A Call for Authenticity: Audience Responses to Social Media Influencer Endorsements in Strategic Communication

ABSTRACT

Utilizing social media celebrities as a communication channel has become a strategic practice for many organizations. By using the concepts of celebrity endorsement and authenticity, the effect of celebrity and content characteristics on followers’ attitudes towards the content and, in the case of sponsored content, purchase intentions are scrutinized. Instagram followers (N = 592) of 45 celebrities responded to a survey on nine photos of the celebrities. The results show that both the perceived authenticity and attractiveness of the celebrity are positively related with photo attitudes, but only authenticity has an effect on purchase intentions. Photos of social media influencers, people who have become famous through social media, increase purchase intentions more than photos of general celebrities. Congruence between the photo and the celebrity has the strongest positive effect on photo attitudes and purchase intentions. Sponsored photos are less favorably perceived than non-sponsored photos, but, among sponsored photos, sponsor disclosure has no effect on purchase intentions. The perceived authenticity of both the celebrity and her content is said to explain favorable audience perceptions. The findings imply that organizations should seek authentic matches between their message and the endorsing celebrity and that the content should align with the usual style of the celebrity.     

Feminist Knowledges as Interventions in Physical Cultures

Abstract

This collection explores how feminist knowledges work as interventions in physical cultures and recognizes the considerable contribution of feminist theories and methodologies in understanding the power relations implicated in embodied movement. Our introductory piece weaves together questions about the gendered formation of physical cultures (across leisure, sport, the arts, tourism, well-being, and various embodied practices) with key issues raised by contributing authors, from disciplinary perspectives to theory-method approaches. Exploring questions of digital and physical cultures, more-than-human relations, post- and decolonial ways of knowing, and contemporary onto-epistemologies, this feminist collection aims to contribute to the movement of ideas within and across physical cultural studies. Bringing together diverse perspectives around our common focus we entangle physical cultures with a range of gendered problematizations and interventions that produce different ways of knowing, imagining and doing feminisms.     

The impact of infrastructure investments on income inequality: Evidence from US states

Our analysis of US state-level data on an annual frequency, from 1976 to 2008, sheds new light on a plausible causal link between infrastructure investments, namely public spending on highways, and income inequality. This causal relationship is drawn out using the number of seats in the US House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations (HRCA) as an instrument to identify quasi-random variations in state-level spending on highways. An exogenous pattern which emerges when a state gains an additional member to the HRCA is that it is allocated with new federal grants. This increase in federal transfers for infrastructure financing results in slashing of expenditures on highways and a crowding-out effect of federal funding for state investments on highways. Spending cuts on highways produced by a new HRCA member being attained by a state can unwittingly cause income inequality to rise over a short 2-year time horizon. Similar challenges with decentralized development to finance infrastructure via federal transfers to state and sub-national governments may be encountered by other industrially advanced, emerging and low-income developing economies. US data over the mentioned period reveal a strong positive correlation with state spending on highways and wages paid for construction jobs. Suggestive evidence indicates that the construction sector also plays an important role in the transmission channel from a rise in state spending on highways to lowering income inequality, albeit during specific intervals, as opposed to on a long-term basis.     

“Why Does all the Girls have to Buy Pink Stuff?” The Ethics and Science of the Gendered Toy Marketing Debate

The gendered marketing of children’s toys is under considerable scrutiny, as reflected by numerous consumer-led campaigns and vigorous media debates. This article seeks to assist stakeholders to better understand the ethical and scientific assumptions that underlie the two opposing positions in this debate, and assess their relative strength. There is apparent consensus in the underlying ethical foundations of the debate, with all commentators seeming to endorse the values of corporate social responsibility and gender equality. However, the debate splits over three critical points of empirical disagreement: whether gendered toy marketing influences children’s toy preferences or simply reflects boys’ and girls’ fundamentally different interests; whether the effects of gendered toy marketing are negative, neutral or beneficial; and whether a shift to gender-neutral marketing would be economically viable. We assess the three points of disagreement against the available evidence and shared ethical principles underlying the debate, and conclude that current defences of gendered toy marketing fail.     

Using contractual incentives in district nursing in the English NHS: results from a qualitative study

Since 2008, health policy in England has been focusing increasingly on improving quality in healthcare services. To ensure quality improvements in community nursing, providers are required to meet several quality targets, including an incentive scheme known as Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN). This paper reports on a study of how financial incentives are used in district nursing, an area of care which is particularly difficult to measure and monitor.     

Perspectives on International Trends and Dynamics in Population and Consumption

There are increasing concerns that global environmental limits may soon be met as a result of increasing numbers of people coupled with increasing consumption of resources. However, the current level and rates of growth in both consumption and population vary systematically among countries grouped according to income levels. Many high income countries have population growth rates at close to replacement levels, but their per capita consumption is consistently several times higher than low income countries. Low income countries need to grow out of poverty and have high population growth rates. Using current population structures for India and the USA in an age-structured demographic model, and simple projections of annual reductions in fertility or consumption per capita over the next 50 years, we show that while reductions in both consumption and fertility are necessary to stabilize impacts, there are short term gains from consumption reductions in high income countries such as the USA, and long term gains from early fertility reductions in growing economies such as India.     

Institutional duality and human resource management practice in foreign subsidiaries of multinationals

We examine how institutional context affects the decisions that subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs) make in pursuing particular human resource management (HRM) practices in response to institutional duality. Drawing on Varieties of Capitalism, along with the concept of intermediate conformity, we argue that the use of particular HRM practices by MNC subsidiaries will differ depending on both the combination of home and host institutional contexts, and on the nature of the particular practice under consideration. Using data from a survey of HRM practices in 1196 firms across 10 countries, we compare HRM practices in subsidiaries located and headquartered in different combinations of liberal and/or coordinated market economies. Our study suggests MNC subsidiaries conform only to the most persuasive norms, while exercising their agency to take advantage of the opportunities presented by institutional duality to adopt practices that distinguish them from indigenous competitors.     

Managing unintentional dwelling fire risk

In this paper, we examine the management of unintentional dwelling fire risk through the development of a geographical information system (GIS) for dwelling fire prevention support based upon an 18-month case study in a UK fire and rescue service. Previous research into causal factors in unintentional dwelling fire incidents was used to guide the development of a multiple linear regression risk model for dwelling fire incidents that was the basis of the GIS developed. The GIS provided a more detailed analysis of unintentional dwelling fire risk factors, and enabled more targeted fire prevention activities for the identified at-risk social groups.