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Project communication is overwhelmingly viewed as the proper and timely delivery of pertinent project information. The view of communication in this way misses the constitutive nature of communication. Communication is more than message exchange but a way that project managers generate the grounds for a project. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the communicative practices of project managers creates a dialogue with stakeholders that ultimately impacts the content, direction and outcome of a project.

Semi-structured interviews were performed with project managers from the Project Management Office of a large international bank. The project managers were responsible for their own projects of varying size with scopes that included everything from marketing initiatives to heavily oriented technology projects.

Overall, the project managers interviewed for the current project do not subscribe to the belief that communication is part of a constitutive dialogue. Instead, when discussing their overall views of communication, 82 percent of the interviewees took a transmission approach to the action. To that end, they believe that the goal of communication is to send clear, unambiguous and complete information.

Unlike other studies about communication within the field of project management, the current study looks to uncover how communication is part of a constitutive dialogue between a project manager and project stakeholders. The researchers did not look just to understand the micro-level exchanges between project managers and stakeholders but how those exchanges enabled a sustained dialogue that shapes the scope and trajectory of a project.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

This paper aims to model and estimate how celebrity chief executive officers (CEOs) credibility (i.e. expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness) is related to their brand image (i.e. functional, sensory/visual). This paper further examines the effects of consumer materialism on both celebrity CEOs’ credibility and the image of their brand.

A total of 260 participants knowledgeable of CEOs and their corresponding brands completed an online questionnaire in a cross-sectional study. The data were analyzed through covariance-based structural equation modeling.

Celebrity CEOs’ expertise and attractiveness are positively related to both functional and sensory/visual images of their brands. Results also demonstrate the positive effect of materialism on both celebrity CEOs’ credibility and brand image.

The research was conducted in one country (France) using a cross-sectional design. Additional studies in other settings or countries should be carried out to establish the generalizability of results and strengthen causality inferences.

CEOs need to understand and manage their key role as celebrities, given the direct influence they may have on consumer brand perceptions and behavior.

This study refines the relationship between celebrity CEOs’ credibility and brand image. It is the first to introduce and validate the effect of consumer materialism on the perception of celebrity CEOs.

This paper aims to extend the understanding of how global brands can positively influence brand trust by introducing two new mediating variables – brand affect and brand innovativeness, and testing the moderating role of consumer ethnocentrism in these relationships.

In total, 250 participants completed self-administered online questionnaires in a cross-sectional study in France. Moderated mediation and floodlight analysis were performed.

Brand globalness is positively related to brand affect and this, in turn, is positively related to brand trust. The relationship between brand globalness and brand affect is weaker for ethnocentrist consumers. Brand globalness is positively related to brand innovativeness and this, in turn, is positively related to brand trust. The relationship between brand globalness and brand innovativeness is weaker for ethnocentrist consumers.

A limited number of fast-food brands was analyzed. Future studies should replicate the research model using different product categories to generalize the findings.

This study offers new opportunities for managers concerned by the optimization of their global brands management. First, the results demonstrate the interest of managers to increase the emotional and affective aspects of their global brands to make them more trustable. Second, brand managers should also emphasize the innovative aspects of their global brand. Indeed, it is essential for practitioners not only to propose frequently new and innovative products to consumers but also to follow the latest trends in their market. The more managers provide new, useful solutions to fulfill consumers’ needs, the more consumers will trust those global brands.

The mediating role of brand affect and brand innovativeness in the relationship between brand globalness and brand trust gives new insights on an established relationship.

Black feminist scholars describe resistance as Black women’s efforts to push back against ideologies and stereotypes that objectify them as the other. The contested sites are often neighborhoods, schools, the media, corporations, and government agencies. W. E. B. DuBois and Audre Lorde both spoke about a dual consciousness among Black women, and the larger Black population, that included the power of self-definition. This particular study centers the lived experiences of African American women living in Englewood, a neighborhood with high levels of violence in Chicago. Using data from 93 in-depth interviews, this study illustrates Black mothers’ efforts to resist ideologies and stereotypes about their mothering, beauty, socioeconomic status, etc. This study also centers their voices and lived experiences to capture the power they express by engaging in self-definition. Self-definition includes descriptions of themselves, their current situations and the changes they would like to see in their neighborhoods and the larger U.S. society. This chapter ends by discussing the implications of the findings in relation to two programs developed to help these mothers work toward neighborhood change called DREAM (Developing Responses to Poverty through Education And Meaning), and De.SH(ie) (Designing Spaces of Hope (interiors and exteriors)), a collaborative which seeks to remedy the paradoxical existence of spaces of hope and spaces of despair through an innovative approach that melds Architecture, African American Studies, Sociology, and beyond.