Divita,S. F. ed. Advertising and the Public Interest. America Marketing Association, 1974

Abstract

Advocacy advertising has become an often-used means for corporations to express their viewpoints on a variety of controversial issues. Recent events make it unclear whether advocacy advertising may be viewed as political (editorial) speech and, therefore, outside the regulatory controls of the Federal Trade Commission. This article discusses the current state of advocacy advertising by reviewing the criteria proposed (and/or used) by the courts, regulatory agencies, and advertising/marketing scholars in determining the regulatory boundaries of this form of advertising. In addition, the article proposes additional criteria that may be helpful in making such a determination.     

Corporate Rights to Free Speech?

Although the courts have ruled that companies are legal persons, they have not yet made clear the extent to which political free speech for corporations is limited by the strictures legitimately placed upon corporate commercial speech. I explore the question of whether or not companies can properly be said to have the right to civil free speech or whether corporate speech is always de facto commercial speech not subject to the same sorts of legal protections as is the right to civil free speech. In the absence of clearly defined legal precedent, I emphasize moral reasons for determining the appropriate limits of corporate civil free speech. Appealing to arguments typically used to justify individual rights to civil free speech, I examine the extent to which this sort of justification may or may not be legitimately extended to corporations. I conclude that corporate rights to civil free speech must be restricted because granting rights of free speech to institutions may, in practice, undermine the moral rationale and practical feasibility of guaranteeing rights of civil free speech to individuals. Furthermore, I argue that granting corporations full rights to civil free speech will undercut attempts to develop good moral character in corporate institutions by undermining the efforts of watchdog organizations.     

Chicago Plan und Vollgeld als Alternative zum Kreditgeld: ein Weg zu stetigem Wachstum?

One drawback of our current credit economy is that commercial banks could potentially make too many loans. The supporters of full reserve banking and positive money therefore claim that the abolition of commercial bank money creation would lead to fewer financial crises. This paper argues that the market would bypass any lending regulations by creating its own money substitutes. Such a reform does not take into account the relationship between saving and investing in a growing monetary economy, abandons the benefits that commercial banks have in financing corporate investments, and is harmful for economic growth. As an alternative approach, further macroprudential instruments are suggested.     

THE LEGAL CHALLENGE OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION (IMC): Integrating Commercial and Political Speech

The application of First Amendment commercial speech doctrine to integrated marketing communication (IMC) demonstrates that the integration of public relations messages with advertising and marketing messages may dilute the constitutional protection afforded corporate speech. This analysis of U.S. Supreme Court precedents shows that by intermingling political expression with commercial expression, a corporation may expand the range of communication that may be defined and regulated as commercial speech. The additional review of a California Supreme Court case that redefined commercial speech to include public relations messages illustrates the potential for heightened regulation of integrated marketing communication.     

Print Advertising Context Effects

Abstract

An expanded view of the advertisement credibility construct will offer a more complete representation of the factors that contribute to credibility and its outcomes. Based on recent proposed revisions to the advertising communication process model, a revised model of advertisement credibility is offered. A test of a portion of the model supports the inclusion of media credibility as a dimension of advertisement credibility and as an influence on attitude toward the ad, on attitude toward the brand, and on purchase intentions.     

Authority and Democracy in Corporate Governance?

Although McMahon offers a potentially valuable extension of Joseph Raz's conceptualization of authority by distinguishing three different kinds of authority, this paper argues, first, that his account of the conditions and considerations that would justify managerial authority is problematic because it relies on a conception of reasons for action that excludes precisely the kind of rationality that plays an important role in the␣explanation and justification of authority in economic␣organization. This paper explains, second, why McMahon's thesis of the justificatory similarity of authority in governments and nongovernmental organizations can also be seen to hold for corporate governance of publicly owned firms more specifically. Finally, this paper raises some critical objections against McMahon's presumption of democratic governance in governments and NGO's alike. The thrust of these objections is that democratic corporate governance does not make sense in the publicly owned firms because: (1) it will not produce results that are fair or welfare maximizing, and (2) it will undermine the legitimacy of managerial authority in such firms. J. (Hans) van Oosterhout holds an M.A. in political science from Leiden University and a PhD in organization theory from RSM Erasmus University, where he is currently an associate professor. His research involves the positive and normative theory of organizations and institutions, with a current emphasis on corporate governance and comparative economic and political organization. Earlier publications have appeared in: Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Business Ethics and Futures.     

