Search results
1 – 10 of 106
This article aims to elaborate the context-sensitive nature of credibility assessment by examining how such judgments are made in online discussion in times of uncertainty caused…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to elaborate the context-sensitive nature of credibility assessment by examining how such judgments are made in online discussion in times of uncertainty caused by Finland's intent to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in spring 2022.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical findings draw on the qualitative content analysis of 3,324 posts submitted to a Finnish online discussion in February–March 2022. It was examined how the participants of online discussion assess the credibility of information sources referred to in debates on the NATO membership. It is assumed that the believability of the author of information is indicative of his or her expert power, for example based on the credentials of a scholar, while the credibility of information content, for example the provision of factual evidence is indicative of the source's informational power.
Findings
Political decision-makers, particularly the President of Finland were assessed as most credible information sources, due to their access to confidential knowledge and long-time experience in politics. The credibility assessments differed more strongly while judging the believability of researchers. On the one hand, their expertise was praised; on the other hand, doubts were presented about their partiality. Fellow participants of online discussion were assessed most negatively because information sources of these types are associated with low expert and informational power.
Research limitations/implications
As the study concentrated on credibility assessments made in a Finnish online discussion group, the findings cannot be extended to concern the credibility judgments occurring information in other contexts.
Originality/value
The study is among the first to characterize the role of expert and informational power in credibility assessment in times of uncertainty.
Details
Keywords
Kathrin Kirchner, Rasmus Jørgensen, Ettore Bolisani and Enrico Scarso
Enterprise social media (ESM) platforms are rapidly diffusing in the business context because they can bring substantial benefits to companies by enhancing their knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
Enterprise social media (ESM) platforms are rapidly diffusing in the business context because they can bring substantial benefits to companies by enhancing their knowledge management (KM) processes. However, such benefits materialize only if active employee participation is ensured. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how individual employees use an ESM platform to assist their knowledge-related activities. This paper contributes to this topic by proposing a classification of ESM users based on two dimensions: frequency and type (active or passive) of use.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents the results of a survey of 262 employees of an international engineering service company that has adopted an ESM platform to support its KM processes. Statistical methods (e.g. ANOVA, Tukey’s b) were applied to verify the usefulness of the proposed typology and identify the main aspects that characterize the different user groups.
Findings
The survey results confirm the existence of different types of ESM users and provide the empirical basis for developing a bi-dimensional classification from which four user groups were derived and characterized: frequent contributors, sporadic contributors, frequent lurkers and sporadic lurkers.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation is that only one company in one sector with specific knowledge needs and capabilities was investigated.
Practical implications
The study provides useful suggestions for how to promote the use of an ESM and particularly for how to encourage less frequent and less active users to increase their participation in a platform.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to a better understanding of how employees approach ESM by identifying factors that characterize different user groups.
Details
Keywords
Helle Kryger Aggerholm and Sophie Esmann Andersen
Drawing on a unique case of a Web 3.0 recruitment campaign, the purpose of this paper is to explore how a Web 3.0 social media recruitment communication strategy influence, add…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on a unique case of a Web 3.0 recruitment campaign, the purpose of this paper is to explore how a Web 3.0 social media recruitment communication strategy influence, add value to and challenge conventional recruitment communication management.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on a reflexive dialogical research approach, which means that it is methodologically designed as a critical dialogue between on the one hand an empirical case and on the other hand theories on social media and strategic communication.
Findings
The study points toward a fundamental new approach to recruitment communication. The application of a Web 3.0 strategy entails what we term an open source recruitment strategy and a redirection of employee focus from work life to private life. These insights point toward ontologically challenging the basic assumptions of employees, work life and the employing organization.
Research limitations/implications
The paper presents a single-case study, which prepares the ground for larger, longitudinal studies. Such studies may apply a more long-term focus on the implications of applying Web 3.0 recruitment strategies and how they may be integrated into – or how they challenge – overall corporate communication strategies.
Practical implications
A turn toward Web 3.0 in recruitment communication affects the degree of interactional complexity and the level of managerial control. Furthermore, the authors argue that the utilization of a Web 3.0 strategy in recruitment communication put forth precarious dilemmas and challenges of controllability, controversy, ownership and power relations, demanding organizations to cautiously entering the social media 3.0 employment market.
Originality/value
This study indicates how the value and potentials of social media as facilitating participatory processes and community conversations can be strategically used in and fundamentally alter recruitment communication, and hence offers new insights into a paradigmatically new way of understanding what strategic social media recruitment is, can and do.
