Residents’ information seeking behavior and protective action for earthquake hazards in The Portland Oregon Metropolitan Area

Though significant research exists on earthquake hazard adjustment adoption more generally, research focused on how information seeking influences planned or actual preparedness behavior is rare, limiting our understanding of how information seeking translates into preparedness. To address this gap, our study tests a proposed model of household seismic hazard adjustment using questionnaire responses of roughly 400 households living in the Portland, OR metropolitan region. The proposed model includes components of the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) with specific emphasis on past information seeking behavior, preparedness behavior, intentions to seek information, and intentions to take protective action. Other components include risk perception, earthquake experience, affective response, seismic risk zone residency, and demographics. Consistent with previous research, this study finds information seeking behavior to be the strongest influence on preparedness with other important influences being risk perception, affective response, and intentions to prepare. We find weak ties between risk zone residency and earthquake risk perception, though this may be because our sample has little experience with earthquakes and the majority live in the same earthquake risk zones. Importantly, longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether information seeking and intentions to prepare eventually result in household protective action.     

The interplay between post-crisis response strategy and pre-crisis corporate associations in the context of CSR crises

How should a company respond to a crisis that is related to its social responsibility by capitalizing on consumers’ existing corporate associations? To answer this question, the present study focuses on two primary types of corporate associations, corporate ability (CA) associations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) associations, and proposes two different types of response strategies that are association-based: CA strategy and CSR strategy. Drawing on the framework of CA-CSR, Expectancy Violation Theory, and information processing literature, this study examines whether and how these crisis response strategies interact with consumers’ pre-crisis associations and collectively influence consumer reactions in times of CSR crises. Results of two experiments render support for the predicted interaction effect. Furthermore, the results show that crisis response diagnosticity and novelty, as perceived by consumers with varied pre-crisis associations, serve as the underlying process explanations that drive the observed interaction effect. Theoretical contributions and practical implications of these results to crisis communication are also discussed.     

The early days of public relations in British Malaya: Winning the hearts and minds of the Empire

This article traces the early form of public information services during the colonial period to provide new insights into the historical development of Malaysia’s public relations. The first formal information agency created in 1910 was based in London to promote the early practices of public relations for British Malaya and its interests in Britain. British consolidation during the years of economic boom and depression, until the achievement of Malaysian Independence, was aided by the early information services. The article makes an alternative argument about the beginnings of Malaysian public relations based on colonial economic and political interest as against other previously held views     

From ‘moments of madness’ to ‘the politics of mundanity’ - researching digital media and contentious collective actions in China

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become an essential part of contentious politics and social movements in contemporary China. Although quite a few scholars have explored ICTs, contentious politics, and collective action in China, they largely focus on the event-based analysis of discrete contentious events, failing to capture, reflect, and assess most of the political ferment in and around the routine use of digital media in people’s everyday lives. This study proposes a broader research agenda by shifting the focus from contentious events – ‘moments of madness’ – to ‘the politics of mundanity’: the political dynamics in the mundanity of digitally mediated, routine daily life. The agenda includes, first, the investigation of the dynamics underlying the mundane use of digital media, which not only places the use of ICTs in contentious moments into ‘a big picture’ to understand the political potential of mundane use of ICTs, but also reveals ‘everyday resistance,’ or less publicly conspicuous tactics, as precursors of open, confrontational forms of contentious activity. Second, the agenda proposes the examination of mundane experiences to understand the sudden outburst of contention and digital media as the ‘repertoire of contention.’ Third, the agenda scrutinizes the adoption of mundane expressions of contentious challenges to authoritarian regimes, as they allow for the circumvention of the heavy censorship of collective action mobilization. Mundane expressions have thereby emerged as a prominent part of the mobilization mechanism of contention in China. Addressing ‘the politics of mundanity’ will provide a nuanced understanding of ICTs and contentious collective action in China.     

