Professor Ralph Tench

This edited volume makes a unique and timely contribution by exploring in depth the topic of strategic communication and COVID-19 from a global perspective.

Ralph

The COVID-19 situation in Europe has been complex, with some countries hit hard and others less affected. At the time of writing, the UK, Italy and Spain have had, respectively, 152,725; 127,680; and 80,934 COVID-related deaths (Coronavirus [COVID-19] in the UK 2021a, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control 2021). The figures for Norway and Finland were 794 and 974, respectively. Huge regional differences have also been noted in vac- cination uptake. The UK (Coronavirus [COVID-19] in the UK 2021b) and Iceland had covered with one dose 86 and 88% of adults above 18, respectively, while the figure for Bulgaria was 16.3%(European Centre for Disease Preven- tion and Control 2021b). On a whole, several surveys show how citizens have been dissatisfied with the handling of the pandemic (e.g., Eurofound 2021). In many countries trust has plummeted during the period, including trust in insti- tutions and national governments. This chapter addresses this issue. Although the focus is on Europe, we maintain that much of the theorising also applies to other contexts as well.

As organisations seek legitimacy in a fast-moving, interconnected and changing world, how do public relations help them to manage their identity, responsibilities and impact on society? In a more interactive society, organisations need to align their actions with social demands and values. If the main role of public relations is to build trust and influence opinionmakers, media, the public and the political agenda, what are the constraints and limitations at play here, and what is the impact on ethical principles? The published research shows the profession is facing crucial changes: the existence of new organisational structures better aligned with social demands; the emergence of new techniques for interacting with organisations in a more trustworthy manner; and growing pressure by social groups acting both for and against particular social values, ideas and identities.

What are the main ethical challenges for strategic communication and public relations professionals today? How can researchers help in understanding and dealing with these challenges in a complex and interconnected world? This book offers some answers to these questions, based on contributions by researchers from different European countries and other continents. The chapters of the first section focus on general concepts about communication and public relations ethics as well as corporate social responsibility. Three sections then deal with: the specific situation of communication and PR ethics in various European countries; the evolution of ethical skills of communication professionals; and the interaction between communication ethics and the public sphere. The final two sections offer insights on recent research in public relations, like employee communication and engagement, mentoring in public relations and the evolution of media relations and social media communication.

This book has captured international experiences and observations of strategic communication during one of the most impactful health crises of the modern era. The contributors have innovated with scholarship and observations from activities and outputs of strategic communication from diverse regions and countries to provide unique insights into how we, as a global community of citizens, have experienced the COVID pandemic. So, what can be learnt from these critical observations that will inform and guide scholars and practitioners of strategic communication during future health crises?

Besides key trends like fake news, the ECM 2018 survey explores communications’ contributions to organisational success as well as the work environment for communication professionals in Europe. Work engagement and stress, job satisfaction and its drivers as well as the status of leadership in communication units are explored. Moreover, the longitudinal development of strategic issues in the field, and characteristics of excellence are in the focus of the 12th edition. The European Communication Monitor 2018 is based on almost 3,100 communication professionals in 48 countries. Detailed analyses are available for 22 countries and different types of organisations (companies, non-profits, governmental, agencies).

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact globally, affecting economies and societies as a result of the health impacts of the virus itself and also the policy decisions made amidst uncertainty (Smith et al. 2020). Attempts to control the spread of the virus have had to be carefully managed by national governments against negative impacts on economies and public freedoms (Wright et al. 2021). However, the effectiveness of such actions, assessed in terms of infection rates and public opinion, has varied. For instance, consider the variation in disease burden between New Zealand, where disease burden was low and the country was able to achieve COVID-19 elimination ( Jefferies et al. 2020), against that of the United Kingdom, which has been one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19, as measured by infection rates, deaths and lost economic production (Worldometer 2021). Effective and timely communication and leadership are central to the suc- cessful management of the COVID-19 pandemic, playing an important role in the complex relationship between scientific knowledge and individuals’ beliefs and behaviours. In this vein, it could be argued that messaging about the COVID-19 outbreak by national governments could have played, and will continue to play, a critical role in limiting the spread of disease. However, attempts to inform and educate the public about COVID-19, and the effective prevention measures that should be followed, can be impacted by the volume of information available and the prevalence of misinformation, especially online. This is because we live in a world of information overload, whereby informa- tion is shared across multiple platforms, by numerous people and organisations, and there are multiple interpretations of the same information (Bettis-Outland 2012). Therefore, ensuring the information that the public receives is true, complete and accurate is a challenge (Wiesenberg and Tench 2020). It is also relevant to consider other factors that can affect compliance with information, such as trust and confidence in the communicator (Spiegelhalter 2017; Tur- cotte et al. 2015). To assess the UK government’s communication management of the COVID-19 crisis, and the public’s perceptions of this communication and the DOI: 10.4324/9781003184669-15 152 Ralph Tench and Gemma Bridge communications from other platforms and sources, two online surveys were developed. In this chapter, we discuss the results of both surveys. We also discuss implications of the research and highlight how communication professionals could adapt to become more effective communicators when sharing informa- tion related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and future health crises.

This edited volume makes a unique and timely contribution by exploring in depth the topic of strategic communication and COVID-19 from a global perspective. It is widely agreed that effective and timely communication and leadership are crucial to the successful management of any pandemic. With the ongoing and possibly long-lasting impact COVID-19 has had on many aspects of communication and multiple sectors of our societies, it is critical to explore the role of strategic communication in change management during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. This book addresses such a need and is thoroughly grounded in rich empirical evidence gained through a global study of COVID-19 communication experiences and strategies. In the second half of 2020, a transnational team of senior researchers conducted research to investigate COVID-19 communications (COM-COVID-19) in different countries, representing Europe, Africa, Latin America, North America, South America, and Asia. The results presented in this book provide a compelling, current picture of the COVID-19 pandemic and strategic communication globally. Chapters individually explore the national and regional experiences and discuss relevant successes and failures of pandemic communication and specific learning from the 2020–2021 crises. By emphasising the discussion on key communication channels, sources of information, facts and concerns as related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the editors call for actions to develop effective strategies within unique national contexts, which can shed light on global expectations on necessary public health responses and communication. This book is written for scholars, educators and professionals in communication, public relations, strategic communication and corporate communication. It is also appropriate to use this book as a supplementary text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on relevant courses.

Since the United Nations addressed gender equality as the fifth of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), business in general and the PR and communication industry in particular, have promoted discussion on the issue. Special reports (i.e. CIPR, 2017; GWPR, 2019) along with particular networks to enhance women’s leadership have been established and gained traction. Industry reports and the most recent scientific meta-studies (Place & Vardeman-Winter, 2018; Topić et al., 2020) corroborate that gender inequalities and discriminations still persist in the communications field. Annually the European Communication Monitor monitors female practitioners and gender issues in the profession. This year it evaluates how gender equality achievements are perceived. The study also explores the awareness of the glass ceiling and its causes and responsibilities at the individual, organisational and profession level. Gender issues remain a particular concern in an industry where three out of four departments and agencies in Europe employ more women than men, but still only one out of two leaders are women. Over half of practitioners (55.4 per cent) observe an improvement in gender equality in their country, but disagreement arises when it comes to evaluating how much has actually been done to support female practitioners: every second man (50.1 per cent) believes enough has been done, while most women (45.2 per cent) strongly dispute that. The glass ceiling refers to unacknowledged barriers that keep female practitioners from rising in the hierarchy (Dowling, 2017). There are still 32 per cent of European communication practitioners that deny the glass ceiling exists at any level. 42.6 per cent acknowledge the problem at the professional level in their country, but only 22.4 per cent concede its an issue in their own organisation or department. According to previous research, denial occurs in the field (Yeomans, 2019) and is most commonly seen in male practitioners (Zerfass et al., 2014). This study shows that only three out of ten male respondents (29.6 per cent) acknowledge the problem in the profession and only 11.2 per cent accept its observable in their organisation or department. In contrast every third female practitioner (29.4 per cent) believes they have been personally affected. When considering factors that perpetuate the glass ceiling, the results corroborate previous research (Catalyst, 2004; GWPR, 2019; Meng & Neill, 2020; Moreno et al., 2020). The majority identify issues at the organisational level: lack of flexibility to take care of family obligations (61.6 per cent) and intransparent promotion policies (57.9 per cent). Barriers at the macro level of the profession are also identified – a lack of networks and programmes for women (39.2 per cent) and too few inspiring female role models (33.9 per cent). Yet, at the individual level a lack of motivation and competences of female practitioners is identified by a small number of respondents (15.4 per cent), less than two out of ten respondents. Because psychological and cognitive differences are not empirically conclusive, gender differences tend to be explained today in educational, social and cultural factors (Mazei et al., 2015; Tench et al., 2017). Responsibilities for overcoming the glass ceiling are also placed at the organisational level for 65.3 per cent of respondents. Nevertheless, CCOs and agency CEOs tend to attribute shared responsibilities to the professional communities and female employees. Results of this study reinforce that gender prejudices still exist in the profession in Europe. The main factors for the glass ceiling relate to work-life balance conflicts and interventions are needed firstly from organisations and secondly from professional communities.

Die Bedeutung von Qualitätsmanagement und Business Excellence hat für Unternehmen unter intensiveren Wettbewerbs- und unsicheren Umweltbedingungen deutlich zugenommen. Das gilt für die Unternehmenskommunikation in einem besonderen Maße, da Kommunikationsverantwortliche häufig intern um Ressourcen und Einfluss mit anderen Abteilungen ringen und sich extern mit anderen Kommunikationsabteilungen messen müssen. Der Beitrag führt zunächst in die Grundlagen von Business Excellence ein und zeigt anschließend die Entwicklung der Exzellenzdiskussion in der Unternehmenskommunikation auf. Dabei werden praktisch erprobte und wissenschaftlich validierte Exzellenzmodelle für Unternehmenskommunikation vorgestellt und diskutiert.

This paper proposes the theory of integrated gendered work evaluation in public relations (IGWE). It holds that gender inequalities in the workplace are intrinsically linked to work-related evaluations, specifically measured through levels of satisfaction and stress. We theoretically place our proposal in the integrative phase of feminist theory that acknowledges the holistic nature of workers’ lives and their commitment to fulfill not only their worker or employer roles but also their commitments to family and communities. The empirical contribution of this paper builds on past debates from two decades ago: the need for research to isolate factors that perpetuate gender discrimination. It explores factors of gender inequalities and conflicts that can affect the work-related evaluation of those people who make up the majority of the industry’s employees: female public relations professionals. IGWE theory provides a new way of identifying, contextualizing, theorizing and analyzing how gender discriminations affect work evaluations combining both workplace and private life experiences from an integrated gender perspective.

Die Bedeutung von Qualitätsmanagement und Business Excellence hat für Unternehmen unter intensiveren Wettbewerbs- und unsicheren Umweltbedingungen deutlich zugenommen. Das gilt für die Unternehmenskommunikation in einem besonderen Maße, da Kommunikationsverantwortliche häufig intern um Ressourcen und Einfluss mit anderen Abteilungen ringen und sich extern mit anderen Kommunikationsabteilungen messen müssen. Der Beitrag führt zunächst in die Grundlagen von Business Excellence ein und zeigt anschließend die Entwicklung der Exzellenzdiskussion in der Unternehmenskommunikation auf. Dabei werden praktisch erprobte und wissenschaftlich validierte Exzellenzmodelle für Unternehmenskommunikation vorgestellt und diskutiert.

Health communication campaigns have been used to address many of the most prevalent non-communicable disease risk factors, such as physical inactivity. Typically, campaigns are shared via mass media to reach a high proportion of the population and at a low cost per head. However, the mes-sages shared are in direct competition with other campaigns, such as prod-uct marketing, which can result in the campaign not being seen adequately to lead to behaviour change. Moreover, as health campaigns are shared widely, the messages may not be understood or considered appropriate by certain audiences due to their broad nature. This can lead to unintended consequences, such as inadvertent social norming of the risk behaviour. To improve the success of health communication campaigns, they should be based on theory, with the theory of planned behaviour, the elaboration like-lihood model, and the extended parallel process model, three of the most widely used. Such theories highlight the importance of targetting a cam-paign to the audience. Targetting a health communication campaign in-volves considering the audience in the development and dissemination of the message. Campaigns could also be co-developed with the audience in question to ensure relevance. Digital technologies such as machine learn-ing and artificial intelligence can be used to tailor messages to the target audience effectively. Examples of targetted and broad health communica-tion campaigns are presented.

Abstract: One of the core problems of misinformation and post-trust societies is, indeed, trust in communications. The undermining of the credibility of media as the backbone of democratic societies is becoming a serious problem that affects democracy, business and all kinds of public institutions and organizations in society(ies). This paper explores perceptions of trust in key stakeholders involved in communication on behalf of organizations. Findings are considered at the professional (macro), departmental (meso) and individual (micro) level as well as considering the trusted role of nonspecialist communicators for organizations including internal and external spokespeople. Data were collected from an online survey of 2883 respondents from 46 countries across Europe. Key findings were at the macro level that: antagonism between management communication professionals and journalists remains. The lowest trust in the profession is felt to be by the general public. At the meso level, top executives are perceived to trust the department the most followed by journalists in second place. External experts such as professors and consultants are perceived to be the most trusted by the general public. Finally, at the micro level individuals are more trusted than organizations or departments and the communication profession more widely.

Using strategic communication to improve well-being and organizational success Ana Tkalac Verčič, Ralph Tench, Sabine Einwiller. Jelena Stanković, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering and ...

This study develops models capable of finding empirical relations between social factors in practitioners’ private lives, that is to say, extra-organizational or external factors to the work environment that affect the career promotion of female professionals in public relations. The aim is to analyse some gender issues at a global level by exploring the Latin American subcontinent, where there is an accepted lack of knowledge. With that purpose, the focus is on the public relations practitioners’ care responsibilities (such as living with children or dependents) and if these responsibilities influence their opportunities for career development in Latin American countries. Quantitative data from 803 Latin American practitioners representing 18 countries were analysed through predictive multivariable analysis with data mining techniques, using hierarchical decision trees. The applied statistical method is valid to explain some of the extra-organizational factors that affect female career promotion in public relations and can be used for other studies. Results empirically found that family dependency and caring responsibilities affect the career opportunities of women, and that family responsibilities do not affect men’s chances to career promotion. Therefore, the predictive analysis statistically proves that gender can be a determinant factor for career promotion in these circumstances.

