Predicting psychological ripple effects: the role of cultural identity, in-group/out-group identification, and attributions of blame in crisis communication

Incidents of intentional food contamination can produce ripple effects in consumers such as reduced trust and increased anxiety. In their postcrisis communication, food companies often direct the blame at the perpetrator in an effort to mitigate potential losses and regain consumer trust. The attempt to placate consumers may, in itself, potentially create psychological ripple effects in message readers. This study examined the interacting influence of two message characteristics: identity of the perpetrator of the crime (in-group/out-group membership), and the attribution of blame (reason why the perpetrator committed the crime), with message receiver characteristic (cultural identity) on psychological ripple effects such as blame, trust, anxiety, and future purchase intention. Results indicated that although group membership of the perpetrator was not significant in predicting outcomes for the organization, the attribution communicated in the message was. American message receivers blamed the organization more and trusted it less when personal dispositional attributions were made about the perpetrator. Asian message receivers blamed the organization more and trusted it less when situational attributions were made about the perpetrator. Lowered trust in the company and increased anxiety correlated with lower purchase intent for both American and Asian message receivers. Implications for crisis message design are discussed.     

Work Choices: the low productivity road to an underclass

The passage of the Work Choices Act 2005 serves to eliminate one of the last symbols of fairness in Australian society; the judicially‐determined conciliation and arbitration system and wage‐setting machinery. In this paper we examine the flawed conceptual framework, which underpins the Government's view that reducing the rights and protections of workers will produce superior labour market outcomes. We argue that the principal failure of the Work Choices Act is that it ignores the role of macroeconomic policy in directly addressing the efficiency and equity issues that have been said to motivate its provisions. The Act also ignores the different bargaining power of workers and capital and pays no attention to the serious social repercussions that will flow when labour is treated like a commodity. The imperative to minimise labour costs under Work Choices will spur a race to the bottom and the profusion of insecure, low‐paid, poor‐quality work in an economy characterised by allocative and dynamic inefficiency.     

Community attitudes on the family of issues surrounding the death of terminal patients

In two studies, respondents made recommendations for the medical treatment of a terminally ill elderly woman. The woman was or was not experiencing intractable pain, and had requested either heroic medical efforts or euthanasia. Respondents' recommendations were influenced by both the specific wishes of the patient and the pain the person was experiencing. However, participants were not completely swayed by the patient's wishes: only about half of the sample recommended euthanasia even when the patient was in intractable pain and had requested death; also, many subjects would not resuscitate the patient whose heart or lungs failed, even though she had requested heroic measures. Respondent attitudes toward euthanasia predicted recommendations in the expected directions. We suggest that there is less dissent on the issues that arise for medical treatments at the end of life than has been widely assumed.     

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP — FALSE PREMISES AND DANGEROUS FOREBODINGS

As a reaction against neo‐liberalism, Social Entrepreneurship has been promoted as the solution to welfare problems brought about by social change and persistent unemployment. The Social Entrepreneurship Movement (SEM) proposes the reconstruction of welfare by building social partnerships between the public, social and business sectors. Major aspects of this agenda include non‐profit organisations undertaking entrepreneurial ventures and the pooling of government welfare funding under the control of local communities. In this paper we argue that the SEM literature is based on two false premises: the failure to understand the true causes of mass unemployment, and the assumption that the government faces financial constraints in the provision of welfare services. We also argue that implementation of the SEM proposals would erode the rights‐based eligibility to universal welfare services based on the principle of social justice. We also conclude that the SEM is indistinguishable from neo‐liberalism and as such does not represent a viable solution to unemployment and the welfare needs that accompany it.     

Labour Market Regulation,Flexibility and Employment

ABSTRACT: Chronic unemployment and slow employment growth in some countries have led to calls for more labor-market “flexibility”. This paper defines the flexibility issue in terms of legally-mandated “severance”, a generalized employment cost linked to seniority. A mandated severance benefit can stand for a variety of programs including employer-provided employment guarantees, payments which must be made to laid-off workers, and compensation for wrongful discharge. Such a mandated cost can be seen as a payroll tax on the employer, raising the issue of tax incidence. Employers often take the view that labor costs are given and that mandated costs are simply add-ons to pre-existing cost levels. However, the literature on tax incidence suggests that a significant portion of “employer-paid” payroll taxes are shifted to labor in the form of lower wages. Such shifting should reduce the dis-employment effects attributed to severance. A model is provided of a firm upon which a severance mandate is imposed. Even at the micro level, the firm can shift some of the cost of severance to employees by lowering wages — although at the expense of higher turnover costs associated with increased quit rates. At the macro level, to the extent that firms reduce employment, there could be still further downward wage adjustments which would shift the severance burden to labor and mitigate the dis-employment effect. Ultimately, if the natural rate of unemployment is raised by severance mandates, the age-old question is raised of why wages do not fall in the face of labor surpluses. The true inflexibility to be explained, therefore, is in wage determination.