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The purpose of this study is to investigate communication on Twitter during two unpredicted crises (the Manchester bombings and the Munich shooting) and one natural disaster (Hurricane Harvey). The study contributes to understanding the dynamics of convergence behaviour archetypes during crises.

The authors collected Twitter data and analysed approximately 7.5 million relevant cases. The communication was examined using social network analysis techniques and manual content analysis to identify convergence behaviour archetypes (CBAs). The dynamics and development of CBAs over time in crisis communication were also investigated.

The results revealed the dynamics of influential CBAs emerging in specific stages of a crisis situation. The authors derived a conceptual visualisation of convergence behaviour in social media crisis communication and introduced the terms hidden and visible network-layer to further understanding of the complexity of crisis communication.

The results emphasise the importance of well-prepared emergency management agencies and support the following recommendations: (1) continuous and (2) transparent communication during the crisis event as well as (3) informing the public about central information distributors from the start of the crisis are vital.

The study uncovered the dynamics of crisis-affected behaviour on social media during three cases. It provides a novel perspective that broadens our understanding of complex crisis communication on social media and contributes to existing knowledge of the complexity of crisis communication as well as convergence behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the communication behaviour on Twitter during the rise of a preventable corporate crisis. It aims to contribute to situational crisis response strategies, and to broaden the authors’ understanding of legitimacy management. In September 2015, Volkswagen’s (VW) emission scandal became public and caused debates also in social media. By applying complementing tools of data analysis to the Twitter communication around the “Dieselgate” crisis, this study unfolds a field of tension between corporate strategy and public perception.

The authors collected Twitter data and analysed approximately 2.1m tweets relevant to the VW crisis. The authors approached the data by separating the overall communication in peak and quiet phases; analysing the peaks with social network analysis techniques; studying sentiments and the differences in each phase; and specifically examining tweets from VW’s corporate accounts with regard to the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and legitimacy.

VW’s very few tweets were not able to reduce the emotionality and sentiment of the ongoing Twitter discussion. Instead, even during quiet phases, the communication remained rather negative. The analysis suggests that VW followed a strategy not covered by SCCT, i.e. keeping silent.

The discovered strategy of keeping silent extends the SCCT and is linked to legitimacy management. Learnings from this study help decision makers to put social media response strategies into practice to swiftly recover from crises or refrain from certain strategies to avoid further reputational damage.

Examining the underlying communication patterns of a crisis case with societal magnitude such as “Dieselgate” helps sensitising customers and executives to utilise social media channels more comprehensible in future crises.

The study uncovers the unconventional and yet barely addressed crisis response strategy of a global enterprise while devising unique realisations for practitioners and communication researchers. It contributes to existing knowledge about situational crisis response strategies, and broadens the authors’ understanding of legitimacy management in times of social media ubiquity.

Enterprise social networks (ESNs) in organizations have become an increasingly important technology to support the exchange of information and knowledge. Many ESN projects fail due to insufficient engagement in the long run, leading to the high risk of sunk costs. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how hedonic motivations, along with normative motivations, play an important role in determining an employee’s intention to continuously participate in ESN. Based on the Four-Drive Model and hence borrowing from behavioral economics, it is investigated how such hedonic motivations emerge in organizational ESNs.

This study is set within the context of a global enterprise of the logistics and courier industry. The authors first derived hypotheses from the Four-Drive Model to build the research model on the emergence of hedonic motivation. Then, the authors derived hypotheses from existing adoption literature regarding the impact of hedonic motivations and normative motivations on ESN use continuance. Following, a quantitative survey was conducted to test these hypotheses. In the study, structural equation modeling is applied, based on partial least squares.

The results show that the extent to which an ESN supports the drives to comprehend, acquire, bond and defend starkly influences an employee’s hedonic motivations. In addition, it is shown that hedonic motivations have a much stronger influence on use continuance than normative motivations.

Research on hedonic motivations in the work context is still underrepresented, in management science as well as information systems (IS) research. Hence, theoretical approaches to explain and predict the emergence of hedonic motivations in IS usage are missing. With the study, the authors will close this theoretical gap. The study contributes to IS research not only by evaluating the role of hedonic motivation for ESN usage, but also by providing an approach to explain key drivers behind it. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically test the Four-Drive Model in a voluntary IS context, adding valuable knowledge about human behaviors in digital work environments.

This study investigates the communication behavior of public health organizations on Twitter during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Brazil. It contributes to the understanding of the organizational framing of health communication by showcasing several instances of framing devices that borrow from (Brazilian) internet culture. The investigation of this case extends the knowledge by providing a rich description of the organizational framing of health communication to combat misinformation in a politically charged environment.

The authors collected a Twitter dataset of 77,527 tweets and analyzed a purposeful subsample of 536 tweets that contained information provided by Brazilian public health organizations about COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. The data analysis was carried out quantitatively and qualitatively by combining social media analytics techniques and frame analysis.

The analysis showed that Brazilian health organizations used several framing devices that have been identified by previous literature such as hashtags, links, emojis or images. However, the analysis also unearthed hitherto unknown visual framing devices for misinformation prevention and debunking that borrow from internet culture such as “infographics,” “pop culture references” and “internet-native symbolism.”