Purpose: This synopsis of the European Communication Professional Skills and Innovation (ECOPSI) benchmarking Interim Report explains the complex landscape of competencies required by European communication practitioners and explores the underlying constructs that contribute to competence namely skills, knowledge and personal attributes. Design/methodology/approach: Through a partnership, the methodology draws on the expertise of six leading European universities in communication research around a common goal of mutual interest. The research approach draws on a systematic literature review along with an extensive desk research benchmarking technique conducted by each of the partners. The study builds on prior research on skills and knowledge of communication practitioners. Findings: The findings highlight gaps in knowledge about the specific competencies required by European communication practitioners and will underline the current contemporary issues faced by the profession. This information served as the framework for the ECOPSI program (an EU funded research project). Practical implications: The synopsis increases awareness of the competence and capability factors of communication professionals in Europe to key stakeholders. It aims to increase understanding of the training and development needs of communication practitioners across Europe. Social implications: The synopsis highlights what practitioners consider to be important skills, knowledge and personal attributes across different countries which is essential in today’s globalized industry. This contributes to EU mobility targets and expectations for European workers. Originality/value: This study benchmarks the educational and practice landscape in six key regions of Europe to demonstrate that the elements focusing on skills, knowledge and personal attributes of European communication professionals can be synthesized using competencies as the foundational element.

A key aspect for understanding and explaining online communication is the micro level of communication practitioners’ social media usage and their general attitudes towards digital platforms. This paper investigates how public relations practitioner's personal and professional use of social media is related to their perceptions of social media. A quantitative methodology was applied to perform this research. A population of 2710 professionals from 43 European countries working on different hierarchical levels both in communication departments and agencies across Europe were surveyed as part of a larger transnational online survey. Results show that practitioners with a high level of usage of social media give more importance to social media channels, influence of social media on internal and external stakeholders and relevance of key gatekeepers and stakeholders along with a better self-estimation of competences. Issues about diverse levels of overestimation of social media use, application and importance in the professional arena are also debated.

Communication on health issues often founders on the avoidance or denial of key messages by intended recipients. This paper explores the development and application of a research methodology combining elements of Pierre Bourdieu’s work on the unconscious nature of practice with Gerhard Maletzke’s psychological model of communication. This combination was designed to elicit deeper responses than those often found in health communication research. This alternative methodological approach was used to evaluate a year-long, city-wide anti-obesity campaign in Sheffield, UK, which targeted key gatekeepers in the message chain; their responses generate useful insights into resistance to uncomfortable communication. The paper concludes with suggestions for addressing communication about obesity and potentially other uncomfortable health and social topics.

This paper and its findings suggest there is little organised life-long learning in public relations and communication management in Europe. Consequently senior communication practitioners believe there are major failings in the capabilities related to our profession which if not addressed will serve as significant challenges for European organisations over the next 10 years. Longitudinal research further suggests the role of practitioners is changing and they require many more competencies to be successful in their communication roles (Zerfass et al., 2007- 2013). These are some of the observations and conclusions drawn from and supported by an extensive review of theory and practice emerging from the ECOPSI Programme (European Communication Professional Skills and Innovation), which is the largest European Union funded project of its kind to report into strategic communication until now (Tench et al 2012, 2013a, 2013b). There are on-going gaps and deficiencies in the development of the individuals as well as broad variation in how practitioners identify needs and access appropriate interventions. This presents numerous opportunities for deeper and on-going professional training and development to build consistency and support good practice in moving away from a hands-on, learning on-the-job approach to more focused knowledge acquisition and development. The ECOPSI programme is a two-year research project exploring the competencies required by communication professionals in Europe. This innovative programme is a partnership of six leading European universities in communication research and education located in Germany, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and the UK as well as the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD). The two-year programme is led by Leeds Metropolitan University and is the first and largest to be funded by the European Union. The study provides in-depth insights into the competencies needed for four communication roles through the Communication Role Matrix: internal communication, crisis communication, social media and chief communication officer (CCO). The Communication Role Matrix captures what it is a communication professional does and the requirement necessary to perform the role successfully by identifying the knowledge, skills (hard and soft) and personal attributes for each role (Tench et al 2013a). This paper: (1) analyses the construction and perceptions about the Communication Role Matrix; (2) highlights current contemporary issues faced by the industry; and (3) presents the transference of knowledge from ECOPSI to the professional field through the Portal (for) Advancing Communication Expertise (p4ace) along with a self-diagnostic tool aimed to engage practitioners in continued professional development.

Amo-Mensah, M. and Tench R. (2015) In the Club but out of the game –Evaluation of Ghana Club 100 CSR Communication, Tripodos, 37, pp.13-34.

Excellence in Strategic Communication - Key Issues, Leadership, Gender and Mobile Media

This paper aims to explore and identify the trends and main streams of digitalization and cognitive info-communications in the field of communication management in Europe. The analysis based upon the database of European Communication Monitor (ECM)1 2007-2015 which is the largest study on strategic communication worldwide. The paper focuses on the development of communication channels, online communication and social media, furthermore tends to give an overall picture about the rapidly growing role of social media as a tool among European communication practitioners. This electronic document is a "live" template and already defines the components of your paper [title, text, heads, etc.] in its style sheet. In the frame of our paper we give an overview about the trends and long term features - such as digitalization, info-communication, and social media - on communication management. What we can follow as clear trends during the 2007-2015 periods are as bellow: • development of communication channels/instruments; • coping with the digital evolution and the social web become the most important (strategic) issues for • communication management; • overall trend the interactive communication and online communities, and • emerging interactive channels: social media, networks and online videos. There are phenomena which appear in a particular year and become a constant element of the tools by today, and there are new elements in every year. The importance of printed media is radically reduced, and replaced by online media. With their help will be the stakeholders, the media and the pubic available. Next to the online communication and online media, the forging ahead of social media (social networks, blogs, etc.) is the most important source of changes. The importance of to be present in social media is gradually becoming more and more obvious to companies. Social media means a real dialogue, and it requires substantial resources. As the World Wide Web becomes more and more influential, the global media become the most important tools of the global communication management on reaching the public.

A broad study in 43 European countries shows that 70% of communication professionals encounter at least one crisis a year, mostly institutional, related to the performance of the organization or a crisis in management or leadership. Organizational response and image restoration approaches are mainly based on information, sympathy and defense strategies. Traditional media relations and personal communication are the most important instruments used in crisis communication, while social media is used less often. The variation of crisis types, responses and instruments across European regions and types of organization indicate that economic and cultural aspects play a role in defining a crisis and communicating about it.

We identified a lack of theoretical concepts and empirical knowledge about the perception and usage of social bots from the organizational and communication management perspective. Therefore, we first introduce social bots in the realm of communication and information management by using a profound literature review. Second, by building on mediatization theory and strategic communication, we introduce the concept of deep strategic mediatization. By surveying the attitudes towards and usage of social bots of leading European communication professionals (n = 2,247) from 49 European countries, we thirdly offer first indications how diverse European organizations in different European regions use social bots. Results indicate, that leading communication professionals in Central and Western Europe as well as Scandinavia perceive highly ethical challenges, while in Southern and Eastern Europe professionals are less skeptical regarding the usage of social bots. Only 11.5 percent (n = 257) declare their organization uses or are making plans to use social bots for strategic communication. They are used primarily for identifying and following social networks users. This refers specifically to the usage of digital traces for strategic communication purposes e.g., to identify topic area opinion leaders or social media influencers. However, this represents only a small minority of the sample – leading to the conclusion that only a small minority of organizations already practice deep strategic mediatization.

Public relations agencies are an important part of the public relations industry, but their relations with client organizations are rarely studied. There is more literature and studies in agency-client relations in advertising than in public relations. This paper reviews literature and reports results of an empirical study into perceptions of public relations agencies and their clients on the reasons for their cooperation and sources of conflict between them. Results show that agencies misperceive reasons for which they are hired and the sources of conflict in the relationship. The paper offers several suggestions about how to tackle the problem: notwithstanding rebranding into consultancies and firms, public relations agencies-client relations should be studied as a particular example of a broader family of agency-client relations. Also agencies should study and strategically manage relations with their clients, while being realistic about client organization’s needs – sometimes they just need additional arms and legs.

In this research we investigated whether the perception of the importance of certain types of media, strategic issues, and excellence in the professional field of strategic communication in Europe differs across countries and across generations. Data were used from the 2007 (N = 1087) and 2016 (N = 2710) edition of the European Communication Monitor (ECM), an annual survey among strategic communication professionals in Europe. For the first time a basic two-level multilevel regression model was used to assess country effects and individual predictors (age, gender, education, position, and experience in the field) of media use (of mass media, owned media, social media, and interpersonal communication) and perceptions of the level of excellence of communication of the organisation. Country and generational effects on the perception of strategic issues for the field were analysed using chi-square tests. Results show that in 2016 country effects are significant for the perception of the importance of mass media and social media use, interpersonal communication, and strategic issues for the field. In 2007 no such country effects were found. These results suggest that the influence and the context of the country of residence of the strategic communication professional has increased between 2007 and 2016.

Abstract

Purpose Artificial intelligence (AI) might change the communication profession immensely, but the academic discourse is lacking an investigation of the perspective of practitioners on this. This article addresses this research gap. It offers a literature overview and reports about an empirical study on AI in communications, presenting first insights on how professionals in the field assess the technology. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative cross-national study among 2,689 European communication practitioners investigated four research questions: RQ1 – How much do professionals know about AI and to what extent are they already using AI technologies in their everyday lives? RQ2 – How do professionals rate the impact of AI on communication management? RQ3 – Which challenges do professionals identify for implementing AI in communication management? RQ4 – Which risks do they perceive? Findings Communication professionals revealed a limited understanding of AI and expected the technology to impact the profession as a whole more than the way their organisations or themselves work. Lack of individual competencies and organisations struggling with different levels of competency and unclear responsibilities were identified as key challenges and risks. Research limitations/implications The results highlight the need for communication managers to educate themselves and their teams about the technology and to identify the implementation of AI as a leadership issue. Originality/value The article offers the first cross-national quantitative study on AI in communication management. It presents valuable empirical insights on a trending topic in the discipline, highly relevant for both academics and practitioners.

The 2021 survey explores CommTech and digital infrastructure, video-conferencing for stakeholder communications, future roles for communication professionals, strategic issues, and characteristics of excellent communication departments. The European Communication Monitor 2021 is based on responses from 2,664 communication professionals in 46 countries. Detailed analyses are available for 22 countries and different types of organisations (companies, non-profits, governmental, agencies). Digital transformation is in progress, but few communication departments or agencies have reached maturity – 39% of practitioners across Europe describe their unit as immature in both digitalising stakeholder communications and building digital infrastructure Video-conferencing is here to stay – it is more frequently used for communication with employees and clients than with journalists and less valued by stakeholders in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe Practitioners take on different roles simultaneously in their daily work – a trend to watch is the Advisor role who helps top management make better business decisions Professionals working in excellent communication departments are more engaged in coaching or advising executives and colleagues at all levels of the hierarchy

An organisation’s approach to an online communications strategy must start from the premise that online is not simply a separate channel or entity, but is a fundamental part of how every organisation communicates and interacts. For many organisations online is becoming the primary means of communicating and interacting with stakeholders.

This paper describes a research project that involved an in-depth investigation into freelancing in the public relations industry with data collected from both freelancers and their employers. The analysis of these data highlighted the complexity of issues for those working in and employing people in this sector of public relations practice. The research project produced data on themes relating to freelance practitioners’ status, skills and experience, but this paper aims to focus specifically on trends and issues for the future. The key findings under this theme are that the freelance sector has grown. A majority of clients claim an increased use of freelancers in the last year and this was linked to a “need for flexibility” and “new business development”. Also the majority of freelancers are happy and do not want to change their employment status and some respondents stated “nothing” would make them return to permanent employment. Freelance public relations appears to be meeting a trend since the early 1990s for companies to “downsize” and “outsource” workers and for employees to seek a work/lifestyle balance. Regarding patterns of work almost half of freelancers claimed to be more productive when freelancing with the key factors being that they have “fewer interruptions” and fewer “unnecessary meetings”. Of relevance to national institutes and debates about professionalisation and reputation, it was interesting that the majority of the sample were not members of a professional body. The research and its findings have implications for human resources managers employing public relations staff, public relations managers and directors who commission freelance practitioners and the freelancers themselves.

In an era when all workers are experiencing ever increasing stress levels, it may be anticipated that the move from traditional employment to freelance working would have a positive impact on the degree of occupational stress reported. In a recent UK survey of 190 freelance consultants (women n = 133; men n = 57) in the public relations and communications industry this expectation was indeed found to be supported. Over half of respondents stated that they were definitely less stressed than when they were employed and almost all reported that they were as healthy or healthier. The findings show that the positive benefits of freelance working for PR/communications consultants are significantly greater for women, who not only experience more health benefits than men, but also report significantly more improvements in their personal relationships and are significantly more satisfied with life.

This paper attempts to establish the existence of a professional language genre for public relations by evaluating the history of genre analysis and its application in professional contexts. Bhatia’s work, in 1993, demonstrates professional language genre analysis in similar contexts to public relations writing, which make the mapping of the process both relevant and workable for this discipline. The application of Bhatia’s and Swale’s work, in 1990, on modelling the rhetorical moves behind communicative purposes of a genre has been successfully applied within the paper to the news release genre. The paper therefore proposes a model of professional language genre analysis, which may provide a useful guide to writing effective news releases for practitioners and students working in the fields of public relations and corporate communications.

This paper critiques specific evaluation theories and practices which have been influential in developing a computer-mediated learning environment to support a vocational business discipline and one of its specialist skills (writing). Methodology/Approach: The paper reviews evaluation models and principles firstly for computer-based learning and computer assisted learning (CBL/CAL) and then virtual learning environments (VLEs), which are more contemporary and applicable to the paper’s case study and contemporary higher education environments. Findings: The models have been applied and utilised in the development of the PR Writing learning environment. The reviewed models have been influential in the learning environment’s design, philosophy, systems, structure and content. Practical implications: The customised learning environment has been described in some detail although the purpose of this paper has been to describe the influence of evaluation models on its theoretical design and practical development and not on the evaluation process itself.Originality/Value: The paper is original in that it describes a new learning environment which has been designed specifically for a vocational course.

