Coping with the COVID-19 crisis: an analysis of Twitter communication of companies

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how New Zealand listed companies communicate COVID-19 related concerns on Twitter during the pandemic through various coping expressions and strategies. Design/methodology/approach A thematic content analysis was conducted to analyse COVID tweets based on Gaspar et al.’s (2016) coping strategy framework. Findings Six major COVID-19-related concerns communicated by New Zealand companies were found, with product/service being the most tweeted concern. Various coping expressions and strategies were demonstrated by the companies to address these concerns. Information sharing strategy was found to be the most common coping strategy implied in all six of these concerns. Research limitations/implications The paper contributes to the scant literature in crisis communication by providing empirical evidence on how COVID-19-related concerns, coping expressions and strategies were communicated by New Zealand companies. Originality/value While extant coping research generally examined coping expressions and strategies in Western countries and at an individual level, this paper examines coping communication at organisational level in an Asia-Pacific country. As per the researchers’ knowledge, this is a novel attempt that provides empirical evidence on corporate coping communication in an Asia-Pacific country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Investigation Of The Comparative Impact Of Degree Of Implementation Of IFRS Upon The Public And Private Information Quality Of Asia Pacific Country Firms

This research investigates the comparative quality of public and private information environments between firms domiciled in 15 Asia Pacific countries of which seven are characterized as market supportive institutional infrastructure. Our empirical analyses examine the comparative quality of public and private information components of equity securities analysts’ earnings forecasts for Asia Pacific firms, while controlling for firms cross-listing on U.S. equity securities exchanges and country of domicile degree of implementation of IFRS. Our results indicate that the quality of private information is higher for non-market supportive infrastructure countries, as compared to market-supportive infrastructure countries of domicile, and the quality of public information is higher for market-supportive infrastructure as compared to non-market-supportive infrastructure countries of domicile. Furthermore, and particularly noteworthy, is that our results indicate that country of domicile degree of implementation of IFRS increases the quality of public information and decreases the quality of private information for both market-supportive infrastructure and non-market-supportive infrastructure countries of domicile, and also that the decrease in the quality of private and increase in the quality of public information associated with degree of implementation of IFRS are significantly more pronounced for market-supportive infrastructure countries relative to non-market-Supportive infrastructure countries of domicile. We believe that our results suggest that IFRS is more beneficial for countries having market supportive institutional infrastructure in place as compared with those who do not.

European ‘models’ and their implications to China: internal and external perspectives

European Studies in China developed very rapidly in the last twenty years. The reasons for that are not only because of the smooth evolution of EU-China relations and wider and deeper economic interdependence between two economic giants, but also the relevance of the European models to China's domestic political and social development, as well as China's external relations. The article reviews the evolution of the European Studies in China and finds out that more and more research on European affairs relates to China's internal and external development. Two major aspects of the learning process are exploited further. Firstly, European models for China's domestic political and social development, including European party politics and Democratic Socialism, European social policy and social security systems, and European regional policies. Secondly, European models for China's foreign policy and external relations, including European neighbourhood policy, European concept of effective multilateralism, Europe as an example of peaceful rise, and functionalism as the way to East Asian regional integration. The EU or Europe has higher profile in China than any other Asia Pacific country. From the domestic political and social development and China's preference in international affairs we can see the silhouette of the European models. Chinese would like to learn more from Europe than the United States. It also shows clearly that the role of the EU as a social power.