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Technology is rapidly changing the shape of internal communication, as increasingly more organisations make use of email, intranets, ‘extrenets’, databases and the like. The promise of an ‘information superhighway’ has led many organisations to invest heavily in technology, both in terms of time and money. Based on a recent study of electronic communication in 20 top high‐tech companies, this paper explores the critical success factors for realising a maximum return on such an investment and considers the implications for all aspects of an internal communication mix.

As business communicators, we seek the ‘holy grail’ of our industry — a way to contribute to the bottom line, and demonstrate that contribution in hard business terms. We want the hard evidence to support our belief that internal communication is more than a fashionable ‘nice to have’, but also a critical element of business performance. It will be this ability to measure the impact of our work on the top and bottom lines of our businesses that will win us a seat at the boardroom table. This will give the role of the corporate communicator the credibility and influence it deserves. This paper offers not only the latest thinking in using internal communication and marketing as an effective business tool, but also the rationale and measures for communicators to develop their role and the arena in which they work. It introduces the concept of emotional capital, and explains the impact this has on an organisation. More importantly, it demonstrates how it can be measured as a tangible element of the balanced scorecard, increasing quality, profitability and shareholder return.

It takes more to succeed in today’s global marketplace. More responsiveness. More flexibility. More commitment. To compete, organisations need their staff to understand business goals and brand values and feel personally committed to their achievement. To flourish, they need their people to act as champions of their business and their brand, both internally and with customers and other external stakeholders. Many businesses realise this and have started talking about staff “buy‐in”. Yet they have failed to achieve the results they need. This paper explores what staff buy‐in really means and how it ultimately affects customers, using the findings of two major surveys commissioned by MCA and conducted by MORI. It also looks at the managerial implications of new approaches to employee communication and internal marketing and the potential impact on business performance.

Partnerships for public mental health are common. At a national and regional level, partnerships are frequently developed in order to co‐ordinate programmes to deliver public health outcomes, such as tackling stigma (see me, 2010) or promoting recovery (Elament, 2010; Scottish Recovery Network, 2010). At a European level, public mental health partnerships commonly exist to enhance learning and knowledge exchanges commonly between countries. While these partnerships are valuable, there is an increasing recognition that public mental health programmes must be embedded, shaped and realised at a regional level. Thus regions are not ‘implementers’ of national public mental health policy, but instead should be recognised and empowered to inform policy and practice. This approach was taken in Scotland when the national programme for mental health was renewed through a highly devolved and participatory consultation process and publication of Towards a Mentally Flourishing Scotland (Scottish Government, 2009). Against this backdrop, we examine a different model of partnership working; regional‐level international collaborations. This case study explores 'FINLAN': a collaboration between Lanarkshire Mental Health Improvement Group in Scotland and The South Ostrobothnia Project in Finland.

Guided by memory-dominant logic, this study aims to examine how Airbnb experiences (i.e. home benefits, social interaction and authenticity) lead to memorability, which subsequently results in platform attachment and loyalty. The mediating role of memorability and the moderating role of arousal in forming platform loyalty were also investigated.

A quantitative method was adopted including the use of a national survey with US travelers who had an Airbnb accommodation experience in the past six months. Data were collected from a representative sample generated from the Qualtrics consumer panel using an online self-administered survey.

Results suggested that Airbnb experiences have a positive impact on memorability, which leads to platform attachment and loyalty. The findings further supported the full mediation. The results also revealed a moderating role of arousal in influencing the relationship between social interaction and memorability.

This study contributes to the literature by investigating the role of Airbnb experiences and memorability in influencing customer responses to the Airbnb platform. This study also provides a holistic understanding of how platform attachment and loyalty develop through the mechanism of memorability.

Given the continuous competition from hotels, Airbnb providers should continue to improve critical Airbnb attributes and balance its hedonic and functional values. The moderating role of arousal suggests that Airbnb could maintain a virtual community or a social platform where guests can interact with hosts or the locals before, during and after Airbnb experiences.