The European Communication Monitor (ECM) research explores the current developments for communications disciplines, practices and instruments. It is an extensive research project to monitor trends in communication management, analyse the changing framework for the profession driven by European integration and evaluate specific topics of relevance to public relations practice. Specifically, the 2008 ECM edition is focused on aspects such as: strategy and control, interactive channels, corporate social responsibility, intercultural challenges, influence on management decision making, cooperation with agencies, and future budgets. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Is strategic communication becoming an established discipline of practice across Europe? Is it in turn becoming institutionalized? And do we mean establishing a renowned practice at the heart of organizational operation? This article aims to address these questions while paying attention to the negative implications some of the terminology has in the English language. Institution is also the label given to prisons, hospitals and other physical structures that are used in society to organize and control groups of people. The article finds evidence that communication managers are not frustrated “inmates” but rather liberated and respected practitioners who are establishing themselves as permanent and necessary fixtures within the organizational infrastructure. As a consequence these practitioners and departments are becoming entwined parts of the organization and therefore institutionalized. Evidence is presented from data collected from 37 European countries from a sample of over 1,500 communication managers.

The COVID pandemic has emphasised the critical value and importance of communications. Some fundamental principles of effective communication management were anticipated before the COVID-19 crisis started in 2020, but they seem to have been exacerbated and accelerated during the pandemic. Three of these macro themes have been evidenced in the COVID-19 experience. From these big changes in our access to detailed information about COVID-19, our ability to go for a walk, travel or gain access to the more basic services has been dependent on the management and interpretation of this data. The Statement on COVID-19 Communication underlined that more than ever, simply informing the public about the pandemic has been inadequate. The capacity to relay the timely and correct information quickly and clearly on different media platforms is essential to managing a public health emergency in an unbounded media landscape.

In times of global crises, such as those that originated from novel infectious diseases, people lack knowledge to understand how to cope with them. Because of potential life-threatening situations caused by these diseases, people will start seeking information to increase their knowledge on the matter and improve the quality of their decisions. Not all information is equally credible. Why, then, do people gauge some sources of information as more credible than others? Research shows that it all depends on one key factor: trust. Trust is an essential coping mechanism people use when they lack sufficient information or expertise to make an objective decision such as following health recommendations. In health crises, it has been repeatedly shown that trust in the source of risk information highly influences people’s willingness to follow public health rules and guidelines. This chapter seeks to clarify the concept of trust and the mechanisms as well as outcomes it produces. As trust is attributable to relationships at all levels of society, within and among social groups, this chapter structures the discussion of trust focussing on the micro, meso and macro levels and offers some illustrative examples from Europe of its relevance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic that are both translatable and applicable in different geographical contexts as well as forms and types of crisis. This chapter discusses the concept of trust and the mechanisms as well as outcomes it produces. The COVID-19 situation in Europe has been complex, with some countries hit hard and others less affected. At the time of writing, the UK, Italy and Spain have had, respectively, 152,725; 127,680; and 80,934 COVID-related deaths. In health crises, it has been repeatedly shown that trust in the source of risk information highly influences people’s willingness to follow public health rules and guidelines, which are particularly important to control infection spread and mortality. Trust is perhaps one of the most studied concepts in the humanities and social sciences. Typically, trust is built gradually as a result of previous positive experiences with the trustee, or simply through a ‘trust spilling over’ effect; that is, when a person trusts another based on the positive experience with the trustee of individuals from his/her own group.

Juan Meng, Ralph Tench. Strategic. Communication. and. the. Global. Pandemic. This book advances knowledge about strategic communication with an aim to improve the practice of strategic communication in unprecedented times. It stimulates ...

This edited volume makes a unique and timely contribution by exploring in depth the topic of strategic communication and COVID-19 from a global perspective.

The study explores the impact of Digital Communication Technologies (DCT) on internal communication within organizations, focusing on employee acceptance. It introduces the Digital Communication Acceptance Scale (DICAS) to fill the gap in existing technology acceptance models, such as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), which don’t consider factors critical in the context of internal communication. The research was conducted in three phases: item creation and expert review, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results showed a six-factor model—Interaction Facilitation, Apprehension, Effort Expectancy, Performance Expectancy, Facilitating Conditions, and Social Influence—explaining 79.5% of the variance. Reliability of the scale was confirmed with high internal consistency (α = .918). DICAS allows organizations to assess employee attitudes toward DCT, offering practical insights for improving communication strategies and facilitating smoother digital transformations. The scale also addresses privacy concerns, social dynamics, and organizational support, providing a comprehensive framework to guide future research and practice in digital workplace communication.

The role of business increasingly pertains to the definition of its responsibilities towards society. There is growing evidence of new ethical expectations, which may be translated into a new set of contingent social responsibilities that corporations are now asked to fulfil by the various groups of stakeholders (Moreno & Capriotti, 2009). Several researchers have shown the relationship between corporate social commitment and economic performance, the well-known “doing well by doing good” argument (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2004; Wood, 1991). Sustainable economic development poses major challenges for marketing (Peattie, 2001). Companies translate their role in society through new or significantly improved products, services, processes, organizational practices or business models whose implementation in the market solve or alleviate an environmental or social problem. Therefore, the aim of sustainable marketing is furthered by promoting economic growth (Hult, 2011), since it incorporates ethical, environmental and social issues, with a specific sensitivity to the needs of future generations (Lim & Yang, 2016; Lučić, 2020).

How should we approach the challenges created by the increasing professionalization of public relations across Europe? Historical and cultural interpretations are not always sufficient to explain the fast and diverse developments of the public relations profession in our cosmopolitan and digitalized world. This book aims to pinpoint and address the questions faced by researchers and professionals in their efforts to understand and support the changing profession of public relations. The chapters are all contributed by recognized academics and are structured around three topics. Firstly, the book explores current developments in public relations practice in Germany, Portugal, Slovenia, Croatia, Turkey, Serbia and the Czech Republic. The second section discusses the professionalization of public relations together with the new dilemmas, notions, concepts and perspectives that this has generated. The final chapters focus on the usage, effect and institutionalization of new media and new digital public relations tools.

A considerable amount of literature has been published on nation brand and yet not much regarding measurement. The purpose of this paper is to examine nation brand indexes and explore the unbalanced outcomes of a country’s position in these recognized instruments. Although research has been carried out on nation brand, no single study exists comparing a country in four diverse nation brand indexes, which are the reputable ones by Anholt (2007), Fetscherin (2010), Fombrun (2014) and Anholt and Govers (2014). This paper also reflects on the critical studies perspective of the place branding research domain, discussed by Lucarelli and Berg (2011). After a qualitative approach applied to Brazil, it is believed that these indexes mutually support and complement each other - even though they use different approaches, methodologies, samples, and data. Moreover, each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses in terms of accuracy and rationality. Findings from this paper’s evaluation may guide nation brand managers, governments, and researchers to recognize that indexes should be taken into account when analysing a nation brand and its complex image. Therefore, this paper contributes to existing knowledge on the critical studies perspective of the contemporary theoretical structure of the place branding research domain by providing a comparative study based on real data-based rankings of nation brand indexes.

Although there are research focused on the skills, knowledge and characteristics of communication experts, there is no research that combines all of these elements together in a European study. This paper examines: (1) that the socio-economic issues shaped the communications profession in Turkey (2) the disconnect between the competences required by professional associations and those offered by educational institutions in the Netherlands, (3) competencies that need managers and needs of those who work in profession invest in their further education in Germany, (4) that the crisis communication has become the dominant specialty in Spain and what competencies are associated with this role, (5) the professionalisation of public relations in the UK, and (6) that the Government and the public communications sector in Croatia has acquired a reputation for "conspicuous consumption" (conspicuous consumption) and with what consequences for the profession and the challenges for practitioners. The findings are based on the work of European Communication Professionals Skills and Innovation Programme - ECOPSI (ERASMUS 2011 Ref No: 517691-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-ERASMUS-Ecuele).

This book presents a selection of scientific articles dedicated to the analysis of the situation and the evolution of public relations and strategic communication in organisations.

Exploring the implications of 10 years of data from more than 21,000 communication professionals across Europe, combined with case studies and interviews with senior communication directors from top European companies and organisations, this book provides an insight into how to build, develop and lead excellent communication. It presents a culmination of research and best practice models, covering strategic communication, the impact on reputation, crisis, mediatisation, organisational culture, new digital, social and mobile media as well as the development of professionalisation. Providing clear guidance on the difference between normal and excellent communications departments, the book shows readers how communication can effectively influence and support the organisation and positively fit within the business strategy of today's global and changing markets. The study behind this book, the European Communication Monitor, is known as the most comprehensive provider of reliable data in the communication field worldwide.

The past two decades presents a rapid development of country image research. From the literature, several conceptual frameworks are aligned to specific topics, for instance, country-of-origin, country brand models, socioeconomic changes, among others. Specifically, focusing on Brazil’s image research, this paper provides a systematic review of international articles published between 2001 and 2015. Therefore, this paper concludes that there is not enough research about Brazil’s image, providing an exciting opportunity to advance our knowledge about this complex Latin America country relating to other disciplines. Additionally, most studies have examined Brazil’s image from a ‘tourism’ perspective, followed by ‘exports’ mostly using quantitative methods. This demonstrates that researchers could carry out further research regarding potential theoretical and methodological approaches aligned to other disciplines. Furthermore, the outcomes can orientate new research alignments linked to Brazil’s image and the recent crises (e.g., economic, political, social and ethical).

This paper originates from the results of the EU financed project, PROJECTNAME, which advanced understanding about the professional competences of European public relations and communication managers. The paper focuses on deficiencies in competences that practitioners identify for themselves and on the needs for the future generation that will perform four professional roles: chief communication officer (CCO), crisis communication, social media, and internal communication. Questions to understand the roles and their future requirements were defined around: means for achievement of current competences to perform the role, competence gaps, specialized competences, and future needs. They were explored with qualitative methodology through 53 in depth interviews. The analysis of data shows that European professionals understand and evaluate their way of performing the practice through a complex framework of competences. The findings provide evidence of synergies in the understanding and interpretation of the four roles and there is common identification of on-going gaps and future needs, suggesting that public relations is a maturing discipline with an accumulated set of standards in Europe. The study also targets the capacity of intervention for advancing the profession to an approach of knowledge acquisition and supporting the previous academic consensus about the necessity of a body of knowledge and specialized skills for professionalization

Exploring trust in the profession, transparency, artificial intelligence and new content strategies. Results of a survey in 46 countries

LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES ABOUT THE VOLUME EDITORS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PART I INTRODUCTION THE CRITICAL STATE OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN EUROPE: AN  ...

© 2018 This article raises the question of whether European public relations (PR) and communications professionals perceive a cultural transformation in the direction of hypermodernity, and if so, attempts to assess how this influences their organizations and their work. Questions were asked in the European Communication Monitor 2017, an annual survey among communications professionals, and 3387 respondents from 50 European countries filled in the questionnaire. The results indicate that European professionals recognize a cultural transformation in the direction of hyper consumption, hyper modernization and hyper narcissism that influences the communication between their organizations and their stakeholders. A cluster analysis shows that less than half of the respondents perceive a transformation of their organization in the direction of hypermodern characteristics and values. Organizations with post/hypermodern characteristics have superior communications departments compared to modern organizations. Post/hypermodern organizations and excellent communications departments also engage more often in societal debates than other types of organizations and departments.

Drawing on contributions from the 2018 congress of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA), this volume explores and analyses challenges around communication, management and big ideas to present findings ...

The 2022 edition of the world's longest running empirical study on current and future developments in strategic communication, the European Communication Monitor, surveyed communication professionals in 43 countries, producing the following highlights: • Diversity, equality and inclusion are influencing organisational policies and communications worldwide - but only every second communicator in Europe has closely followed global trends and discussions in this area • Most practitioners have experienced empathic traits from communication leaders; this has a significant positive impact on commitment, engagement and mental health • To date, very few communication departments have established an advanced use of CommTech to digitalise internal workflows and communication activities - organisational structures are identified as the main obstacle to rapid transformation • Quality of consulting in communications is difficult to achieve; corresponding standards for both consultants and clients are advocated by three out of four respondents • The study reveals significant differences between countries as well as between companies and non-profits across Europe The full report is available for free at www.communicationmonitor.eu.

This article serves as the introduction article of the special issue, titled Strategic Communication and the Global Pandemic. This special issue of the International Journal of Strategic Communication (IJSC) has one primary purpose–to stimulate serious scholarly research on strategic communication and its management and execution during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 global pandemic. To achieve this purpose, the special issue is organized into three sections covering many dimensions of strategic communication as it relates to the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first section includes research addressing how the messages are developed and constructed through governmental communication, traditional mass media, and social media. The second section focuses on exploring the contingencies that leaders and influencers at various levels need to address in this novel global crisis, as well as the practical, organizational, and societal challenges leaders face. The last section collects research reflecting on how effective public health responses and communication shall be developed. By providing a range of strategic communication scholarship grounded in different academic disciplines and cultural and political contexts, we believe this volume offers an international perspective for scholars and educators to understand the complexity of the topic itself.

The study, run by five leading European universities and sponsored by Ketchum Pleon, the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) and the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD), is conducted annually and is now in its sixth year. It examines the current state of the communications industry in Europe and analyses current trends in communication management and makes suggestions for the development of the industry. The study is based on an international survey of almost 2,200 communication professionals in 42 countries and is widely recognised as the largest study in the field of strategic communication worldwide. The study has shown that mobile applications on the social web are seen as important tools to communication professionals, but there is still a long way to go in implementing these in most European organisations. Ethical challenges are more prevalent than ever in the field, but current codes of ethics are seldom used and rated as outdated by many professionals.

