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Organizational changes are emotionally charged processes, and scholarly research has increasingly emphasized the impact of employee emotions on successful change management. This impact has rarely been considered in light of approaches focussing on employee sensemaking. To address this critical gap, the purpose of this paper is to combine the model of enacted sensemaking with insights from the Affect Infusion Model.

To test the model, the authors surveyed 261 employees with a vignette study and performed structural equation modeling on the results.

The findings reveal that emotions significantly affect employees’ level of psychological resources, particularly change commitment, efficacy, and expectations. Furthermore, change commitment and efficacy are significant predictors of resistance intention, which confirms (to an extent) the validity of enacted sensemaking, and these factors mediate the relationship between employees’ emotions and their resistance intentions.

This study focussed on the early stages of a change initiative. Therefore, the authors only considered employee assessment at one point in time.

This model has managerial utility for explaining how employees’ resistance intention regarding change is influenced by employees’ emotions and their psychological resources.

The results broaden the horizons because they suggest a model of “emotionally primed” enacted sensemaking for employees during organizational change by offering a new theoretical framework (enacted sensemaking and substantive processing) and a new methodological approach (quantitative vignette study).

The involvement of employees in a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR program) is one of the key factors for its success. Hence, it is important to understand employees’ reactions to participatory CSR activities. The purpose of this paper is to examine what kinds of benefits employees perceive from participating in CSR, to identify varying levels of participation and to discuss the reciprocal relationship between the perception of benefits and participation.

Based on semi-structured interviews with employees, the structuring content analysis resulted in a differentiated examination of perceived benefit clusters (classified as functional, emotional and meaning and morality) and in a clustered exploration of varying levels of participation (cognitive and behavioral).

The findings reveal that employees perceived all three clusters of benefits in relation to no/low, passive, active and enthusiastic levels of participation. The data provide insights into the relationship between perceived benefits and varying levels of participation, with a balanced and differentiated perception of benefits seeming to relate to higher levels of participation. However, employees may also benefit without a behavioral form of participation, for instance, from an improved team spirit.

Due to its methodological approach, this empirical study provides a rich picture of employees’ benefits according to varying levels of participation. The paper contributes to current CSR literature by examining self-oriented benefits, through identifying differing levels of participation, and by discussing their reciprocal relation. These findings contribute to research and practice through the implications for promoting sustainability approaches within companies.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical analysis of CSR communication posted on the websites of 70 companies listed on the main stock markets in German-speaking countries, the so-called DACH region. The results of this analysis offer answers to questions that are currently being discussed in the CSR literature, namely, on the importance attributed to stakeholder information vs stakeholder dialogues in (online) CSR communication.

Using a quantitative content analysis, the study examines the extent to which leading German, Austrian and Swiss companies are meeting communication and CSR-related requirements, especially regarding stakeholder dialogue and overall stakeholder involvement.

Drawing on Morsing and Schultz’s (2006) theoretical insights concerning stakeholder engagement, this study shows that current CSR communication primarily provides information for stakeholders and contains only a few elements of consultation with stakeholders. In addition, no elements indicating stakeholder involvement in decision processes were found. Data analysed in 2004, 2007, 2012 and 2016 for the German DAX companies allowed for comparisons over time. A closer examination of these data revealed increasing professionalism in CSR communication, especially in the provision and presentation of information. Regarding information clarity and opportunities for dialogue, however, the results show low progress. The criteria set developed for the study provides guidance for how companies can improve their CSR communication, but the findings on the long-term slow progress in stakeholder involvement, in some aspects even a decrease in dialogue, also raise questions about the (perceived) use of online CSR dialogues for companies.

Communication is viewed from a strategic instrumental perspective. The empirical analysis focusses on the technical possibilities offered by the internet to make CSR communications and reporting available and understandable to stakeholders and to promote dialogue with and among stakeholders.

By focussing on online CSR communication in the DACH region, this study contributes to the current state of research and offers several recommendations for practitioners; it particularly provides critical reflection on online stakeholder dialogues and related paradigms (constitutive vs functionalistic perspective).

