Search results

This article examines the context of public relations as a communication activity in today’s business organizations. This is one of the most important communication activities carried out by the organization. Maintaining favorable relations with the community is as essential as maintaining favorable relations with other audiences such as customers, clients and employees. An organization will not be successful unless it can relate favorably to the community in which it is located. As a major audience for organizational communication, the community consists of all people in all walks of life who are affected significantly by the organization and who, in turn, affect it. Public opinion is an emerging force in the world today, and public opinion is shaped by communication. Some of the community audiences with which a company will regularly communicate are employees, shareholders, creditors, consumers, the media, the public, and government agencies.

This research paper explores the type and amount of business communication education given to students in Master of Business Administration (MBA) programmes, and offers insight into the thinking of those who supervise and teach business communication within those programmes. While this particular research study focuses on US MBA schools, it is advocated that this subject and research findings have global relevance. Communication and public relations skills have been recognised as being critical to the success of aspiring managers and business leaders. Prospective managers need to possess not only the skills of communication, but also an appreciation of strategic business communication factors. However, most MBA curricula do not require or recommend communication education for students. This paper compares the findings of two studies: research conducted in 1995–96 (n = 215, 31.5 per cent response rate) replicated a 1991 study (n = 51, 26 per cent response rate). In addition, the paper discusses prior research on the subject and the role and quality of business communication currently found in MBA curricula. It also includes a model communication curriculum for MBA programmes and proposes suggestions for additional research.

Though the work of Mary Parker Follett predates the field of stakeholder theory by almost 60 years, and no reference to her work is found in the stakeholder literature, many of the tenets of stakeholder theory echo Follett’s ideas precisely. More importantly, Follett’s work yields a much richer foundation for stakeholder theory, as well as providing direction for its advancement. The article traces both the similarities and differences between Follett’s work and that of contemporary stakeholder theorists, and shows how Follett’s ideas can be used to enhance our current understanding of the theory and improve its implementation.

This paper attempts to identify the strength of the relation between the quality characteristics of companies that are activating in an economy and their performance.

In the quality characteristics sphere were included almost all the elements related to company's behaviour on a market, in an uncertain environment and in the relations developed with stockholders. And what theory can better shape this relation than grey systems theory, a theory of uncertainty and of continual changes? At first, all of these qualitative characteristics that are reflecting company's activity have been divided into six categories for a better reality reflection. A performance indicator was also depicted by taking into consideration each company's managerial objectives.

By applying grey relational analysis (GRA) in a case of eight Romanian firms, the results were convincing: not only that these characteristics determine firm's evolution, but, by knowing them and acting properly on them, firm's extreme situations (such as insolvency or bankruptcy) can be avoided.

The method exposed in the paper can be used for any company for evaluating the linkage between its main characteristics and the way its performance can evolve.

The paper succeeds in identifying the linkage between the characteristics of a company at a certain point and its performance by using one of the newest developed theories: grey systems theory.

Professional fund raising techniques have been developed relatively recently (in the last fifty years or so in the US and “imported” to the UK in the late 1950s) and give a good range of methods for the development of a base of influence through which a particular end can be achieved. In fund raising consultancy financial influence is all important. Techniques employed thus aim to research and identify potential sources of finance for a project, identify particular individuals with the maximum influence on the application of funds from those sources, develop the involvement of those individuals in the aims of the project so that their influence will be brought to bear on the sources of funds they represent. Clearly this process can be applied equally as well to non‐financial targets as to financial ones; the process in fact provides a well defined methodology for tackling personal communications problems of the kind frequently encountered by public relations agencies, management consultants and lobby consultants. This monograph commences in Part I with a detailed description of the development, theory and practice of fund raising consultancy, including two descriptive case histories. It then discuses in Part II the role of public relations, both in relation to communications theory and to the marketing mix, and concludes with examples from a detailed survey carried out by the author of some of the types of problems currently undertaken by PR agencies which would benefit from the application of communications techniques developed in fund raising.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate executive compensation in the finance sector during the periods surrounding the crisis with a view to determining whether compensation incentives were associated with excessive risk taking.

