Business and Corporate Communications Commons^™

Crisis Communication And Ethics: The Role Of Public Relations, Yan Jin, Augustine Pang, Joshua Smith

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the veracity of the contingency model of ethical crisis communication by examining the factors of influence in a time of crisis including what constitutes ethics in a time of crisis; the role of public relations (PR) practitioners as the “moral conscience” of an organization and perceptions of the PR’ role within top management. Design/methodology/approach: In-depth interviews were conducted among ten senior PR managers with crisis communication experience in North America. Findings: This research identifies and investigates six ethical variables – the nature of the crisis, the role of top management, the …

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.

Canines For Disabled Kids, Erin Jerrett, Margarita Mnatsakanyan, Colleen Reynolds, Yin Wang

School of Professional Studies

Canines for Disabled Kids have been working on behalf of children and their families to educate communities and promote service dog partnerships for almost twenty years. Their advocacy with local legislatures, business owners, and community leaders highlighted the difficulties encountered when differentiating service dogs from emotional support/comfort dogs. Service dogs are entitled to access by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), while emotional support/comfort dogs are not protected under the federal statute or to the same rights. Canines for Disabled Kids proposed a study to obtain a current count of licensed service dogs in the Commonwealth and investigate the feasibility …

Rebranding Visual Feedback As A Product-Making The Unspeakable Visible, Nicolette Wever

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

PROJECT ABSTRACT

Rebranding Visual Feedback as a Product

Why do visuals work and why do they have such impact on the process of change? Because visuals connect directly with feelings, they have the power to improve the life of others. They have the power to improve and enrich communication. They have the power to handle information overload and they have the power to bridge cultural differences. ‘Images speak louder than words’ because images are connected with emotions in our long term memory. When ten different persons look at one single image, they see ten different things. Like a mirror, the …

Cause-Related Marketing: The Effect Of Checkout Charity Requests On Consumer Donation Behavior, Brian R. Kinard, Minerva Lacal Pardo

Atlantic Marketing Journal

The aim of this research was to understand better consumer reactions to donation requests when making point of purchase decisions. A between-subjects full factorial design manipulated product type (goods/services), consumption experience (frivolous/practical), and product/cause fit (strong/weak). In line with prior research (e.g., Chang, 2008; Savary et al, 2015; Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998), a scenario-based approach was employed to assess responses to the CRM manipulations. A total of 241 subjects participated in the study. Our results mirror extant research evidence on the positive effects of pairing frivolous products with donation requests. In that, positive donation behavior largely results as consumers compensate …

Couples Sleeping Apart--Separate Master Bedrooms And The Impact On The Real Estate And Related Markets, John E. Crawford

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Sleeping is a fundamental individual human need. However, most adults fulfill this need by sleeping with a partner, a behavior particularly true for married couples. A trend of couples choosing to sleep apart has emerged in recent years. For reasons practical and personally beneficial or preferred, a growing number of couples are choosing to have a home with two master bedrooms--one for him and one for her, each furnished according to the needs and tastes of the partners. Thus, some homes are being built with two master bedrooms, others are being modified to have two master bedrooms, and new empty …

Corporate Crisis Advertising: A Framework Examining The Use And Effects Of Corporate Advertising Before And After Crises, Benjamin Ho, Wonsun Shin, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

While corporate advertising has been widely studied as a promotional tool, few studies have examined how it can be used in a corporate crisis situation. In 2013, Kim proposed a conceptual framework for examining stakeholders’ evaluation of pre-crisis corporate advertising, using the inoculation and reactance theory. The framework, published in Journal of Marketing Communications, suggested that pre-crisis advertising can increase audience resistance towards negative news of an organization and decrease audience resistance towards future corporate advertisements from the organization. The present study expands on Kim’s work to develop the corporate crisis advertising (CCA) framework. In addition to the inoculation and …

Marketing Strategy Of School Of Professional Studies In China, Jiahui Liu, Jing Wang, Shuo An, Wengxing Wang, Yiwei Wang

School of Professional Studies

Chinese students are the most visible international presence at many universities across the United States, and the number continues to grow. Since 2010, The number of graduate students studying abroad has entered the period in which the increase has been declining. Under the circumstance of the weak global economy and high cost of education, the administration needs to attract the attention of Chinese students. In the process of competing for applicants, how to develop marketing strategies to attract students’ eyeballs has become an important means of trying to increase school income through Chinese students. The marketing strategy mentioned in this …

