Christian Fieseler

On the Corporate Social Responsibility Perceptions of Equity Analysts

The importance of communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) not only to socially responsible investors but also to the mainstream of the financial community is gaining importance in a more competitive capital market environment. This article looks at how equity analysts at the German stock exchange in Frankfurt – individuals who are not particularly involved in socially responsible investment (SRI) research – perceive economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility strategies. The evidence obtained in our interviews suggests that responsibility issues are increasingly becoming part of mainstream investment analysis. However, for them to play a larger part in the future, investor relations personnel must frame responsibility strategies in a way that is more consistent with the financial communitys perspective. In particular, the impact of CSR measures on strategic development, competitive anticipation and creating trust with stakeholders are key in leveraging CSR in financial communications.

THE STRESS POTENTIAL OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE

Social media have enriched the communication profession with new and immediate ways of stakeholder interaction. Along with new possibilities also come challenges – as professionals are engaging in real-time conversations with their audiences on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the like, they have to learn to mentally cope with an oversupply of possibly relevant information, with an invasion of work matters into the private domain and with changing work contents and structures. This paper proposes a measurement routed in the technostress and overload research to assess these challenges brought to communication workforces by social media. These data were collected in a quantitative survey among 2,579 marketing and communication professionals. Based on an exploratory factor analysis, we demonstrate that being literate in an age of social media encompasses not only knowing how to retrieve and process information appropriately in various social settings, but also – and maybe more importantly – to mentally cope with overload, invasion and uncertainty.

Investor relations beyond financials : Non-financial factors and capital market image building

Purpose – In this paper, the authors aim to identify a range of non‐financial factors that play a role in the formation of a companys image, and ultimately its valuation, on capital markets. By identifying and highlighting their relative importance to the perceptions of equity analysts, the authors seek to show that investor relations are best understood as a strategic communication function rather than a mere purveyor of pure financials.Design/methodology/approach – The findings are based on a two‐tiered approach, relying on qualitative interview data collected among 42 equity analysts and a subsequent exploratory factor analysis performed on data obtained from a survey among 134 buy‐ and sell‐side analysts.Findings – The authors argue that equity analysts consider the following eight categories of non‐financial information when forming an impression of a company: the stakeholder relations of an organization, its corporate governance, its corporate social responsibility, its reputation and brand, the qu...

What's mine is yours (for a nominal fee) - Exploring the spectrum of utilitarian to altruistic motives for Internet-mediated sharing

In this contribution, we scrutinize the diverse motives for internet-mediated sharing as well as their role in shaping attitudes towards sharing ones possessions in commercialized as well as non-commercialized settings. On the basis of qualitative and quantitative research, we first develop a scale of sharing motives, showing that the reasons for participating in online sharing platforms are more nuanced than previously thought. Second, employing a motivational model of sharing, rooted in the theory of planned behavior, we show that sharing attitudes are driven by moral, social-hedonic and monetary motivations. Furthermore, we identify materialism, sociability and volunteering as predictors of sharing motives in different sharing contexts. Against this background, we explore the possible role of monetary incentives as a necessary but not sufficient condition for sharing ones possessions with others. Individuals share out of social-hedonic, moral, and monetary motives.Materialism, sociability and volunteerism predict individual sharing motives.Social-hedonic motives are the strongest predictor of Internet-mediated sharing.Monetary incentives may be necessary but not sufficient for online sharing.Commercial and non-commercial sharers differ substantially in their motives.

Typologies of communicators in Europe

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a quantitative investigation into the major working fields of European communication professionals.Design/methodology/approach – The paper build upon previous work done in roles research, but follow a grounded approach in using an explorative cluster analysis on a sample of 1,410 communicators from 30 different European countries.Findings – The paper identifies five typologies into which the working fields of European communication practitioners can be categorized: negotiators, brand officers, policy advisors, internal communicators, and press agents. These clusters are distinctively different in terms of education, salary, and career, as well as job satisfaction.Research limitations/implications – This paper is focused on the typologies of the European communication profession, whereas differences regarding the cultural or national context of the communication profession as well as the particularities of the respective media systems are no...

