Word-of-mouth rhetorics in social media talk

Although researchers and practitioners have access to a growing body of evidence on the effects of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) frequency and valence, a more detailed understanding of eWOM content is needed in order to better influence these social media-enabled conversations. Based on an ethnomethodological analysis of community conversations in a popular parenting online forum, we reveal that eWOM is a powerful social act in which consumers use a broad repertoire of eWOM rhetorical methods. The repertoire for advice-seeking talk includes five components: seeker's legitimacy, topic legitimacy, request formulation, solicitation of responders, and requested response framing. The repertoire for advice-giving includes four components: foundation of authority, advice framing, advice focus, and advice scheme. For each of these components in the two repertoires, we identify corresponding rhetorical methods that can be used in the conversation (over 30 methods in total). Preliminary evidence also suggests that rhetorical alignment between advice-seekers and givers drives effectiveness of eWOM advice. The proposed rhetorical framework has relevance and implication for the many areas where social media and marketing meet.     

Communicating risk for issues that involve ‘uncertainty bias’: what can the Israeli case of water fluoridation teach us?

Water fluoridation is a controversial issue in public health. Despite the uncertainty regarding its efficacy and safety, health officials continue to communicate it as ‘unequivocally’ safe and effective. Our focus is on how health officials and policy-makers in Israel frame the issue of water fluoridation in terms of certainty while promoting a mandatory fluoridation policy. According to van Asselt and Vos, the uncertainty paradox describes situations in which uncertainty is acknowledged, but the role of science is framed as providing certainty. Our study is an analysis of documents and media articles emphasizing the paradoxical language used by official representatives on the controversial topic of fluoridation. A central contribution of this study is that we coin the term ‘uncertainty bias,’ in which policy-makers do exactly what they accuse laypeople of doing, framing uncertainty in biased terms. We found that in order to establish mandatory regulation, health ministry officials expressed information in an unbalanced format, promoting the topic of fluoridation by framing it in exclusively positive terms. This study does not focus on the practice of water fluoridation per se, and is not intended to decide for or against it, but rather, to explore how the debate regarding it is communicated. Understanding this particular case can shed light on how other controversial topics are transformed into health policy that is characterized in equivocal terms.     

Approaches to multiplicity issues in complex research in microarray analysis

The multiplicity problem is evident in the simplest form of statistical analysis of gene expression data – the identification of differentially expressed genes. In more complex analysis, the problem is compounded by the multiplicity of hypotheses per gene. Thus, in some cases, it may be necessary to consider testing millions of hypotheses. We present three general approaches for addressing multiplicity in large research problems. (a) Use the scalability of false discovery rate (FDR) controlling procedures; (b) apply FDR-controlling procedures to a selected subset of hypotheses; (c) apply hierarchical FDR-controlling procedures. We also offer a general framework for ensuring reproducible results in complex research, where a researcher faces more than just one large research problem. We demonstrate these approaches by analyzing the results of a complex experiment involving the study of gene expression levels in different brain regions across multiple mouse strains.     

The Impact of Denial-of-Service Attack Announcements on the Market Value of Firms

The increase in security breaches in the last few years and the need to insure information assets has created an intensified interest in information risk within organizations and for insurance companies. Risk assessment is an important component in the establishment of security policies. However, very little is known of the financial impact and the risk associated with security breaches. This article reports the impact of Denial‐of‐Service (DOS) attack announcements on the market over a period of 4.5 years. The study was conducted using event study methodology. The results show that in general the market does not penalize companies that experience such an attack. However, there is an indication that the market penalizes “Internet‐specific” companies more than other companies. Our results indicate that large companies who are not “Internet‐specific” might be overreacting to the media hype and may be investing resources to prevent a problem that has marginal impact on their shareholder value.     

Promoting Ethics Through Ethics Officers: A Proposed Profile and an Application

We present an ideal profile of an emerging organizational function: the Ethics Officer. We argue that the main contribution of an EO is to provide management with a broad perspective of the organization's stakeholders – one that emphasizes the interests of all stakeholders, including those not affiliated with the dominant coalitions in the organization. In order to avoid turning the EO into a rubber stamp for management activities, we suggest that certain conditions prevail to enable the person in this position to exercise impartial, independent judgment. These conditions are embodied in our profile, which maintains that an ideal EO should have appropriate organizational status, functional independence, professionalism, knowledge of organizational issues, and knowledge of ethics theory. We suggest that the function of EO may be performed by a professional who is already employed by the organization, and we use the internal auditor as an example.     