Advertising and Public Utilities 1900–1917

Abstract

During the period from 1900 to 1917, utility companies led in the expansion of the legitimate use of advertising in the political arena. Under the leadership of men such as Theodore Vail, President of AT&T, they openly invited the advertising business to help establish a public climate conducive to private, monopolistic utility service. Consequently, a growing number of advertising agencies found themselves engaged in political persuasion decades before the widespread use of advertising to elect candidates for public office. Early utility advertising thus prefigured the many types of advocacy and corporate image advertising widely used in the 1970s. It showed a willingness on the part of some agencies to develop non-product campaigns for clients involved in controversial public issues.     

React to the future: political visualization,emotional reactions and political behavior

Abstract

This study explores the mediating role political visualization – the process of imagining future political scenarios – plays in determining how political advertising affects voting behaviour. Specifically, we theorize that when partisans are exposed to political ads that are narrative (compared to non-narrative) in nature, they will engage in more political visualization. Partisans will then experience emotional reactions to these imagined futures – specifically, enthusiasm for the in-group candidate and anger towards the out-group candidate. These emotional reactions, in turn, will make a partisan more likely to vote for the in-group candidate and less likely to vote for the out-group candidate. We test this model by employing an experimental design where American partisans were presented a political ad (in the form of an email) that is either narrative or non-narrative. Results provide support for most of our expectations and suggest that visualization may play an important role in determining the influence of a political ad.     

In God we hope,in ads we believe: the influence of religion on hope,perceived ad credibility,and purchase behavior

This research proposes and demonstrates that religiosity positively affects consumers’ hope for advertised benefits, leading to greater perceived advertisement credibility and, consequently, a greater likelihood of purchasing the advertised products. A multiple-step mediation analysis revealed that both hope for advertised benefits and perceived ad credibility play pivotal roles in explicating the effect of religiosity, whether measured (study 1) or manipulated (study 2), on purchase intentions of advertised products. The authors also investigated the interactive effect between religiosity and perceived product materialism on the observed effects (study 3). The effect of religiosity on hope for advertised benefits, perceived ad credibility, and purchase intentions was moderated by perceived product materialism, such that the positive effects of religiosity on hope, perceived ad credibility, and purchase intentions were observed only for non-materialistic (vs. materialistic) products. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Does source affect response to direct advocacy print advertisements?

This posttest-only experiment examined how source attribution and the personality characteristic of fatalism affect evaluate and behavioral intention responses to direct advocacy print advertisements. Two commercial sources, a noncommercial source, and no source were manipulated in an identical print advocacy ad. Regression analysis revealed that subjects exposed to the two commercial source treatments evaluated the ad more negatively than subjects exposed to the noncommercial and no source treatments. The commercial and trade association source treatments also produced a negative intent to respond to the advocated request. Fatalism was found to be significantly related to behavioral intention, but not the message evaluation. Overall, the results indicate that commercial sponsors should employ direct advocacy print advertisements with the knowledge that their commercial identification elicits critical and negative responses from uncommitted audience members.     

Infotainment and the Moral Obligations of the Multimedia Conglomerate

When the Federal Communications Commission considered revamping its policies, many political activists argued that media conglomerates had failed to meet their duties to protect freedom of speech. Moveon’s dispute with CBS over its proposed Superbowl advertisement and Michael Moore’s quarrel over distribution of his documentary, Fahrenheit 911, are cases in point. In matters of pure entertainment, the public expect companies to avoid offensive programming. The press, on the other hand, may well be forced to offend some audience members in order to create a viable forum for political dissent. As journalism and entertainment are increasingly inter-linked, an in depth moral analysis of the media corporation and its obligations becomes increasingly important. I explore Kantian, Utilitarian, and Rawlsian analyses of corporate obligation in the aforementioned cases. I then examine whether or not these results suggest anything more generally about the sorts of mission statements and ethical policies that ought to be endorsed by media conglomerates and whether non-business institutions also require changes. Ultimately, I suggest that at a minimum, media institutions should view the duty to promote the representation of diverse views in a democracy as an imperfect moral and civic duty rather than making programming decisions solely by reference to profit. Ideally, greater access to media access should not be increased for the most powerful unless doing so at the same time increases free speech opportunities for those who currently have the least access.     