This paper attempts to contextualise the issue of skills and particularly writing for public relations as a business discipline within a broader debate about the key graduate skills. The paper raises themes for discussion on professionalisation and professionalism, which link to course structure and curriculum content. The paper considers writing skills as a key graduate (and public relations vocational) skill, debates surrounding theory and practice within the curriculum and aligning the curriculum to the work setting as proposed by Dearing. The paper analyses literature and reports from three stakeholder perspectives to evaluate their contribution to the skills debate, with particular focus on communication and writing as a core skill within public relations education and practise. The paper focuses on ideological and political issues that influence the skills debate in the post-Dearing era and assesses the impact of stakeholders on the presentation of evidence, argument and recommendations for higher education.

Competence in written communication has been described as a fundamental underpinning of contemporary undergraduate education by both educational advisors and agencies. This article focuses on students’ perceptions of their own writing styles and skills. These opinions have been considered in the context of the desires and expectations of practitioners in public relations for high standards of grammar, variety in copywriting style and a high degree of accuracy in writing. Students’ perceptions of the learning environment for this vocational academic discipline also suggest a receptiveness to the integration of alternative pedagogues in the form of information technology.

The European Communication Monitor (ECM) 2010 showed that digital communication and social media have grown in importance in the media mix of European organizations. Both new media types are positively correlated to the perceived impact of public relations (PR) in the organization. Specifically social networks and online videos are considered the most important social media tools. Also European practitioners expect that the content of communication will become more important as and when the use of social media further increases. The consequence that everyone within the organization is able to spread information is perceived as the most problematic aspect of social media. A potential problem is that only about one third of the European organizations have implemented social media policies with communication consultancies leading the way. Communication consultants consider social media significantly more important than practitioners working in organizations. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.

In order to understand this new economic environment we need first to look at the context and some of the facts. Firstly society has lost a lot of faith with two important institutions, politics and business. There is a lack of trust in both. The UK political scene has been hit by several scandals involving poor ethical behaviour such as false and fraudulent expenses claims by members of the UK parliament. This has created distrust in politicians according to many surveys and polls such as for the BBC which found 80% of voters did not trust politicians to tell the truth (BBC News 24, 18 March 2010). This distrust arguably created political ambiguity and the country and contributed to the first ‘hung parliament’ in the United Kingdom for many years with no overall majority for one party in the 2010 general election. This subsequently resulted in the first coalition government since 1945 between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives (UK General Election, 6 May 2010). In the United States, Barak Obama in an attempt to differentiate himself from the cosy business-Bush presidential era developed a presidential campaign message about ‘restoring trust’. Arguably companies need to do the same as we enter the second decade of the second millennium. According to the 11th annual Edelman Trust Barometer (2010) we have seen trust figures plummet with two-thirds of the study's public trusting companies less than a year ago. Furthermore in the context of organisations' responsibility, just 38% trust business to do what is right, which is down 20% from just the previous year. Perhaps most disturbing of all for corporations only 17% trust the information coming from a company's CEO (chief executive officer). For companies that is a terrifying statistic. In previous eras rolling out the organisational head was a sure fire way of getting media coverage as well as influencing key stakeholders such as institutional investors and also in building and developing credibility. This was achieved because organisational stakeholders when listening to corporate messages heard it ‘from the horse's mouth’, the CEO. Now these individuals are tarnished with the labels of greed, excessive pay and the abuse of managerial power.

The strategic orientation of European communication professionals was one of the focal points of the European Communication Monitor (ECM) 2010, an annual survey among European communication professionals. In the context of the European way of doing business with the typical dialogical stakeholder approach, strategic versus instrumental action and the reflective dimension of communication that has been found in Europe, the strategic orientation of European professionals is assessed. A so-called strategic orientation index was constructed consisting of the professional role enactment of communication managers, the use of inbound strategic activities, the use of strategies and plans and the use of evaluation and controlling tools in the organization. The results show that there is a considerable strategic orientation of communication professionals in Europe. Professionals in Northern and Eastern Europe score highest on the strategic orientation index. Western European professionals score significantly lower than their colleagues in the North and in the East.

Governments around the world have shown poor capabilities in responding effectively to the COVID-19 health emergency outbreaks. After the declaration of COVID-19 as an international pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the 31st of January 2020, three countries experienced the greatest initial impact in Europe. Sequentially Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK) were hit by the highest numbers of contagion and death in the first few months in Europe. The aim of this paper is to assess how information channels and sources influenced the public’s evaluation of the three government’s communication response strategies. An online survey was conducted between March 14 and April 14, 2020, during the first wave of lockdowns and declarations of States of Emergency in the three countries. Findings show particularities for the different countries, but also similarities in response and reactions of the public in the three scenarios. The response strategy of the UK Government was the most untrusted and criticized by citizens. In contrast the Italian and Spanish Governments, which both chose to respond with the severest restrictions, attracted more support from citizens, especially in Italy, which was the first to close borders and impose lockdowns for the population. Despite the national differences in the preference of information channels and sources, overall, an empirical relationship between government communication assessment and media use were found in all the scenarios. This empirical study has theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, findings will add evidence of implications of the Channel Complementary Theory to the field of risk, crisis and emergency communication. The results also provide insights for communication practitioners in the public sector of how forms of information and trust in sources influence the public’s assessment of authorities’ communication. Implications for theory and empirical research about communication during a health pandemic are identified and discussed.

The European Communication Monitor (ECM) is an extensive longitudinal research project to monitor trends in public relations and communication management and analyze the changing framework for the profession in Europe. The 2009 ECM edition identifies the main characteristics of individual practitioners and the organizations where they work. The aim is to monitor the challenges for communication management in the recession and media crisis; the development of the sub disciplines, instruments and strategic issues; and the influence on management decisions. Additionally ECM 2009 evaluates three specific areas: internal communication, research in communication and interactive communication.

Effective and timely communication and leadership are crucial to the successful management of a pandemic. As such, messaging by national governments can play a critical role in limiting the spread of disease. To assess the UK government’s communication management of the COVID-19 crisis, surveys were carried out at two time points. The first survey was delivered during the initial UK national lockdown (March - April 2020), and the second in February 2021, during the UK’s third lockdown. The surveys explored the most used channels for information receipt and searching, the most credible sources of information, the types of messages received and remembered, and the effectiveness of the messages. Findings revealed a synchronous use of multiple media and platforms in line with channel complementarity theory and supporting research that suggests there is an increase in media consumption during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Online sources of information were particularly important, reflecting a growing reliance on the internet. Despite the high consumption of information, respondents reported low trust in media, and considered government communication untrustworthy, unreliable, confusing and a cause of social alarm. The research provides novel insights into where the public receive and search for information, which sources of information are used, which communicators are perceived to be credible, the messages that have been received and remembered, and the overall effectiveness of the UK government’s strategic communication management of the crisis. The research also highlights what the public think could have been done differently. Such findings could be relevant to communicators wanting insights for improvement and more effective future management of communication in similar global health crises. This chapter argues that people in the UK have access to and use many different sources of information about the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on information from online sources and TV. Effective and timely communication and leadership are crucial to the successful management of a pandemic. As such, messaging by national governments can play a critical role in limiting the spread of disease. To assess the UK government’s communication management of the COVID-19 crisis, surveys were carried out at two time points. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact globally, affecting economies and societies as a result of the health impacts of the virus itself and also the policy decisions made amidst uncertainty. Effective and timely communication and leadership are central to the successful management of the COVID-19 pandemic, playing an important role in the complex relationship between scientific knowledge and individuals’ beliefs and behaviours.

This book advances knowledge about strategic communication with an aim to improve the practice of strategic communication in unprecedented times.

Communication plays an important role in the formulation, revision, presentation, execution, implementation, and operationalization of strategies for entities of all kinds. Managing and executing strategic communication in a global and mediatized world is a complex task. To enable practitioners to achieve strategic goals, their skills, knowledge and personal attributes need to be developed into broader competencies that can then act as drivers of success for communication departments. Aspects of strategic communications are changing quickly, such as the move towards engagement across multiple media platforms. As such, there are some competency gaps which need to be considered and addressed to enable practitioners to keep up with and ensure their communications are effective. Other issue areas, such as the need to reduce gender pay gaps, are also important considerations for the field, if it is to succeed in the future.

This study investigates the phenomena of semantic drift through the lenses of language and situated simulation (LASS) and the word frequency effect (WFE) within a timed word association task. Our primary objectives were to determine whether semantic drift can be identified over the short time (25 seconds) of a free word association task (a predicted corollary of LASS), and whether more frequent terms are generated earlier in the process (as expected due to the WFE). Respondents were provided with five cue words (tree, dog, quality, plastic and love), and asked to write as many associations as they could. We hypothesized that terms generated later in the task (fourth time quartile, the last 19–25 seconds) would be semantically more distant (cosine similarity) from the cue word than those generated earlier (first quartile, the first 1–7 seconds), indicating semantic drift. Additionally, we explored the WFE by hypothesizing that earlier generated words would be more frequent and less diverse. Utilizing a dataset matched with GloVe 300B word embeddings, BERT and WordNet synsets, we analysed semantic distances among 1569 unique term pairs for all cue words across time. Our results supported the presence of semantic drift, with significant evidence of within-participant, semantic drift from the first to fourth time (LASS) and frequency (WFE) quartiles. In terms of the WFE, we observed a notable decrease in the diversity of terms generated earlier in the task, while more unique terms (greater diversity and relative uniqueness) were generated in the 4th time quartile, aligning with our hypothesis that more frequently used words dominate early stages of a word association task. We also found that the size of effects varied substantially across cues, suggesting that some cues might invoke stronger and more idiosyncratic situated simulations. Theoretically, our study contributes to the understanding of LASS and the WFE. It suggests that semantic drift might serve as a scalable indicator of the invocation of language versus simulation systems in LASS and might also be used to explore cognition within word association tasks more generally. The findings also add a temporal and relational dimension to the WFE. Practically, our research highlights the utility of word association tasks in understanding semantic drift and the diffusion of word usage over a sub-minute task, arguably the shortest practically feasible timeframe, offering a scalable method to explore group and individual changes in semantic relationships, whether via the targeted diffusion of influence in a marketing campaign, or seeking to understand differences in cognition more generally. Possible practical uses and opportunities for future research are discussed.

One of the repetitive claims of every generation is that society is changing - and more rapidly than ever. We have discussed for many years in communications that technology can be one driver (McLuhan, 1964), but it’s not the only one. Currently in society we are seeing transformations across the sociopolitical landscape which are affecting how, when, with whom and possibly why we engage in communicative dialogue with stakeholders. In this extended session, an expert panel of public relations scholars from around the globe will discuss the central challenges and opportunities facing public relations, leading edge global and cross-cultural research and pose some key questions they see public relations facing. This will provide the starting point for participants to engage in a world café to explore questions and opportunities to stimulate our thinking, engage in research and educate future practitioners back in our home universities.

According to this year’s edition of the European Communication Monitor, the practice of professional communication is currently marked by contradictions and impositions. Shaping the same and consistent image for all stakeholders, a core idea of integrated communications, is nowadays less popular than the concept of polyphony, meaning a simultaneous and sequential stimulation of several perceptions to address different stakeholders. Mobile applications on the social web are seen as important tools, but there are large gaps between their perceived importance and real implementation in most European organisations. Ethical challenges are more prevalent than ever in the field, but current codes of ethics are seldom used and rated as outdated by many professionals. And there is still a large gap between the skills and knowledge which need to be developed and the training offered by employers. What does this mean for communication executives? Based on a deep analysis of the data, we have identified five key insights that might stimulate the ongoing debate about strategies to advance communication’s influence and power in organisations.

Hutton (2001) sees ‘the failure of public relations to define itself and to develop sophisticated and progressive theory’, plus its failure to develop its central tenet or core concept (which he states is managing relationships) as two key issues (of seven) facing public relations. As a result of these failures, it is losing the battle for supremacy with marketing. He comments that “There remains a critical need for public relations to de?ne its intellectual and practical domain… to regain control of its own destiny” (2001:205). Nevertheless, the majority of practitioners require university degrees to produce graduates who can hit the ground running (L’Etang, 1996b). Such practitioners are “scornful of well-educated graduates whose knowledge of strategic implication of the field and underpinning theory … was substantial, but whose practical skills were not fully honed” (L’Etang, 2002). The public relations industry seeks professional status, and the 2003 Department for Trade and Industry/IPR report in the UK makes it clear that Chartered status should be sought. According to most approaches to professionalism, (Pieczka, 2001, Grunig, 2002) ’the body of knowledge’ is key to recognition. L’Etang (2002) states that: “Education is the crucial plank in PR’s quest for professional status. It is education that can provide the cognitive core to the occupation and thus help define the field of jurisdiction.” (L’Etang, 2002:47). Nevertheless recent research (2003/4) shows that there is evidence of resistance to education as a vital element of that project. A survey of public relations practitioners (in-house and consultancy), academics and alumni, conducted by Leeds Metropolitan University with support from the Institute of Public Relations, explored attitudes towards public relations education. Their responses reveal conflicting attitudes towards public relations education as a whole and the skill sets of graduates in particular. The tension between education as vocational training (as expected and/or preferred by many practitioners) and education as intellectual activity and personal development are highlighted in the responses. The key quantitative and qualitative findings show that attitudes of practitioners, educators and alumni show interesting variations, especially in the following areas: • whether dissertations should be part of undergraduate public relations education • the role of theory versus practice in designing a public relations curriculum • the contribution public relations education makes to the field The paper concludes by exploring the parallels in the literature regarding different approaches to public relations education, and comparing the responses of the different stakeholders to these approaches.

