Putting stakeholders’ engagement in the equation: Proposing the integrated network engagement model

Research on engagement and relationships in the public relations literature tends to focus on individual stakeholders’ psychological states or traits. Researchers have not fully considered how stakeholders’ social environments impact their engagement with organizations. To advance theorizing on engagement and relationships, this study considers stakeholders’ social environments by examining the social ties they activate when engaging with an organization. Thus, we propose and examine the Integrated Network Model of Engagement to understand the stakeholder side of engagement. Through an egocentric network survey, we identify multiple sources of influence on indicators and outcomes of engagement, and assess the relationship between engagement indicators and outcomes. Results suggest that stakeholders’ network structures positively associated with indicators of relational engagement and outcomes of engagement, specifically OPR. On the other hand, the composition of stakeholders’ networks consistently had mixed associations with engagement indicators and outcomes. We argue it is critical for public relations scholars to account for these complexities and for practitioners to understand stakeholders’ social environments when attempting to engage them.     

Ai Weiwei’s Fairytale: a unique social engagement

Abstract

Art as a social engagement in the West can be dated back to the history of avant-garde art starting from the end of nineteenth century. Rooted in his own cultural background, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s socially engaged art project “Fairytale is more complex than the avant-garde strategy. The work Fairytale established a structure – “1=1,001”. That means on the one hand, the participants can be easily regarded everywhere in Kassel as 1,001 mobile works of art. All of them contribute to an entire work. In other words, the 1,001 people consist of one work. On the other hand, everyone is dealing with their personal issues independent of art. In this sense, the entire work can be divided into 1,001 personal experiences. This structure is based on three principles of Chinese philosophy Taoism – the duality between Yin and Yang, the dynamism between Yin and Yang, and the concept of “uselessness”. Positioning Fairytale within both Western theoretical as well as Chinese philosophical contexts, this essay is to analyze how Chinese philosophy shaped Ai’s strategy of social engagement and his cultural identity – Chineseness.     

The Client Role: A help or a hindrance?

Using a case study methodology this paper describes the life of one man, Barry, who is labelled blind and mentally retarded. The role of the 'client' is used as an analytic tool to understand the dynamics of some of the counterproductive aspects of human services. It is illustrated how many behaviour patterns that were thought to be a reflection of the 'disability' could be understood as manifestations of the role of the client. The key attribute of this role, as understood through Barry's life, is that the person with a disability is cast as a 'recipient' or 'receiver' of services or assistance within a power dynamic where the receiver is extended little autonomy and responsibility. It is demonstrated that the client role exaggerates Barry's incompetence, perpetuates the perception that the 'problem' resides in Barry, rather than in the support system, and is an obstacle to developing relationships and participating in the broader community.     

Utilitarianism or welfarism: does it make a difference?

We show that it is possible to reconcile the utilitarian and welfarist principles under the requirement of unanimity provided that the set of profiles over which the consensus is attained is rich enough. More precisely, we identify a closedness condition which, if satisfied by a class of n-tuples of utility functions, guarantees that the rankings of social states induced by utilitarian and welfarist unanimities over that class are identical. We illustrate the importance of the result for the measurement of unidimensional as well as multidimensional inequalities from a dominance point of view.     

Two’s company,three’s a crowd: disabled people,their carers and their partners

In this analytical autoethnography, I share some of my complex relational experiences between my partner with a severe physical disability, his carers and myself. The article explores the benefits of care and carers, the physical and emotional costs of carers and some of the general considerations taken in this triad relationship. I share some of my relational experiences with an audience who might not normally encounter or have thought about the dynamic relationships between this triad. It is hoped that this will stimulate an interest to open dialogue, offer support and provide an insight into the lives of some relationships.     

How does cultural capital affect educational performance: Signals or skills?

In this paper, we test two mechanisms through which cultural capital might affect educational performance: (a) teachers misinterpreting cultural capital as signals of academic brilliance and (b) cultural capital fostering skills in children that enhance educational performance. We analyse data from the ECLS-K and ECLS-K:2011 from the United States and focus on three aspects of children’s cultural capital: participation in performing arts, reading interest and participation in athletics and clubs. We find that (1) none of the three aspects of cultural capital that we consider affects teachers’ evaluations of children’s academic skills; (2) reading interest has a direct positive effect on educational performance; and (3) the direct effect of reading interest on educational performance does not depend on schooling context. Our results provide little support for the hypothesis that cultural capital operates via signals about academic brilliance. Instead, they suggest that cultural capital fosters skills in children that enhance educational performance. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings.     

Young people’s everyday political talk: a social achievement of democratic engagement

Everyday political talk is an important democratic activity. Research on young people has focused on the role of talk in political socialization. The overall question in this study is: What encourages or impedes young people to participate in everyday political talk? Politics has been described as a potentially unsafe topic. The study investigates young people’s own experiences of conversations in families, peer groups, and social media. The study applies a social interactional approach and understands political talk as a social achievement, related to norms and the management of self-identities. It is based on a multimethod approach comprising individual interviews, group interviews, and diaries. The group consists of 23 high school students (aged 17–18). The results show that the engagement in political talk is sensitive to the social settings. Norms make political topics expected or best to avoid. The family and peer groups are potentially important context for friendly talk, argumentations, exploration of opinions, and identities. The participants are in general more reluctant to express opinions in social media. The fear of face-threatening responses is one important aspect. The study suggests that political talk is an activity in which young people express, reveal, and carefully manage political self-identities.     

