Toward an Ethical Model of Effective Crisis Communication

The goal of this study was to develop and demonstrate a new ethical model for crisis communication. This article examined the crisis communication practices as well as literature and found essential elements—what, how, and when—for ethical and effective crisis communication. Based on these three variables, a new three‐part model, the TTR Test, was proposed, utilizing three principles: Transparency (what), Two‐way symmetrical communication (how), and Right time (when). To investigate how the test can be applied to the real world, this article examined BP's crisis communication during the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.     

INFORMATION GATHERING IN ORGANIZATIONS: EQUILIBRIUM,WELFARE, AND OPTIMAL NETWORK STRUCTURE

We model an organization as a game in which all agents share a common decision problem and some level of coordination is necessary between individual actions. Agents have individual private information concerning the task they have to perform, and they share this private information through pairwise channels of communication. We analyze how this communication pattern, modeled by means of a network structure, affects individual behavior and aggregate welfare. In the unique equilibrium of this Bayesian game, each agent's optimal action depends on a properly defined knowledge index that measures how the aggregation of information helps him to infer higher‐order beliefs about other's information after communication. Adding communication channels is not always beneficial for the organization because it can lead to mis‐coordination. We single out the geometry of interagent communication links that the manager could implement in order to improve the organization's performance.     

Field Research Practice in Management and Organization Studies: Reclaiming its Tradition of Discovery

This review reasserts field research's discovery epistemology. While it occupies a minority position in the study of organization and management, discovery-oriented research practice has a long tradition of giving insight into new, unappreciated and misappreciated processes that are important to how work is accomplished. I argue that while methods discourse has long emphasized that particularizing data and an emergent research design are productive for discovery, little to no attention has been paid to the conjectural processes necessary to imaginatively interpret these observations. I underscore them. What is the future for discovery work in business schools today? Issues arise when an increasing interest in discovery-oriented research is expressed in an institutional context that is bounded off from field research's home disciplines and is dominated by a validation epistemology. In light of this current context, I offer some initial thoughts on the work to be done to maintain fieldwork's discovery tradition in management and organization studies.     

Improving the Impact and Implementation of Disaster Education: Programs for Children Through Theory‐Based Evaluation

A main weakness in the evaluation of disaster education programs for children is evaluators’ propensity to judge program effectiveness based on changes in children's knowledge. Few studies have articulated an explicit program theory of how children's education would achieve desired outcomes and impacts related to disaster risk reduction in households and communities. This article describes the advantages of constructing program theory models for the purpose of evaluating disaster education programs for children. Following a review of some potential frameworks for program theory development, including the logic model, the program theory matrix, and the stage step model, the article provides working examples of these frameworks. The first example is the development of a program theory matrix used in an evaluation of ShakeOut, an earthquake drill practiced in two Washington State school districts. The model illustrates a theory of action; specifically, the effectiveness of school earthquake drills in preventing injuries and deaths during disasters. The second example is the development of a stage step model used for a process evaluation of What's the Plan Stan?, a voluntary teaching resource distributed to all New Zealand primary schools for curricular integration of disaster education. The model illustrates a theory of use; specifically, expanding the reach of disaster education for children through increased promotion of the resource. The process of developing the program theory models for the purpose of evaluation planning is discussed, as well as the advantages and shortcomings of the theory‐based approaches.     

Improving fire risk communication between authorities and micro-entrepreneurs: A mental models study of Ghanaian central market fires

This study conceptualizes how fire management authorities can empower nonexpert public to participate in fire risk communication processes and increase their own responsibilities for managing fire preventive, protective and recovery processes effectively. Drawing narratives from 10 disaster management experts working at government institutions and nine micro-entrepreneurs operating self-sustaining businesses in different merchandized lines in Ghana, we analyzed the data thematically and explored new insights on mental models to generate a two-way fire risk communication model. The findings suggest that fire management authorities planned fire disasters at the strategic level, collaborated with multiple stakeholders, disseminated information through many risk communication methods, and utilized their capabilities to manage fire at the various stages of fire risk communication, but the outcomes were poor. The micro-entrepreneurs sought to improve fire management outcomes through attitude change, law enforcement actions, strengthened security and better public trust building. The study has implications for policymakers, governments, and risk communication authorities of developing countries to strengthen their fire disaster policies to minimize commercial fire incidents and address the damaging effects of fire on people's livelihoods, businesses, properties, and environments. Our proposed two-way fire risk communication model is a new theoretical lens for experts and the nonexpert public to assess each other's beliefs about risk information and manage fire risk communication effectively at all stages.     