Recently, authors have determined varieties in the development of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within Europe. This chapter examines similarities and differences in sustainability and related CSR developments in two contrasting European countries, namely Germany (industrialized society) and Croatia (transitional society). It has been argued that sustainable development is an industrial phenomenon common among Western European countries and the USA, often marked as post-industrial societies, and usually not observed in post-socialist and transitional societies which are confronted with an inner need for economic, political, and overall (re)structuring. Concerning differences within Europe, the concept of sustainable development in general and CSR concepts, in particular, have been described in the literature as less advanced in Eastern European countries than in Western European countries. Taking into account socio-cultural influences on the way CSR is understood and practiced, this study discusses this assumption and also addresses the question whether CSR is differently developed and not implicitly less developed.

As an illustrative example, a small empirical study was conducted to examine whether consumers in Croatia are actually less prepared for CSR, and, on the other hand, whether they just focus on different dimensions of CSR than consumers in Germany. In more detail, it examined differences in participants’ attitudes, social norms, and perceived level of control with regard to sustainable fashion consumption between German and Croatian consumers.

The study’s findings support the assumption of previous studies that consumers’ lack of interest in CSR and knowledge deficits in this regard are likely to be a barrier for CSR development in Croatia. Yet, it also illustrates that the CSR development in Eastern European countries should not automatically be seen as less advanced but in some parts just as different. Findings from the study on differences with regard to the importance of different sustainability dimensions, namely the social and environmental dimension of CSR, support the assumption that the way CSR is understood and practiced differs due to socio-cultural differences.

As the understanding and development of CSR seem to depend on the socio-cultural context, further research is needed to examine which concepts are present in Croatia concerning sustainability and CSR.

The findings provide information on the current status of CSR development and sustainable development in two differently governed nations of the EU, namely Germany and Croatia. Resulting practical implications for CSR strategies of companies and interventions to support CSR development and sustainable consumption patterns in both countries are discussed.

Comparative CSR studies, especially within Europe, are in general rare and in particular, this study is one of a so far very limited number of studies on CSR in Eastern Europe.

This purpose of this paper is to discuss how experiential design can provide a basis for museums’ branding strategies in order to attract visitors, particularly those visitors with a low involvement with museums.

The authors first analyze the experiential motives that museums should consider as relevant in attracting potential visitors. Consequently, the authors examine effects of experiential design on the participants’ behavior and attitudes, which are relevant for achieving branding objectives and institutional objectives of museums. In an experiment, using computer simulations, the authors tested the effects of an experiential vsus a non-experiential museum design on potential, especially low-involved participants.

The results of the experiment show a positive impact of the multidimensional experiential design on low-involved participants concerning branding relevant behavior, such as loyalty and perceived differentiation. There is also a positive influence on institutional goals such as perceiving the museum as role model and a positive change of attitude toward museums in general.

Because of the virtual character of the examined museum the results show only a tendency for potential behavior of real museum visitors. Future studies should test the effects of experience design for a real museum with a distinct brand profile.

The study reveals that once in a museum, potential visitors with a low involvement can be addressed by a museum design that appeals to their experiential motives and which, at the same time, communicates a differentiated brand profile of the museum. Following the visit, this impression can help to overcome barriers in terms of further museum visits and stimulate positive word-of-mouth advertising to other potential visitors.

The results suggest that from a global perspective, experience inducing museums can become role models for other museums, thus altering the image, expectations, and attitude of potential visitors with low-involvement toward museums as social institutions.

For the first time the explicit effects of a strategic experiential museum design on potential visitors are analyzed in terms of relevant branding and institutional objectives of museums.

Trust is an ability that characterises human beings as social creatures. It is becoming a key variable in a society strongly influenced by online communication, and in the important field of PR as well. The present study aims to investigate the possibilities of creating trust in online communication when face‐to‐face interaction, which is usually considered to be a crucial element of communication, is missing. This is an empirical study of the factors that promote or hinder the expectation of trust and the willingness to trust.

The research question is derived from attribution theory and postulates that the assigning of an interlocutor's similarity to or dissimilarity oneself influences the development of trust. Since online communication is a purely verbal exchange, various language styles were experimentally tested to determine whether they would create in the receiver a perception of similarity to or dissimilarity from the sender of the message, so that the receiver would then attribute trustworthiness to the sender.

The study shows that similarity in language code preference creates the perception of personal similarity and influences the attribution of trustworthiness to the interlocutor.

The results are only relevant for the first stage in the process of building trust.

The experimental results are useful in making an innovative contribution to the development of socio‐technical communication strategies in online communication and suggest further scientific research into the determining factors in online communication and their practical implementation

The current study investigates a field that has been relatively unexamined until now. Its originality is in developing a hypothetical approach from attribution theory and in its experimental design.