Details
Keywords
James McAlexander, Rachel Nelson and Chris Bates
Entrepreneurship is a source of innovation, job creation, and vibrancy for local and regional economies. As a direct result, there is a profound interest in creating an…
Abstract
Entrepreneurship is a source of innovation, job creation, and vibrancy for local and regional economies. As a direct result, there is a profound interest in creating an infrastructure that effectively encourages entrepreneurship and incubates entrepreneurial endeavors. Western State University has responded to this call by developing the Harvey Entrepreneurship Program, which is integrated in the Enterprise Residential College.The Harvey program provides a socially embedded experiential learning approach to entrepreneurial education. Faculty, students, entrepreneurs, and technical experts are drawn together in an environment that provides space for business incubators and an entrepreneurially focused curriculum. In this article, we present a case study in which we use qualitative research methods to explore the benefits and challenges of creating such a program.The delivery model that Enterprise Residential College provides for entrepreneurial education is examined through the perspectives of program administrators, faculty, and students. The findings reveal evidence that a residential college can form a powerful nexus of formal instruction, experiential learning, socialization, and networking to influence entrepreneurship. We discuss relevant findings that may aid others considering similar endeavors.
Audrey Harroche and Christine Musselin
The French higher education system has experienced reforms since the 2000s that gradually emphasized the executive power of universities and the centralization of decision-making…
Abstract
The French higher education system has experienced reforms since the 2000s that gradually emphasized the executive power of universities and the centralization of decision-making. This culminated with the excellence initiatives (Idex) that concentrated 7.7 billion euros on only nine institutions to create “world-class” universities and made their leaders responsible for the local allocation of this substantial endowment. The universities’ executives had four years to complete changes in governance in order to see their institution permanently awarded the title and the funding of Idex. The hiring process is one of the elements that this policy impacted the most within these universities, enabling leaders to create new kinds of positions and control the hiring process. However, by looking at the hiring practices within three different Idex, we will show that collegiality did not disappear but rather it evolved: in the three cases, the closest colleagues have been marginalized but decision-making remained collective and in the hands of academics chosen by the university executives. Variations in the intensity of this evolution could be observed according to two dimensions. First, the scientific reputation of the university: the higher it is, the less collegiality is transformed. Second, the level of external pressures: the less collegial universities have relaxed their hiring practices after the evaluation that permanently granted them the label of Idex.
Details
Keywords
Heike Pantelmann and Tanja Wälty
Sexual harassment and violence are taboo topics at German universities. Accordingly, there is a large gap in research on the prevalence and functioning of sexual harassment and…
Abstract
Sexual harassment and violence are taboo topics at German universities. Accordingly, there is a large gap in research on the prevalence and functioning of sexual harassment and assault in higher education as well as on social, cultural, and organizational conditions that foster and reproduce gender-based violence at universities. Previous research and our own data suggest that there is a perception among students, faculty and staff that normalizes, trivializes, and even legitimizes the problem. Based on a quantitative survey with students on the prevalence of sexual harassment and violence as well as the results of our analysis of how German universities deal with the issue, we relate this perception to the organizational structures of the higher-education system and discuss historically evolved hierarchies and androcentric structures as well as their reformulation in the wake of neoliberalization as causal for the tabooing and hiding of sexual harassment at German universities.
Details
Keywords
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Originality/value
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.
Details
Keywords
Briony Anderson and Mark A. Wood
This chapter examines the phenomenon of doxxing: the practice of publishing private, proprietary, or personally identifying information on the internet, usually with malicious…
Abstract
This chapter examines the phenomenon of doxxing: the practice of publishing private, proprietary, or personally identifying information on the internet, usually with malicious intent. Undertaking a scoping review of research into doxxing, we develop a typology of this form of technology-facilitated violence (TFV) that expands understandings of doxxing, its forms and its harms, beyond a taciturn discussion of privacy and harassment online. Building on David M. Douglas's typology of doxxing, our typology considers two key dimensions of doxxing: the form of loss experienced by the victim and the perpetrator's motivation(s) for undertaking this form of TFV. Through examining the extant literature on doxxing, we identify seven mutually non-exclusive motivations for this form of TFV: extortion, silencing, retribution, controlling, reputation-building, unintentional, and doxxing in the public interest. We conclude by identifying future areas for interdisciplinary research into doxxing that brings criminology into conversation with the insights of media-focused disciplines.
Details