Store environment,emotions and approach behaviour: applying environmental aesthetics to retailing

This exploratory study examines the influence of store environment on emotions and behaviour tendencies. The study brings insights from research on external environments to the study of store environment. We combined the idea of three distinct dimensions of emotions (pleasantness, arousal and dominance) and the role of mediating approach-avoidance behaviours with two variables taken from the field of environmental aesthetics – complexity and order. Twenty-four colour photographs of four sections of two grocery stores were rated by a sample of 43 subjects on their degree of complexity and order. A second sample of 87 subjects rated the same photographs on emotions and approach-avoidance tendencies. The relationship between complexity and order and reported pleasantness and arousal was consistent with findings regarding external environments. The three emotional dimensions mediated an inverted ‘U’ relationship between complexity and approach behaviour tendencies, as expected. Order had a positive correlation with approach behaviour tendencies. The study suggests the importance of examining general variables (such as complexity and order) in the context of retail environments and provides ideas for extensive research.     

A Pie Allocation Among Sharing Groups

This paper deals with a pie allocation problem to users, who are divided intosharing groups, that are not necessarily disjoint. The pie is allocated among the groups, rather than the users. The portion of a sharing group is a public good for its members, that is, all of them can enjoy it. A non-cooperative game for allocating the pie and a special equilibrium outcome,strongly disappointment-free allocation, are defined. We prove the existence of a unique such allocation and show that it coincides with the Nash solution of the related bargaining problem.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C70, C71, C72 and C78.     

Organizational Routines as Sources of Connections and Understandings

Organizational routines are increasingly identified as an aspect of organizations that allows them to achieve the balance between adaptability and stability. We contribute to this discussion by showing that the connections that organizational routines make between people contribute to both stability and the ability to adapt. We argue that the connections between people that are formed as they engage together in organizational routines are important for developing understandings about both what needs to be done in a specific instance of performing a routine and about the goals of the organization that routines presumably help accomplish. Together the two sets of understandings influence organizational performance by affecting the ability of organizations to adapt to changing circumstances. These arguments lead to a general recognition of the importance to organizations of connections and the suggestion that the connections, themselves, may be an important outcome of organizational routines.     

Science vs. fear: the Ebola quarantine debate as a case study that reveals how the public perceives risk

This study focuses on newspaper coverage of the Hickox quarantine incident, using it as a case study to examine how the media characterized the spread of disease in an ongoing crisis situation characterized by uncertainty. The study builds on Slovic et al.’s research, who argue that risk perception is comprised of both emotional and analytical aspects. We employed a qualitative approach, first examining articles on Hickox’s story in The New York Times and New York Daily News between October 25 and 31, 2014; and second, readers’ comments in response to these articles. The findings from the newspaper articles show that in their treatment of the quarantine debate, the media did not address the issue of uncertainty, and thus continued the health authorities’ neglect of this issue. Although the media gave expression to various sides of the debate, it emphasized those who objected to the quarantine policy, thus raising the claim that the conflict was between ‘science’ and the public’s ‘irrational fears,’ and that the governors decided on quarantine in response to the public’s panic and fears. From our analysis of readers’ comments, it appears that these claims are unjustified. First, we found that the public did not speak in a single unified voice, but rather, was divided into supporters and opponents of quarantine. Both sides used scientific arguments and resorted to similar terminology, and tended to cite and present studies backing their arguments. As for irrational fears, although quarantine supporters expressed emotions, they indicated mainly concerns, not panic or hysteria.     

Why do parents who usually vaccinate their children hesitate or refuse? General good vs. individual risk

This study examines vaccination hesitancy or refusal following the 2013 polio outbreak in Israel, based on two theoretical models. The first is Sandman’s theoretical model, which holds that risk perception is comprised of hazard plus outrage. The second model is the affect heuristic that explains the risk/benefit confounding. It aims to expose the barriers that inhibited parental compliance with OPV vaccination for their children. The study employed mixed methods – a questionnaire survey (n = 197) and content analysis of parents’ discussions in blogs, Internet sites, and Facebook pages (n = 2499). The findings indicate that some parents who normally give their children routine vaccinations decided not to give them OPV due to lack of faith in the health system, concerns about vaccine safety and reasons specific to the polio outbreak in Israel. Some vaccinated due to a misunderstanding, namely, they believed that OPV was supposed to protect their children, when it was actually for overall societal well-being. This study highlights the difficulty of framing the subject of vaccinations as a preventive measure, especially when the prevention is for society at large and not to protect the children themselves. The findings of this study are important because they provide a glimpse into a situation that can recur in different places in the world where a disease considered to have been ‘eradicated’ returns, and the public is required to take measures which protect the public but which might put individuals at risk. The conclusions from the analysis of the findings of this study are that the public’s risk perception is based on a context-dependent analysis, which the communicating body must understand and respect.