Social Network Impact On Corporate Performance And Governance, Jonathan Chew Hoe Khoo

Dissertations and Theses Collection

Motivated by the centrality measures constructed in Larcker, So and Wang (2013), I affirm that board connectedness positively affect firm performance in Singapore, and even if we were to measure firm performance by Tobin's Q. The impact on firm performance persists over at least four years. Controlling for Corporate Governance using a proprietary database, the Singapore Corporate Governance Index, only the Eigenvector centrality under simple-weighted and hyperbolic-weighted projections survives the robustness test, suggesting that firstly, the local proxy of Corporate Governance based on OECD principles possibly controls for what is proxied by the Betweenness, Closeness and Degree centrality measures, and …

Backpedaling Nugget Smugglers: A Facebook And News Article Thematic Analysis Of Chick-Fil-A Vs. Gay Marriage, Stacy M. Wiedmaier

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study utilizes William Benoit’s Image Repair Theory to frame the dominant crisis communication strategies that fast food chain Chick-fil-A (CFA) employed before, during and after their CEO mixed his personal opinion on social issues with corporate policy in June 2012. The thematic analysis draws from three distinct data sets that include 3,900 Facebook comments posted by the general public on CFA’s social media page, 32 individual Atlanta Journal-Constitution news articles that address the debate and CFA’s public response to the crisis titled “Who We Are.” This thesis aims to identify both the dominant themes in Facebook posts and the …

The Retransmission Of Rumor And Rumor Correction Messages On Twitter, Alton Y. K. Chua, Cheng-Ying Tee, Augustine Pang, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article seeks to examine the relationships among source credibility, message plausibility, message type (rumor or rumor correction) and retransmission of tweets in a rumoring situation. From a total of 5,885 tweets related to the rumored death of the founding father of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, 357 original tweets without an “RT” prefix were selected and analyzed using negative binomial regression analysis. The results show that source credibility and message plausibility are correlated with retransmission. Also, rumor correction tweets are retweeted more than rumor tweets. Moreover, message type moderates the relationship between source credibility and retransmission as well as that …

Umass Memorial Healthcare Information System Job Ladder, Matthew Simoncini, Vamsi Kavuru, Antariksh Nanda, Tahaseen Mahaboob Basha, Vikram Patil

School of Professional Studies

The capstone project report emphasizes the importance of a job ladder and the need of an hour to implement it at UMASS Memorial health care. The scope of this project is to create a well-established job ladder at UMASS with pre-defined standards on job levels related to Information Technology department that would facilitate in hiring, developing and promoting employees at various stages.

A Learning Framework For The Ywca Central Massachusetts, Dayna Ankermann, Manjushree Burdekar, Priyanka Joshi, Ying Song, Yumeng Chen, Xing Xie

School of Professional Studies

After meeting with the Director of Wellness and Health Equity at the YWCA Central Massachusetts (which will be referred to as the YWCA from here on out), we learned that as a non-profit gym and health center, it is heavily underfunded. The main focus of the project was to determine how to upkeep the facility while bringing in new customers with limited resources and budget. Due to the needs of the YWCA, our group focused on six aspects: revenue stream, donor retention, increasing membership, customer experience, social media marketing, and membership fee structure. After completing extensive research, we were able …

Human Services Management (Hsm) Certificate Program Expansion To Western Massachusetts Feasibility Study, Paul Campbell, Patrick Deschenes, Maria Pacheco, Bradley Paul, Elizabeth Vittum, Jing Zhang

School of Professional Studies

One of the most popular cost-savings programs that the Providers’ Council currently offers its members is a Certificate in Nonprofit Human Service Management (HSM) provided in partnership with Clark University and Suffolk University. As human services providers are struggling to hire and retain qualified staff, the need to provide professional development opportunities to help grow and expand a skilled health and human services workforce is a critical issue facing nonprofit organizations and communities in Massachusetts. This feasibility study examines the viability of Providers’ Council and Clark University expanding its HSM Certificate Program to organizations and staff located in western Massachusetts. …

Somali National University, Sharmarke Abdulla, Nikala Pieroni, Jenna Caskie, Sergii Odnodvorets, Tanyue Gong, Lahari Dasari

School of Professional Studies

The executive summary presents an overview of the principal conclusions and recommendations for Somali National University Faculty of Education (FoEd) regarding the following concerns: Difficulty with recruiting high quality prospects to the FoEd; Ineffective and counterintuitive use of social media as a tool to improve brand equity, as well as as a tool to attract and communicate with prospective and current students; Unbalanced gender ratio of current student body; Absence of student services and student supports; Low student retention rate; Limited resources for academic advising; This document is the result of a Clark University School of Professional Studies Capstone Project.

