Search results

The main aim of this article is to broaden the notion of strategic intent in public relations. It also develops an understanding of the social value of what can be defined as the first modern health communication campaign in Europe based on strategic intents and the development of modernity.

The study is based on both historical research and empirical material from the Norwegian tuberculosis campaign from 1889 up to 1913, when Norwegian women achieved suffrage. The campaign is analysed in the framework of modernity and social theory. The literature on lobbying and social movements is also used to develop a theoretical framework for the notion of strategic intent.

The study shows that strategic intent can be divided into two layers: (1) the implicit strategic intent is the real purpose behind the communication efforts, whereas (2) the explicit intent is found directly in the communication efforts. The explicit intent may be presented as a solution for the good of society at the right political moment, giving an organisation the possibility to mobilise for long-term social changes, in which could be the implicit intent.

The distinction between explicit and implicit strategic intent broadens our understanding on how to make long-term social changes as well as how social and political changes occur in modern societies. The article also gives a historical account of what is here defined as the first modern health communication campaign in Europe and its social value.

The Astroworld concert tragedy is used as an example of crisis (mis)management and the potential utility of the 4R model. Although the 4R model has been implemented in high-risk emergency management situations, it is useful in the PR field because of its actionable approach, creating a way for practitioners to prepare for and manage crisis situations.

This is an analysis of the crisis that occurred at Astroworld, spanning preparation, day-of events, casualties and enduring reputational impact. The paper applies the 4R method to the Astroworld tragedy to show how it could have lessened or even prevented the tragedy. Finally, the SCCT model is used to explain why the official post-crisis statements were ineffective.

Social media has heightened the importance of a quick and effective organizational response to risk and crisis situations because poor responses can go viral quickly. However, social media also provides intelligence and crowd sourced information that can inform PR practitioners of emerging crisis scenarios. It is also an underutilized tool for two-way communication during crises.

The 4R approach is beneficial to general practitioners as it simplifies crisis best-practices, something essential for quick action. As our world changes and becomes less predictable, practitioners must have a clear plan to protect their organizations and the public surrounding them. This approach includes reduction, readiness, response and recovery, which are all essential in crisis communication.

The 4R method has not been explored or applied in the PR field. This paper highlights how the model has been utilized in the emergency management field and illustrates the way 4R can serve the PR field.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting behaviour intention (BI) to use and actual usages of investment-related FinTech services among the zoomers (Gen Z) and millennials (Gen M) retail investors of India.

The study explores the predictive relevance of actual adoption behaviour among the two different age categories of Indian retail investors. It uses the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology-2 and the prospect theory framework as guiding frameworks. Data has been collected from 294 retail investors, actively engaged in the investment-related FinTech services. The multi-group analysis using variance-based partial least square structured equation modelling has been used to compare the two groups. The invariance between the two groups was achieved through measurement invariance assessment.

The study reveals distinct factors significantly affecting BI to use investment-related FinTech services among Gen Z and Gen M retail investors are performance expectancy (PE) to BI, perceived risk (PR) to BI, price value (PV) to BI and PR to service trust (ST).

This study provides insights for financial providers and policymakers, emphasizing different factors influencing BI to use investment-related FinTech services in both age groups. Notably, habit emerges as a common factor influencing the actual usage of investment-related FinTech services across Gen M and Gen Z retail investors in India.

This study explores the heterogeneous behaviour of the heterogenous population in the domain of technological adoption of investment-related FinTech services in India.

The modern corporation is evaluated by many measures that go beyond profit, which was the emphasis for years previously. Today’s corporation is weighed against expectations of many stakeholders, including not just customers but employees, investors, the government and even the public at large with no discernible financial or other tie to a company. As such, corporate boards necessarily must be concerned with more than financial performance, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the increasing emphasis on environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics. Given that public relations scholars and practitioners have long been concerned with stakeholder relationships, social responsibility and other non-financial indicators, it would make sense that public relations has a more obvious presence on corporate boards.

This study examined the 25 companies in the Fortune Modern Board 25 to determine how many board members had a background or expertise in public relations that would contribute to the leadership necessary for the concerns of the modern corporation, and whether the boards had a committee designated to public relations or related functions.

Results show that there are few corporate boards that have public relations represented prominently in either their members or committees. The same is true for executive leadership teams. Public relations or communications executives do appear to play some role in ESG, CSR and DEI reporting, but often there are staff members with those specific titles and roles.

