JOBCHANCE DEUTSCH – UČEBNICE NĚMECKÉ FIREMNÍ KOMUNIKACE PRO STŘEDNĚ POKROČILÉ

The paper summarizes the results of previous research on educational needs of German students at universities of economics in the Czech Republic. The new textbook of German corporate communication entitled “Jobchance Deutsch”, intended for intermediate B1 students, is based on this research. The texts it contains encourage studets to express their opinion concerning controversial topics. Grammatical phenomena are selected with regard to their frequency in professional communication. The most comprehensive section of the textbook—the exercises section—contains exercises designed for pairwork, collocation ones or lexical and phonetic ones as well as those meant to make develop students’ written expression and many others.

Mediatization of Russian Companies in the Framework of Corporate Citizenship

The paper emphasis is made on corporate mediatization process conceptuali-zation, which role is of high importance in Russia, because it influences sociopolitical situation on a legal basis, creates a form of business corporations citizenship. The concept reveals a changing role of corporation in sociopolitical relations: due to encompassing corporate communication technologies it becomes necessary to meet communities expectations, sociopolitical, socioeconomic, ecological issues. Thus, sociopolitical sphere mediatization in the context of complicating media discourse forms the situation when the modern business organization should become a corporate citizen giving a boost to societal development, well-being, confidence-building.

The language of profit warnings: a case of denial, defiance, desperation and defeat

PurposeTaking a communication perspective, the paper explores management's rhetoric in profit warnings, whose sole purpose is to disclose unexpected bad news.Design/methodology/approachAdopting a close-reading approach to text analysis, the authors analyse three profit warnings of the now-collapsed Carillion, contrasting the rhetoric with contemporaneous investor conference calls to discuss the profit warnings and board minutes recording boardroom discussions of the case company's precarious financial circumstances. The analysis applies an Aristotelian framework, focussing on logos (appealing to logic and reason), ethos (appealing to authority) and pathos (appealing to emotion) to examine how Carillion's board and management used language to persuade shareholders concerning the company's adverse circumstances.FindingsAs non-routine communications, the language in profit warnings displays and mimics characteristics of routine communications by appealing primarily to logos (logic and reason). The rhetorical profiles of investor conference calls and board meeting minutes differ from profit warnings, suggesting a different version of the story behind the scenes. The authors frame the three profit warnings as representing three stages of communication as follows: denial, defiance and desperation and, for our case company, ultimately, culminating in defeat.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited to the study of profit warnings in one case company.Originality/valueThe paper views profit warnings as a communication artefact and examines the rhetoric in these corporate documents to elucidate their key features. The paper provides novel insights into the role of profit warnings as a corporate communication vehicle/genre delivering bad news.

Comunicación corporativa durante la pandemia por la COVID-19. Un análisis de las portadas de la prensa económica española durante el 2020 / Corporate communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of the front pages of the Spanish business press in 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic that arrived in 2020 has affected the entire media landscape and also corporate communication. This research has analysed the main topics on the front pages of the three Spanish economic newspapers during 2020: Expansión, Cinco Días and El Economista. The evaluation of the main front page topics has made it possible to quantify the extent to which the pandemic has displaced the coverage devoted to corporate communications in organizations. In addition, it has been possible to observe which organizations have successfully spreading their messages and which specific issues have been most related to the pandemic. The results obtained show that the health crisis has absorbed the main topics of the front pages of the economic newspapers, leaving only half of the coverage available for other topics. Within this phenomenon of absorption, the effects on employment had the greatest prominence with a 10% presence in all the headlines analysed. The coverage on unemployment is especially important if it is related to the tourism sector, which was the industry with the highest presence on the front pages (36.6% of all topics categorized as COVID-19). The significant presence of both topics indirectly points to the important weight of tourism in the Spanish economy. However, it is not possible to state that all related topics were negative because there was also coverage focused on economic recovery (4.4%). On the other hand, in the space not occupied by the pandemic, it was observed that the coverage of the Caixabank - Bankia merger was the most important in comparison with the coverage of the rest of the organizations. This business initiative achieved 2.65% of front page topics since the pandemic began, in a scenario that was very limited. In general, mergers and acquisitions was the most important topic in 2020, as the second most covered specific topic was the failed merger between Banc Sabadell and BBVA. Telefonica was also among the companies with the most front-page coverage, although with a greater diversity of topics. The rest of the companies analysed also showed a wide variety of corporate topics as dividend management, cash flow movements and business diversification. It was also noted that the coverage achieved on the front pages maintained a business focus and wasn’t a vehicle for disseminating CSR efforts related to the pandemic. This is a very significant result because much recent literature has argued that during the pandemic, CSR has played an important role in the communication strategies of organizations. However, it seems that these actions have not been enough important to get a prominent position on the front page of Spanish business newspapers. The most important conclusion that can be drawn from this research is that corporate communication by organizations did not disappear during 2020 despite the ravages of the pandemic, but was reduced by 50%. This reduction also shows a very important effect to take into consideration. During the year 2020 organizations had to work much harder to be in the spotlight even though the economic coverage of the analysed media did not completely disappear because of the pandemic.