The Importance Of Branding In Small Businesses, Amber J. Rabie

Senior Honors Theses

The Land of Milk & Honey Farm exists to provide quality food produced in facilities that practice good stewardship to the Earth. It is a small business devoted to loving, careful stewardship and the production of quality goods. The mission of The Land of Milk & Honey is to combine traditional farming practices with a sustainable and environment-friendly approach to agriculture. It aims to provide customer satisfaction by being respectful and responsible over animals and the earth, and by producing quality products. To reach this objective, the farm intends to educate consumers and provide an alternative source for truly farm-fresh …

What Happens At Camp Does Not Stay At Camp: A Rhetorical Analysis On The American Camp Association's 'Mission And Vision' Page, Abigail W. Fiege

SCOM Undergraduate Research Conference

Research on mission statements as a genre of rhetoric and evaluation of the American Camp Association's mission and vision webpage based on found criteria.

Talking The Talk: The Effect Of Vocalics In An Interview, Marilena Phillips

Honors Projects in Communication

Our voices carry more than just content. People continuously make assumptions of one’s intelligence, credibility, personality, and other characteristics merely based on the way we talk. As the diversity of individuals in the workplace increases, so too do the differences in how those individuals talk. It is important that we understand how these different ways of speaking are being perceived in the workplace. More specifically, how are individuals being perceived prior to being hired via the interview process? This Honors Capstone project aims to understand the impact that vocal characteristics in an individual have on the interviewer’s perception of the …

How To Conduct A Mini-Ethnographic Case Study: A Guide For Novice Researchers, Patricia I. Fusch Ph.D., Gene E. Fusch, Lawrence R. Ness

The Qualitative Report

The authors present how to construct a mini-ethnographic case study design with the benefit of an ethnographic approach bounded within a case study protocol that is more feasible for a student researcher with limited time and finances. The novice researcher should choose a design that enables one to best answer the research question. Secondly, one should choose the design that assists the researcher in reaching data saturation. Finally, the novice researcher must choose the design in which one can complete the study within a reasonable time frame with minimal cost. This is particularly important for student researchers. One can blend …

The Effects Of Time Spent On Rapport Building: A Predictive Analysis Of A Higher Education Call Center, Alyssa L. Crary

Communication Studies

The forming of a relational connection between a caller and prospective donor in telephone fundraising is a vital step in successful engagement of charitable participation. This study aimed to fill a gap in current fundraising research by analyzing the direct connection between time spent building rapport and fundraising success. Data from a higher education call center in the Western United States was used to conduct a standard linear regression analyses. The amount of time spent building rapport was found to significantly influence payment type and amount of a philanthropic donation. A greater amount of time spent building rapport lead to …

Understanding Public Relations In The 'Sharing Economy', Anne Gregory, Gregor Halff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In spite of the macro-economic impact of the so-called ‘sharing economy’ there is a nearly complete dearth of contributions from the communication academy to its discourse. More attention is overdue, particularly for the conceptual pressure the ‘sharing economy’ is exerting on the public relations function. The authors propose a reconceptualization of public relations by identifying the constitutive aspects of the sharing economy and bringing together the explanatory concepts ‘circuits of commerce’ and ‘viable matches’ from economic sociology and communicative constitution of organizations theory to develop the notions of ‘deliberate disintermediation’ and ‘circuits of communication’ in public relations. The contention is …

Nostalgic Selling: The Louisville & Nashville Railroad And Its General Public Relations, Michael J. Landry

Atlantic Marketing Journal

This paper represents a case study of how to use historic events/artifacts in public relations and sales. It recounts how the Louisville & Nashville Railroad participated in the United States Civil War centennial celebrations by restoring a locomotive, the General, that was made famous in a daring raid conducted in that war. Using primary and secondary documents mainly from corporate archives including notes, operations manuals, public relations logs, measurements, corporate publications and oral history, the paper outlines the General’s iconic history, the purposes for its 1960s restoration to operation for the Civil War centennial, and the overarching marketing strategy behind …

Job Shadowing Experiences As A Teaching Tool: A New Twist On A Tried And True Technique, Fred H. Mader, Deanna R. D. Mader, Elizabeth C. Alexander

Atlantic Marketing Journal

This article reports an innovative twist on the use of the job shadowing experience as a means not only to provide real-world exposure for the student, but also as a way to generate real-time data from the professionals to be utilized as a basis for class discussion. Reaction from both students and professionals has been overwhelmingly positive.