The study was limited to 25 corporations on a Forbes list that ranked them as best in communicating ESG, CSR and DEI. The method examined publicly available literature which was revealing to the research questions, but more could be learned by interview or survey with CCOs.

The study shows the current presence of public relations capacity in terms of members of corporate boards, corporate committees and among the C-suite is not significant. Also, rather than PR as a function owning modern concerns of DEI, ESG and CSR, there are professionals with specific expertise in those areas who are responsible for those corporate issues.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), ESG (environmental, social, governance) and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) have recently been stressed as important for corporations to measure and report. The role of the public relations profession in managing and/or communicating in these areas is important to consider in terms of public expectations and satisfaction of communication on these subjects.

This paper is unique in integrating public relations theory and practice with board theory and the current management concerns with ESG, CSR and DEI. Little if any previous research has considered which professions are in charge of communicating on these concerns.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected service small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), increasing the importance of understanding how these businesses can become more resilient and how service innovation can be an effective strategy to increase their adaptive capacity and survival. This study aims to examine the role of dynamic capabilities in service innovation as a factor explaining the resilience of SMEs in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic during the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on service innovation. Additionally, the authors assess whether service innovation has a significant impact on value cocreation in these businesses.

This study used a quantitative method by surveying 118 SME owners in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The data were analyzed using partial least-squares structural equation modeling.

The results reflect important theoretical contributions by analyzing resilience from an innovation perspective instead of a retrospective approach, which is an area that has not been analyzed in the literature. Additionally, theoretical contributions to marketing services in SMEs are discussed, which is an underresearched topic. The results advance by discussing the role of service innovation through the reconfiguration of resources and how this can be an effective strategy to increase value cocreation with customers during crises.

This study is original in that it analyzes resilience from the perspective of innovation, and not from a retrospective approach. It offers a vision in response to the need for studies that provide a clearer conceptualization of resilience in small businesses. This highlights the importance of considering regional differences and service innovation as effective strategies to enhance resilience and value cocreation with customers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the adoption of Islamic finance products (murabaha, musharakah, mudarabah, salam, ijara, istisna and Qard Hassan) by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Cameroon, a non-Islamic Sub-Saharan African country.

It used primary data collected from a cross-section of 1,358 SMEs in eight regions of Cameroon using self-administered structured questionnaires. To facilitate the analyses and interpretation, these products are grouped into four groups based on certain characteristics. A multivariate probit model is estimated to take into account the interaction between these different Islamic finance products.

This study revealed that the desire to comply with Sharia law, awareness, attitude and intention were critical determinants of the decision to adopt Islamic finance products by Cameroonian SMEs. The least influential factors were perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, enterprise characteristics (size, age and location) and socio-demographic characteristics of the entrepreneur (gender, age and marital status). The extension of the multivariate approach permitted us to compute for predicted probabilities which revealed that there exists a synergy effect between the different Islamic finance products. That is, Cameroonian SMEs combine different Islamic finance products at the same time based on their needs. This is especially the case between the partnership-based products (musharakah and mudarabah) and manufacture/rent products (istisna and ijara).

Policymakers are encouraged to develop stakeholder-oriented strategies to promote effective consumer education in Islamic finance products which will boost awareness. Also, Islamic finance institutions should endeavor to develop innovative financial products that are Sharia-compliant and economically beneficial to the individual and business needs of SMEs. Moreover, policymakers and management of Islamic finance institutions should ensure the putting in place of effective governance structures to guide Islamic finance operations. Finally, policymakers should endeavor to take into account the possible synergy between the different Islamic finance products in their quest to develop this activity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the adoption of different Islamic finance products while taking into account the possible synergy that exists between these products.

The study focuses on drug safety regulation capture, reveals the inner mechanism and evolutionary characteristics of drug safety regulation capture and provides suggestions for effective regulation by pharmacovigilance.

The article introduces prospect theory into the game strategy analysis of drug safety events, constructs a benefit perception matrix based on psychological perception and analyzes the risk selection strategies and constraints on stable outcomes for both drug companies and drug regulatory authorities. Moreover, simulation was used to analyze the choice of results of different parameters on the game strategy.