Purpose The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is among the most pressing topics in contemporary corporate communication research. However, there are, so far, little empirical studies on how AI is actually implemented and how it is changing professional communication practice. Design/methodology/approach We apply the perspective of sociotechnical systems theory to explore current AI use and application in large corporate communication departments. Through qualitative interviews with a sample (n = 30) of chief communication officers (CCOs) from the 300 largest corporations in Europe, we examine AI implementation at the intersection of tasks, organizational structures, processes and technological properties of AI tools. Findings Findings reveal that the often-touted AI-induced structural shifts in communication departments are, thus far, hardly observable. The most advanced use cases of AI remain strategically limited to experimentation (i.e. “sandboxing”) or non-sensitive tasks. Currently, the primary areas of change involve training and upskilling. Results highlight important dualities in AI implementation: while AI enhances operational efficiency, it also presents challenges related to governance, technology integration and the ongoing need for human engagement in creative and strategic tasks. Originality/value The present study draws on a highly senior sample of communication executives to provide novel insight into the state of AI implementation and use in large corporate communication departments. Keywords:Artificial intelligence, CommTech, Digitalization, Sociotechnical systems, Communication departments, Skills, Tasks, Technology, Roles, Processes, Structures, Semi-structured interviews

Despite the agreement on the importance of transparency in pandemic management, few studies have provided empirical evidence to answer the question of how governmental leadership and management teams can communicate strategically in a transparent manner. Integrating public relations, strategic communication and health communication literature, this study examines the effectiveness of CDC’s transparent communication in shaping individuals’ cynicism, self-efficacy beliefs as well as their cooperation during a pandemic, while taking the moderating role of media exposure and political ideology into consideration. A quantitative online survey was conducted with 502 participants who were living in the United States in early April 2020. Results indicated that effective transparent communication could reduce public cynicism and increase public self-efficacy to fight the pandemic, which subsequently leads to more cooperative precautions. Moreover, the relationship between CDC’s transparent communication practices and perceived cynicism toward the institution was moderated by media exposure (i.e., mass media and social media) and political ideology. The findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of pandemic communication and provide implications for practitioners in pandemic management, suggesting that health institutions should guarantee high transparency levels in their communication to encourage public precautionary cooperation. Despite the agreement on the importance of transparency in pandemic management, few studies have provided empirical evidence to answer the question of how governmental leadership and management teams can communicate strategically in a transparent manner. Integrating public relations, strategic communication and health communication literature, this study examines the effectiveness of CDC’s transparent communication in shaping individuals’ cynicism, self-efficacy beliefs as well as their cooperation during a pandemic, while taking the moderating role of media exposure and political ideology into consideration. A quantitative online survey was conducted with 502 participants who were living in the United States in early April 2020. Results indicated that effective transparent communication could reduce public cynicism and increase public self-efficacy to fight the pandemic, which subsequently leads to more cooperative precautions. Moreover, the relationship between CDC’s transparent communication practices and perceived cynicism toward the institution was moderated by media exposure (i.e., mass media and social media) and political ideology. The findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of pandemic communication and provide implications for practitioners in pandemic management, suggesting that health institutions should guarantee high transparency levels in their communication to encourage public precautionary cooperation. Emergency situations like the COVID-19 pandemic are key drivers of strategic communication. Governments must implement communication strategies for ensuring the well-being of citizens, to enforce social control policies responding to a health emergency. Choosing Italy as case study, this analysis focuses on the press coverage of the government’s strategic communication of such policies, during two different pandemic waves in 2020, evaluating if the press supported or hindered it. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis, we identified which criteria of newsworthiness have influenced news media coverage. In other words, our focus will not be strategic communication per se, but on agenda setting. By understanding the COVID-19-related agenda of newspaper discussions, we will be able to assess whether and how “news values” have influenced the media coverage of the government’s strategic communication, and how this has influenced the perception of citizens. Our results offer a contrasting picture: during the first wave, a sort of “honeymoon” between the institutions and the press emerges. During the second wave instead, the journalistic routines of the Italian media system- partisanship and conflictual narrations- influenced the narration of the pandemic, undermining the effectiveness of the strategic communication of Covid-19 social control policies. With regard to strategic communication, there is a set of additive factors driving the strategic complexity that determines the magnitude of an issue and the path to follow. During the COVID-19 pandemic, different governments worldwide have played a variety of roles and their impact has been conclusive. In Latin America, current political and ideological antagonism has configured a diversity of contexts and scenarios that have conditioned public communication management, setting out from the assumption that they have variously weighted the different driving factors of the strategic complexity. Within the framework of the EUPRERA COM-COVID network, we present the cases of strategic communication management of the national governments of Brazil and Argentina during the second half of 2020 and their impact on the population from the sanitary, social and economic levels. Of 1,332 demographically weighted cases, we analyze the information channels, credible sources, types of messages and their effectiveness comparatively. The most relevant conclusion lies in confirming that the strategic factor model in the public sector is conditioned by the ideological profile of who governs and this determines the decisions and effectiveness of the management.

Over the past decade, the professional field of strategic communication and public relations (PR) has witnessed significant international growth. The practice of strategic communication varies substantially across different regions due to diverse political, media, and socio-cultural contexts worldwide. For example, Asian professionals apply different norms and practices in fostering relationships with stakeholders than their colleagues from the US or Europe, influenced by the ancient philosophy of Confucius.

This research purposes to examine the role of strategic communication, specifically the effectiveness of government’s crisis communication messages at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, on disease preventive behaviors. It employed a mixed method research approach by first carrying out a content analysis of 7128 news headlines on COVID-19 to confirm our presupposition that the media may be communicating messages that the world order is being threatened. Informed by our findings that 90% of news reports were framed to suggest a dangerous world, we surveyed 453 respondents in the main study, and tested if people’s beliefs in a dangerous world (BDW) were linked to their disease preventive behaviors (DPB), and whether such a link was modulated by how effective they perceived the government’s pandemic communication. As predicted, results revealed that the perceived effectiveness of the government’s pandemic communication trumped the effects of beliefs in a dangerous world such that the link between BDW and DPB was significant only when the perceived effectiveness was low. Further analysis of the effects of specific communication dimensions on disease preventive behaviors suggests that public health communication needs to be strategically calibrated to offer personally relevant messages that are informative and objective. (199 words) This research purposes to examine the role of strategic communication, specifically the effectiveness of government’s crisis communication messages at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, on disease preventive behaviors. It employed a mixed method research approach by first carrying out a content analysis of 7128 news headlines on COVID-19 to confirm our presupposition that the media may be communicating messages that the world order is being threatened. Informed by our findings that 90% of news reports were framed to suggest a dangerous world, we surveyed 453 respondents in the main study, and tested if people’s beliefs in a dangerous world (BDW) were linked to their disease preventive behaviors (DPB), and whether such a link was modulated by how effective they perceived the government’s pandemic communication. As predicted, results revealed that the perceived effectiveness of the government’s pandemic communication trumped the effects of beliefs in a dangerous world such that the link between BDW and DPB was significant only when the perceived effectiveness was low. Further analysis of the effects of specific communication dimensions on disease preventive behaviors suggests that public health communication needs to be strategically calibrated to offer personally relevant messages that are informative and objective. (199 words) During the COVID-19 pandemic, communication with the public has been a central concern for state actors. One important question has been how to best use social media to ensure the sufficient uptake of their advice and recommendations to the public. With regard to such strategic communicative aims, a significant amount of attention has been previously devoted to the engagement, interaction, and dialogic forms of strategic communication on social media. This paper, however, focuses on an aspect that has not been discussed much in the literature: the need an organization might have to disengage due to a lack of resources or when a conversation has stalled. Using the communication that Scandinavian public health authorities carried out through their Facebook pages as cases, this paper employs a thematic analysis of the associated posts and qualitative interviews with employees to argue that these institutions use three disengagement strategies: 1) contradiction, 2) meta-discursive disengagement, and 3) disengagement through sympathy/empathy. Based on this, we consider the strategic potential of disengagement and discuss whether disengagement strategies can be considered legitimate tools for public health organizations’ crisis communication that can allow them to achieve the dual aim of ensuring citizens’ support for and compliance with authorities’ recommendations. Widely accepted public health actions and recommendations, particularly those related to vaccines, are critical to U.S. and global responses to infectious disease pandemics, such as COVID-19. For vaccination-related efforts like those involving COVID-19 vaccines, high national compliance is needed. While initial COVID-19 vaccination uptake in the U.S. has been quite high, it quickly became apparent that demographic characteristics, political ideology, and potentially news/information sources used were associated with COVID-19 vaccination acceptance, hesitancy, and resistance. Drawing from nationally published COVID-19 public opinion polls as well as social and behavioral science related to vaccination acceptance, this study used a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults 18 years-old and older, undertaken in November–December 2020, to examine how four key demographic characteristics (sex, age, race/ethnicity, education), political ideology (liberal, moderate, conservative), and news/information source preference (liberal, conservative, balanced) were related to COVID-19 vaccination intentions, COVID-19 risk-benefit perceptions, interest and attention to COVID-19 information, self-reported level of being informed on key COVID-19 items, and trust and use of common COVID-19 information sources. Multiple associations were found, with most having important implications for strategic communication efforts related to COVID-19 vaccination and other preventive health recommendations.

The COVID-19 global pandemic drove many companies to reevaluate their approach to business and, as a result, some focused their efforts on leading with purpose. Purpose is an organization's fundamental goal that goes beyond profit maximization. It is an all-encompassing principle that guides everything the organization does and determines its strategies. Effective strategic communication is an essential element of purpose as it can empower employees to align their personal goals with organizational values and thus more closely identify with their organization. However, while the benefits of purpose are frequently proclaimed in practical literature, the impact of communicating purpose on employee outcomes remains unexplored in strategic communication research. To address this critical research gap, this study examined why and how communicating purpose could be an effective tactic in strategic communication. Specifically, this study introduced the concept of purpose and examined how purpose directed organizations’ actions in response to COVID-19 as well as the impact of purpose on employees’ organizational identification and trust. The findings offer practical implications regarding the importance of strategic communication about purpose in terms of building employee organizational identification and trust during times of change. The COVID-19 global pandemic drove many companies to reevaluate their approach to business and, as a result, some focused their efforts on leading with purpose. Purpose is an organization's fundamental goal that goes beyond profit maximization. It is an all-encompassing principle that guides everything the organization does and determines its strategies. Effective strategic communication is an essential element of purpose as it can empower employees to align their personal goals with organizational values and thus more closely identify with their organization. However, while the benefits of purpose are frequently proclaimed in practical literature, the impact of communicating purpose on employee outcomes remains unexplored in strategic communication research. To address this critical research gap, this study examined why and how communicating purpose could be an effective tactic in strategic communication. Specifically, this study introduced the concept of purpose and examined how purpose directed organizations’ actions in response to COVID-19 as well as the impact of purpose on employees’ organizational identification and trust. The findings offer practical implications regarding the importance of strategic communication about purpose in terms of building employee organizational identification and trust during times of change. This study seeks to explore how business leaders should respond to COVID-19. In advancing theoretical development of strategic crisis communication, we incorporated theoretical frameworks of organizational resilience, social support, and values-centered communication to make sense of CEO’s COVID-19 responses. Using structural topic modeling, this study analyzed 192 CEO open letters from 152 multinational corporations that are listed on the 2020 Fortune Magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies. Fourteen valid topics and four general themes were identified and discussed. Results suggested that in those letters, CEOs demonstrated organizational resilience by giving sense to current crisis situations and expressing their self-efficacy and response efficacy in handling challenges, which supported the conceptualization and operationalization of organizational resilience in this new crisis context. Additionally, both emotional and instrumental support provisions were found in CEOs’ letters. A values-centered and care ethics communication approach was widely taken in CEOs’ messages, highlighting the importance of social solidarity in facing a public health crisis. This study also explored how topic prevalence varied by business sectors and CEOs’ genders and associated with companies’ financial performance. These summarized communication strategies and narrative topics shed light on crisis communication practice and theory, especially in the context of a global public health crisis. During public health crises, public organizations face a variety of strategic communication challenges, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is an extreme example. In Finland, the Prime Minister’s Office initiated a communication campaign that utilized social media influencers to communicate timely instructions regarding the pandemic. However, it is uncertain how social media influencers adapt to briefings of public organizations given that they typically work with brands that align with their own interests and expertise, which rarely is epidemiology. We use the two-step flow of communication model and social influence theory to analyze research data that consisted of 96 Instagram posts, 108 Instagram Stories and 1097 comments. Qualitative content analysis was used to see how the influencers communicated about the pandemic and how their followers reacted. The results suggest that the influencers tried to adapt the messages to their own style, and, instead of committing to the wordings of the campaign, they shared general guidelines and, with their own example, showed how to behave during the pandemic. Their participation in the campaign helped affect social norms during the time of the crisis, which in the case of public health communication is a substantial, strategic goal.

With increased scrutiny of business and its activities, many companies have put corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the top of their agenda. However, the push for CSR has also given rise to the assumption that companies make false claims about their practices and policies. This paper explores how the six multinational telecommunications giants in Ghana present their CSR initiatives online. Using discourse analysis methods, the study examines and compares the CSR communication strategies the industry players adopt. The study finds that the companies demonstrate commitment to communicating CSR, emphasising more ethos than logos strategies which suggest credible CSR messages to a large extent. Relational values and the organisation of CSR messages were quite similar across the companies, although some strategies differed. The study not only suggests a linguistic framework for analysing CSR communication messages, it also provides new empirical data that adds to the growing body of literature on CSR communication particularly in the Ghanaian context where studies have been found to be sparse. Again, the findings deepen our understanding of CSR communication issues and its dynamics which will help managers identify potential gaps that may need improvement particularly in developing country contexts. With a few exceptions, a linguistic approach to examining CSR communication content has not received much scholarly attention.

Professor Dr. Ansgar Zerfass has made an important global contribution to public relations, corporate communications and strategic communication during his career. As a leading scholar and researcher, Zerfass’s influence has significantly advanced our understanding of how communication functions as a strategic management discipline within organisations. His work bridges theory and practice, providing frameworks and insights that have elevated the role of public relations and shaped its development as a community of practice and developing profession.

Health communication campaigns have been used to address many of the most prevalent non-communicable disease risk factors, such as physical inactivity. Typically, campaigns are shared via mass media to reach a high proportion of the population and at a low cost per head. However, the messages shared are in direct competition with other campaigns, such as product marketing, which can result in the campaign not being seen adequately to lead to behaviour change. Moreover, as health campaigns are shared widely, the messages may not be understood or considered appropriate by certain audiences due to their broad nature. This can lead to unintended consequences, such as inadvertent social norming of the risk behaviour. To improve the success of health communication campaigns, they should be based on theory, with the theory of planned behaviour, the elaboration likelihood model, and the extended parallel process model, three of the most widely used. Such theories highlight the importance of targetting a campaign to the audience. Targetting a health communication campaign involves considering the audience in the development and dissemination of the message. Campaigns could also be co-developed with the audience in question to ensure relevance. Digital technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence can be used to tailor messages to the target audience effectively. Examples of targetted and broad health communication campaigns are presented.