The New Strategy of Nike Corporate Communication in Efforts to Build a New Corporate Image

This study aims to examine the uniqueness of the corporate communication carried out by Nike when the well-known brand competes to sign a contract with athletes who reach their peak performance to promote its apparel. However, Nike signs contracts with players when they are still rising stars and then leaves them. Nike does something that well-known brands do not usually do. Normally, they compete to attract stars who are in their golden age. This research was conducted using a qualitative approach through case study research. The materials of this research were obtained by conducting a literature review, matters related to the Nike author's boredom collected from various sources, and reviewed using corporate communication logic. The results of this study indicate that Nike's steps are aimed at creating a new impression without leaving the old self-image.

Sociology of tribalism for inclusive corporate social responsibility communication in Nigeria

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to deconstruct the term “tribalism” for its application to foster context and industry-based corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication system in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachThis research used both the qualitative and quantitative research methods of data collection; it is an in-depth survey with multiple data collection settings.Findings(1) There is a pattern of CSR communication across the three industries sampled. (2) CSR across three industrial sectors is much about “donation” and “gift”. (3) CSR functions are now in a stand-alone corporate communication department. (4) CSR communication lacks the participatory mechanism to really involve the host communities' concerns. (5) Across the four organizations, CSR communication is often as financial or annual reports. (6) There is a general feeling and understanding that CSR and corporate communication in corporate organizations in n Nigeria require a more participatory mechanism. (7) CSR policy in Nigeria is till much of legal enforcement and efforts to have a national CSR commission has gone beyond legislation process.Research limitations/implicationsThis research was only able to collect data from four selected organizations representing just three industrial sectors (freight-forward, banking/finance and insurance) in Nigeria. There was no external funding to capture more organizations.Practical implicationsThe first implication of the findings of this study is that, for the practice of CSR and communication by corporate organizations in Nigeria, the system is much a top-down and non-participatory. This means host communities and other stakeholders do not have considerable participation in the organization's CSR and communication process. The companies in this study select or budget for CSR interventions they consider valuable to communities in most cases. This pattern of CSR operation cuts across the four selected organizations in this study. Thus, it could be argued that this pattern is an industrial/national phenomenon because all the respondents indicated that their organizations operate CSR based on what other related companies do in Nigeria. Second, the fact that CSR and communication by corporate organizations in Nigeria are regulatory influenced means many organizations may try to evade CSR activities by not budgeting for it.Social implicationsMeanwhile, in this study, deconstructing the evolutionary perspective which sees tribe as a primitive form of organization and relation characterized by the absence of a centralized collaborative system, it is argued that tribalism can catalyze systemic participation and oneness. In line with this perspective, tribal corporate organizations in Nigeria would model an alliance for CSR and communication system on proximity of operational context, that is, Nigeria. Being part of a tribe, corporate organizations as against the public ones will represent an identity reference for social corporate communication in Nigeria.Originality/valueDespite the theoretical problematic issues raised by the notion of tribe, it is deconstructed in this study to define modes of social organization, and it reflects native perceptions of a changing collective identity. Thus, it is also argued in this study, that there will be an increase in works on tribalism in organization communication and CSR in Nigeria as emerging business and global market will continue to shape the operation environment.

Russian Public Relations in 2020: Peculiar Features of Transformation

The paper presents the current transformations of Russian public relations during the SaRS-COVID-19 pandemic and remote working in 2020. In response to the crisis and uncertainty, companies have adapted and restructured corporate strategies and communications. The increasing demand for communication support of strategies and daily support of corporate activities indicates the growing significance of PR and the implementation of organizational strategies, as well as the demand for the optimization of corporate communication in society. The PR industry in general and professional communication are becoming more and more integrated due to the attraction of knowledge, competencies, specialists from a wide range of related industries: marketing, sociology, management. The current communication situation caused changes in the characteristics of Russian PR in the segment of communication agencies. Despite the traditionally high volume of the agencies marketing services, the growth of crisis and digital communications has turned to be stable, which indicates the demand for more flexible PR formats. Based on an analysis of public relations of the leading local communication agencies in 2020, the authors put forward a hypothesis on the formation of the prerequisites for the transition of Russian public relations to the format of strategic communications.