More than a touristic visit: scholar exchanges as a communication method in public diplomacy

This paper discusses the concept of Public Diplomacy and the effectiveness of a specific Public Diplomacy tool: Scholar Exchanges as a tool of Public Diplomacy. The foreign Fulbright Program of the United States Government is introduced as a case study and for further interpreting the perceptions of the program, a survey is ran among 59 current grantees. Scholar exchanges programs are suggested to be implemented in order to overcome the barriers in communication processes in the international arena

The story of a shooting: recommendations for more effective crisis communication

A crisis narrative is used to tell the story of a shooting at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri, United States. The story provides a learning experience for institutions as they seek best practices in handling crises. Although it appears that the university followed procedures correctly in dealing with this situation, questions linger as to whether administrators truly communicated effectively with students. Technology was used to warn students of potential danger, but not enough information was provided so students could deal on a personal level with the crisis. Face-to-face communication is important especially in a crisis to “soften” the blows of the situation

Standards culturales portugueses – el punto de vista español

El objetivo de esta comunicación es de presentar resultados preliminares de un estudio que procura identificar las características principales de la cultura portuguesa más relevantes desde un punto de vista español. Para tanto es usado el método de los “standards culturales”. Con base en entrevistas a dieciséis profesionales españoles con experiencia de trabajo en Portugal han sido identificados cuatro standards culturales portugueses: 1- Importancia de títulos y jerarquías. Los españoles consideran a los portugueses como un pueblo que sobre valoriza los títulos académicos, con una noción de jerarquía muy marcada e con un grande distanciamiento al poder, mucho a causa de una predominante estructura jerárquica vertical; 2- Miedo e Ambigüedad. Los portugueses son considerados personas con miedo del incierto y de la novedad, y poco dispuestos al riesgo y muy presos al saber enraizado. Son también maestros en el arte de asumir posiciones ambiguas porque son poco corajosos en la asunción de responsabilidades por sus actos. Adicionalmente se nota que se rigen por intrincadas tejas burocráticas; 3- Poca importancia de Agendas y Relojes. Los portugueses tienen grande dificultad en cumplir plazos e horarios, y definir agendas realizables; 4- Espíritu de Grupo. Los españoles reconocen los portugueses como personas que luchan mejor por el suceso del grupo de que hacen parte e que son más aplicados en sus tareas. Como limitación más importante de los resultados obtenidos se puede apuntar la poca diferenciación de los elementos de la muestra respecto al origen regional en España.The objective of this communication is to present some preliminary results of a study which tries to identify the main characteristics of the Portuguese culture which are relevant from a Spanish perspective. A new qualitative methodology is used – the cultural standards method. Drawing on interviews of sixteen Spanish nationals working in Portugal, four Portuguese cultural standards could be identified: 1. Importance of titles and hierarchies. Spaniards think of the Portuguese as a culture which overemphasizes academic titles and with a strict and marked notion of hierarchy. 2. Fear and ambiguity. The Portuguese are considered as persons with fear of the unknown and of new things, risk avoiding and too tied to traditional knowledge. They are masters in adopting an ambiguous stance, as they are less courageous in taking responsibility for their deeds. Additionally they are bound by a complex bureaucratic web. 3. Less emphasis regarding agendas and clocks. Portuguese have considerable difficulty in observing deadlines and timetables, as well as in scheduling feasible agendas. 4. “Esprit de corps”. Portuguese are held as persons who fight harder for the success of the group to which they belong and who are more concentrated on their tasks. The main limitation of this preliminary study has to do with the fact that there is little variation within the sample regarding the regional origin of the Spanish persons interviewed and this may influence the results obtained so far

Dos and don’ts of teaching courses overseas

Most students cannot afford to spend a semester, or a whole academic year, getting study abroad experience. Therefore, faculty and universities are offering short term, faculty led courses in other countries. Many universities around the world are requiring their students to get this international experience but, at the same time, there are many misconceptions about what these short study abroad courses should accomplish from academic, pedagogical and educational perspective. There isn’t a lot of literature on how to structure, organize and conduct these courses at different international locations

Rediscover Rosarito: a public diplomacy initiative for the local community in Rosarito Beach, Baja Mexico

Rediscover Rosarito is a cross-cultural public affairs graduate class initiative started in February 2008. That year, 28 graduate Communication Management (CM) students from diverse backgrounds and nationalities, taught by Dr. Gregory Payne of the Communication Studies Department, reached out to elected governmental leaders, public officials, citizens and expatriates of Rosarito Beach in Baja Mexico. Together, they launched a public affairs campaign that stressed the importance of grassroots public diplomacy as a major strategy. The goal of the program then and now is to develop and implement an ongoing campaign to help restore the image of this heavily tourism dependent beach community, which had been devastated by a drastic drop in visitor levels as a result of Mexican President Jose Caledron’s ‘war on drugs,’ a violent reaction from the drug cartels against this action, as well as biased media coverage regarding the crisis from sources on both sides of the border, which reflect the all too often proclivity of the media to sensationalize such stores in the effort to secure readershi