Field Trip! Assessing Business Student Interest In Plant Tours And Their Product Categories, Mark Mitchell, Gregory Turner, Robert Montgomery, Mark Hartley

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Business educators are challenged daily to provide fresh ideas in the classroom and to use new methods to stimulate active learning. One option is to use manufacturing plant tours, company museums, and company visitor centers to supplement traditional classroom activities. This manuscript details this growing type of tourism (known as Consumer Experience Tourism) and identifies the product categories of greatest interest to today’s students in Business and Economics. Business educators are encouraged to more fully embrace this under-utilized resource to promote active student learning and to select those destinations of greatest interest to their particular student audiences.

A Perspective On Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices: Message Development, Media Selection, Medication Adherence And Health Literacy, Yvette Lynne Bonaparte

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Health literacy includes not only literacy and numeracy, but areas related to an individual's ability to critically review and process health information in such a way that leads to improved health behavior and outcomes. The level of health literacy attained by a particular target audience is an important consideration for marketers of pharmaceutical products as it impacts both the message and the media selected for product promotion. Additionally, the degree to which health literacy levels impact medication adherence should be a consideration for those that market pharmaceutical products.

Dynamic Pricing In Major League Baseball Tickets: Issues And Challenges, John T. Drea, Andrew Nahlik

Atlantic Marketing Journal

With its origins in the airline industry, dynamic pricing has recently been extended to the area of Major League Baseball tickets in both the primary and secondary markets. The present study examines similarities in the application of dynamic pricing in the airline and MLB industries, as well as the key differences, which include the interactive effects of competitors in the airline industries and the presence of a secondary ticket market for MLB tickets. The “zone of reasonableness” concept used in freight pricing provides a useful framework for understanding the self-imposed upper and lower price limits for MLB primary market ticket …

An Exploratory Comparison Of Private And Hbcu Marketing Student Study Abroad Program (Sap) Participation Intentions, Omar Woodham, George W. Stone, Kathryn Cort, Michael A. Jones

Atlantic Marketing Journal

The current research compares two demographically diverse universities regarding their respective awareness of the study abroad programs (SAPs) offered by their school. The study focuses on each sample’s awareness of SAP opportunities (i.e., as offered by their own institution) as well as each group’s opinion of the level of university administrator effort aimed at promoting the SAP offerings at each school. The authors analyzed whether student perceptions of the level of administrator support affected student expectations regarding SAP participation prior to graduation. Given the different socio-economic characteristics of the two student samples used in the study, the authors provide additional …

Students' Attitudes Towards Textbook Types: Are Students Really Ready For E-Textbooks?, Diane R. Edmondson, Cheryl Ward

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Abstract - This study examines students’ attitudes and preferences to the four primary textbook types currently on the market. These types include hardback, paperback, loose leaf, and E-textbook. Two hundred twenty-three students currently taking Principles of Marketing from a large public university in the southeastern United States completed the survey. Results found that students still prefer paperback textbooks, even when this textbook is at a higher price than other alternatives. When students were asked their opinions on the various textbook options, it was clear that price, ease of use, health concerns, and ownership desires were the primary reasons why they …

What Case Studies Can Teach Us In International Public Relations, Gregor Halff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

Nationalism And International Disputes In China: Implications For Transnational Corporations As Corporate Diplomats, Lisa Tam, Soojin Kim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

For decades, the territorial dispute between China and Japan over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands has caused diplomatic deteriorations in Sino-Japanese relations. When there is extensive media coverage on news about the dispute, nationalist sentiments in both two countries would be triggered and could be expressed through detrimental behaviors towards transnational corporations (hereinafter TNCs). While TNCs play a significant political function as corporate diplomats for their home countries, they are subject to the risk of crises when their home countries are involved in political and economic conflicts with the foreign countries in which they have operations. Against this backdrop, …