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The purpose of this paper is to document how a doctoral research team applied an action research process to improve communication and collaboration strategies among rural Midwestern school district stakeholders.

An appreciative inquiry (AI) action research methodology framed as a qualitative case study using the AI 4‐D cycle over four consecutive weeks was facilitated with nine purposively selected stakeholders.

Findings suggest that the AI 4‐D cycle promoted greater respect and value of participants' strengths/assets through shared personal narratives; participants transformed their rural school district's culture from defensive, isolationist, and reactive to one that embraced internal and external collaboration, greater levels of trust, and hope; and participants increased social capital between the school district and community agencies as well as in the relationship among school district stakeholders.

Participants entered the process with strong expressions of powerlessness focused on school district and stakeholder deficits. They left the process empowered, with a plan to improve stakeholder communication, form district and community partnerships at many levels, and act immediately to initiate transformation projects. Participants became conduits of hope for their rural community and viewed themselves as assuming leadership roles to bring groups together to build generative capacity.

The paper highlights the importance of the highly participatory nature of school organizations as democratic institutions, and it demonstrates that educators are empowered when their focus is on a co‐constructed imagined future.

This chapter provides an overview of the history of deliberative theory and practice, starting with an early focus on rational consensus models and moving toward contemporary treatments of deliberation in pluralistic, contentious systems consisting of multiple, overlapping, and at times adversarial stakeholder groups. It summarizes major theories related to analytic and social/relational aspects of deliberation, communication across differences, and design and facilitation processes. Finally, it reviews group communication research on deliberative processes and outcomes, notes key critiques of deliberative theory, and explores future directions for group deliberation research and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the source of brand-related user-generated content (UGC) (a close friend vs a celebrity) interacts with content sponsorship (organic UGC vs sponsored UGC) to influence consumer causal attributions, brand attitude, and intention to comply with the recommendation.

In all, 285 college students participated in a two (source: a close friend vs a celebrity) by two (content sponsorship: organic vs sponsored) between-subjects online experimental design.

Results showed that recommendation from a close friend generated more information-sharing attributions and less monetary-gain attributions than did recommendation from a celebrity when the brand-related UGC was organic. In contrast, source type did not influence causal attributions differently when the UGC was sponsored. Further, this study demonstrated that both information-sharing and monetary-gain attributions mediated the effects of source type and content sponsorship on brand attitude and intention to comply with the recommendation.

This study is one of the first to examine the effectiveness of celebrities as a source of brand-related UGC. Also, this research extends the existing knowledge about source effects by examining the relative effectiveness of two sources of product information, close friends and celebrities, who have both been found to be individually effective in the traditional marketing context. Additionally, the findings of this study that the relative effectiveness of source type depends on whether brand-related UGC is sponsored or not add a further insight into how source type influences the effectiveness of brand-related UGC.

The purpose of this study is to focus on analyzing the role of music subcultures in the communication and promotion of conspicuous consumption practices. The object of study is the “altered movement” as the music style of the drug subculture in Mexico.

A qualitative content analysis of 78 lyrics and music videos of “altered movement” was carried out between August and December 2018.

The analysis of lyrics and music videos leads to the identification of four narratives (from poor to rich, power through violence, lavish lifestyle and power over women) and diverse symbolic markers (luxury brands mainly) that together, display messages aimed at promoting conspicuous consumption practices.

The current research expands the body of literature of music subcultures in the consumer research area by contesting the common conception of this phenomenon as a healthy source of self-identity formation and deepening into its role as a source of conspicuous consumption practices.

Everyday conversation has not yet been assigned its full role in public discussion of citizen’s issues, despite the growing number of studies about it. Casual conversations are not usually regarded as a particularly privileged place for political discussions mainly because of its apparent lack of organization following the principles and rules of the deliberative tradition in Political Studies. However, due to its closeness, informality, and personal proximity, it is particularly adequate to rise political aspects of everyday lives that otherwise would not be publicly disclosed. But how to grasp the spontaneity of everyday conversation? This chapter argues that focus groups, as a research method, are fit to observe and understand real-time ordinary conversation on political issues. In what follows, the argument goes threefold: (1) it contrasts “conversation” with “deliberation” from a micro-point of view; (2) all conversation, as a discourse embroiled in power relations, is political in a broad sense (3) as it brings forward personal views and experiences, casual conversations defies the borders between public and private issues.

The purpose of this study is to examine how social media facilitates the process of customer engagement in quick service restaurants (QSRs). Customers characterized as transactional customers, loyal customers, delighted customers or fans, based on the degree of relational exchange and emotional bonds, are expected to vary in their propensity to engage in advocacy and co-create value.

Hypotheses linking the antecedents of customer engagement to advocacy are empirically investigated with data from the Twitter social media network for the top 50 US QSRs. Multiple regression analysis is carried out with proxies for advocacy as the dependent variable and connection effort, interaction effort, satisfaction, retention effort, calculative commitment and affective commitment as independent variables.

