Media governance and corporate social responsibility of media organizations: an international comparison

Media companies are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of their reputation. In order to legitimate themselves, they are starting to present themselves as ‘good corporate citizens’ by engaging in media governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. The communication of those activities is crucial for the building of reputation. However, to date, no comprehensive studies have been conducted to evaluate the communication of media governance and CSR activities of media organizations. This study aims to fill this gap and examined websites and reports of selected media organizations in Germany, Italy, France, Austria, and Switzerland. Results indicate that public service media organizations communicate proportionally more on media governance than private media organizations, which may be due to the fact that public service media organizations feel more accountable to the public as they have a public service obligation. Concerning the communication of their CSR activities, media organizations focus on society‐oriented measures.     

Anchors in Rough Seas: Understanding Category Spanning as a Source of Market Coordination

Prior research has deemed products that span market categories a source of cognitive and institutional disruption. Portraying spanning products as purely disruptive elements, however, does not consider their large presence in markets and, consequently, the fact that producers and consumers continue to coordinate their activities on established categories despite pervasive spanning. Our paper addresses this gap by focusing on commercial success as an important condition under which spanning products, rather than being a source of disruption, sustain market coordination. From the producer side, an increasing number of commercially successful products spanning a focal category stimulates mimicry. From the consumer side, this mimicry, net of the overall level of spanning observed in the category, improves consensus. We test these arguments by focusing on the styles that map electronic music as the established categories of a market. Empirical analyses lend support to our hypotheses.     

Das Management von Datenqualität

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Extreme Weather Events and the Critical Importance of Anticipatory Adaptation and Organizational Resilience in Responding to Impacts

Growing scientific evidence suggests that more frequent and severe weather extremes such as heat waves, hurricanes, flooding and droughts will have an increasing impact on organizations, industries and entire economies. These findings call for the development of theoretical and practical frameworks to strengthen the capacity of organizations to respond to such impacts. Yet despite the need to understand what is required to build anticipatory adaptation and organizational resilience to expected impacts, the organizational theory literature offers only limited insights. This paper proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework of organizational adaptation and resilience to extreme weather events for addressing the effects of ecological discontinuities in organizational research and strategic decision‐making. Implications and suggestions for future research are offered. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Mediennutzungsmotive türkeistämmiger Migranten in Deutschland

Media use of migrants is a widely discussed issue in the German debate on the integration of foreigners. Research so far shows that the correlation between the language of the media used and social integration is only indirect and to some extent unclear. In general, a complementary use of country-of-origin and country-of-residence media by migrants can be observed, which tends to persist independent of the process of social integration. The present text examines the motives that constitute this complementary media use by Turkish migrants (the largest national foreign group) in Germany by referring to a representative telephone survey (CATI) undertaken among the Turkish adult population in 2008. As a result, it shows that the way media serve the informational needs of their clientele to a large extent explains the media use of the group observed.     

Communion-over-Agency Effects on Advertising Effectiveness

Gender-stereotypical portrayals of communal women and agentic men are highly common in advertising. But past research indicates that advertising effectiveness is higher when endorsers are portrayed as communal – irrespective of their gender. The aim of the current research is to explore this communion-over-agency effect on advertising effectiveness and its underlying mechanism. Two studies provide evidence for a communion-over-agency effect on advertising effectiveness (i.e., attitude toward the ad and brand). These studies show that the communion-over-agency effect on attitude toward the ad is mediated by endorser likeability (simple mediation). The effect on attitude toward the brand is mediated by endorser likeability and attitude toward the ad (serial multiple mediation). In concert, this research underscores the significance of communion (and agency) on endorser evaluation and advertising effectiveness.     

Is Voluntary Pollution Abatement in the Absence of a Carrot or Stick Effective? Evidence from Facility Participation in the EPA’s 33/50 Program

We examine whether voluntary pollution abatement programs in which there is no program-specific participation incentive are effective in reducing emissions below what they would have been otherwise. We use data on facility participation in the 33/50 Program and emissions reported to the US EPA’s toxic releases inventory (TRI) between 1991 and 1995 for a sample of facilities whose parent firms committed to the program. By focusing on participation by individual facilities we avoid the influence of firm level incentives under the program. The mandatory disclosure of emissions data to the TRI avoids the potential bias evident in voluntarily disclosed data. We find that while facilities with larger total emissions were more likely to participate, there is no evidence of greater participation by facilities that account for a higher share of a parent firm’s 33/50 emissions. Although emissions of the 33/50 chemicals fell over the years, we find that participation in the program was not associated with the decline in the 33/50 releases generated by these facilities and the reductions seemed to have occurred for reasons unrelated to the program.     

Fit für die Führung

Zusammenfasung  Spagat zwischen Team und Klinik — Pflegeleitungen stehen unter starkem Druck – von oben und von unten. Wie sie diese Situation meistern, hat eine Studie untersucht. Ein überraschendes Ergebnis: Mehr als jede zehnte Führungskraft feiert auch mal krank, um sich zu erholen.     

Pricing electricity risk by interest rate methods

We address a method for pricing electricity contracts based on the valuation of the ability to produce power, which is considered as the true underlying factor for electricity derivatives. This approach shows that an evaluation of free production capacity provides a framework where a change-of-numeraire transformation converts the electricity forward market into the common settings for money market modelling. Using the toolkit of interest rate theory, we derive explicit option pricing formulas.