First, the identification of framing devices relating to internet culture add to our understanding of the so far little addressed framing of misinformation combat messages. The case of Brazilian health organizations provides a novel perspective to knowledge by offering a notion of internet-native symbols (e.g. humor, memes) and popular culture references for misinformation combat, including misinformation prevention. Second, this study introduces a frontier of political contextualization to misinformation research that does not relate to the partisanship of the spreaders but that relates to the political dilemmas of public organizations with a commitment to provide accurate information to citizens.

The findings inform decision-makers and public health organizations about framing devices that are tailored to internet-native audiences and can guide strategies to carry out information campaigns in misinformation-laden social media environments.

The findings of this case study expose the often-overlooked cultural peculiarities of framing information campaigns on social media. The report of this study from a country in the Global South helps to contrast several assumptions and strategies that are prevalent in (health) discourses in Western societies and scholarship.

This study uncovers unconventional and barely addressed framing devices of health organizations operating in Brazil, which provides a novel perspective to the body of research on misinformation. It contributes to existing knowledge about frame analysis and broadens the understanding of frame devices borrowing from internet culture. It is a call for a frontier in misinformation research that deals with internet culture as part of organizational strategies for successful misinformation combat.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel role model-based approach for modelling collaborative business processes. The authors present an architecture for subject-oriented business process modelling relying on the role concept and the demonstration of collaboration patterns expressed by role models.

The authors present a literature review and they identify requirements for collaborative business process modelling. Moreover, roles are introduced as the enabling concept for collaborative business process modelling. The concept of roles offers a dynamic type aspect as a linking element to business process modelling as well as the ability to model collaboration aspects as they are central elements of social software.

The authors propose a role-based approach to use the potential of social media for business process modelling of collaborative processes. The approach helps to overcome traditional business process modelling drawbacks like “model-reality divide” and “lost innovations.”

The proposed approach and derived prototype architecture have not been tested yet and therefore still need to be empirically proved and verified. However, the conceptual work will help other researchers as well as practitioners to further elaborate the model and to develop prototypes.

The paper includes implications for the improvement of business process modelling in team-based and knowledge-centric organizations, which strive for an optimization of collaboration management.

This work is the first to introduce a role model-based approach to overcome traditional drawbacks of business process modelling.

Broadband access plays a major role for economic growth and for social and cultural development of urban and rural areas. A provision of broadband infrastructure and services in these areas is not attractive for private investments because of a low or even negative expected rate on return. The purpose of this paper is to identify different modes of public private partnership (PPP) funding and organizational models of collaborations among public and private partners to establish broadband infrastructures. Decision makers get insights about innovative financial and structural models to bring broadband into rural areas.

Organizational and financial structures of PPP projects will be analyzed by six PPP case studies from the broadband sector in Sweden, Great Britain, and France. This research adopts a data triangulation approach.

A comparative case study analysis about “broadband‐PPPs” from different countries depicts that the organizational and financial funding models differ from project to project. PPPs represent a good alternative to build a broadband infrastructure through mutual collaboration between public and private partners. The examined case studies verify that a PPP is an appropriate instrument to implement broadband infrastructures, especially in case of market failure.

The paper is mainly based on case studies. Thus, the significance of the derived results is limited.

Companies in the sector of telecommunication as well as decision makers learn about different financing models to implement broadband in rural areas and to increase broadband penetration.

This contribution shows that there are relationships among three key factors of PPPs: environmental conditions (risk, social structures, density of population, etc.), organizational model, and funding modes. This knowledge helps researchers and decision makers to measure different scenarios to bring broadband access into rural areas.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Organizations should utilize social media platforms like Twitter to communicate effectively with stakeholders impacted in the wake of a preventable corporate crisis. It is critical to deploy relevant communication strategies in order to repair relations and minimize damage caused to the reputation and legitimacy of the firm.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Treatment satisfaction of different mental disorders is still poorly understood, but of high clinical interest. Inpatients of a general psychiatric care hospital were asked to fill out questionnaires on satisfaction and clinical variables at admission and discharge. On the basis of an exploratory approach, differences in treatment satisfaction among diagnostic groups were examined by means of one-way analysis of variance. Potential associated clinical and socio-demographic variables were studied using multi/univariate tests. Patients with personality disorders (n=18) showed a significantly lower treatment satisfaction (ZUF-8, Zurich Satisfaction Questionnaire) and a slightly lower improvement of symptoms (CGI, Clinical Global Impression) and global functioning (GAF, Global Assessment of Functioning scale) than that of other diagnostic groups (n=95). Satisfaction in patients with personality disorders correlated much stronger with the symptom improvement and slightly with the functioning level than in patients without personality disorders. Interestingly, in patients with personality disorders psychopharmacological treatment in general (present versus not present) was independent from satisfaction. This exploratory investigation suggests that a lower satisfaction of patients with personality disorders in a general psychiatric hospital is mainly based on a reduced improvement of the symptoms and of the global functioning level.