This article serves as the introduction article of the special issue, titled Strategic Communication and the Global Pandemic. This special issue of the International Journal of Strategic Communication (IJSC) has one primary purpose – to stimulate serious scholarly research on strategic communication and its management and execution during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 global pandemic. To achieve this purpose, the special issue is organized into three sections covering many dimensions of strategic communication as it relates to the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first section includes research addressing how the messages are developed and constructed through governmental communication, traditional mass media, and social media. The second section focuses on exploring the contingencies that leaders and influencers at various levels need to address in this novel global crisis, as well as the practical, organizational, and societal challenges leaders face. The last section collects research reflecting on how effective public health responses and communication shall be developed. By providing a range of strategic communication scholarship grounded in different academic disciplines and cultural and political contexts, we believe this volume offers an international perspective for scholars and educators to understand the complexity of the topic itself.

Objective: The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) is a mandatory initiative delivered in England to children in reception and year 6. To date, no research has explored the methods used to deliver the NCMP by Local Government Authorities (LGA) across England. Design: An online survey was administered between February 2018 and May 2018 to explore the delivery of the NCMP across the 152 LGAs in England and disseminated using non-probability convenience sampling. Setting: LGAs received an anonymous link to the survey. Participants: A total of 92 LGAs participated in the survey. Results: Most LGAs who responded provide result feedback (86%), a proactive follow-up (71%) and referrals to services (80%). Additionally, 65% of the authorities tailor Public Health England specimen result letters to suit their needs, and 84% provide attachments alongside. Out of 71% of LGAs who provide proactive follow-up, 19 (29%) provide the proactive follow-up only to upper weight categories, and only 4 (6 %) include Healthy Weight category with other categories in proactive follow-up. Regarding the service availability for children, out of 80% of LGAs who indicated that services are available, 32 (43%) targeted solely upper weight categories while the other 42 (57%) offered services across all weight categories. Finally, most LGAs (88%) commission providers to manage various parts of the NCMP. Conclusions: The results show that LGAs in England localise the NCMP. Further guidance regarding standards of best practice would help LGAs to find the most suitable localisation out of various options that exist across other LGAs.

iWith the acceptance of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and sustainability as important business performance indicators, it is now timely to assess the impact that leadership has on the development of these processes. CSR, Sustainability, and Leadership seeks to explore the integration of these three elements through an examination of concerns and trends in contemporary organizations. The authors discuss empirical and theoretical studies, which focus on processes and practices that inform the field. Organizations wish to not only participate in responsible behaviour but also actively lead within their local environments. However, businesses are failing in their execution of CSR because of ineffective leadership. Business leaders are central to an organization’s purpose in the world, and this book will inform a robust discussion about social issues which are pressing to scholars, policymakers, not-for-profit organizations, and students.ii iii iv v vi vii viii

This chapter provides a detailed theoretical overview of deliberative engagement (DE) and sets out the normative arguments that highlight how it can be used to address wicked problems (WPs). It highlights how the SME Leaders and Sustainability: Deliberative Engagement (SME‐DE) project's findings suggest that an important antecedent to the DE process is the prior existence of social capital given the presence of disruptive contextual factors. The chapter explains the essential characteristics of a WP before moving to a discussion of the implications of this concept for DE. It also highlights how the generation of social capital can be supported by practical confidence building measures, which help to build trust and establish particular norms of behavior among those taking part. The chapter sets out these preliminary insights to develop understanding of how people can be engaged to adopt deliberative practices and is designed to hasten the transition to more networked‐based approaches to WP solving.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the pressures to publish facing European public relations (PR) and communication management scholars across career stages. Design/methodology/approach The Delphi method was used with PR and communication management scholars at associate professor level or higher across Europe. An online survey was then shared with the wider academic community to gather insights from scholars at different career stages. Findings The suitability and status of the journal and the language of the outputs are considered. Academics are caught between the rock of publishing inside the field to support its development and the hard place of being required to publish in high-ranking journals for funding and promotion. Scholars are evaluated regularly, with journal articles being the main unit of assessment. Academics, regardless of career stage, feel under pressure to publish. Research limitations/implications The wider survey enabled publishing insights to be gathered from academics across the career spectrum, but it was completed by a small sample. Nevertheless, similar concerns emerged from both methods of data gathering, suggesting a clear agenda for discussion and further research. Practical implications PR and communications management is an academic discipline without an accepted list of high-impact journals. This study provides an annotated journal list to aid institutional evaluations, aid scholarly journal publishing decisions and support early career researchers navigating the publishing process. Originality/value This adds to the somewhat limited discussion regarding how academics in PR and communication management decide where to publish and provides a resource that can be used by scholars, institutions and funders.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the #SugarTax debate on Twitter to assess actors involved, their connections and the topics being discussed during the implementation and first anniversary of the UK Soft Drink Industry Levy. DESIGN: The structure of the #SugarTax debate on Twitter was assessed using social network analysis. The actors involved, their connections and the topics of discussion taking place were also explored using content, sentiment and thematic analyses. SETTING: Twitter between 2017 and 2019. PARTICIPANTS: Twitter users engaging in discussions relating to the hashtag 'SugarTax'. RESULTS: Tweets (n 5366) posted between 5 August 2017 and 7 May 2019 containing #SugarTax were downloaded from Twitter using Network Overview for Discovery and Exploration in Excel. The network included 1883 users, with 686 unique edges and 4679 edges with duplicates. The majority of tweets were negative in sentiment, when assessed by both automatic (64 %, n 141) and manual sentiment analysis (52 %, n 115) methods. Nine key themes were identified and grouped into two groups according to 'support for a sugar or SSB tax' or 'opposition for a sugar or SSB tax'. CONCLUSIONS: Twitter was used as a platform for debating the benefits and limitations of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes. The findings indicate that numerous actors are involved in the debates on Twitter, with advocates and lobbyists using the platform to raise support for their campaigns and reshape public perceptions. The findings and the methods used may be of interest to policymakers as well as to academics and members of the public looking to explore and engage in policy debates.

The purpose of this paper is to review recent research into country brand models and identify the most common and shared dimensions. Based on the literature review, this study establishes a conceptual framework to consider the complex interaction between the core constructs of country branding, country brand models and country image. This paper attempts to show that there is no acceptable, concrete and universally theoretical-recognised definition either in the academic literature or in the business and trade arena. The paper is divided into three parts with the first focusing on country branding constructs, branding strategies as well as the importance in the global economy and competitive arena worldwide of the country brand. The second part reviews the conceptual origin of the main country brand models in the last decades. The third part discusses the country image construct, and identifies this as the country brand reflection. The paper summary draws the analysis together to present the exploration of the country brand model dimensions. The purpose of the paper is to determine the most common dimensions in the main country brand models. The findings are that: tourism is the most supported by five models; followed by governance and investment by four models); and exports and immigration are supported by three models. Despite its exploratory nature, this study offers insight for researchers, country brand strategists and communications professionals to rethink the country brand being adopted to comprehend a country image and to invest in either public relation, promotion and advertising worldwide. The country brand models discussed in this paper may be applied to other future investigations regarding the need for a conventional and consistent country brand model, including new dimensions related to the multiple stakeholders and specific country variables.

Themes: Collaboration for success BREAKING THE MISTIQUE AND EXPLORING THE MAGIC OF MENTORING Ralph Tench Lucy Laville Leeds Beckett University Juliane Kiesenbauer Leipzig University   The general importance of mentoring for the development of professional careers is well known in many different fields and has already been investigated deeply in management disciplines and sociology. In contrast, research about that topic in the field of public relations and corporate communications has only recently been started. The empirical findings of a study of over 2,500 PR practitioners from 42 countries in Europe (Zerfass et al, 2014) found that nearly 60% of practitioners had one or more mentor, with higher job satisfaction being a key benefit. The role of mentors is explored further in global study on leadership in public relations and communication management, 68.1 per cent of the respondents reported to learn more about excellent leadership in communications from role models or mentors on the job than from university education or management development programmes (Berger & Meng, 2014, p. 128). Despite these findings the research into the benefits of networking and mentoring (as a form of networking) extends only as far as recognising that personalised networks of influence are an asset for a career conscious PR practitioner (Valentini, 2010, p160). Looking into other fields of research shows that forms of mentoring and networking are identified as part and parcel of the management of individual career projects (Anderson Gough 2006). The role of a mentor has been proclaimed as one of the key career development and advancement tools in the organisational milieu over the last decade (Simonetti et al, 1999, cited in Friday et al, 2004, p628). Developments in the field of networking in management disciplines synthesises different types of mentoring, with informal mentoring deemed more successful than formal mentoring. Many researchers believe that all those who succeed have mentors, but that they usually have informal mentors (Campion and Goldfinch, 1983, Collins and Scott, 1978, Kanter, 1977 cited in Friday et al, 2004). The notion of informal mentoring being more beneficial than formal mentoring is supported through the concept of weak ties and structural holes to identify strategies of networking best practice (Granovetter, 1974; Burt 1991; cited in Portes, 1989, Seibert et al 2001, Kim and Cannella, 2008). Indeed Seibert et al (2001) highlight that a person must make a strategic decision on whether to invest time on relatively few strong ties or a relatively large number of weak ties. Empirical research findings by Seibert et al (2001) showed that individuals with multiple mentors reap greater career benefits than those having only one mentor. Despite the benefits of informal mentoring, or perhaps because of its success, many organisations have developed formal mentoring programmes (Kram, 1983; Parise and Forret, 2007, Chan, 2009). The design of these formal programmes varies but mainly fall into two categories; one of formal pairing, based on a set of gathered information to match a mentoring pair, much like a match-making, dating agency. Other programmes encourage managers to identify a mentor or protégé through work, much like a match-creating, speed dating approach. Recent research identified that ten out of forty professional PR associations had a mentoring programme. Most were established in the first decade of the 21st century, which is relatively late given that mentoring has been recognised as a development tool for young professionals since the 1960s (Kiesenbauer et al., 2015). Despite the evidence for success of informal mentoring, an informal approach is identified as opportunistic behaviour or ‘self-interest seeking with guile’ (Williamson, 1975; Donaldson, 1990 cited in Morgan and Hunt, 1994, p25). Given the lack of evidence of strategic or formal mentoring in the PR academic literature the mentoring and networking activities of PR practitioners may at best be described as opportunistic. However there is evidence that mentoring is beneficial to mentors as well as mentees who tend to be ‘more satisfied and committed than those who had not been a mentor…[as well as having] better job satisfaction, commitment and career success’ (Ghosh and Reio, 2013). The researchers of this paper will aim to synthesise findings from the ECM and other empirical PR studies, combined with literature from management studies, to address the gap in PR literature in relation to mentoring that will inform practice as well as develop a body of literature. 690 words Bibliography: Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C., Robson, K. (2006), Professionals, Networking and the Networked Professional, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 24, pp.231-256, Emerald Group Publishing. Berger, B. K., & Meng, J. (Eds.) (2014). Making Sense of Public Relations Leaders – The Sense Makers. A global study of leadership in public relations and communication management. New York, NY: Routledge. Friday, E., Friday S., & Green L. (2004), A reconceptualization of mentoring and sponsoring. Management Decision, 42 (5), pp.628-644. Ghosh, R. & Reio, T. (2013), Career benefits associated with mentoring for mentors: a meta-analysis, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 83, pp106-116. Kiesenbauer, J., Burkert, A., & Zerfass, A. (2015, forthcoming). Mentoring in public relations: An international study on mentoring programmes of professional associations. In A. Catellani, R. Tench & A. Zerfass (Eds.), Communication Ethics in a Connected World. Brussels, Belgium: Peter Lang. Kram, K. (1982), Phases of the Mentor Relationship, Academy of Management Journal, 26 940, pp608-625. Kim, Y. & Cannella, A. (2008), Toward a Social Capital Theory of Director Selection, Corporate Governance, 16(4), pp.282-293. Parise, M. & Forret, M. (2008), Formal mentoring programs: The relationship of program design and support to mentor perceptions of benefits and costs, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 72, pp225-240. Portes, A. (1989), SOCIAL CAPITAL: Its origins and Applications in Modern Sociology, Annual Review Sociology, 24 pp.1-24. Seibert, S., Kraimer, M. & Liden, R. (2001), A Social Capital Theory of Career Success, Academy of Management Journal, 44 (2), pp.219-237. Valentini, C. (2010), Personalised networks of influence in public relations, Journal of communications Management, 14(2), pp.153-166. Zerfass, A., Tench, R., Vercic, D., Verhoeven, P. & Moreno, A., European Communication Monitor, 2014, Excellence in Strategic Communication – key isues, Leadership, Gender and Mobile Media, Results of a Survey in 42 Countries, Brussels, EACD/EUPRERA.

The purpose of the paper was to investigate whether Lidl uses CSR communication in their Advertising and Communication Campaigns in two different business contexts, and if so, how. The paper built upon existing analyses of CSR Communication by analysing Lidl’s websites in both countries, and went step forward and analysed TV adverts of the company in both countries as well. The analysis discovered importance of the social context in using CSR to promote business, as well as a different communication management strategy where Lidl does not communicate with UK public as extensively as with the Croatian public due to different views on the CSR communication. An in-depth analysis of TV adverts of Lidl in Croatia and the UK using their YouTube channel with all promoted TV adverts, as well as official websites of Lidl in both countries was conducted. The findings were analysed using the qualitative method of thematic, contextual analysis. The findings reveal that CSR is used as an argument to foster sales and consumer trust in Croatia but not in the UK. The communication management strategy is different in two countries due to different views of the public about CSR Communication, and Lidl's Communication strategy is designed accordingly.