The results indicate that retention effort and calculative commitment of customers are the most important factors influencing advocacy. Efforts to retain customers using social media communication increase advocacy. Greater calculative commitment also increases advocacy. Affective commitment mediates the relationship between calculative commitment and advocacy.

Fostering retention and calculative commitment by using social media communication engenders loyalty and customers become advocates. Calculative commitment fosters affective commitment, turning customers into fans who are delighted as well as loyal, enhancing advocacy.

This study uniquely investigates the relationship between the antecedents of customer engagement and advocacy. It develops the theory and conducts an empirical analysis with actual social media network data for a specific industry where usage of the network is widely prevalent. It confirms that calculative commitment influences advocacy. Calculative commitment not only has a direct effect but also has an indirect effect through affective commitment on advocacy in the QSR context. Further, social media efforts by QSRs to retain customers encourage advocacy. Other customer engagement antecedents do not directly influence advocacy.

More and more artists mention brand names in their song lyrics; yet, their motivation to do so might differ. While some artists mention brand names out of brand love, other artists mention brand names against financial compensation. As media often discloses such brand name placements, the purpose of this paper is to explore consumer reactions to paid versus unpaid brand name placements in song lyrics.

A three-group between-subjects experiment (paid brand name placement, unpaid brand name placement, control group) tests the effects of brand name placement disclosures in song lyrics on brand attitudes and brand awareness. The song was developed specifically for the purpose of this study.

Consumer awareness about paid brand name placements in song lyrics has positive effects on brand awareness, while having no negative effects on brand attitudes. More specifically, consumer brand awareness is significantly higher in the paid brand name placement condition than in the unpaid brand name placement condition, or the control condition. Brand attitudes increased in both the paid and unpaid brand name placement conditions, compared to the control condition.

This paper contributes to a better understanding of brand name placement in song lyrics. Counterintuitively, consumer awareness about paid brand name placements in song lyrics actually has positive effects on consumers’ brand awareness and no negative effects on brand attitudes. Moreover, any disclosure – regardless of whether it concerns a paid or unpaid brand name placement – increases brand attitudes. This study thus shows that marketing managers should not fear media disclosing brand name placements in song lyrics.

Groups have the ability to create something new and novel that does not exist at the individual level. This chapter examines group communication as the driver of this creation process, using the input–process–output model. Group processes are often understudied and consigned to a “black box” between inputs and outputs. How advances in methodology and analysis software have increased the ability to study group communication processes and emergent states within this black box is highlighted. Four different areas of research are then briefly reviewed to showcase ways to focus on process. These four areas include structuration, shared mental models, transactive memory, and collective intelligence. The chapter concludes with a focus on future trends and a call for more interdisciplinary research with a theoretical focus.

This study explores the influence of parasocial interaction (PSI), brand credibility and product involvement on celebrity endorsement, and how PSI interacts with brand and product factors and affects celebrity endorsement synthetically.

This study employs a 2 (high/low product involvement) by 2 (high/low brand credibility) between-subjects factorial design experiment to test the hypotheses.

Brand credibility has a positive effect on followers' attitudes toward advertising and products, and product involvement influences its moderation. PSI has salient positive effects on followers' attitudes and behavioral intention, regardless of high/low product involvement. Brand credibility mediates PSI's influence on celebrity endorsement.

The results reinforce the significant effect of PSI on endorsement effectiveness and brand credibility, show the influence of brand credibility and product involvement and show how their influence conditionally interacts with others.

The corporate advertiser should prefer a high PSI celebrity as their endorser. The advertising message design on the microblog also deserves the attention of advertisers.

This study is the primary attempt to construct an integral model to demonstrate the synthetic effect and interaction process of consumers' perception of the endorser, brand and product category factors on celebrity endorsement within the social media context.

The aim of this chapter is twofold: (i) to perform a synthesis of the academic research regarding the changes of tourist consumer behavior brought about by social media; and (ii) to suggest a set of strategies for tourism businesses to address resulting challenges.

Extensive literature reviews have been executed on the motivating factors and the effects of online reviews.

This analysis of the related research identified three main topics, namely: (1) the antecedents, the factors motivating tourists to write online reviews; (2) the impact of eWOM on providers of tourism services (business perspective); and (3) the influence of online reviews on consumers’ behavior (demand perspective). This chapter focuses on the impact of online reviews on tourism businesses and suggests suitable strategies.

This study is based on a literature review and implications indicated by previous studies; hence the suggestions are indicative rather than conclusive. A need exists for empirical studies to fully validate the chapter’s suggestions.

This chapter outlines a series of adequate strategies formulated for business practitioners divided into two fields, namely managerial and marketing activities.

This study provides practical recommendations/suggestions for tourism businesses in addressing the challenges and opportunities raised within the online context.