Sustainable Communication

In chapter 5, Sustainable Communication, the role of PR firms as international knowledge brokers is given its due. The chapter demonstrates the impact of a network of American public relations firms in spreading “green” PR across European and Mexican borders during a critical historical period. With the consolidation of the European Union and NAFTA on the horizon, corporate clients in a range of industries (from tobacco to chemicals to oil, coal, and gas) adopted promotional methods that advertised their commitment to environmentalism in an effort to sidestep sweeping regulations. By diffusing its core principles of sustainable communication over sustainable environmental behavior, PR networks helped to define environmental communication as a field in its own right, acting as a key cultural producer in the realm of international environmental governance.

Environment, Energy, Economy

Chapter 3, Environment, Energy, Economy, opens as industrial PR practitioners in the 1950s and 1960s confront a new rival: environmental pollution and its discontents. Prior to the Second World War, industry was the leading source of information on air pollution among other problems of “industrial hygiene.” In the postwar era, with new federal science funding, changing norms of media representation, and rising legal battles for companies, alternative voices emerged around environmental issues. Amid the transformation of the nature of evidence in scientific research and a growing public anxiety over depletion of the commons, public relations counsel sought to balance the scales in their corporate clients’ favor. They would find this balance in the notion of energy as its own scarce resource in need of protection. The chapter reviews the expansion of public relations networks and the adoption of environmentalism as a force to be strategically managed.

External Marketing Relationship Practice of Quantity Surveying Firms in the Selected States in Nigeria

It has been established that marketing is very significant to the success of any organization, especially in a competitive environment. In the Quantity surveying profession, marketing might be more relevant than other professions because it is less known. The significance of marketing and competitive business environment calls for effective marketing practice by Quantity Surveying Firms (QSFs). One of the effective ways is to build a strong external marketing relationship, which exists between a firm and its client. Therefore, this paper investigated the external marketing relationship practice of QSFs with a view to enhancing firms’ productivity and client satisfaction. Forty-six (46) registered QSFs and fifty-nine (59) corporate clients in Lagos, Oyo, and Ondo States were assessed through questionnaire survey. Data were collected on the attributes of parties involved in external marketing. The collected data were analysed using Mean Item Scores (MIS) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results reveal important attributes of clients to include “pay on time (MS=4.59)”, “willingness and readiness to take advice from the firm (MS=4.59)”, and “make expectations known clearly to the firm (MS=4.54)”. From the findings, clients averagely displayed these attributes. The result of ANOVA shows that firms viewed the importance of these clients’ attributes in the same way at p>0.05 except for one of these attributes (making expectations known clearly to the firm), which firms viewed its importance differently at p<0.05. Furthermore, results show the important attributes of firms to include: “ability to give clients value for their money (MS=4.51)”, “knowing clients’ requirements (MS=4.51)”, and “being attentive (MS=4.47)’. Findings show that these attributes were adequately displayed by QSFs. The perceptions of clients on the importance of these firms’ attributes were the same at p>0.05. The study concluded by establishing attributes for strong external marketing relationship to include: “readiness of a client to take advice from the firm”, “ability of a client to pay on time”, “ability of a firm to satisfy the client”, and “knowing the client’s requirements”. The study recommended that QSFs and clients should endeavour to possess and display these attributes for the enhancement of service delivery in terms of firms’ productivity and clients’ satisfaction. Keywords: Attributes, Clients, External Marketing Relationship, Quantity Surveying Firms

