Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social Media: Enabling Touchpoints Beyond Advertising, Kapil R. Tuli, Sheetal Bhardwaj

Asian Management Insights

An effective customer service platform and a strategic communication channel.

Champions For Social Good: How Can We Discover Social Sentiment And Attitude-Driven Patterns In Prosocial Communication?, Raghava Rao Mukkamala, Robert J. Kauffman, Helle Zinner Henriksen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) is pursuing a social media strategy to inform people about displaced populations and refugee emergencies. It is actively engaging public figures to increase awareness through its prosocial communications and improve social informedness and support for policy changes in its services. We studied the Twitter communications of UNHCR social media champions and investigated their role as high-profile influencers. In this study, we offer a design science research and data analytics framework and propositions based on the social informedness theory we propose in this paper to assess communication about UNHCR’s mission. Two variables—refugee-emergency and champion …

Cheating Constraint Decisions And Discrimination Against Workers With Lower Financial Standing, Grace J. H. Lim, Marko Pitesa, Abhijeet K. Vadera

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Workers with lower financial standing face many personal challenges due to the relatively lower level of material resources they have at their disposal. We propose that lower financial standing not just impacts workers themselves, but also engenders discrimination from supervisors. Drawing on social cognition principles, we forward a situational inference perspective whereby supervisors make a naïve inference that workers with lower financial standing pose a higher risk of cheating which leads them to subject such workers to more negative treatment and deprive them of opportunities. We focus on two ubiquitous ways in which organizations constrain cheating behavior: worker surveillance and …

Section 377a Repeal: How To Handle Disagreements, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In a commentary, Professor David Chan (SMU Behavioural Sciences Initiative Director and Lee Kong Chian Professor of Psychology) discussed the repeal of Section 377A of the Penal Code and proposed adopting five practical approaches for a more constructive discussion on the emotive issue.

How Do You Demonstrate Enthusiasm In A Job Interview?, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Is there such a thing as being too enthusiastic in a job interview, and how should hiring managers assess candidates on this?

Organizational Factors That Facilitate Collective Social Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Study, Kesarwani Nimisha

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This research aims to contribute to the literature on collective social entrepreneurship (CSE) by exploring and examining the organizational factors that facilitate and motivate participation in CSE. Data were collected through an interview with the founder of a cooperative, and a survey, wherein respondents presented their expectations of a collective, their motivation to join, and the resources they deem important.

It was found that organizational factors, initialled as RRSI (relevance, resources, likelihood of success and innovativeness) which if met, have a reasonable chance of attracting participation in organizations pursuing CSE. These organizational factors had different appeal to stakeholders, based on …

How Do Smes Reap A Roaring Success In The Year Of The Tiger, Siow-Heng Ong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

Solving The Work-From-Home Conundrum, Snehal Shah, Vineeta Dwivedi

Asian Management Insights

Organisations can implement long-term policies that would make working from home a win-win situation for both employers and employees. The prolonged lockdown across countries due to the Covid-19..

Followers’ Reactions To Leader Differentiation, Yuchuan Liu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Leaders generally differentiate their relationships with followers, for example, by providing some with more respect, trust, support, or information than others (Liden & Graen, 1980). However, the effects of such leader differentiation on followers remain inconclusive such that research suggests that leader differentiation may have negative, positive, or null effects on favorable employee work-related outcomes (for a recent review, see Martin et al., 2018). To better understand the effects of leader differentiation, utilizing leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, I considered three inherently connected properties in the leader differentiation process – LMX differentiation, LMX quality and LMX social comparison (Martin et al., …

Emotions In Social Media: An Analysis Of Tweet Responses To Mh370 Search Suspension Announcement, Su Lin Yeo, Augustine Pang, Michelle L. F. Cheong, Tye Shi Jerome Quincy Yeo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Considered one of the deadliest incidents in the history of aviation crises and labelled a “continuing mystery,” the ongoing search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 offers no closure. With endless media attention, and negative reactions of stakeholders to every decision made by the airline, this study investigates the types of emotions found in social media posted by publics to the MH370 search suspension announcement. It content analyzed 5,062 real-time tweet messages guided by the revised integrated crisis mapping model. Our findings indicated that, in addition to the four original emotions posited, there was a fifth emotion because of …

The Value Of Transgender Women In The Philippine Call Centre Industry, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

While call centres provide an otherwise unavailable path to corporate work for trans individuals, they also extract value while conferring social status

Are You Sugarcoating Your Feedback Without Realizing It?, Michael Schaerer, Roderick I. Swaab

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Managers tend to inflate the feedback they give to their direct reports, particularly when giving bad news. And by presenting subpar performance more positively than they should, managers make it impossible for employees to learn, damaging their careers and, often, the company.

