners, and the quite unique approaches derived from a public health background. The operation of Gesundes Kinzigtal could be considered as a benchmark for the “Clinical commissioning groups” that are in development as a result of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 in the UK.

A regional health management company in cooperation with the physicians' network in the region and two health insurance providers has reorganized the delivery of care across all sectors towards improving the health of the population. The key features of the approach are summarised in the paper. Administrative and medical data obtained from the health insurance providers and from routine management monitoring are used to evaluate the benefits of the approach compared to control groups.

The project is beginning to demonstrate that this model of integrated care can be effective, with cost benefits and savings for the partners, and improved health outcomes for the population.

The project started in 2006, and only early results of the first three to four years are reported here because of the use of claims data of health insurers.

The approach is an innovative model of integration in its combination of logistical re‐engineering of care processes, IT integration, public health and prevention measures. Its evaluation through an ambitious series of studies may have long‐term relevance for the organisation and management of care services internationally.

TOGETHER with other interested bodies, the “Arbeitseinsatzverwaltung” (Labour Utilization Administration), has (or long been devoting increasing attention to the problem of supplementary training in the metal working industries. Formerly, these measures for the schooling and training of metal‐workers had been directed principally at improving the personal standard of efficiency of the individual; recently they have assumed a wider importance on account of the shortage of labour in certain of the metal‐working trades. The Labour Exchanges have concerned themselves directly with these schemes; in past years, with financial support, in collaboration with other agencies. Between 1933 and 1938, the training schemes sponsored by the Retch Labour Administration (Reichs‐Arbeitsverwaltung), dealt with a total of some 390,000 workers.

Consumer-generated online product reviews (OPRs) have become a crucial source of information for consumers; however, OPRs are increasingly being incentivized. The purpose of this paper is to find a method of sponsorship and disclosure that could be considered ethically sound.

This study adopted a quasi-experimental approach to clarifying how the method of sponsorship impacts reader perceptions of OPRs in terms of helpfulness, credibility and purchase intention. Two experiments were performed on an online platform using data from 480 participants. Hypotheses were tested using analysis of covariance.

Meaning under the premise that sponsorship information is disclosed and not withheld from the readers, Study 1 revealed that experiential sponsorship is the best sponsorship. Study 2 revealed that featuring reviewers with greater influence in the online community increases the positive influence of disclosing experiential sponsorship on OPR persuasiveness.

The findings in this study provide rational incentives for firms to disclose sponsorship information, i.e. demonstrate high ethical standards in marketing. This was shown to create a win-win-win situation for consumers, firms and reviewers. Managerial implications for online marketing managers are also discussed.

Research findings are ambiguous regarding the effects of age on sustainable labour participation (SLP), defined as the extent to which people are able and willing to conduct their current and future work. The purpose of this paper is to contribute by examining age effects on SLP by focusing on the moderating role of workload.

A mixed-method study was conducted in 2018. First, a survey was distributed among a sample of 2,149 employees of the Dutch central government. Second, 12 interviews with public sector employees took place to gain greater insight into the quantitative data collected.

Three components that reflect an employee’s SLP were studied: vitality, work ability and employability. The quantitative results, in general, showed that SLP decreased with ageing. However, in contrast to the hypothesis, the results showed a significant positive relationship between age and energy. Moreover, relationships between an employee’s age and certain aspects of their SLP were moderated by workload. The interviews helped to interpret these results.

The findings demonstrate that some of the older worker stereotypes are unfounded, and the important practical implications of these are discussed.

Earlier research has produced conflicting findings regarding the relationship between age and (aspects of) SLP. By investigating several aspects of SLP in separate regressions within this research, the specific influences of age have become clearer. Furthermore, the research provides fresh insights into the relationship between age and SLP by including moderating effects of workload.

Innovation is one of the most important foundations on which to create and sustain competitive advantages in companies, but at the individual level, employee innovative behavior has recently been jeopardized by the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g. changes in workplaces, employee interaction, motivation). This study analyzes wellness programs and actions through which organizations have tried to adapt to the new situation caused by COVID-19 and their effect on employee innovation behavior.