Instrumental support of competitiveness management of service institutions

The effectiveness of the bank's management depends on the information support quality and appropriate diagnostics of the bank's work with its clients, particularly corporate ones. The aim of this investigation is to develop promising tools for diagnostics of the operation of commercial banks serving corporate clients in the regional market. The competitiveness indicator is proposed in this paper as a commercial bank operation diagnostic tool This indicator gives an opportunity to evaluate the bank operation in comparison with its competitors due to the level of satisfaction with the quality of the offered services and the efficiency of its business activities by comparing the bank's competitive position with respect to its competitors. The method of banking services competitiveness determination as a tool of the diagnostics of work efficiency of the third group of commercial banks (PJSC «Metabank», PJSC «Motorbank» and CB «Industrialbank») serving corporate clients in the Zaporizhzhya region market is applied in the paper. The proposed tool for diagnostics of bank efficiency with corporate clients on the basis of determining the integral indicator of banking services competitiveness makes it possible to determine the directions of the increase of its efficiency. The methodology involves step-by-step determination of the average integral evaluation of quality and value indicators of providing services to corporate clients. At the first stage, the selection of quality and cost indicators of providing services to corporate clients and their rationing is performed using the «desirability function» or relatively to the reference value. At the next stage, the weights are calculated according to quality and cost indicators. The offered tool of bank operation efficiency diagnostics makes it possible to reveal directions of the improvement of PJSC «Metabank» work with corporate clients in the regional market, such as: organization of services, improvement of offered services quality and service convenience; increasing the number of branches; improving information support, particularly by improving the staff work with clients concerning professional advice support and by implementing online calculator for services cost determination.

Corporate Banking: Analysis, Valuation and Financing Structure of the Company

Today, during the period of ongoing changes in the financial market, banks face the challenges of cost reduction, revision of the product line and more explicit customer segmentation. In the environment, corporate clients are also observed significant changes: there is a rotation of personnel change the development strategies of companies that entails new requirements for banking products. Can banks quickly adapt to new market conditions and optimize work with corporate clients using existing technologies and information systems? Besides, that will help improve growth. Corporate sales of banking products in the current conditions? These questions the author tries to answer in her paper.

The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the current state of insolvency law impedes the resolution of financial distress of business debtors, regardless whether one tries to rescue the business through restructuring of assets or liabilities (a) or a sale of the business going concern (b). In practice, a restructuring of assets or liabilities of SME and large enterprises typically requires the cooperation and consent of the bank. Due to market concentration of the Dutch banks (ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank serve the vast majority of corporate clients in the Netherlands) and the lack of alternative finance and competition among the banks, they play a crucial role in restructuring businesses.

Disclosing anti-money launderers through CSR regulation – a new way to combat money laundering

Purpose Recent research questions the innocence of companies outside the current EU money laundering regulation in terms of contributing to the externality problem of money laundering. The purpose of this paper is to examine how including anti-money laundering as an element of the EU corporate social responsibilities (CSR) directive can contribute to solving the externality problem of money laundering. Based on the principles of CSR and the economic effects of disclosure duties, this paper analyzes the implications an introduction of anti-money laundering policies and disclosure duties can have on corporate clients and the combatting against money laundering. Furthermore, it is the intention of this paper to argue how such a regulatory change can help the financial companies dividing “good” and “bad” clients to prevent money laundering from happening. Design/methodology/approach The method of this paper is a functional approach to law and economics. It seeks to enhance the efficiency of the regulatory framework combatting money laundering by including economic incentive theory. Findings Based on the regulatory framework of the fourth anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing directive and the directive on criminalizing money laundering, this paper argues that inclusion of anti-money laundering in the EU CSR directive will contribute to solving the externality problem of money laundering in the EU. Additionally, the expansion of the regulatory framework can start a culture, where corporate clients to the financial sector will take active steps toward combatting money laundering. Originality/value The paper identifies a way to change the corporate perception of anti-money laundering prevention from having an incentive of minimal compliance/“race-to-the-bottom” to be a possible element of competition between companies through their CSR strategy. While most research focuses on the financial sector in terms of money laundering, this paper takes the next step and includes corporate clients in the financial sector.

LENDING TO CORPORATE CLIENTS: STATUS AND PROSPECTS

The article deals with the essence of corporate customer lending, analysis of the corporate customer lending system, as well as the main development trends and problems hindering the development of this sector.