Government Intervention In Corporate Crises: An Asian Perspective, Augustine Pang, Paige Pei-Hua Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Governments are expected to intervene in national crises like natural disasters (Rosenthal & Kouzmin, 1997). Less clear are corporate crises. In recent years, there have been several corporate crises in Asia where governments have intervened to restore confidence. The paper seeks to examine the roles and extent of Asian governmental intervention in corporate crises, particularly it examines the impact Asian governments – described as paternalistic (Shin & Sin, 2012) – have on corporate crises. Five high profile Asian corporate crises were analyzed through Winkler’s (1977) Theory of Corporatism. Impact was analyzed through Boin and ’t Hart’s (2010) nine crisis response …

The Indigenization Of Crisis Response Strategies In The Context Of China, Augustine Pang, Yang Hu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Crisis communication, which has been dominated by a practical perspective, has become a nexus where theory meets application. Despite mounting interest in theoretical studies, crisis communication lacks cultural contextualization. Asian communication researchers have advocated for the need to indigenize communication, drawing relevance to cultural influences. In this study, the authors explored indigenous corporate crisis response strategies in the context of China through nine cases. Three Chinese indigenous strategies were identified through qualitative content analysis of corporate crisis responses. These strategies are “barnacle,” “third-party endorsement,” and “setting up new topics.” The differences with Western frameworks were also discussed.

Recharge On The Go For The Busy Bee, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Human interactions can be energising and bring vitality to employees

Determinants Of Employee Turnover Intention: Understanding The Roles Of Organizational Justice, Supervisory Justice, Authoritarian Organizational Culture And Organization-Employee Relationship Quality, Soojin Kim, Lisa Tam, Jeong-Nam Kim, Yunna Rhee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify associations amongst organizational justice, supervisory justice, authoritarian culture, organization-employeerelationship quality and employee turnover intention. Design/methodology/approach: An online survey (n=300) was conducted in South Korea. Findings: Organizational justice and supervisory justice are positively associated with organization-employee relationship quality, while authoritarian organizational culture is negatively associated with it. In addition, there is a positive association between authoritarian organizational culture and turnover intention. Organizational justice and organization-employee relationship quality are negatively associated with turnover intention. Originality/value: This study contributes to the lack of research on organization-employee relationship quality as a predictor of employee turnover …

Is Saying “Sorry” Enough? Examining The Effects Of Apology Typologies By Organization On Consumer Responses, May O. Lwin, Augustine Pang, Jun-Qi Loh, Marilyn Hui-Ying Peh, Sarah Ann Rodriguez, Nur Hanisah Binte Zelani

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Apology has been found to be the most effective strategy in times of crises. However, there is a dearth of research on the kinds of apology used and how primary stakeholders, in particular consumers, received them. This study aims to examine consumer responses to the types of apologies offered post crises against the levels of attribution of responsibility. We also assess the potential mediating role of ethical concerns by developing the Perception-Behavioral Model of Crisis Response. An experiment was conducted to ascertain consumers’ impression of the organization post-apology. The results showed that the attribution of crisis responsibility significantly influences complaining, …

Did Bp Atone For Its Transgressions? Expanding Theory Of “Ethical Apology In Crisis Communication, Audra Diers-Lawson, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Ethical communication during crisis response is often assessed by external perceptions of the organization's intentions, rather than an assessment of the organization's communicative behaviors. This can easily lead researchers to draw editorial conclusions about an organization's ethics in crisis response rather than accurately describing its communicative behaviors. The case of BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico provides a prime example for the importance of accurately assessing the ethical content of an organization's crisis response because the ethics of BP's response have been discussed in news and academic sources; yet little direct examination of the ethical content in …

How China's Firms Use Analysts To Communicate Externally, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Chinese companies face a dilemma. They need to straddle two worlds - there’s the old China where business is still conducted on a “who you know” basis, and the emerging world of financial markets, regulations and transparency, says Professor T.J. Wong, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Accountancy and Director of Centre for Institutions and Governance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School.

Public Relations Practitioners’ Perceptions Of The Use Of Crisis Response Strategies In China, Yang Hu, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study seeks to solicit Chinese PR practitioners’ views on the veracity of identified indigenous crisis response strategies (CRSs) and examine the underpinning socio-contextual factors that contribute to the employment of these strategies. Through 20 interviews, the authors found that political power, cultural backgrounds, media nature, public idiosyncrasies, and companies’ problematic status contributed to the use of indigenous strategies of “Barnacle”, “Third-party endorsement” and “Setting up new topics”.

Can't We All Just Get Along?, Pang, A., Yan Jin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Looking for a conflict management strategy that works? Contingency theory could hold the key.