Methoden der Erfolgsmessung von Kommunikation

Die zunehmende Bedeutung der Unternehmenskommunikation hat eine fortschreitende Professionalisierung zur Folge. Instrumente, Ansatze und Masnahmen des Kommunikationsmanagements werden laufend erneuert, ausgebaut und verbessert. Das fuhrt zwangslaufig auch zu hoheren Anforderungen an die Messung des Erfolgs. Heute existieren bereits zahlreiche Ansatze und Methoden der Erfolgsmessung von Kommunikation. Diese wurden zum Teil vor einem akademischen Hintergrund, zum Teil aber auch in der Kommunikationspraxis entwickelt. Dieser Beitrag stellt die gangigen Methoden im Uberblick vor, systematisiert sie und unternimmt eine kritische Betrachtung. Gemas der heutigen Kommunikationspraxis werden die Methoden der Erfolgsmessung differenziert nach den etablierten Kommunikationsfunktionen – Public Relations, Investor Relations, Kunden- und Mitarbeiterkommunikation – dargestellt.

A social net? Internet and social media use during unemployment

Many people who are unemployed tend to experience forms of psychological and social losses, including a weakened time structure, diminished social contacts, an absence of collective purpose, falling status, and inactivity. This article focuses on the experience of diminished social contacts and addresses whether social media help the unemployed maintain their relationships. Based on qualitative interviews with unemployed individuals, the article identifies various types of social support networks and their impact on individual experiences of inclusion and exclusion. Although the unemployed use social media to cultivate their social support networks, the opportunity to establish new contacts, both private and professional, is underutilized. Thus, social network differentiation between the unemployed and employed persists online in social media.

The flow of digital labor

Digital microwork is a type of labor that many—typically poorly paid—workers engage in. In our research, we focus on an experience-based model of digital labor and the nonmonetary benefits derived from such activities. Based on a survey of 701 workers at Amazon Mechanical Turk, we demonstrate that experiences during digital labor sequences generate flow-like states of immersion. We show that reaching flow-like states while performing microwork depends on certain work characteristics, such as the particular worker’s degree of autonomy, the extent to which a worker’s skills are utilized, and the apparent significance of and feedback derived from the task. The results both highlight the importance of flow-like immersion in explaining why individuals engage in digital labor projects and point to avenues that can lead to the design of better digital work experiences.

The role of privacy concerns in the sharing economy

ABSTRACT Internet-mediated sharing is growing quickly. Millions of users around the world share personal services and possessions with others ‒ often complete strangers. Shared goods can amount to substantial financial and immaterial value. Despite this, little research has investigated privacy in the sharing economy. To fill this gap, we examine the sharing–privacy nexus by exploring the privacy threats associated with Internet-mediated sharing. Given the popularity of sharing services, users seem quite willing to share goods and services despite the compounded informational and physical privacy threats associated with such sharing. We develop and test a framework for analyzing the effect of privacy concerns on sharing that considers institutional and social privacy threats, trust and social-hedonic as well as monetary motives.

Die Ökonomie der Verantwortung – eine wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Perspektive auf CSR

Die Frage ob Unternehmen eine gesellschaftliche Verantwortung wahrzunehmen haben, und wenn ja, auf welche Art und Weise, wird seit geraumer Zeit unter dem Schlagwort „Corporate Social Responsibility“ (CSR) kontrovers diskutiert. Die Forderung nach mehr unternehmerischer Verantwortung ist auf der einen Seite den steigenden Anspruchen von Kunden, Regierungen und auserparlamentarischen Interessengruppen an die gesellschaftliche Rolle von Unternehmen geschuldet. Aber auch auf Unternehmensseite ist die Institutionalisierung von gesellschaftsgerichteten Policies und Masnahmen bereits weit vorangeschritten.