The Impact of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) on M-Commerce Security

Abstract

Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is providing commercial services that are accessible using mobile devices, typically a mobile phone. The main advantage of such services is their high availability, independent of physical location and time. Yet the move to create a wireless version of the Internet means a new set of problems. As with the existing fixed Internet, the biggest problem is security. Despite the fact that operators are announcing or rolling out Wireless Applications Protocol (WAP)-based information and transaction services, the platform has gaping security holes. Because security is the most important feature to the success of m-commerce, this paper studies the security concerns on wireless commercial Internet and presents the features and solutions of WAP to the security of electronic transactions. Most importantly, this paper intends to draw corporate executives' attention to the strong impact of WAP on m-commerce security and the associated benefits to their companies.     

Corporate Political Strategy: An Examination of the Relation between Political Expenditures, Environmental Performance, and Environmental Disclosure

Two fundamental business ethics issues that repeatedly surface in the academic literature relate to business’s role in the development of public policy [Suarez, S. L.: 2000, Does Business Learn? (The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI); Roberts, R. W. and D. D. Bobek: 2004, Accounting, Organizations and Society 29(5–6), 565–590] and its role in responsibly managing the natural environment [Newton, L.: 2005, Business Ethics and the Natural Environment (Blackwell Publishing, Oxford)]. When studied together, researchers often examine if, and how, corporations influence environmental policy decisions. Drawing from literatures on?corporate political activity, corporate social and environmental performance, and corporate environmental disclosure, we develop and empirically examine two research questions concerning the relations between corporate political expenditures, environmental performance, and environmental disclosure. The questions are: (1) Do corporations that are poorer environmental performers spend more on political activities than their better-performing counterparts? (2) Is there an association between corporations’ spending on political activities and the extent of their financial report environmental disclosures? We investigated these questions through analyses of data we gathered on a sample consisting of 119 U.S. environmentally sensitive firms for the 2001–2002 election cycle. After controlling for firm size and specific industry effects, our tests reveal a significant, inverse relationship between firm environmental performance and political spending. This is consistent with the notion that U.S. firms with relatively poorer environmental performance records engage more intensely in corporate political activities as part of their overall strategic management of their relationship with the state. In addition, a significant and positive association between the amount of political spending and the extent of environmental disclosure suggests that environmental disclosure and political spending are both proactive, complementary tactics to strategically manage public policy pressure. If corporations’ strategies are intentionally designed to unreasonably limit their environmental responsibilities or to misrepresent firm environmental performance, then we argue that these activities reflect a significant lapse in ethical conduct.     

An examination of women’s sport sponsorship: a case study of female Australian Rules football

ABSTRACT

In recent years we have seen an increase in corporate and media interest in women’s sport leagues and events. Despite the increase in commercialism and professionalism of women’s sport, there is a lack of research focusing on the marketing of and through women’s sport. This current study addresses this gap, examining the motivations of sponsors involved in the women’s Australian Rules football national league. Exploratory in outlook, this paper presents insights from key sponsorship decision-makers. It was found that sponsorship was motivated by a desire to promote gender equality at a firm, industry and broader societal level. Sponsorship of women’s football provides convergence of corporate social responsibility and commercial benefits. The paper provides insights for sport marketing and initiates the conversation of women’s sport sponsorship.     

The Effects of Current Market Forces on the Impact of a TV Commercial in Creating Persuasion

Abstract

The present study investigates the extent to which extenuating factors (excluding those produced by the commercial) affect the extent to which an advertisement is both persuasive and eventually engenders persuasion. The authors collected data from over 5,000 television commercials in the United States, and identified the existing market structure (e.g., brand share, number of competing brands, brand loyalty) surrounding each item at the time the product was advertised, in an effort to separate the effects of the advertisement from the effects of pre-existing market forces on persuasiveness. The results demonstrate that the combined pre-existing market forces have a greater impact on a commercial's ability to persuade than does the message or creativity in the advertisement itself. However, when pre-existing market forces between two products were similar, a creative advertising campaign was still identified as important in producing persuasion. Marketing strategy implications are discussed.     

