Public Meetings and Risk Amplification: A Longitudinal Study

This article offers longitudinal data tracking people who did and did not attend a series of public meetings in an upstate New York rural community grappling with the expansion of an existing solid waste landfill and remediation of an adjacent inactive hazardous waste site. Before and after the public meetings, mailed questionnaires measured risk perceptions and perceived credibility of risk managers (here, the state government agencies and the responsible industry) conducting the meetings. Respondents at each measurement point included meeting attendees and nonattendees, with some fluctuation over time when attendees at one measurement point were nonattendees at the next and vice versa. The results from the first survey indicate that following the first two public meetings, attendees perceived greater risks from the waste sites than did nonattendees; attendees also perceived the risk managers as less credible. After the third public meeting, the results showed that attendees' risk perceptions remained steady; however, perceptions of government agency credibility significantly decreased. After the fourth public meeting, the survey found that attendees' risk perceptions were again not significantly different, whereas perceptions of government agency credibility increased significantly. The industry's credibility also increased, though only among attendees who had attended the most recent public meeting, not among attendees who had attended both the third and fourth public meetings. For nonattendees, risk perceptions and credibility ratings did not change. The discussion examines how distinctive characteristics of communication at each public meeting may have resulted in different effects and proposes hypotheses for future research.     

网络使用、网络依赖与网络信息可信度之相关性研究

借助于“媒介可信度理论”与“媒介系统依赖理论”,采用问卷调查方法,我们探讨了网民对于网络信息的可信度评价,及网民对于网络的使用行为与其对网络的心理依赖间的关系。研究发现,网民的网络使用和网络依赖显著相关;网民的网络使用时间、网络使用经验、网络依赖及其人口变量与网络信息的可信度皆显著相关;网民在网络上不同类型的信息之间,其可信度评价存在显著差异。     

Transparency tested: The influence of message features on public perceptions of organizational transparency

The concept of transparency has been promoted within the public relations and business literature as both ethical and advantageous; however, the effectiveness of transparency is seldom empirically put to the test. In particular, the use of clarity, disclosure, and accuracy in organizational messages needs to be empirically examined. To this end, we conducted an online experiment using a 2 (high vs. low message transparency) x 2 (news story placed before or after an organizational statement) between-subjects design. Participants (n?=?357) perceived organizations as more transparent and credible when exposed to messages exhibiting greater levels of clarity, disclosure, and accuracy as opposed to messages that did not. Placement of an information anchor in the form of an objective news story before the organizational message increased the perceived organizational transparency when messages employed transparent design features and decreased the perceived organizational transparency when messages did not use these features. These results provide significant implications for practitioners attempting to convey organizational transparency at the tactical level through message features.     

企业诚信与竞争优势的关系研究--基于苏州等六地188家企业的实证调查

本文在综合和提炼了企业诚信与竞争优势的相关理论基础上,将企业诚信分为三个维度,分别是信用水平、品牌、利益相关者信任;将竞争优势分为销售业绩、发展潜力、管理绩效三个维度.本文分析了企业诚信三维度与竞争优势三维度之间的相关和回归关系,研究结论有利于企业诚信建设.     

Differential impact of Web site content: Exploring the influence of source (public relations versus news), modality,and participation on college students’ perceptions

This experiment examined the impact of source, modality, and participation on perceptions of credibility, salience, attitudes, and general Web site evaluation. The data showed no significant differences between online stories coming from either public relations or news sources on any of the study's dependent variables. However, significant differences did emerge for the effects of multimedia and audience engagement.     

Communication after an integrity-based trust violation: How organizational account giving affects trust

How can an organization repair trust through communication after an ethical failure? This study examines how trust is repaired after an integrity-based trust violation using three different accounts: apology, excuse, and refusal. In our approach, we rely on two strands of attribution theory, which suggests that different attributions for responsibility and credibility affect trust. An experiment with n = 368 was conducted to explore trust repair effectiveness of apology versus refusal and apology versus excuse after an integrity-based trust violation. Results revealed apology as a double-edged sword; it repairs trust more successfully than refusal and excuse because it is evaluated as more credible. However, it is less successful than refusal and excuse because it is evaluated as more responsible.     

Credibility and Inflation Expectations: What we can tell from seven emerging economies?

This study is a contribution to the literature concerning credibility and its effect on the distribution between forward-looking behavior and backward-looking behavior for formation of inflation expectations in the case of emerging economies. Based on data gathered from seven inflation targeting emerging economies (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, and Turkey), this paper analyzes how much the credibility associated with the inflation target contributes to anchoring expectations. The findings denote that although credibility is relevant to reduce inflation expectations, these countries present low monetary credibility and thus the backward-looking behavior is predominant for the formation of inflation expectations. Therefore, in order to improve the expectations channel of monetary policy in emerging economies, a policy of increasing transparency regarding inflation expectations is mandatory to the central banks’ task of anchoring inflation expectations.     

Crisis communication online: How medium,crisis type and emotions affected public reactions in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Social media play in today's societies a fundamental role for the negotiation and dynamics of crises. However, classical crisis communication theories neglect the role of the medium and focus mainly on the interplay between crisis type and crisis communication strategy. Building on the recently developed “networked crisis communication model” we contrast effects of medium (Facebook vs. Twitter vs. online newspaper) and crisis type (intentional vs. victim) in an online experiment. Using the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster as crisis scenario, we show that medium effects are stronger than the effects of crisis type. Crisis communication via social media resulted in a higher reputation and less secondary crisis reactions such as boycotting the company than crisis communication in the newspaper. However, secondary crisis communication, e.g. talking about the crisis communication, was higher in the newspaper condition than in the social media conditions because people consider traditional media as more credible. We also found higher levels of anger in the intentional crisis condition than in the victim crisis condition. Anger in turn was related to reputation, secondary crisis communication and secondary crisis reaction. The results stress the need for more complex models of crisis communication.     

《仪礼》所见周代等级臣僚形态述论

《仪礼》作为"三礼"之一,为周代贵族相关礼仪汇编。其书保存了众多珍贵的周代职官史料,记载了具有等级制特征的各级贵族之臣僚,为其他先秦文献所鲜有。若究其实质,将《仪礼》所记与周代职官制度史实相参照,等级臣僚形态实是西周春秋封建政治体制下多级君权的产物,其编纂显有历史依据。