Personal charisma: Immediate or gradual? How long does it take to judge?

Personal charisma can be defined as the perceived ability of an individual to be a good communicator who is inspiring and visionary, is honest and reliable, attracts other people's attention and is dominant in uncertain situations. Students judged their teacher's charisma after knowing her for just 3 min and then again at the end of the semester. The results indicated that subjects changed their opinions on four out of six dimensions of charisma.     

Alzheimer’s disease: psychiatric or neurological disorder?

The aim of this contribution is to provide a few historical and conceptual insights on the question of the impact of current developments in the neurosciences on the concept of psychiatric disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a good example when considering this important question. On the one hand, Alzheimer’s disease has a somewhat ambiguous status in terms of disorders affecting the mind or the psyche. This ambiguous status is illustrated by the fact that one commonly qualifies Alzheimer’s disease as a ‘neuropsychiatric’ disorder, because it cannot easily be classified as either a ‘neurological’ or ‘psychiatric’ disorder. On the other hand, the concept of Alzheimer’s disease was created at the beginning of the twentieth century, as the neurosciences were beginning to take shape themselves as scientific disciplines. To compare Alzheimer’s original ideas with current conceptions may thus help us to precisely specify current developments in the neurosciences.     

U.S. Fortune 500’s stakeholders engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence for proactive approaches

In times of a national crisis such as COVID-19, it is important for organizations to show that they are good corporate citizens. At the same time, organizations should carefully select the type of messages that resonate with stakeholders so as to reduce stakeholder skepticism. This study examines how U.S. Fortune 500 companies discussed their COVID-19 pandemic CSR actions on Facebook over 15 months and how the public responded to such messages. We identified three CSR themes: internal stakeholder proactive CSR, external stakeholder proactive CSR, and external stakeholder accommodative CSR. When publics engaged, external stakeholder proactive CSR was significantly associated with better behavioral engagement outcomes, more positive emotional engagement outcomes, and less negative emotions. However, such effects are moderated by industry type. Our findings inform public relations theory and practice and suggest that in times of major crises, organizations should prioritize proactive approaches to engage external stakeholders while being mindful of specific institutional contexts.     

What’s a Parent to Do? How Parents Respond to Notification of a Child’s Police Detention

The current qualitative study involved in-depth semistructured interviews with parents whose children had been taken into custody. Their initial emotional reactions, cognitive processing, and behavioral responses to their child’s detention were examined. Five themes emerged from the data: (1) Parents try to defer immediate interactions with the child rather than react out of emotion; (2) Parents feel anger toward their child, but disappointment and shock are more strongly expressed emotional responses; (3) Parents do not accept the behavior but do not reject their child; (4) Police behaviors communicate the seriousness of the act; and (5) The entire family suffers consequences from the child’s act. Findings highlight the experiences of the parents as they interacted with the juvenile justice system.     

Brazil’s non-indifference: a case for a feminist diplomatic agenda or geopolitics as usual?

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Brazil took advantage of its economically and politically privileged position to challenge global normative structures. In 2004, the concept of “non-indifference” was integrated into the Brazilian vocabulary of foreign policy, justifying and legitimating the country’s acceptance of the invitation to command the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). On the one hand, non-indifference can be read as a discursive maneuver that enabled Brazil to accommodate its non-interventionist agenda to an old geopolitical game, given the pressure imposed upon “global players” to respond effectively and assertively to threats to international peace and security. On the other hand, the “Brazilian way” could also be seen as an alternative to a highly masculinized geopolitical approach to international security. This paper explores possible limitations, tensions and/or opportunities that emerge from the encounter between a feminist diplomatic agenda and a masculinizing ordering of the international space. It does so by contrasting Brazil’s ambition for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the club of powerful states, with Brazil’s diplomatic and military performance during MINUSTAH, widely evaluated as a success due to characteristics such as solidarity, generosity, flexibility and the “warm conviviality” of Brazilian culture.     

How do public organizations communicate their alliances on Facebook and how does the public react? A longitudinal analysis

Organizations have adopted social media to communicate their alliances to the public, that is, engage in representational networks. Yet a comprehensive examination of what is communicated in representational networks and how public reactions are associated with these networks is relatively scarce. This study builds on the Symbiotic Sustainability Model (SSM) to examine the content of messages passed in representational networks on social media and their related public reactions. Based on a panel analysis of one year of Facebook data generated by 605 public organizations in Taiwan, this study reveals that referencing certain topics such as economic and technological development and employing linguistic features demonstrating efficacy, formality, and empathetic concern in Facebook messages was associated with an increased diversity of alliance ties reported by public organizations. Moreover, the relationship between communicating diverse alliance ties and positive public reactions in the form of likes went both ways. Integrating automated topic modeling, linguistic analysis, and panel analysis, this study provides a process-based and communication-centered view of the mechanisms and disparities underlying organizations’ strategic network management on social media.     