Structural equation modeling by means of the partial least squares technique was used to test the study's hypotheses after collecting survey data from Spanish companies, providing evidence that wellness programs and measures to deal with COVID-19 through perceived organizational support and affective commitment encourage employee innovation behavior.

The results suggest that efforts developed by firms focused on employee well-being to overcome difficulties caused by the pandemic strengthen innovative behaviors by means of intrinsic motivation based essentially on personal commitment. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed by the paper's authors.

This paper corroborates and extends previous research regarding wellness programs, perceived organization support and affective commitment. It provides a comprehensive model of relationships that predicts employee innovative behavior. It analyzes the influence of enterprise wellness programs based on protective COVID-19 measures.

The competing values model (CVM) describes organizational culture in terms of what appear to be mutually exclusive value dimensions: structural control vs. flexibility, focus on internal vs. external stakeholders, and means vs. ends. The apparent paradox in simultaneously expressing competing values has implications for a variety of organizational phenomena, including leadership, decision making, and strategic management. The CVM thus offers promise for providing a common metric for multi‐level, trans‐organizational, and cross‐cultural analyses. To date, however, underlying assumptions regarding the competing values framework as a characterization of culture have not been fully validated. This research provides a test of the competing values model with methodology that is conceptually consonant with the paradoxical nature of the theory. Using a sample drawn from 10 U.S. organizations, a Qsort and multidimensional scaling analysis produce qualified support for a structure of organizational cultural values consistent with the CVM. Further, this study elaborates the CVM by suggesting a mechanism whereby the apparent paradox of competing values might be more effectively managed.

The purpose of this paper is to provide corporate communication educators and practitioners with historical information about the origins of their field, so that they may have a greater understanding of their own roles in the continuum of communication theory and practice.

Research into secondary and primary literature on the development of the medieval art of letter‐writing, ars dictaminis, frames an analysis of the career and influence of Thomas Sampson, a fourteenth‐century teacher of ars dictaminis and other business subjects. Sampson's textbook, Method of Letter‐writing, is compared to another example of the genre, The Principles of Letter‐writing, written some 250 years earlier by Anonymous of Bologna and published in a widely available current textbook.

Compared to The Principles of Letter‐writing, Sampson's text is direct, concrete, and demonstrates a high degree of audience awareness. Instead of separating theory from practice, Sampson integrates the two, producing engaging model letters that also function as case studies.

While today's rhetoricians do not accord Sampson the kind of respect they do the authors of more theoretical letter‐writing manuals, they concede that Sampson was an influential teacher. This paper concludes that Sampson's impact as an educator is itself worth studying. Copies of Method of Letter‐writing continued to circulate long after Sampson's death, contributing to the origins of corporate communication as we know it.

This research used a sample of titles drawn from the Harvard Business School Core Collection to examine the holdings of libraries of institutions offering the Master of Business Administration degree within the state of Pennsylvania. Of  the  82 books selected from the Core Collection, the average number of books owned by the libraries was 25.3 (30.8 percent). In addition, the results showed that those libraries supporting AACSB accredited MBA programs owned significantly more of the sample of titles (37.06, 45.2 percent) than did libraries supporting non‐AACSB accredited programs (16.9, 20.6 percent).

The purpose of this article is to explore decentralization as a management strategy in university library administration using University Libraries of Calabar, Uyo and Cross River State University as case studies. It examines how effective the different levels of decentralization in a large establishment such as a university library can stabilize the management system and create cohesion, and harmony in spite of problems of communication, coordination and control.

These objectives are achieved through the descriptive survey methodology investigating the implications of a decentralized system of administration in a university library using the instrument of questionnaire.

The finding is that decentralization could make for efficient management in a large establishment such as a university library especially if enhanced by the new technologies.

For further research, this paper suggests investigation into the implications of the assertion that no organization is totally centralized or totally decentralized.

The practical implication of this paper is the fact that there are both centralized and decentralized systems of functions, services and administration in most university libraries. Where a library is totally decentralized, the high executive has no more responsibilities and the library may collapse. Where it is totally centralized, subordinates are alienated and are remote from activities.

Provides the rather paradoxical vision of the internet as a centralized approach towards the enhancement of a decentralized system of administration.