The authors compare pay-for-performance sensitivity (PFPS) parameters for the finance sector before, during, and after the financial crisis. The authors also employ the technology sector as a comparison benchmark.

The authors find that CEO compensation is strongly associated with the accounting-based return on assets performance measure in the finance sector particularly in the pre-crisis period; the relationship is amplified in larger firms. In contrast, the technology sector exhibits PFPS only for the market-based stockholder return measure with smaller firms displaying greater sensitivity.

From a public policy perspective, it is desirable that PFPS for senior executives in the finance sector is muted. This is due to the risk-shifting incentives specific to the sector whereby profits flow to managers/stockholders while catastrophic losses can be socialized through taxpayer funded bailouts. The findings imply that compensation practices in the finance sector remain a potential concern for systemic stability. In addition to academics and practitioners, the paper may be of interest to financial regulators. In the authors opinion they should consider monitoring PFPS in addition to capital ratios, credit default swap spreads, and other metrics in their risk containment strategies.

This paper introduces the concept of business diplomacy as a way to implement values‐based, ethical leadership. Drawing on the Japanese concept of kyosei, business diplomats take responsibility for themselves and others and treat people with respect and kindness while they simultaneously attempt to be entrepreneurial, add business value, and make a profit. This paper reviews the strategies and tactics of business diplomacy and provides case examples of how to be diplomatic and ethical in difficult situations. The paper concludes with recommendations for how to establish an organizational culture based on business diplomacy.

Rumors to the effect that venture capital died in the early 1970s are untrue. It is true, however, that the decline of stock market values has accelerated the flight of risk dollars to other arenas, such as options and commodities. It is similarly true that the number of Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) and venture capital firms has shrunk from over 800 in 1972 to less than 400 in 1978.

In Britain there has been, during the last five years, an explosive expansion in the number of training officers employed in industry, commerce and business. Because of the Industrial Training Act these men — and women — have had, often without experience, to initiate and maintain action in the training field within their own firms. The tendency has been for them to put a disproportionate effort into the paperwork required by the inaugurating of the new national system through the Industry Training Boards. This was quite inevitable and understandable. The danger is in allowing this situation to continue too long. We need a more balanced view of the training officer's job and his contribution to the firm. This analysis will, in its turn, be reflected in the type of person recruited into the training function. As a means of starting off the continuing dialogue on this issue in this journal the editor thought it would be valuable to get some expert from abroad to comment on the nature of the training officer's job and its place in the company. Accordingly he invited Dr LEONARD NADLER, a well‐known figure in the training world in the United States, to contribute. Dr Nadler is a member of the staff of George Washington University which has a high reputation in the field of training and manpower development.

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has a long history associated with how it impacts on organizations' behavior. In order to understand CSR's impact on organization behavior, therefore, it is necessary to comprehend its progression. Subsequently, the purpose of this paper is to trace the conceptual evolution of CSR.

The paper reviews the literature and adopts a chronological structure organized on a decade‐by‐decade basis. The results demonstrated that CSR research has changed constantly during the last 60 years.

In the 1950s the primary focus was on businesses' responsibilities to society and doing good deeds for society. In the 1960s key events, people and ideas were instrumental in characterizing the social changes ushered in during this decade. In the 1970s business managers applied the traditional management functions when dealing with CSR issues, while, in the 1980s, business and social interest came closer and firms became more responsive to their stakeholders. During the 1990s the idea of CSR became almost universally approved, also CSR was coupled with strategy literature and finally, in the 2000s, CSR became definitively an important strategic issue.

The focus of this work is on researches that have generated much of the original discourse on this issue, since it is difficult to cover all of the existing literature. In addition, this analysis of the conceptual evolution of CSR started with Bowen's, although earlier references can be found.

This paper provides didactical information of the conceptual evolution of CSR, also it advances on the discussion of the progress of CSR throughout time that has caught the attention of several researchers and finally it provides recommendations for further studies.