Trajectories for Driving the Diffusion of e-Negotiation Service Providers in Supply Chains: An Action Research Approach

ABSTRACT

The recent proliferation of online-based trade makes negotiations with service providers for global supply networks evermore challenging. The Internet is believed to be a viable means for enabling and facilitating these supply chain interactions. As such, commercial web-based services that support negotiation processes have emerged (i.e., e-negotiation services). Even though these services have promising benefits for supply chain participants, they have not been accepted by most business users. Current e-negotiation studies fail to capture the substantive reasons of this low acceptance as they typically ignore real-world aspects of commercial negotiations. As such, this study argues that an action research approach is a plausible means to study this issue, and to drive changes in the e-negotiations services market. Accordingly, a research plan is outlined with guidelines and recommendations for future action research projects.     

Measuring the Value of Corporate Web Sites

ABSTRACT

As marketing executives respond to increased pressure to measure the impact of their activities, corporate Web sites can be a useful tool in measuring marketing performance. This study presents the results of a series of interviews with Web site managers aimed at describing the most common methods of determining the value contribution of corporate Web sites. However, despite the availability of large amounts of site usage data, Web site performance measurement tends to be performed ad hoc by most organizations, and there is little assessment of the relationship between the performance of a company's external Web site and overall corporate results or increase in shareholder value.     

Expanding Workers’ ‘Moral Space’: A Liberal Critique of Corporate Capitalism

This paper assesses employees’ moral agency within corporate capitalism from a politically liberal standpoint. While political liberalism has spelt out its key institutional implications at state level, it has neglected moral agency at work, assuming that a rights-based state that secures freedom of contract, free choice of occupation and a free labour market within a fair context would protect it sufficiently. Yet two features of corporate capitalism constrain employees’ moral agency: the relation of authority that forms part of the work contract and organisations’ fragmented decision-making processes. Both seem at odds with the liberal ideal of allowing people to live by their own conception of the good. Consequently, this paper examines whether political liberalism should recommend greater safeguards for protecting workers’ moral agency. It proposes a criterion for assessing corporate capitalism: the ‘moral space’ defined as the socially shaped opportunities for action that can be enacted or endorsed from a comprehensive perspective. It argues that liberals should favour arrangements that widen workers’ moral space and suggests institutional designs that may achieve this while remaining within liberal boundaries.     

Taking the right of freedom of commerical communication seriously

Recent Supreme Court decisions have established second tier protection for commercial speech under the First Amendment by according it some, but not all, of the protections accorded ideological speech. The Court's arguments closely parallel John Staurt Mill's utilitarian arguments about liberty, liberty-limiting principles and trade in his classic essay,On Liberty, and hence are subject to the same defects as any utilitarian analysis and justification of a right. Recent philosophical apologies for the Court's bifurcated approach to free speech are unpersuasive. Commercial speech protects fundamental interests. There are important connections between freedom of commercial speech and political and personal autonomy. It is possible to extend full protection to commercial speech, while simultaneously minimizing its potential for abuse. Such considerations provide compelling arguments for taking the right to freedom of commercial communication seriously by according it full First Amendment protection and by restricting it only when competing and over-riding rights claims, or weightier considerations of justice, can be adduced.Vaughana Macy Feary is a former Professor of Philosophy at Southern University in New Orleans and now teaches Business Ethics at Fairleigh Dickinson University (Madison Campus). She is the author of articles in this field which includeFreedom of Corporation Communication andCorporation Communication and Privacy Rights.     

Stakeholder Management, Reciprocity and Stakeholder Responsibility

Stakeholder theory advocates that firms bear responsibility for the implications of their actions. However, while a firm affects or can affect stakeholders, stakeholders can also affect the corporation. Previous stakeholder theorising has neglected the reciprocal nature of responsibility. The question can be asked whether??in a spirit of reciprocity, loyalty and fairness??stakeholders should treat the corporation in a fair and responsible way. This study based on different definitions of stakeholders argues that various stakeholder attributes differ for different categories of stakeholders. This analysis presumes that the attribute of stakeholder reciprocity can probably be restricted to real stakeholders, labelled stakeowners: genuine stakeholders with a legitimate stake, the loyal partners who strive for mutual benefits. Stakeowners own and deserve a stake in the firm. Stakeholder reciprocity could be an innovative criterion in the corporate governance debate as to who should be accorded representation on the board. Corporate social responsibility should imply corporate stakeholder responsibility.