The findings provide a holistic understanding of the experiences with insight into the new business model of the sharing economy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether stock dividend announcements create value for companies traded on the Nigerian stock market and to ascertain the nature of the information such announcements convey.

A standard event study methodology, employing the market model, is applied to determine the abnormal returns both on and surrounding the stock dividend announcement date. A sample is broken down based on the timing of announcements and on the frequency with which the announcing companies' shares are traded. The authors also examine the information content of stock dividends by applying the χ² technique to test the level of association between earnings, cash dividends and stock dividends.

The findings suggest that companies that choose their own announcement date outside the Nigerian stock exchange announcement window experience positive abnormal returns if their stock is more frequently traded and negative abnormal returns if their stock is less frequently traded. In addition, support is found for both the cash substitution hypothesis and the signalling hypothesis as explanations for the information stock dividends convey to shareholders.

The small number of companies in the “early announcement” group may not permit a definitive view to be established about the stock market reaction to early stock dividend announcements for this group of companies.

The findings are of practical relevance to researchers, practitioners and investors interested in companies listed on the Nigerian stock market as they reveal the extent to which the shares reflect fundamental information from corporate announcements.

This paper adds to the very limited academic research on the stock market reaction to stock dividend announcements in Nigeria.

The purpose of this paper is to open a debate on the interrelationship between categorisation, labelling, disclosure and enforcement. The extant literature on the accounting reporting environment explores the provision of both mandated and voluntary disclosures. Often disclosure is defined in a less than rigorous manner, mislabelled, misclassified and uses a strict dichotomy that limits information fineness.

The authors advance a non-dichotomous continuum of disclosure from voluntary and innovative at one end of the spectrum, to mandatory at the other, that helps reduce mislabelling and miscategorisation.

Firms’ voluntary disclosures cannot be properly interpreted without reviewing their interrelationship with mandatory disclosures and vice versa. Definitions of voluntary disclosure that have been used in empirical studies are examined, including the mislabelling and misclassification of voluntary disclosures and the authors provide examples of truly voluntary and innovative disclosures by companies.

This paper constructs, and provides evidence consistent with, a reporting continuum rather than the dichotomous disclosure measure that dominates decades of prior literature.

This study aims to offer empirical evidence on how integrated thinking affects the integrated reporting (IR) practice and how integrated thinking originates from board and management involvement, cross-functional integration and integral link between capitals and strategies.

This study is cross-sectional and uses a mixed-method approach. The empirical data for the quantitative approach were collected from the 129 public companies listed on Colombo Stock Exchange in Sri Lanka. The personale responsible for preparing the annual report are selected as the respondents of this study. This study used partial least square modelling to test the hypotheses. The quantitative approach results are triangulated across a qualitative research approach in semi-structural interviews with ten responsible officers of integrated reporting practices.

The central finding of this study is the significant positive relationship between integrated thinking and integrated reporting practice. The qualitative results supported the quantitative findings and show that board and management involvement, cross-functional integration and integral link between capital and strategy enhance the integrated reporting practice. Top management and board management have positive beliefs about the integrated reporting practice; they initiate, encourage, influence, involve and support it. Furthermore, all company departments are involved with the integrated reporting led by the finance department and practice good coordination, communication and collaboration between departments. Moreover, it also evidenced their concern about the linkage between capital and strategy and how they do it in their organisation when practising integrated reporting.

The firms which intend to practice or enhance integrated reporting will be benefited from this study. Hence, this research assists in constructing IT through the direct role of the board and senior leadership, breaking down silos to diffuse IR throughout structures and processes, and concentrating on strategies while managing their capitals and relationships over the long term.

This study provides the initial quantitative empirical evidence on the impact of integrated thinking on integrated reporting practice. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to operationalise both integrated thinking and integrated reporting based on a questionnaire that developed and tested both constructs as higher-order reflective formative and on the relationship between integrated thinking and integrated reporting. The mixed-method approach to examine the relationship between integrated thinking and integrated reporting provides additional insights into the existing literature.