Changing Facebook profile pictures as part of a campaign: who does it and why?

People changing their Facebook profile picture in support of social and political campaigns has recently become relatively common, particularly among young people. The current study presents an analysis of young people who change their profile picture and their motivations to do so. Using original data collected among less than 35 years old Facebook users (N?=?267), we find that besides the intensity of Facebook use, offline engagement in protest and boycotts has a significant and positive effect on the likelihood to change one's profile picture as part of a campaign. Hence, the opportunity for Facebook users to engage in politics by changing a profile picture to support a campaign seems to be seized more often by young people who are politically engaged offline than by those who are not. Among those who change their profile picture, raising awareness seems to be the primary motivation to do so. Identity formation is also a crucial motivation, in particular for profile pictures changes to support a political party and the marriage equality campaign.     

To be or not to be involved: a questionnaire-experimental view on Harsanyi’s utilitarian ethics

According to standard theory founded on Harsanyi (J Polit Econ 61:434–435, 1953; 63:309–321, 1955) a social welfare function can be appropriately based on the individual’s approach to choice under uncertainty. We investigate how people really do rank distributions in terms of welfare. According to Harsanyi, the evaluation can be done from the standpoint of an uninvolved external judge, a public official, for example, or by a person who knows that she holds one of the positions in society, with an equal chance for any of the available positions. Are these two structures to be viewed differently? We use a questionnaire experiment to focus on the two different interpretations of the Harsanyi approach. There are important, systematic differences that transcend the cultural background of respondents.     

Should business have ‘a sense of morality’?: Company director views on corporate engagement with socio-political issues

Increasingly, companies are expected to engage with, or be responsive to, their publics to achieve social acceptance or to be perceived as legitimate. The expectation manifests, in part, through beliefs that companies should engage with socio-political issues. This important component of public relations practice is examined through a qualitative analysis of interviews undertaken with 23 experienced Australian company directors. The empirical research identifies and explores a tension between the contemporary corporation as an amoral agent while also increasingly responsive to pressures introduced by external expectations, reflected in growing attention to the concept of social licence to operate. When resolving to engage with socio-political issues, directors were predominantly motivated by the company’s best interests and ‘good business’. This necessitated identifying issues relevant to key stakeholders and issues that tied to corporate purpose, identity or knowledge. However, some evidence is apparent of director willingness to engage with issues not directly related to core business or corporate purpose. This may reflect support for an enhanced social licence to operate or even in pursuit of wider societal legitimacy-building, pointing the way to potential future increases in corporate social engagement.     

Doha’s cultural armature on display: a response to Artifacts and Allegiances: How Museums put the Nation and the World on Display

After a brief discussion of the rapidly changing international museum world in Doha, this response piece engages with Peggy Levitt’s arguments around cultural armature and the role of museums in managing a city’s diversity, focusing on Doha, Qatar. Given the dominant migrant foreign population (88 per cent) and the careful protection of national citizenship in Qatar, the role of museums in managing diversity presents a situation that contrasts with older nation states: rather than encouraging inclusion, the museums in Qatar and the Arabian Peninsula states play a role in constructing and protecting a pure concept of national identity on behalf of a minority citizen population that deliberately fails to embrace any notion of diversity. This piece uses brief case studies to illustrate this process of exclusion, expanding Levitt’s original argument.     

Disabled children’s childhood studies: a distinct approach?

This paper suggests that the emergence of disabled children’s childhood studies as an area of study offers a distinct approach to inquiry; it represents a significant shift away from the long-standing deficit discourses of disabled childhoods that have dominated western culture and its reaches. On the one hand, contemporary childhood studies contest normative, Eurocentric mantras around the ‘standard child’; while on the other, disability studies critique the medical discourses and the scope of its authority. However, while drawing on these two approaches, disabled children’s childhood studies provide more than this combined critique. In disabled children’s childhood studies, disabled children are not viewed as necessarily having problems or being problems, but as having childhoods.     

How are George Orwell’s writings a precursor to studies of popular culture?

George Orwell is known as an acclaimed novelist, essayist, documentary writer, and journalist. But Orwell also wrote widely on a number of themes in and around popular culture. However, even though Orwell's writings might be considered as a precursor to some well-known themes in studies of popular culture his contribution to this area still remains relatively unacknowledged by others in the discipline. The aim of this article is simply, therefore, to provide a basis to begin to rethink Orwell’s contribution to contemporary studies of popular culture. It does so by demonstrating some comparable insights into culture and society between those made by Orwell and those found in the work of Bakhtin, Bourdieu, and Deleuze. These insights are also related to four main areas of discussion: debates in contemporary cultural studies about the contested pleasures of popular culture and experiences; the relationship between language and culture; how social class needs to be defined not just economically but also culturally; and how one might escape cultural relativism when writing about popular culture. The article concludes by suggesting that Orwell is a precursor to contemporary studies of popular culture insofar that some of the cultural themes he explores have become established parts of the discipline’s canon.