Search results

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic organisations are adapting to a new environment of global talent shortages, economic uncertainty and geo-political turmoil. As an outcome, the organisational strategies of digital transformation and remote working have been accelerated in the race to boost innovation, competitivity and attract staff. This has led to the rise of two new organisational dynamics: the increase of virtual teams (VTs) and focus on widespread work automation. However, despite the rise of these two related phenomena, literature does not connect them as one research area, and there is a gap in the understanding of the new employee wellbeing needs they form and how to respond to them. This paper aims to bridge this gap through a systematic literature across these areas.

This paper conducts a systematic literature review across the areas of leadership, VTs and automation over the past three years.

In this review, a number of newly arising employee wellbeing needs are identified such as fear of job displacement, a lack of self-efficacy and social cohesion, poor relationships with leaders and more. In addition, this paper recommends three fundamental research gaps to be addressed by future studies: 1. How to build and cultivate the new leadership skills needed to support VTs and workplace automation? 2. How to design work in a way that caters for employee wellbeing needs when operating in VTs or hybrid teams and working on or with workplace automation? 3. How to design work in a way that builds and emphasises the new employee skillsets to support augmentation and solves for the new employee wellbeing needs experienced by workplace automation?

This paper provides a novel contribution to literature by centralising current schools of thought across the cross-disciplinary themes and synthesising literature to recommend new wellbeing and leadership skills for organisations to focus on, alongside producing a new research agenda for scholars to focus.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are a critical time for organizations and their consumers. For the company, there are many financial and non-financial risks. For customers, it requires deciding whether or not to continue the relationship that they had with the previous firm. This paper explores the extent to which communicating the family business (FB) brand, and the previous reputation of the acquirer affects customer perceptions and intentions after an M&A event.

Data for this study were collected from 159 Italian participants. We used a 2 (Communication of FB brand: Yes vs. No) by 3 (Reputation: positive, neutral, negative) between subjects’ experiment to test how the communication of the FB brand and the reputation of the acquirer affected perceived trustworthiness and service quality, and how this, in turn, influenced customer purchase intentions.

We find that communicating the FB brand does not influence consumer perceptions and intentions toward the acquired company. However, the previous reputation of the acquiring firm is critical in influencing consumer perceptions and intentions to buy.

Our study continues the growing research on M&A in family firms. It also increases our understanding of the boundary conditions of the FB brand effects, and the relevance that the previous reputation of a family firm can have in M&A scenarios. Finally, our study introduces the “Halo” and “Velcro” effects into the FB literature.

The study provides an initial empirical examination of Jin et al.’s (2024) new READINESS model through the expert opinions of crisis communication academics and practitioners. Through this examination, the goal is to understand crisis READINESS and how it relates to other key concepts in the crisis literature, such as preparedness and resilience.

An exploratory quantitative online survey of 30 experts in crisis communication was conducted. Our participant pool consisted of members from the Crisis Communication Think Tank, which is an established crisis thought leadership network (Jin, 2023). Data collection took place in November and December 2023.

Key findings include the dual nature of crisis READINESS as both a process and an outcome, resilience as both a process and an outcome, and preparedness as an antecedent to READINESS. A key distinction between READINESS and preparedness emerged with the former conceived of as a mindset and the latter conceived of as physical tools, training and planning.

Preparedness and resilience alone are not enough to effectively manage crises and risks, and given this, it is important to study READINESS as a concept beyond (yet connected to) preparedness and resilience. It is our hope that the findings can lead to understanding indicators of crisis READINESS and developing crisis READINESS measurement tools which can equip organizations to more effectively manage crises.

Following a crisis, stakeholders tend to appreciate costly organizational responses that attempt to reverse the harm caused by the organization. The deployment of reactive corporate social responsibility (CSR), defined as a CSR initiative explicitly promoted to make amends for a negative event, can thus be an effective crisis response strategy. However, existing studies suggest that this strategy could backfire, as it increases stakeholders’ skepticism regarding an organization’s motives to engage in CSR when this is only done under external pressure. Applying attribution theory, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the effectiveness of reactive CSR as a crisis response strategy depends on the positioning of the brand promoting it.

The authors use three between-subject experiments to test our hypotheses. In Studies 1 and 3, they consider a fictitious crisis scenario with a fictitious brand, and in Study 2, they test their hypotheses using existing brands involved in a fictitious crisis.

Compared to a purely verbal response (an apology), reactive CSR improves consumers’ responses when implemented by a brand positioned to focus on CSR rather than on performance. This effect is mediated by perceived brand benevolence: a brand focused on CSR is seen as more benevolent when proposing reactive CSR initiatives than a brand with a performance positioning. The effect holds even when the CSR positioning is not aligned with the reactive CSR domain. For a brand with a performance positioning, a costlier reactive CSR strategy is no more effective than an apology.

The study extends their understanding of how information on brand positioning influences reactive CSR in response to a crisis. Their analysis clarifies the circumstances under which reactive CSR can be an effective crisis response.

This study examines how top global brands changed their corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication on social media during a victim crisis, and how their CSR communication on social media influenced consumer sentiment.

Using 18,502 firms’ Facebook posts and their most relevant consumer comments from pre-pandemic and during-pandemic timeframes, this study integrates machine learning techniques (BERTopic) with human-based qualitative analysis to analyze CSR posts. It also measures the polarity and magnitude of consumer sentiment with Google Natural Language AI. We tested seven hypotheses using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM).

The machine learning-based topic modeling analysis showed that firms increased CSR communications intensity on social media and they more intentionally chose different CSR communication strategies for different topics on social media during the victim crisis. The hypothesis testing results show proactive, accommodative and interactive strategies have a significant impact on consumer sentiment polarity and magnitude, and these effects are moderated by the level of interactivity and industry type.