The results found that the system does not have a stable equilibrium strategy under the role of cognitive psychology. The risk transfer coefficient, penalty cost, risk loss, regulatory benefit, regulatory success probability and risk discount coefficient directly acted in the direction of system evolution toward the system stable strategy. There is a critical effect on the behavioral strategies of drug manufacturers and drug supervisors, which exceeds a certain intensity before the behavioral strategies in repeated games tend to stabilize.

In this article, the authors constructed the perceived benefit matrix through the prospect value function to analyze the behavioral evolution game strategies of drug companies and FDA in the regulatory process, and to evaluate the evolution law of each factor.

This study investigates the impact of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and knowledge management (KM) on firm performance (PERF), as well as the mediating role of KM in the EO–PERF (EO-PERF relationship). In particular, this study aims to explain the impact of KM on the relationship between the EO dimensions and PERF; dimensions are risk-taking (RT), innovativeness (IN) and proactiveness (PR).

This study uses structural equation modelling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) methodologies to explore target relationships. The sample consists of 150 small furniture manufacturers operating in Poland (out of 1,480 in the population).

The study findings show that KM partially mediates the IN–PERF relationship. Furthermore, fsQCA reveals that KM accompanied by IN is a core condition that leads to PERF. Moreover, the absence of KM (accompanied by the absence of RT and IN) leads to the absence of PERF. In addition, the results show that all the variables examined (RT, IN, PR and KM) positively impact PERF.

This study explores the role of KM in the context of EO and its impact on PERF in the low-tech industry. The study uses simultaneously two methodologies that represent different approaches in the search for the expected relationships. The findings reveal that KM mediates the EO-PERF relationship.

This study aims to investigate organizational learning, represented by the absorptive capacity, as a condition for the firm to learn about marketing data and make more informed decisions. The authors also aimed to understand how the behavior of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) businesses differ in this scenario through a multilevel perspective.

Placing absorptive capacity as a mediator of the relationship between business analytics and rational marketing decisions, the authors analyzed data from 224 Brazilian retail companies using structural equation modeling estimated with partial least squares. To test the cross-level moderation effect, the authors also performed a multilevel analysis in RStudio.

The authors found a partial mediation of the absorptive capacity in the relation between business analytics and rational marketing decisions. The authors also discovered that, in the MSMEs firms’ group, even if smaller companies find it more difficult to use data, those that do may reap more benefits than larger ones. This is due to the influence of size in how firms handle information.

The sample size, despite having shown to be consistent and valid, is considered small for a multilevel study. This suggests that our multilevel results should be viewed as suggestive, rather than conclusive, and subjected to further validation.

Rather than solely positioning business analytics as a tool for decision support, the authors’ analysis highlights the importance for firms to develop the absorptive capacity to enable ongoing acquisition, exploration and management of knowledge.

MSMEs are of economic and social importance to most countries, especially developing ones. This research aimed to improve understanding of how this group of firms could transform knowledge into better decisions. The authors also highlight micro and small firms’ difficulties with the use of marketing data so that they can have more effective practices.

The research contributes to the understanding of organizational mechanisms to absorb and learn from the vast amount of current marketing information. Recognizing the relevance of MSMEs, a preliminary multilevel analysis was also conducted to comprehend differences within this group.

This paper aims to provide an elucidative and explanatory overview of decision-making theory that human resource management and development (HR) researchers and practitioners can use to explore the impact of heuristics and biases on organizational decisions, particularly within HR contexts.

This paper draws upon three theoretical resources anchored in decision-making research: the theory of bounded rationality, the heuristics and biases program, and cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST). A selective narrative review approach was adopted to identify, translate, and contextualize research findings that provide immense applicability, connection, and significance to the field and study of HR.

The authors extract key insights from the theoretical resources surveyed and illustrate the linkages between HR and decision-making research, presenting a theoretical framework to guide future research endeavors.

Decades of decision-making research have been distilled into a digestible and accessible framework that offers both theoretical and practical implications.

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that facilitate quick decisions by simplifying complexity and reducing effort needed to solve problems. Heuristic strategies can yield favorable outcomes, especially amid time and information constraints. However, heuristics can also introduce systematic judgment errors known as biases. Biases are pervasive within organizational settings and can lead to disastrous decisions. This paper provides HR scholars and professionals with a balanced, nuanced, and integrative framework to better understand heuristics and biases and explore their organizational impact. To that end, a forward-looking and direction-setting research agenda is presented.