Culture,connectedness, and international adoption of disruptive innovation

Why might nations vary in whether and how fast to adopt potentially disruptive innovations? Our study investigates this issue, specifically how a nation's adoption of creatively destroying innovations is related to two previously unexplored variables: cultural looseness, which is a norm-based measure of informal institutions, and global connectedness. To highlight potential contributions from these new variables, we control for within-nation contextual variables examined in prior research, including formal institutions, Hofstede's dimensions of cultural values, socioeconomic attributes, and between-nation economic grouping. Our empirical analysis of a specific disruptive innovation, agricultural biotechnology adoption, covers 47 nations over a 14-year period and provides broad support for the usefulness of cultural looseness and global connectedness for understanding innovation adoption. Cultural looseness is significantly related to adoption of agricultural biotech. Global connectedness dimensions of depth and breadth are not directly related to adoption, only interactively with cultural looseness. These findings highlight the role of informal institutions and global connectedness in shaping complex interactions between disruptive innovation and industrial evolution within and across nations. The findings also have implications for what public policy makers might do to influence the extent of adoption of such innovations.     

Chinese workers' work ethic in reformed state-owned enterprises: implications for HRD

Work ethic, as the construct of work-related values and attitudes, directly affects employees' job performance. Work ethic subjects to the influence of business and social practices. China is in the mix of major economical and political transformation, although little is known about how work ethic has changed for Chinese workers since the economic reform first initiated in 1979. This study is designed to examine work ethic currently held by workers of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Findings revealed work ethic perceptions based on the multidimensional work ethic profile (MWEP), a Western work ethic profile, and the Confucian work ethic (CWE), an Eastern work ethic profile, resulted in similarities but often lived different life styles. The major differences tended to focus on perceptions of hard work, self-reliance and centrality of work. Other areas such as education, use of time, delay of graduation and other MWEP concepts were very similar to Chinese workers' work perceptions.     

Gendered Identification: Between Idealization and Admiration

While much of the literature on gender focuses on role models, this paper extends the understanding of gendered professional identification processes by exploring these processes through the lenses of idealization and admiration. Using the method of discourse analysis to analyse MBA students' accounts of people with whom they identify, this paper explores discourses of idealization, defined as aggrandizing a person, and of admiration, which means discussing positive as well as negative and neutral characteristics of a person. It is shown, first, that most male and female MBA students idealized the self‐made ‘authentic’ CEO or founder of an organization and, second, that women mainly admired other women through naming their positive, neutral and negative attributes. The paper thereby adds to understanding of how gendered identification processes are structured by idealization and admiration.     

Opportunities and Challenges for Public Libraries to Enhance Community Resilience

This study bridges a gap between public library and emergency management policy versus practice by examining the role of public libraries in the community resource network for disaster recovery. Specifically, this study identifies the opportunities and challenges for public libraries to fulfill their role as a FEMA‐designated essential community organization and enhance community resilience. The results indicate there are several opportunities for libraries to enhance community resilience by offering technology resources and assistance; providing office, meeting, and community living room space; serving as the last redundant communication channel and a repository for community information and disaster narratives; and adapting or expanding services already offered to meet the changing needs of the community. However, libraries also face challenges in enhancing community resilience, including the temptation to overcommit library capacity and staff capability beyond the library mission and a lack of long‐term disaster plans and collaboration with emergency managers and government officials. Implications for library and emergency management practice and crisis research are discussed.     

