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The purpose of this study is to explore whether public relations professors’ presence on social media and the inclusion of a social media assignment influence students’ perceptions of a course.

The experimental portion of this investigation consisted of a 2 (the presence or absence of a professor’s social media accounts) × 2 (the presence or absence of a social media assignment) factorial design resulting in four conditions.

The presence of a social media assignment positively influences students’ intent to register for a public relations course.

The manipulation of a professor’s social media use and the inclusion of a social media assignment might have been too subtle. A more explicit scenario might elicit more reactions from the participants.

This study discussed key findings and best practices for professors who may want to use social media and the use of social media assignments in the classroom.

This experimental investigation emerged from a distinct need to understand whether university students expect their professors to engage in social media activities.

Listening to and conversing with stakeholders has become a basic requirement for the survival of any organization in a society with insistent demands for transparency and dialogue. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Latin American practitioners are using social media for corporate and networking purposes, and their perceptions about which social media activity is more relevant for organizational stakeholders.

A population of 803 public relations professionals from 18 Latin American countries working on different hierarchical levels, both in communication departments and agencies across the region, were surveyed as part of a larger online survey. For this research, five questions about social media usage have been included in the first edition of the Latin American Communication Monitor (LCM) project.

The study shows that despite the massive incorporation of social media into communication strategies of organizations, Latin American professionals report less intensive use of these collaborative channels than do peers in the Asia-Pacific, but they are in line with colleagues from Europe. Practitioners report a cautious optimism on the success achieved in the social media arena, as well as an insignificant use of these tools for professional networking purposes.

This paper touches only four sections of the LCM 2014/2015. Participant fatigue may have negatively impacted the quality of the data. A large sample of professionals was approached, but a much small number initiated and completed the online survey. This resulted in the lack of representation of some countries in the subcontinent. In the future, greater participation is needed to allow for a more comprehensive comparative analysis.

This research provides a more in-depth look at the current state of public relations practice in Latin America and the use of social media channels to communicate with stakeholders. Even if social media continue to create unprecedented opportunities, social media platforms have not been widely adopted by professionals in the region, probably due to the lack of appropriate structures, cultures and strategies for participative modes of social media communication.

This dearth of knowledge about how PR professionals use social media affects the engagement process, and as a result, the reputation, legitimization, satisfaction with and trust in organizations. Without listening carefully to stakeholder needs, satisfying these needs and establishing a real conversation, organizations will not be able to attain the sought-after engagement that leads to a stable and lasting relation with the public.

Although numerous articles on the situation of public relations in different Latin American countries have been published, this research is first attempt to investigate the use of social media channels in the subcontinent through opinions of a representative sample of professionals.

The purpose of this second part of this special issue is to contribute to a better understanding of the nature of Soviet society. It is not possible to analyse such a society in all its complexities within the space of one study. There are, however, some economic relations which determine society's major features. We believe that commodity‐production relations in the Soviet Union are of this type.

This case study aims to analyse dyadic empirical relations within food supply chains. The categories of market, hierarchy or power, network and social relations were used to disclose the coordinative structures on the chain level and connect these with the chain development.

The actors of three vegetable supply chains were interviewed. The coordinative relations of actors were identified and the coordinative structures on the chain level were made visible by combining the ego networks of chain actors. The “story of supply chain development” was intertwined with the analysis.

The studied food supply chains were coordinated mostly by duplex or multiplex relations, combining market, hierarchy or power, network and social relations. In addition to the strategic network, presented in literature, the study identified a coordinative structural mode of socially overlaid network. In general, the network relation was found to be used as an effective “glue” within all coordinative structures. Both coordinative structural modes exhibited substantial growth, on the condition that agricultural base and buyers enabled enlargement.

Economic sociological perspective has been used in explaining food supply chain development by making visible the coordinative relations and structures on the chain level. The chain level phenomena appear as a promising field of study.

In theorizing the dynamics of social processes, dialectical thinking informs Marx's historical materialist inquiries and both – dialectics and historical materialist principles – inform his political–economic analysis. In conceptualizing empirical observations during this work, Marx (1973b, p. 101) assumes that the “concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse” and that “With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too” (Marx, 1992, p. 28). This methodological tack strives for the flexibility needed for analyzing patterns in long-term social development (the structure of history) as well as the logic of specific systems in their totality and flux (the history of structures).

It is the general purpose of this chapter to introduce assumptions, postulates and hypotheses concerning the social nature of human emotions. I will propose some universal social causes of emotion categories by integrating Kemper’s (1978) power and status dimensions in dyadic relations to universal structures of human groups. These structures, of Self and Other meeting or not meeting expectations and receiving rewards or not, predict specific emotion categories. Power and status dimensions are added to the model and defined in terms of expectation/sanction (E/S) states, and are proposed to be universal as well. Furthermore, changing E/S conditions produce corresponding changes in power/status relations, and changes in emotion categories. These changing social structural conditions cause individual anxieties to emerge. Extending Kemper’s theoretical conceptualizations, gaining or losing power-advantage or status-advantage predicts syndromes of universal anxiety emotions.

France has a long tradition of research on labor and employment issues dating back to the emergence of the “Social Question” in the 1830s. Yet, the field identified as industrial relations (IR) emerged slowly in France and has not achieved the institutional status it did in Anglo-Saxon countries. French universities have no IR departments and there are no academic journals with IR on the title. Teaching takes place within different disciplines and research produces an abundant literature, which does not always claim the IR label.

The concept of “industrial relations”, translated as “relations professionnelles”, started to be used in France only after World War II (WWII). The terms commonly used both before WWII and even nowadays alongside IR are “relations du travail” (labor relations) or “relations sociales” (social relations). Even though “industrial relations” might not always be the label used, a distinctive French IR tradition exists nonetheless which this paper identifies and presents.

The paper starts with the forerunners at the origins of the field of IR in France, high ranking civil servants who played a role not only in the development of French but even of international industrial relations, and represented a “problem-solving” approach to IR. The emergence of IR as a field of research with a self-recognized academic community bent on “science building”, however, mostly followed the evolution of IR practice in France in the post-WWII period, which the paper then analyzes, presenting the IR milieu in France through its research structures, theoretical debates and challenging prospects.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.