CEO statements on racial inequity – (how) do they matter to shareholders?

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore how citizen protests against perceived acts of racial injustice impact on share prices of companies who weigh in on the protests. In particular, corporate statements that directly address the issues around the protests are identified and possible mechanisms underlying how these may impact shareholder value are discussed. Design/methodology/approach The authors first use a qualitative research approach of content and sentiment analysis to track how companies or their chief executive officers (CEOs) present their stance against racial injustice, as represented by their use of linguistic markers. Then, the authors use an event study methodology to assess the response from stock market participants. Findings The findings suggest that CEOs primarily convey their stance using language that is emotive and empathic. In addition, shareholders earn a significant abnormal return of 2.13%, on average, in the three days following the release of the statements. Research limitations/implications This study considered only US-listed companies. The sample size, also, is relatively small. Institutional and cultural differences across countries may also vary. Thus, future research could explore the extent to which the findings generalize to other contexts. Practical implications Results provide insights to top managers who communicate with various stakeholders on emotionally charged social issues. Findings also offer insights on the timing of trades for investors and arbitrageurs. Social implications Findings contribute to the understanding of corporate behaviour in times of social upheaval. Insights from the study may also be used to inform corporate communication decisions about important social issues. Originality/value This study brings into focus the role that affective appeal and moral emotion can play in evoking motivation for corporate activism, and the impact that this has on investor opinions’ formation process.

Frailty for neurologists: a practical guide

Neurologists increasingly care for people with significant frailty in both clinic and ward settings. Such care demands a balanced approach to investigation, diagnosis and treatment, as well-intentioned actions can produce adverse effects. This article presents a practical approach to the identification and management of patients with frailty and neurological conditions. We address medicines optimisation, common causes of deterioration in those with frailty, communication, decisions about intensity of treatment, and shared decision-making including ethical aspects of withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging treatment, with a view to improving the experience both of people living with frailty and of the teams who care for them.

Strategic Communications and the Toms Case: Aligning Business Strategy With Strategic Communication

This work analyses the principles of strategic communication, taking the case of the Toms firm as an example in which business strategy aligns with strategic communication. It explains this company’s management style on how strategic communication is to be understood. Fundamentally, the Toms strategy focuses more on exploiting its potential to fulfil its mission in the long term (to sell and be an organisation standing for solidarity) than on applying resources or making partial, short-term communication decisions. Thus, the entire business model and all long-term business decisions can in themselves be regarded as strategic communication decisions since the business objective becomes a communication objective. In this way, each tactic and action put into play in the firm’s evolution provides it with social value and confers a constantly changing communicative dimension, which is only possible in nonlinear organisations whose business design is hypertextual or bidirectional.

Talking With Children About Prognosis: The Decisions and Experiences of Mothers With Metastatic Cancer

PURPOSE: Parents with metastatic cancer report unique concerns and challenges when discussing their illness with their minor children. Greater understanding of parents’ communication experiences can facilitate these discussions. This study aimed to describe the challenges, approaches, and decisions related to discussing prognosis among a sample of mothers with metastatic cancer. METHODS: We conducted a web-based cross-sectional survey assessing the psychosocial concerns of 224 women with metastatic cancer who had minor children. This analysis focused on participant responses to structured and open-ended questions addressing communication with their children. We used descriptive statistics to summarize responses to the structured questions and qualitative content analysis for responses to open-ended questions. RESULTS: Nearly 80% (n = 176) reported they had discussed their prognosis with at least one of their children; 79% identified at least one barrier to these discussions. The most common obstacles were participants’ uncertainty about their illness trajectory (43%) and emotional distress associated with these conversations (41%). Qualitative analyses revealed three principles that guided mothers’ communication decisions: commitment to honesty and protection; child developmental readiness; and beliefs about the right time. Approaches to discussing prognosis included total honesty, using the language of chronic illness, gradual disclosure, waiting for questions, and emphasizing hope, love, and reassurance. CONCLUSION: This study provides further evidence of the complexity and challenges of parental communication with their children about metastatic cancer. There is a need for both clinicians and researchers to identify, test, and implement evidence-based strategies to assist ill parents with their communication concerns.

Face-to-Face Communication in Organizations

Communication is integral to organizations and yet field evidence on the relation between communication and worker productivity remains scarce. We argue that a core role of communication is to transmit information that helps co-workers do their job better. We build a simple model in which workers choose the amount of communication by trading off this benefit against the time cost incurred by the sender, and use it to derive a set of empirical predictions. We then exploit a natural experiment in an organization where problems arrive and must be sequentially dealt with by two workers. For exogenous reasons, the first worker can sometimes communicate face-to-face with their colleague. Consistently with the predictions of our model, we find that: (1) the second worker works faster (at the cost of the first worker having less time to deal with incoming problems) when face-to-face communication is possible, (2) this effect is stronger when the second worker is busier and for homogenous and closely located teams, and (3) the (career) incentives of workers determine how much they communicate with their colleagues. We also find that workers partially internalise social outcomes in their communication decisions. Our findings illustrate how workers in teams adjust the amount of mutual communication to its costs and benefits.

The Tensions of Strategic Communication Decision-Making: An Exploratory Examination of Theory and Practice

The Tensions of Strategic Communication Decision-Making (TSCD) is introduced as an applied theory describing the way decision-makers experience a risk or crisis and prioritize their strategic communication responses to maintain positive relationships with their publics. Relational Dialectics Theory is applied to illustrate how tensions between organizations and publics influence communication decisions. The strategic messages used by the World Health Organization regarding the Zika virus mega-crisis provide a backdrop illustrating how TSCD is enacted. Theoretical and practical implications for decision-making suggest that TSCD contributes to a more robust understanding of how the changing context in a crisis prompts the prioritization of strategic messages.

The impact of pioneer adopter characteristics and perceptions on the perceived costs of switching to a follower product

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a model in which the perceived post-purchase monetary costs and time costs of switching from a pioneer product are a function of the perceived difficulty of comparing follower products with the pioneer product, the variety of ways in which the pioneer product is used by an adopter, pioneer adopter satisfaction with the pioneer, the familiarity of the pioneer adopter with follower products and the anticipated reactions to switching of other household members who use the pioneer product. Design/methodology/approach The authors test this model with data collected from 518 Japanese iPad owners. Hypotheses are evaluated using structural equation modeling. Findings The authors find that each of the hypothesized independent variables is related in the hypothesized direction with one or both types of switching costs. Research limitations/implications Findings indicate that the variety of pioneer product use, the perceived negative reaction of other household users of the pioneer product and comparison difficulties between the pioneer and follower product have an important influence on the perceptions of the perceived costs of switching from a pioneer to a follower product. Practical implications Findings suggest that managers responsible for launching follower products can lower the perceived costs of switching from a pioneer product through specific product design and communication decisions. Originality/value In contrast with prior switching-cost research, this paper focuses on switching costs as perceived by pioneer adopters and examining the importance of pioneer-follower product comparison difficulties, the variety of pioneer product use and the negative reactions of other household users of the pioneer product.