‘Belonging’ to a Virtual Research Centre: Exploring the Influence of Social Capital Formation Processes on Member Identification in a Virtual Organization

Identification, a person's sense of belonging, is thought to have positive outcomes because those who identify strongly will be more motivated to achieve organizational goals. This study applies a social capital lens in order to highlight how different social capital formation processes contribute to member identification, with a focus on virtual organizations where dispersed membership may preclude face‐to‐face interactions. The study provides a rare opportunity to explore variation in identification in a single organizational context. The results highlight how some dimensions of social capital augment each other and affect identification through the four conditions that influence social capital development: time, interdependence, interaction and closure. The study suggests that, while creating interdependence and an array of means for interaction support the development of both social capital and identification, not all members of the organization need to feel equally connected. Partial closure appears beneficial for information flows and ‘renewal’ of the virtual organization.     

ALIGNING ACCOUNTABILITY AND AWARENESS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE IN OPERATIONS

This study assesses internal drivers of a firm's level of environmental awareness, including methods for incorporating environmental objectives into the strategic planning of operations, communication of objectives throughout the organization, and deployment of accountability to operating personnel and managers for environmental performance. Challenges firms may encounter in motivating and holding employees and process owners accountable for environmental performance are discussed, as well as a potential for inconsistencies between management's espoused theories and theories in use. A case study of a steel manufacturer is used to determine how accountability for and awareness of environmental objectives can be operationally implemented.     

Can organizations help adjust?: The effect of perceived organizational climate on immigrants' acculturation and consequent effect on perceived fit

Acculturation, or the process of adjustment in a host culture, is a determinant of immigrants' overall success and well-being. Surprisingly, less is known about the role organizations may play in influencing immigrants' acculturation and how this process, in turn, may influence organizations. Thus, we examine how an organizational climate in the form of a diversity climate and an intercultural group climate may influence immigrants' acculturation strategies, as shown by the degree they adopt the host culture and retain their original culture. Furthermore, we explore how immigrants' adopted acculturation strategies may, in turn, influence their attitudes toward the organization in the form of person-organization fit and person-workgroup fit. Using a latent profile analysis, MANOVA, and multinomial logistic regression in a sample of 244 Mexican immigrants working in the Southwest U.S., we found that higher levels of intercultural group climate, but not diversity climate, are more likely to increase the likelihood of immigrants' embracing of acculturation strategies where the host culture is highly adopted. We also find embracing such acculturation strategies increases perceptions of fit. Our results offer two important highlights: first, to show the influence of organizational factors on an immigrant's acculturation and acculturation's workplace effects, and second, to contribute to the fit literature by showing that even when individuals may have contrasting cultural orientations, they are still able to perceive high levels of fit within their workplace.     

Materializing Strategy in Mundane Tools: the Key to Coupling Global Strategy and Local Strategy Practice?

While much of the literature on strategy and strategy as practice (SaP) focuses on traditional strategic tools, technologies and discursive practices of managers, this paper extends the understanding of strategic change implementation by proposing that mundane material tools, understood as text, translate global strategic discourse in ways that make sense to workers and orchestrate successful global strategy implementation at the local level. Based on a rich case study within one branch of a national bank, this paper demonstrates how a middle manager's materializing practices developed local strategy practice while simultaneously transforming work and producing strategic figures or indicators that satisfied senior management's global strategic change objectives. The contributions of this paper are threefold: (i) it advances the understanding of the multimodality of materiality by identifying the influence of three types of mundane tools produced locally by a middle manager as he performed his sense of the senior managers’ strategic discourse; (ii) it reveals how these three types of physical texts materialized the manager's sense of this discourse, facilitating frontline workers’ engagement and coupling materiality and orality in a coherent way that allowed workers to embody the company's global strategy in their ‘sayings and doings’; and (iii) it highlights the importance of managers’ ability to materialize a strategic discourse.     