A considerable amount of literature has been published on nation brand and yet not much regarding measurement. The purpose of this paper is to examine nation brand indexes and explore the unbalanced outcomes of a country’s position in these recognized instruments. Although research has been carried out on nation brand, no single study exists comparing a country in four diverse nation brand indexes, which are the reputable ones by Anholt (2007), Fetscherin (2010), Fombrun (2014) and Anholt and Govers (2014). This paper also reflects on the critical studies perspective of the place branding research domain, discussed by Lucarelli and Berg (2011). After a qualitative approach applied to Brazil, it is believed that these indexes mutually support and complement each other - even though they use different approaches, methodologies, samples, and data. Moreover, each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses in terms of accuracy and rationality. Findings from this paper’s evaluation may guide nation brand managers, governments, and researchers to recognize that indexes should be taken into account when analysing a nation brand and its complex image. Therefore, this paper contributes to existing knowledge on the critical studies perspective of the contemporary theoretical structure of the place branding research domain by providing a comparative study based on real data-based rankings of nation brand indexes.

This article discusses results of the largest European survey among communication and public relations (PR) practitioners in regards to the position of women in the industry. The survey was conducted online among communication and PR practitioners from 42 European countries. Using communication theories on differences in communication styles among men and women, we present and discuss results on managerial skills, differences in the communication styles, and traditional views on differences between men and women in PR. The results suggest differences in communication styles among male and female practitioners, where women prefer non-personal communication methods while men prefer more personal forms of communication. The results thus go directly against data showing that women prefer intimacy and building relationships and against the frequently stated arguments for differentiated approaches to communication styles.

This chapter focuses on women in public relations and their distinctive position within the public relations industry. It analyses available literature and then moves on to analyse data from the European Communications Monitor collected in the period from 2009 to 2019, thus providing a decade of trends among practitioners in European public relations practice relating to the position of women in the industry. Nevertheless, the European Communication Monitor (ECM) annually surveys practitioners and asks them, inter alia, about their gendered perceptions of work in the public relations and communications industry. Women participating in the ECM first reported that men dominate higher positions, and women face a glass ceiling and lack influence in the department; as the ECM survey progressed, practitioners started to report better job security for men and a lack of mentorship opportunities for women to develop into leaders.

'Organisatiecommunicatie' is een praktische en grondige introductie in public relations (pr) en communicatiemanagement. De auteurs geven een moderne visie op pr en plaatsen het vakgebied in een breed kader. De fundamentele concepten en specialistische terreinen van het vakgebied worden uitgebreid behandeld zonder het internationale perspectief uit het oog te verliezen. Kenmerken van 'Organisatiecommunicatie' zijn: - De internationale ontwikkelingen worden op de voet gevolgd; - De student wordt ingewijd in de actuele discussies in en over het vakgebied; - De leerstof wordt constant toegelicht met casuïstiek en voorbeelden, waarbij strategisch communicatiemanagement voortdurend praktisch wordt ingevuld; - Aan de hand van didactische extra's als 'Praktijksituaties', 'Discussies' en 'In acties' kan de student zelf actief aan de slag met de leerstof.

How do businesses and corporate communication professionals manage CSR messages in an unruly, largely unregulated social media environment? We argue that the creation of value is in part determined by the co-creation of message. Co-creation of message lies at the heart of social media. Effective online CSR reputation management can with a degree of certainty be asserted to be about community conversation, participation and collaboration.

Exploring Public Relations is the definitive academic text on Public Relations. The first edition, which published in 2006, has sold in its thousands and is now essential reading on courses in PR at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Purpose – Building on the work of Carroll this article attempts to unravel, explore and explain corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a theoretical construct that has implications and consequences for corporate governance in particular, and more generally for the economy, business and society. It aims to extend Carroll's work on definitional constructs by re-examining some of the theoretical frameworks that underpin, inform and guide CSR. Design/methodology/approach – Carroll identified different levels, or a pyramid, of CSR and these are outlined and the advantages and disadvantages of a pyramid, levels-based approach discussed. The main contributions of this article lies is in its exploration of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) as a concept in contrast to CSR. Bowd, Jones and Tench's CSI-CSR model is described, explained, analysed and used as a conceptual tool to make the theoretical move from a pyramid or level-based approach to a more dynamic framework of analysis. Findings – The proposition that CSI is better suited to a shareholder business model and CSR sits more comfortably with a stakeholder business model is examined. It is contested that people often wrongly equate CSR with irresponsible corporate actions. The CSI-CSR model establishes a theoretical framework around which grounded empirical research can be undertaken, applied and on which it can be reported. Research limitations/implications – This is a new area of research that addresses a gap in the literature and puts forward innovative theoretical models. Discussing the concept of irresponsibility makes for an interesting theoretical move. It questions the idea that corporations and business per se are always or necessarily socially responsible. Originality/value – In looking at and developing existing theoretical models, concepts and frameworks and exploring their merits, shortcomings and limitations, the article will be of interest and relevance to the business and academic communities. If there is such a thing as CSR then the implication is that there is such a thing as CSI and it is on this issue that this article seeks to promote and stimulate discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to review recent research into country brand models and identify the most common and shared dimensions. Based on the literature review, this study establishes a conceptual framework to consider the complex interaction between the core constructs of country branding, country brand models and country image. This paper attempts to show that there is no acceptable, concrete and universally theoretical-recognised definition either in the academic literature or in the business and trade arena. The paper is divided into three parts with the first focusing on country branding constructs, branding strategies as well as the importance in the global economy and competitive arena worldwide of the country brand. The second part reviews the conceptual origin of the main country brand models in the last decades. The third part discusses the country image construct, and identifies this as the country brand reflection. The paper summary draws the analysis together to present the exploration of the country brand model dimensions. The purpose of the paper is to determine the most common dimensions in the main country brand models. The findings are that: tourism is the most supported by five models; followed by governance and investment by four models); and exports and immigration are supported by three models. Despite its exploratory nature, this study offers insight for researchers, country brand strategists and communications professionals to rethink the country brand being adopted to comprehend a country image and to invest in either public relation, promotion and advertising worldwide. The country brand models discussed in this paper may be applied to other future investigations regarding the need for a conventional and consistent country brand model, including new dimensions related to the multiple stakeholders and specific country variables.

Place marketing has been an object of study since the 1960s; however, even though in the last two decades there has been an increase in research, there is a lack of studies about ‘magic’ in promoting a place because it is a critical topic and an under theorised construct in academia, in general. Debate continues about the marketing strategies and campaigns because of not only the outcomes of continued use of promotional activities of place marketing but also because of the influential aspect of such activities towards emergent countries or cities. The purpose of this paper is to match the P for Promotion from the Marketing Mix model (McCarthy, 1964) with the 4 R’s of the Place Branding model (Aitken & Campelo, 2011) - in order to convey a suggested guideline for the creation of activities in a national park setting. This qualitative research is exploratory in nature, undertaking secondary data collection and content analysis for data interpretation. This paper provides not only awareness of the inappropriate promotion of particular places but also contributes to existing knowledge of place branding literature by providing an understanding of promotion as a potential communication and marketing force – if using appropriate channels and messages – perhaps with a ‘magical’ touch.

Place marketing has been an object of study since the 1960s; however, even though in the last two decades there has been an increase in research, there is a lack of studies about ‘magic’ in promoting a place because it is a critical topic and an under theorised construct in academia, in general. Debate continues about the marketing strategies and campaigns because of not only the outcomes of continued use of promotional activities of place marketing but also because of the influential aspect of such activities towards emergent countries or cities. The purpose of this paper is to match the P for Promotion from the Marketing Mix model (McCarthy, 1964) with the 4 R’s of the Place Branding model (Aitken & Campelo, 2011) - in order to convey a suggested guideline for the creation of activities in a national park setting. This qualitative research is exploratory in nature, undertaking secondary data collection and content analysis for data interpretation. This paper provides not only awareness of the inappropriate promotion of particular places but also contributes to existing knowledge of place branding literature by providing an understanding of promotion as a potential communication and marketing force – if using appropriate channels and messages – perhaps with a ‘magical’ touch.

Purpose - The central argument that this paper posits is that traditional media of old presented a clear, ordered world of communication management for organisations to extol their CSR credentials. In contrast to this, new Web 2.0 social media is increasingly being used by activists and hactivists to challenge corporate communication CSR messages and does so by highlighting instances and examples of Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSI) (Jones, Bowd and Tench, 2009; Tench, Sun and Jones, 2012). Design/methodology/approach - The paper reports on research data from the European Communication Monitor 2010, 2011 and 2012 (http://www.communicationmonitor.eu/) and draws on work already published in this area (Tench, Verhoeven and Zerfass, 2009; Verhoeven et al, 2012; and Zerfass et al, 2010, 2011) to illustrate the unruly unregulated Web 2.0 social media communication landscape in Europe. A range of literature is drawn on to provide the theoretical context for an exploration of issues that surround social media. Findings - In late modernity (Giddens, 1990) communication comes in many guises. Social media is one guise and it has re-shaped as well as transformed the nature of communications and the relationship between organisations and their stakeholders. Originality/value - Communicating CSR in the Wild West of social media requires diplomatic and political nous, as well as awareness and knowledge of the dangers and pitfalls of CSI. The data reported on in this paper illustrates well the above points and sets out scenarios for future development of corporate communication of CSR through, and with social media.

Social responsibility of the media theory has been around for decades, and this theory is closely related to a report published by the Hutchins Commission in 1947, A Free and Responsible Press. Using social responsibility theory as a theoretical framework and recommendations from A Free and Responsible Press report, we analysed the coverage about the anti-sugar debate and the supermarket industry in the British press in a period between 2010 and 2015. Using content analysis as a method, we analysed press releases and surveys published by Action on Sugar as a main anti-sugar advocate in the UK and then we traced these public relations (PR) materials in the press coverage. We also analysed media bias focusing on the nature of quoting sources and whether media give a voice to everyone, both the anti-sugar activists and the relevant industry figures who claim that sugar is not the only reason for the current obesity problem. Results show that the media do not give a voice to the industry but only to the anti-sugar NGO. Nevertheless, the media remove sources from the industry from their coverage even when Action on Sugar mentions the industry in their documents.

Benchmarking report for European Public Employment Service, European Commission, DECISION No 573/2014/EU

It has been well established that Public Relations is a gendered industry, but the one in which women earn less and face glass ceiling. Recently, researchers also reported on problems with networking and mentoring. Many of these findings have been reported in annual European Communications Monitor (ECM), the largest European research project focusing on trends in Public Relations through self-assessment of PR practitioners. In this particular paper, using the approach of liberal feminism while embracing the view of radical feminism of patriarchy, we looked at results from the ECM in the period between 2009 (when the gender came to the agenda for the first time in this research) and 2015 in an attempt to discuss how far have feminism got in achieving equality of women with men, at least when findings from the European Communications survey are in stake. The results show that inequality still exists not only in traditional areas of inequality such as the wage gap and the glass ceiling, but also in other areas such as job security and mentoring. Nevertheless, it seems that inequality transforms when one issue gets tackled and new issues continue to arise, with which it can be said that the social structure is still based on inequality between genders and that while issues can be tackled, the whole problem of equality feels like one step forward and two steps back. The conclusion of the paper is that feminists need to work with men to tackle patriarchy and with that also inequality of genders, including in Public Relations.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explain and better understand some of the challenges and even contradictions in relationships between CSR and stakeholder attitudes by comparing consumer and practitioner perspectives on social responsibility, its role in organisations, and its influence on consumer attitudes towards companies. Our objective is to understand and evaluate factors influencing the authenticity of social responsibility as a contributor to an organisation’s value proposition. Design/Methodology/Approach: Focus groups of consumers and practitioners (N = 39) were asked to explore CSR in a semi-structured discussion. Themes were analysed using a constant comparative method. Findings: These data suggest that rather than existing on a continuum of authenticity, there are clear paths emerging for CSR efforts to be deemed authentic versus inauthentic that can begin to better explain the often-contradictory findings with regard to consumer attitudes towards CSR and an organisation’s value proposition. Consumer efficacy to influence an organisation and localised CSR emerge as critical determinants for evaluations of CSR as authentic. Further, these data also suggest practitioners may not understand consumer motivations and attitudes about CSR. Practical Implications: Ultimately, these data produce testable models for authentic (i.e., motivator) and inauthentic (hygiene) consumer judgments about CSR and draw implications for CSR leadership, learning, and management. Originality/ Value: These data provide new insights into evaluations of CSR to explain when and why it can fail to meet its objectives.

Abstract

Organizations are increasingly facing pressures to professionalize the workforce to be able to cope with constant changes in technology and growing expectations from stakeholders. This has subsequently influenced scholarly and practitioner interest in these discussions and led to a growth in the recognition and importance of designing appropriate communication strategies. However, discussing strategic communication has raised questions about who has the competencies to cope with these changes, and how can organizations effectively manage their employees to achieve organizational goals. In this context and when discussing and defining strategic competencies, several problems have been identified such as the role and influence of internal communication, managing human resources, employee training and higher education programs.

LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES ABOUT THE VOLUME EDITORS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PART I INTRODUCTION THE CRITICAL STATE OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN EUROPE: AN  ...

Toolkit for European Network of Public Employment Services Mutual Learning, European Commission, DECISION No 573/2014/EU

Rationale: • 1930s – the launch of the Coughs and Sneezes campaign (a response to the Influenza pandemic) • Campaigns as a way to fight absenteeism (National Archives, n.d.) • Behavioural change – asking people to start using a handkerchief to end the spread of colds and flues by not spreading germs Materials: • Health promotion posters (1931-1961) * possibly up to 1974 (further visits) • Most posters in the 1940s and the1950s • TV adverts (1945, 1947, 1948)

Exploring Public Relations is the definitive academic text on Public Relations. The first edition, which published in 2006, has sold in its thousands and is now essential reading on courses in PR at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Exploring Public Relations is the definitive academic text on Public Relations. Now in its third edition, the book is essential reading on courses in PR at undergraduate and postgraduate level. It continues to provide a critical analysis of the subject and a sophisticated blend of theory with real life, and includes many case studies, activity exercises, discussion questions and full colour photographs to illustrate the discussions in the text. There is new coverage of the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on PR as well as updated case studies and examples throughout the book to engage students of this exciting subject with the thought processes behind some of the latest PR stunts.

