Francesco Lurati

Communicating CSR: practices among Switzerland's top 300 companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a picture of the practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication among the top 300 companies in Switzerland and to investigate how favorable the cultural context is for this kind of communication.Design/methodology/approach – The investigation of the top 300 companies in Switzerland was conducted using a written survey that built on previous studies.Findings – CSR communication in Switzerland appears to be well developed, but still has broad margins for development. Examples are provided on how to improve CSR communication. Such improvements should be relatively easy to implement since Switzerland, it is argued, appears to be open to CSR communication.Research limitations/implications – The investigation considered only the communication objectives toward a limited range of stakeholders, such as clients, shareholders, and employees. The survey was conducted among the top 300 companies in Switzerland; these companies are not necessarily repr...

Situational Theory of Publics: Exploring a Cultural Ethnocentric Bias

The situational theory of publics demonstrates that stakeholders are best segmented into active publics, given their high problem recognition, low constraint recognition, and high level of involvement in an issue. This study further demonstrates that low identification with an issue is significant as the publics situational drivers are increased by a high ethnocentric bias. This argument is investigated with regard to a specific type of public: journalists. The results confirmed previous discussions of how a specific publics situational behavior might be influenced by a referent criterion representing a biased mindset of that public toward the topic.

Being different and being the same: Multimodal image projection strategies for a legitimate distinctive identity

This article examines how organizations claim legitimate distinctive identities in competitive groups by projecting multimodal—that is, visual and verbal—images. Through a qualitative empirical exploration of wineries’ projected images in a regional cluster, this study identifies three projection strategies by which organizations combine collective and organizational identity markers to claim their legitimate distinctive identities. By examining legitimate distinctiveness as a multimodal discursive construct, this study advances the understanding of the link among collective and organizational identity, projected images, and legitimate distinctiveness, thereby contributing to theories of organizational positioning in established organizational categories. More broadly, this study contributes to discursive theories of legitimate distinctiveness by adding multimodal projection strategies to the array of linguistic rhetorical devices that organizations use to influence their stakeholders’ perceptions.

Stakeholder cross-impact analysis: a segmentation method

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a method that the authors call stakeholder cross-impact analysis (SCIA), which is aimed at analyzing how a given set of stakeholders influence one another and also how such stakeholders relate to a given set of issues. Design/methodology/approach – The authors first identify, in the current literature, a lack of analytical tools for assessing mutual influences among stakeholders. The authors then identify cross-impact analysis, a method that was initially developed in the field of futures research, as a suitable method to be applied in the present research. Its application, which the authors call SCIA, is described in detail through a fictitious case. Findings – SCIA permits to assess the direction and the strength of relationships between stakeholders. Furthermore, it allows for the classification of stakeholders based on their level of dependence and influence on others. Also, it is possible to integrate SCIA with social network analysis in order to un...

The Role of Social Capital for Organizational Identification: Implications for Strategic Communication

ABSTRACT Scholars in the fields of organization and strategic communication have long been interested in organizational identification as a phenomenon favoring employees’ alignment with corporate values and consequently achievement of the organizational mission. To date, most studies on the subject have relied on social identity theory, which focuses on cognitive categorization processes but overlooks the role of employees’ relationships within their organization. In this research, we introduce a social capital perspective into organizational identification models. We propose and test a model looking at the influence of an individual’s social capital, a variable deriving from different dimensions of an individual’s communication network (i.e., prestige, resourceful others, friendship), on organizational identification, mediated by the attractiveness of perceived organizational identity. The results from a survey conducted in a business organization suggest that a person’s social capital influences organizational identification, both directly and through the attractiveness of perceived organizational identity. Our organizational identification model contributes to extend knowledge on the complementarity of the cognitive and relational perspectives of strategic communication and on the role of relationship building and networks in strategic communication management.

Organizational Identification: The Role of Social Capital

Scholars have increasingly been interested in organizational identification as a phenomenon helping to gain insights into the connection between employees and their organizations. Most studies on t...