Investigating The Uniqueness And Usefulness Of Proactive Personality In Organizational Research: A Meta-Analytic Review, Matthias Spitzmuller, Hock-Peng Sin, Michael Howe, Shereen Fatimah

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using meta-analysis (283 effect sizes from 122 studies), we extend prior qualitative and quantitativereviews of research on proactive personality in a number of meaningful ways. First, we examine thediscriminant and incremental validity of proactive personality using meta-analytic regression analyses.Our results reveal that more than 50% of variance in proactive personality is unrelated to the BigFive personality traits collectively. Also, proactive personality accounts for unique variance in overalljob performance, task performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors, even after controllingfor the Big Five personality traits and general mental ability (for overall job performance and taskperformance). Moreover, we find no subgroup differences in proactive …

What Is Public Relations To Society? Toward An Economically Informed Understanding Of Public Relations, Halff, Gregor, Anne Gregory

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The notion of public relations contributing to the fabric of society is heavily contested in the public sphere and under-researched by the academy. The authors of this paper propose that the study of the relevance of public relations to society can be enlightened by turning to economics. Using information asymmetry as a framework, the argument is that public relations can be analyzed as a social institution that both helps to mitigate market imperfections and consequently increases the efficiency with which society's resources are allocated as well as the chances for more market participants to derive value out of economic transactions. …

Crisis Communication In The Age Of Social Media, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Organisations must include the communications department as part of the strategic response to a crisis, and the CEO must display leadership

Does Latitude Hurt While Longitude Kills? Geographical And Temporal Separation In A Large Scale Software Development Project, Patrick Wagstrom, Subhajit Datta

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Distributed software development allows firms to leverage cost advantages and place work near centers of competency. This distribution comes at a cost -- distributed teams face challenges from differing cultures, skill levels, and a lack of shared working hours. In this paper we examine whether and how geographic and temporal separation in a large scale distributed software development influences developer interactions. We mine the work item trackers for a large commercial software project with a globally distributed development team. We examine both the time to respond and the propensity of individuals to respond and find that when taken together, geographic …

Factors Influencing Research Contributions And Researcher Interactions In Software Engineering: An Empirical Study, Subhajit Datta, A. S. M. Sajeev, Santonu Sarkar, Nishant Kumar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Research into software engineering (SE) education is largely concentrated on teaching and learning issues in coursework programs. This paper, in contrast, provides a meta analysis of research publications in software engineering to help with research education in SE. Studying publication patterns in a discipline will assist research students and supervisors gain a deeper understanding of how successful research has occurred in the discipline. We present results from a large scale empirical study covering over three and a half decades of software engineering research publications. We identify how different factors of publishing relate to the number of papers published as well …

Talk Versus Work: Characteristics Of Developer Collaboration On The Jazz Platform, Subhajit Datta, Renuka Sindhgatta, Bikram Sengupta

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

IBM's Jazz initiative offers a state-of-the-art collaborative development environment (CDE) facilitating developer interactions around interdependent units of work. In this paper, we analyze development data across two versions of a major IBM product developed on the Jazz platform, covering in total 19 months of development activity, including 17,000+ work items and 61,000+ comments made by more than 190 developers in 35 locations. By examining the relation between developer talk and work, we find evidence that developers maintain a reasonably high level of connectivity with peer developers with whom they share work dependencies, but the span of a developer's communication goes …

Corporate Image Vacuum: Nature, Characteristics And Implications For The Organization, Noraizah Zainal Abidin, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A good corporate image is important to organizations (Benoit & Pang, 2008). Even then, some organizations do not have one (Bernstein, 1984/1989; Walker, 2010). Arguably the first study to explicate the notion of corporate image vacuum through the development of the Corporate Image Grid Framework, this study examines how an image vacuum is generated and what organizations can do to fill it. The framework offers a systematic way of assessing an organization’s image to heighten practitioners’ awareness of image management of their organizations. Four organizations drawn from Fortune 2011 list of 50 most admired organizations are studied: Singapore Airlines, Google, …

Negotiating Crisis In The New Media Environment: Evolution Of Crises Online, Gaining Legitimacy Offline, Augustine Pang, Nasrath Begam Binte Abul Hassan, Aaron Chee Yang Chong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines how crises originate online, how different new media platforms escalate crises, and how issues become legitimized offline when they transit onto mainstream media. We study five social media crises, which includes United breaks guitars and Southwest Air’s too fat to fly. Crises are triggered online when stakeholders are empowered by new media platforms that allow user-generated content to be posted online without any filtering. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter emerge as top crises breeding grounds due to their large user base and the lack of gatekeeping. Facebook and blogs are responsible for escalating crises beyond the immediate stakeholder …

Twitter: High On Celebrity Gossip, Low On News Discussion, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Twitter is regarded as a highly popular platform for online communications. It was said to have played a role in facilitating – 140 characters at a time – social movements that supported key events such as the Arab Spring. And because Twitter messages (or 'tweets' as they are called) are compact and quickly transmitted, they are widely used to spread and share breaking news, personal updates and spontaneous ideas.