Purpose – This chapter introduces this volume's topics, purpose and key themes. Methodology/approach – This chapter reviews literature and chapters and offers conceptual development. Findings – The difficulties of CSR in theory and practice are mainly due to its incomplete conceptualisation because its inseparable counterpart CSI has been eventually neglected or ignored in the CSR theorising process. The CSI concept is as equally important as CSR. CSI offers a theoretical platform to avoid the vagueness, ambiguity, arbitrariness and mysticism of CSR. CSI deserves to be a serious subject of inquiry and demands more scholarly attention. Practical/social implications – With the aid of the CSI concept, CSR becomes more realistic and effective, as it is now more focused, practical and operational. While CSI is clear-cut, CSR is clearly meant, at the very least, to do well by undoing CSI. It is easier to promote CSR by addressing CSI first. The concept of CSI may allow everyone, including business practitioners, to concentrate on resolving the most important and urgent issues of public concern. It also encourages people to address the root causes of CSI problems in a systematic way. Doing so undoubtedly expands and enriches the understanding of CSR. Originality/value of chapter – The concept of CSI has been less developed in academic circles. While the contributors of this volume have made significant contributions to the understanding of CSI, this chapter adds fresh reasoning and explanations to the development of the CSI subject.

This edited volume aims at exploring the uniqueness and complexity of European CSR approaches, perspectives, and practices through a critical lens.

During the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, the Finnish and Swedish governments followed two very contrasting COVID-19 approaches. Using a ‘test, trace, isolate and treat’ strategy, the Finnish government adopted a hybrid approach which saw relatively heavy government intervention to contain community transmission. The Swedish government adopted a de facto ‘herd immunity’ approach in which relatively light government intervention resulted in higher community transmission. These two approaches shaped the way the Finnish and Swedish governments communicated COVID-19 messages as well as the way people perceived their government’s handling of the pandemic and their subsequent behavioural responses. Particularly, this chapter examines public trust in these governments as a source of information and the role of - and public trust in - intermediaries as government stakeholders in the COVID-19 communication process. Trust in government is vital during major health crises as it affects the way the public responds to government recommendations about the way they should behave, such as social distancing and mask-wearing measures. This study shows that public perceptions in both countries were overall positive and public trust in the respective authorities remained high. The chapter concludes with recommendations for government health communicators on how to use strategic communication to build and manage public trust. The Finnish and Swedish governments handled the COVID-19 pandemic very differently in 2020, with contrasting results in terms of number of deaths and infected people. This chapter examines that public perceptions in both countries were overall positive and public trust in the respective authorities remained high. The trust people have in their government, health authority and fellow citizens is an important variable during public health crises. Trust is a multifaceted concept often related to a state, belief or positive expectation. Global health crises affect a very broad and diverse set of stakeholders. The chapter focuses on the specific role of intermediaries as strategic communicators engaged by the government in risk communications. It then concludes with recommendations for government health communicators on how to use strategic communication to build, manage public trust.

Contents: Communication theories in public relations, Relationships theories of public relations, Elaboration Likelihood Model, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Stages of Change Model, Nudge Theory, Inoculation theory, Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The meaning of a country brand image in the competitive global world is evidently a multidimensional phenomenon, as various stakeholders are involved in the reputation of a country. However, existing research discreetly recognises the presence of theoretical convergences regarding the image of a country (e.g. country-of-origin, country branding, nation branding) and country reputation. Therefore, the aim of this cross-disciplinary research is to rationally explore and describe Brazil’s brand image while making advances into the evolution of country reputation theory. By probing associations, perceptions and awareness based on country reputation dimensions, this research scientifically evaluates the case of Brazil considering four stakeholders: the government and the citizens of the country, the media and the residents of the United Kingdom. Philosophically, interpretivism and constructivism are employed in this multifaceted and unique snapshot case study. Methodologically, mixed-method was chosen containing three phases. In Phase I, news coverage and historical documentation were adopted followed by Phase II, which included an elite and expert interview with the Brazilian Government and a focus group with UK residents. Content analysis aligned to thematic analysis was carried out for Phases I and II. In Phase III, two surveys were undertaken with UK residents and with Brazilians using exploratory factor analysis. The analysis and interpretation of the overall results indicated a medium country reputation of Brazil in the UK. The reputation of a country is certainly embodied over time-fixed and temporary associations with a country name, as perceptions are revealed underneath the country-of-origin construct recognised by multiple stakeholders. This research offers a groundwork for future studies on theorising country reputation theory. It also provides support to manage country reputation as the conclusion emphasises integrative and continuous strategies applied to enhance a country reputation within the globalised context of international business. Finally, this thesis contributes not only to academia and government authorities, but also to professionals engaged in the management of country reputation, specifically for Brazil’s economic and sustainable progress through ethical and reputable competition.

Learning outcomes By the end of this chapter you should be able to: • define a stakeholder relationship management view of healthcare • analyse and apply theories for persuasion to campaigns to improve health outcomes • evaluate the opportunities for cross-over between healthcare and public relations • better understand the application of two-way symmetrical communication in healthcare Structure ▪ The high stakes of health communication requires a stakeholder-relationship approach ▪ Using persuasion theory to better understand factors affecting the ‘healthcare stakeholder’ ▪ The crossover between mass campaigns and interpersonal health communication ▪ Two-way symmetrical communication in healthcare

This thesis investigated UK early adopters of integrated reporting (IR) to establish motivations for IR adoption and factors which have impacted on the diffusion of IR within their organisations, using Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) as a theoretical lens. It fills a gap in IR literature, where systematic reviews revealed a dearth of IR research from an internal organisational perspective, particularly within a UK context. The study was based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 36 senior executives actively involved in IR within seventeen organisations. A content analysis of the interviews was undertaken using qualitative coding techniques within Nvivo 10 software. The study found that organisations drew on a wide range of rationales for IR adoption, with a predominance of sociological over economic rationales. Predominant sociological rationales were: external pressures, primarily due to perceptions of shifts in societal expectations; and internal aspirations which related to enhancing reputation. Main social influences on IR adoption were report design consultants and board support for IR Social influences on further diffusion of IR within organisations were predominantly from three external sources; business network groups; report design consultants; and external auditors. Internal influences were identified in five functional areas. Dedicated cross functional IR teams were found to positively impact in diffusion, while organisational size, and complexity of operations, hindered diffusion. Perceptions of the characteristics of IR also impacted diffusion of IR within organisations. Relative advantage, compatibility and voluntariness perceptions were found to positively impact of diffusion of IR within UK organisations, whereas perceptions of complexity were found to have a negative effect on the diffusion of IR.

In this paper, we argue that trust is an important aspect of social reality, one that realist social theory has paid little attention to but which clearly resonates with a realist social ontology. Furthermore, the emergence of an interest in trust in specific subject fields such as organization theory indicates the growing significance of issues of trust as market liberalism has developed. As such, the emergence of an interest in trust provides support for Archer's characterisation of late modernity in The Reflexive Imperative (2012) as a period of heterogeneity and greater incongruity. Commenting on this provides an opportunity to discuss the issue of habit in relation to trust and also the importance of the analysis of integration as a means to explain problems of trust. The commentary draws on examples from finance.

OBJECTIVE: News media play a role in politics through the portrayal of policies, influencing public and policymaker perceptions of appropriate solutions. This study explored the portrayal of sugar and sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes in UK national newspapers. Findings aid understanding of the role newspapers play in shaping understanding and acceptance of policies such as the UK Soft Drink Industry Levy (SDIL). DESIGN: Articles discussing sugar or SSB taxes published in six UK national newspapers between 1 April 2016 and 1 May 2019 were retrieved from the LexisNexis database. Articles were thematically analysed to reveal policy portrayal. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Analysis of UK newspaper articles. RESULTS: Two hundred and eighty-six articles were assessed. Sugar and SSB taxes were discussed across the sample period but publication peaked at SDIL announcement and introduction. Themes were split according to support for or opposition to taxation. Supportive messaging consistently highlighted the negative impacts of sugar on health and the need for complex actions to reduce sugar consumption. Opposing messages emphasised individual responsibility for health and the unfairness of taxation both for organisations and the public. CONCLUSIONS: Sugar and SSB taxes received considerable media attention between 2016 and 2019. All newspapers covered arguments in support of and opposition to taxation. Health impacts of excess sugar and the role of the soft drink industry in reducing sugar consumption were prevalent themes, suggesting a joined-up health advocacy approach. Industry arguments were more varied, suggesting a less collaborative argument. Further research should investigate how other media channels portray taxes such as the SDIL.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore changes in corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies in food, soft drinks and packaging industries to capture changes in CSR implementation given increased environmental activism. The paper takes an exploratory approach in reviewing CSR policy changes to explore to what extent companies change CSR policies with increased environmentalism. Design/methodology/approach A comparative website analysis was used to analyse CSR policies of companies in the food, soft drinks and packaging industries in the UK. The companies were selected for the analysis based on their annual turnover and 23 companies were analysed (seven for the soft drinks industry, eight for the food industry and eight for packaging industry). Five interviews were conducted with packaging and retail professionals, and the findings were analysed by using thematic analysis, which captured trends in responses. Findings The findings show that companies are implementing and communicating CSR policies heavily focussed on reducing the environmental impact of their work and matching social debates on human rights, with which traditional CSR policies (corporate governance, supporting local communities and consultation with stakeholders) are fading away. Instead, companies have shifted attention towards the gender pay gap, modern slavery and extensive environmentalism. The interviews with packaging professionals and CSR managers from the retail industry show that the packaging industry designs CSR policies in line with requests from supermarkets, which are, in turn, influenced by consumer activism. Practical implications This paper shows the circular relationship between media coverage, consumer activism, which comes as a result, and the impact and changes this brings to the industry. To avoid reputation damage, companies should closely follow media debates to pre-empty consumer criticism and activism. Social implications The findings show that companies are “mirroring the zeitgast” and going with trends to meet consumer expectations, which brings into question the sincerity of CSR policies and revives the criticism of capitalism and raises a question whether CSR is used by companies as a smokescreen that on the outset makes a difference to the society but keeps status quo intact. Originality/value The paper provides an insight into CSR implementation of three industries that faced heavy criticism from campaigners and the general public for their environmental impact. The paper shows how the CSR policy shifted to match this expectation and thus provides a good ground for studying the evolution of CSR using a case study from three selected industries.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an increasingly heated topic since the 1980s. But there are severe limitations with the concept of CSR and the effectiveness of CSR practices. Addressing such limitations, this volume proposes that the concept of Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSI) offers a better theoretical platform to avoid the vagueness, ambiguity, arbitrariness and mysticism of CSR. It challenges conventional modes of thinking, unveils the CSR mask of business practices and redirects public attention to the core issues of CSR. This collective work sets up an initial theoretical framework for the subject of CSI and examines the fundamental reasons for irresponsibility in and beyond a corporate context. Rooted in theory and practice it seeks to understand how boundaries of CSR and CSI have been constructed in society, and explores some systemic and structural issues of CSI in practice.

Purpose-This chapter is to introduce to the reader the background, purpose, core themes and structure of the volume. Brief summaries of all the following chapters in the book are provided. Design/methodology/approach-Literature review and desk research. Findings-This chapter suggests that CSR communication as a crosssection of communication studies and CSR research should be highlighted as an important subject of inquiry to bridge the communicative gap between businesses and their stakeholders as well as the public at large. An initial theoretical framework on CSR communication is presented. Research implications-A general research direction is provided for CSR communication. It encourages more future scholarly studies in this emerging and fascinating field. Social/practical implications-The overall purpose is to help grow knowledge and develop understanding of the ways in which businesses communicate CSR. Originality/value-It is the first time in the field of CSR communication that a relativly comprehensive and systematic framework is presented. The chapters that follow in the book cover many contents of the framework.

Purpose - This chapter introduces this volume's topics, purpose and key themes. Methodology/approach - This chapter reviews literature and chapters and offers conceptual development. Findings - The difficulties of CSR in theory and practice are mainly due to its incomplete conceptualisation because its inseparable counterpart CSI has been eventually neglected or ignored in the CSR theorising process. The CSI concept is as equally important as CSR. CSI offers a theoretical platform to avoid the vagueness, ambiguity, arbitrariness and mysticism of CSR. CSI deserves to be a serious subject of inquiry and demands more scholarly attention. Practical/social implications - With the aid of the CSI concept, CSR becomes more realistic and effective, as it is now more focused, practical and operational. While CSI is clear-cut, CSR is clearly meant, at the very least, to do well by undoing CSI. It is easier to promote CSR by addressing CSI first. The concept of CSI may allow everyone, including business practitioners, to concentrate on resolving the most important and urgent issues of public concern. It also encourages people to address the root causes of CSI problems in a systematic way. Doing so undoubtedly expands and enriches the understanding of CSR. Originality/value of chapter - The concept of CSI has been less developed in academic circles. While the contributors of this volume have made significant contributions to the understanding of CSI, this chapter adds fresh reasoning and explanations to the development of the CSI subject. Copyrightr © 2012 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Presentation exploring the impact of color, particularly blue, on attitudes and behavioral intentions during COVID-19 health campaigning in the UK, using survey data and historical analysis.

Exploring Public Relations is the definitive academic text on Public Relations. Now in its third edition, the book is essential reading on courses in PR at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Purpose - This paper aims to posit the central argument that traditional media of old presented a clear, ordered world of communication management for organisations to extol their corporate social responsibility (CSR) credentials. In contrast to this, new Web 2.0 social media is increasingly being used by activists and hactivists to challenge corporate communication CSR messages and does so by highlighting instances and examples of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) (Jones et al., 2009; Tench et al., 2012). Design/methodology/approach - The paper reports on research data from the European Communication Monitor, 2010, 2011 and 2012 (www.communicationmonitor.eu/) and draws on work already published in this area (Tench et al., 2009; Verhoeven et al., 2012; Zerfass et al., 2010, 2011) to illustrate the unruly, unregulated Web 2.0 social media communication landscape in Europe. A range of literature is drawn on to provide the theoretical context for an exploration of issues that surround social media. Findings - In late modernity (Giddens, 1990), communication comes in many guises. Social media is one guise and it has re-shaped as well as transformed the nature of communications and the relationship between organisations and their stakeholders. Originality/value - Communicating CSR in the Wild West of social media requires diplomatic and political nous, as well as awareness and knowledge of the dangers and pitfalls of CSI. The data reported on in this paper well illustrate the above points and set out scenarios for future development of corporate communication of CSR through and with social media.