(1) This study takes a dynamic view to examine the firms’ CSR communication on social media during a victim crisis. It used machine learning-based text analytics and found many interesting results on how firms changed their CSR communication topics and strategies on social media during the crisis. (2) It measures both consumer sentiment polarity and sentiment magnitude to conduct sentiment analysis. The results indicate that the CSR communication strategies have different impacts on the two sentiment components. (3) It integrates machine learning techniques with human-based qualitative analysis. It shows how researchers can gain the benefits of both approaches.

This study examined corporate communication strategies designed to effectively address routine consumer complaints on social media and transform them into relationship-building opportunities. Drawing from relationship maintenance and conflict/crisis communication literature, two communicative approaches were explored: relational strategies (communicated relational commitments and conversational voice) and accommodative strategies.

A nationwide US consumer survey was conducted to test the proposed model.

The results showed that communicating relational commitments directly enhances consumer trust and fosters supportive intentions. Additionally, using a conversational voice indirectly influenced these outcomes through the mediating factor of perceived humanness. The accommodative strategy also effectively fostered trust and supportive intentions among consumers.

This study extends the application of relational maintenance strategies to online consumer complaints. Though conversational voice does not address core complaint issues, the findings reveal its positive ripple effects via perceived humanness. The study clarifies prior inconsistencies in research on accommodative vs defensive strategies for handling online complaints, offering practical insights for organizations to strengthen customer relationships through effective complaint management.

This study relies on the lessons learned from the recent pandemic crisis to propose a conceptual framework for organizational crisis management and illustrate its application in an organization that effectively protected its competitive position during the crisis.

Building upon the resource-based view and the dynamic capability theoretical framework, we first conducted a systematic literature review that involves content and bibliographic analysis. Subsequently, we developed a conceptual crisis management framework and applied it to the case of Hyundai Motor Brazil.

The systematic literature review found innovation and knowledge management as prominent response mechanisms to the pandemic crisis whereas the case provided a better understanding on how these mechanisms contributed to crisis navigation.

Managers will find valuable insights into the importance of linking risk management and crisis management, and leveraging innovation and knowledge to enhance resilience, with straightforward operationalization for benchmark.

This paper is original for relating enterprise risk management, innovation and knowledge management to each phase of existing crisis management processes. It enriches the theoretical and practical debate on the dynamic capabilities’ perspective of risk and crisis management.

With infographics emerging as key communication tools on social media platforms, this study explores the visual literacy of governments in creating effective infographics, especially during crises. Using the Kuwaiti government during the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, the investigation evaluates the government’s visual competency and strategy in its infographics on X.

For competence, AI-based techniques were employed to analyze the proportion of text region size to total infographic size, word count per infographic and the most prominent colors used. Regarding strategy, the study utilized the crisis and emergency risk communication (CERC) model as a framework to examine how the Kuwaiti government integrated crisis communication response strategies into infographics.

When communicating complex messages, the government resorted to text-heavy infographics instead of creative visualizations, casting doubt on its visual competence. The inconsistent use of colors further undermined a recognizable visual identity. Regarding strategy, infographics on crisis updates were most frequent, supporting CERC’s emphasis on reducing uncertainty. Yet, prioritizing bolstering strategies above empathy and action steps goes against the advice of existing literature.

While crisis communication research is widely based on textual analysis, this study extends the literature by examining visuals, specifically infographics. Additionally, focusing on Arabic infographics from Kuwait, the study expands the crisis communication literature, which has mainly concentrated on Western countries and the English language. Given the lack of consensus on the best methods to measure visual literacy, this study’s AI approaches contribute to the literature.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2024-0172

This study aims to examine the impact of retailers’ bankruptcy filings on consumers’ perception of risk, perceived quality, consumer trust and purchase intentions, as well as the moderating effect of brand reputation and brand price level on the impact of retailers’ bankruptcy filings.

This experiment used a 2 × 2 × 2 fractional factorial design. Of the 180 questionnaires collected through the Qualtrics survey platform, 165 responses were considered valid and used in the study.

The results of this study showed that bankruptcy filing can decrease consumers’ intent to purchase from the company. The results also revealed a significant positive relationship between brand reputation, trust and purchase intention.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical investigation of the negative implications of corporate bankruptcy on consumer behavior in the retail sector. Therefore, this study can contribute to a better understanding of how bankruptcy filings by apparel retailers may affect consumer perception and purchase behavior.

This study aims to explore the role of organisations and leaders in addressing crises, with a focus on the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. It proposes a conceptual framework that integrates leadership competencies and crisis management, the response–recovery framework, explained through the five-stage cycle starting from crisis identification, crisis planning, crisis containment, crisis recovery, to redesigning crisis management.

This research relies on an extensive review of literature on leadership and crisis management. A structured bibliometric analysis was conducted using tools like VOSViewer and Scopus, supported by thematic synthesis, to identify key themes and trends.

This study establishes a response–recovery framework for crisis management. It identifies essential leadership roles and competencies required during various phases of crises, including crisis identification, planning, containment, recovery and redesigning management. It highlights the dynamic evolution of leadership roles and the significance of effective communication, organisational resilience and distributed leadership.

The proposed response–recovery framework provides actionable insights for practitioners to navigate crises effectively. It emphasises the importance of adaptable leadership styles, proactive crisis planning and fostering resilience, offering organisations a roadmap for handling future crises.

This study offers a unique integration of leadership and crisis management literature, presenting a novel framework aligned with the changing demands of crises. Its focus on leadership evolution across crisis stages provides valuable theoretical and practical contributions for scholars and practitioners.