News and information leadership in the digital age

This paper examines information networks on social media to draw conclusions about influence relationships among members of the mass media. The project considers social networks and information patterns using Twitter data, first at the newspaper level and second at the journalist level. Using a computational approach, we look for evidence of elite-directed information flows, as well as exploring whether we find evidence of an increase in the democratization of newsmaking. This study finds that elite voices continue to dominate information networks in the digital age; however, it also finds evidence that information can move expeditiously from journalists in local and regional outlets to elite ones, and vice versa. We move further to explore the content of tweets among the journalist network, finding that there are substantial, direct interactions among elite and regional and local journalists. Our results taken together uncover new network patterns and provide a novel insight on the role of information technologies in newsmaking in the digital age.     

Motives for sharing illness experiences on Twitter: conversations of parents with children diagnosed with cancer

A patient- and family-centred approach in paediatric health care is important because parents are involved in making key decisions about their child’s health care and advocating for the best interest of the child. Parents and family members are increasingly turning to the internet to find and actively share information about their child’s health care. Twitter is one of many online platforms used by parents of children diagnosed with cancer to share information related to their child’s cancer experience. Existing research suggests that there is a need to better understand the motives for using Twitter for sharing content about a child’s cancer experience. Furthermore, there is a lack of theoretical frameworks for characterizing those motives. In this paper, we identify key themes of tweets posted by parents of children diagnosed with cancer and align those themes with motives inspired by the well-studied Everyday Life Information Seeking framework. We propose a new motive in addition to those associated with the framework and suggest that information can be shared for endogenous reasons as well as to meet the needs of others. This paper contributes an increased understanding of motives for sharing information about a child’s cancer journey and extends a theoretical framework for building further knowledge in this area.     

The need to improve communication about scope changes: frustration as an indicator of operational inefficiencies

Early and timely sharing of information can provide a sustainable competitive advantage. However, even if lean information management aims to improve this information flow, it has mainly been investigated in ‘operations-based’ companies. This paper fills this gap, drawing upon the experience of the authors working within a large project-based company engaged in the ‘engineer and manufacture to order’ of a complex piece of equipment costing millions of dollars, for its strategic long-term client, both working in the same industrial field, i.e. nuclear decommissioning. This research investigates the information flow regarding scope changes between the project-based company and the long-term client adapting and applying a five-step framework to highlight operational inefficiencies, reduce the corresponding transaction costs and increase the overall company’s competitiveness. This is exemplified through a particular case, but can be applied to other project-based companies dealing with strategic clients involved in long-term relationships.     

Core-periphery or decentralized? Topological shifts of specialized information on Twitter

In this paper we investigate shifts in Twitter network topology resulting from the type of information being shared. We identified communities matching areas of agricultural expertise and measured the core-periphery centralization of network formations resulting from users sharing generic versus specialized information. We found that centralization increases when specialized information is shared and that the network adopts decentralized formations as conversations become more generic. The results are consistent with classical diffusion models positing that specialized information comes with greater centralization, but they also show that users favor decentralized formations, which can foster community cohesion, when spreading specialized information is secondary.     

What works for you may not work for (Gen)Me: Limitations of present leadership theories for the new generation

Scholars and practitioners alike have recognized that younger workers, collectively known as Millennials or GenMe, are different from workers in prior generations. Employees of this generation hold different expectations regarding the centrality of work to their lives and bring different personalities and attitudes to the workforce. As the number of Millennials in the workforce grows each year, the divide between them and their older counterparts becomes more salient, posing unique challenges for organizational leaders. In this paper, we explore how these changes may force the need for reconsideration of five of the most frequently used leadership theories in an effort to understand important boundary conditions and how leadership research must evolve to keep pace with a changing workforce.     

Playing the Game of Outcomes‐based Performance Management. Is Gamesmanship Inevitable? Evidence from Theory and Practice

This article presents the case for the need for a re‐think in the prevailing orthodoxy of measurement approaches in the governance and management of public services. The article explores the simplification of complex reality that outcomes‐based performance management (OBPM) requires in order to function, and the consequences of such simplification. It examines the evidence for and against the effectiveness of OBPM, and argues that both sets of evidence can be brought into a single explanatory story by understanding the theory of OBPM. The simplification required to measure and attribute ‘outcomes’ turns the organization and delivery of social interventions into a game, the rules of which promote gamesmanship, distorting the behaviour of organizations, managers and practitioners who undertake it.