Risk Perception and Disaster Preparedness in Immigrants and Canadian‐Born Adults: Analysis of a National Survey on Similarities and Differences

Research has documented that immigrants tend to experience more negative consequences from natural disasters compared to native‐born individuals, although research on how immigrants perceive and respond to natural disaster risks is sparse. We investigated how risk perception and disaster preparedness for natural disasters in immigrants compared to Canadian‐born individuals as justifications for culturally‐adapted risk communication and management. To this end, we analyzed the ratings on natural disaster risk perception beliefs and preparedness behaviors from a nationally representative survey (N = 1,089). Factor analyses revealed three underlying psychological dimensions of risk perception: external responsibility for disaster management, self‐preparedness responsibility, and illusiveness of preparedness. Although immigrants and Canadian‐born individuals shared the three‐factor structure, there were differences in the salience of five risk perception beliefs. Despite these differences, immigrants and Canadian‐born individuals were similar in the level of risk perception dimensions and disaster preparedness. Regression analyses revealed self‐preparedness responsibility and external responsibility for disaster management positively predicted disaster preparedness whereas illusiveness of preparedness negatively predicted disaster preparedness in both groups. Our results showed that immigrants’ risk perception and disaster preparedness were comparable to their Canadian‐born counterparts. That is, immigrant status did not necessarily yield differences in risk perception and disaster preparedness. These social groups may benefit from a risk communication and management strategy that addresses these risk perception dimensions to increase disaster preparedness. Given the diversity of the immigrant population, the model remains to be tested by further population segmentation.     

Prophets vs. profits: How market competition influences leaders' disciplining behavior towards ethical transgressions

We investigate how market competition influences the way leaders discipline employees' ethical transgressions. A cross-sectional study among organizational leaders (Study 1) revealed that strong market competition is related to an instrumental decision frame (business practices are more focused on serving the organization's interest). This decision frame explains why strong market competition is related to leaders' perceptions of the evaluation of wrongdoing in terms of instrumental rather than moral concerns. Two experiments (Studies 2 and 3) show that increased market competition makes leaders' disciplining of ethical transgressions more contingent upon the transgression's instrumentality to the organization: the same ethical transgression is punished less when it resulted in profit than when it resulted in loss. This research is among the first to identify conditions that determine disciplinary responses of organization leaders to ethical transgressions, and it feeds the debate on whether market competition promotes the display of unethical behavior within organizations.     

Economies of connectedness: Concept and application

We argue that diversification can partly be explained by means of a novel concept, “economies of connectedness”, denoting personal relationships of the owners that are used to add new businesses to an otherwise diversified portfolio. Economies of connectedness is a concept that complements those of cronyism and corruption, which by definition are illegal while diversification resulting from sharable personal relations is not necessarily so. The concept is illustrated by an original empirical study of Indonesia's Salim Group. The in-depth longitudinal case study shows the interplay of conventional economies of scope with economies of connectedness. We find that economies of connectedness play an important role for the Group in enhancing diversification in a weak institutional environment. Over time however, economies of connectedness decrease.     

The Evolving Field of Risk Communication

The 40th Anniversary of the Society for Risk Analysis presents an apt time to step back and review the field of risk communication. In this review, we first evaluate recent debates over the field's current state and future directions. Our takeaway is that efforts to settle on a single, generic version of what constitutes risk communication will be less productive than an open-minded exploration of the multiple forms that comprise today's vibrant interdisciplinary field. We then review a selection of prominent cognitive, cultural, and social risk communication scholarship appearing in the published literature since 2010. Studies on trust in risk communication messengers continued to figure prominently, while new research directions emerged on the opportunities and critical challenges of enhancing transparency and using social media. Research on message attributes explored how conceptual insights particularly relating to framing, affective and emotional responses, and uncertainty might be operationalized to improve message effectiveness. Studies consistently demonstrated the importance of evaluation and how varying single attributes alone is unlikely to achieve desired results. Research on risk communication audiences advanced on risk perception and multiway engagement with notable interest in personal factors such as gender, race, age, and political orientation. We conclude by arguing that the field's interdisciplinary tradition should be further nurtured to drive the next evolutionary phase of risk communication research.     

Organizational politics: did you hear?

How do you define organizational politics? The underground system of communication, the grapevine, what's really going on in the organization, rumors, knowing who really has the power? However you define it, all sources agree you'd better not ignore it. According to one physician executive: "Organizational politics is how things really get done, who really has the power, how decisions get made. Things are not always what they appear to be on the organizational chart." Presented here are some thoughts about organizational politics from physician executives and their stories of when it helped or hurt their careers or prevented them from accomplishing something in their organizations.