TK1951: an anatomy of crisis communication

This study focuses on how Turkish Airlines (THY) managed its communication strategy after the unfortunate accident of TK 1951 on February 25, 2009 near Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Evaluating the efforts in a framework, authors set out to discuss THY’s performance in four important areas classified in eight headings: coordination of the messages, acknowledging uncertainty and taking responsibility, reaching the stakeholders and making use of online media tools. Hopefully, the results of this research will help THY and other airline companies to improve and develop their immediate crisis response strategies

Using fuzzy numbers and OWA operators in the weighted average and its application in decision making

Se presenta un nuevo método para tratar situaciones de incertidumbre en los que se utiliza el operador OWAWA (media ponderada – media ponderada ordenada). A este operador se le denomina operador OWAWA borroso (FOWAWA). Su principal ventaja se encuentra en la posibilidad de representar la información incierta del problema mediante el uso de números borrosos los cuales permiten una mejor representación de la información ya que consideran el mínimo y el máximo resultado posible y la posibilidad de ocurrencia de los valores internos. Se estudian diferentes propiedades y casos particulares de este nuevo modelo. También se analiza la aplicabilidad de este operador y se desarrolla un ejemplo numérico sobre toma de decisiones en la selección de políticas fiscalesWe present a new approach for dealing with an uncertain environment when using the ordered weighted averaging – weighted averaging (OWAWA) operator. We call it the fuzzy OWAWA (FOWAWA) operator. The main advantage of this new aggregation operator is that it is able to represent the uncertain information with fuzzy numbers. Thus, we are able to give more complete information because we can consider the maximum and the minimum of the problem and the internal information between these two results. We study different properties and different particular cases of this approach. We also analyze the applicability of the new model and we develop a numerical example in a decision making problem about selection of fiscal policies

The dimension of reliability in product quality: application to the automotive industry.

La industria del automóvil constituye uno de los pilares básicos de la economía en los países más desarrollados económicamente. En nuestro país, la fabricación de automóviles y de sus componentes representa un sector de gran relevancia económica y social, significando un porcentaje importante del Producto Interior Bruto, con un gran peso de la exportación en cuanto a la producción nacional. Pero, en los últimos años, la fabricación española ha visto disminuida su presencia en el plano internacional, habiéndose incrementado notoriamente la producción localizada en países asiáticos y sudamericanos. Además, en nuestros días se asiste a una importante crisis en el sector, a nivel nacional e internacional. Ante ello, cabe cuestionarse si las mejoras tecnológicas indiscutibles en los últimos años y de aplicación al producto automóvil se han visto acompañadas de un incremento de la calidad del producto en otros aspectos, además de las características o prestaciones de éste. Así, el presente documento tiene por objetivo principal analizar la dimensión de fiabilidad como factor de calidad en los últimos años. Para ello, se parte de los resultados hallados por las inspecciones realizadas por la entidad Tüv en Alemania durante cinco años, relativas al hallazgo de defectos en automóviles. La muestra se ha estratificado considerado los segmentos de vehículos al respecto y los diferentes tramos de edad de éstos para conseguir resultados comparables. Se contempla un carácter dinámico en el tiempo, al disponer de varios años de estudio y poder establecer las comparaciones adecuadas, según la evolución de los resultados en este periodo. El estudio se ha centrado en el comportamiento de la dimensión de fiabilidad, por su carácter crítico en el tipo de producto abordado, y ha considerado el abanico de mediciones de dicha dimensión, para poder identificarla en este caso con el porcentaje de vehículos con defecto sustancial detectado, respecto a la totalidad de vehículos inspeccionados. En los resultados obtenidos, se percibe el diferente grado de comportamiento de los distintos segmentos de vehículos, tanto en un nivel estático como en un nivel dinámico, advirtiendo la disminución del índice de fiabilidad en la evolución temporal analizada, detallándose los resultados según segmentos de vehículos, además de constatar la lógica suposición de decremento al aumentar la edad del producto. Futuras líneas de investigación pueden ser llevadas a cabo considerando la multidimensionalidad del concepto de calidad y la tipología de defectos.The automotive industry is one of the mainstays of the economy in the most economically developed countries. In our country, the manufacture of automobiles and their components represents an area of economic and social importance, with a significant percentage of Gross Domestic Product and an important part of its production is for the market of other countries. But in recent years, the spanish manufacturing has diminished respect to the international level, and a great increased production has been located in Asia and South America. Moreover, today there is a significant crisis in the sector, in our country and in all the world. So, we can asked for the union of the technological improvements in recent years and its use in the automobile product with an increase in product quality in other aspects. Thus, this paper´s goal is to analyze the reliability dimension of quality as a factor in recent years. For this, we consider the results of the inspections performed by the entity TüV in Germany for five years about defects in cars. The sample was stratified in order to consider vehicle´s segments and different age groups to achieve results. It provides a dynamic character in time, because the report of TüV has several years of study and we can establish the appropriate comparisons, in order to monitor the trend of results in this period. The study has focused on the behavior of the dimension of reliability for its critical nature in the this kind of product; we have observed the range of measurements of that dimension; so, in our work, we have considered the percentage of vehicles with substantial defects and the totality of the inspected vehicles. In the results, we can note a different behavior of different segments of vehicles, in a static and a dynamic level. We observe the decrease in the reliability index, in a temporal trend. The results can be detalled in vehicle segments, in addition to establishing the logical assumption of decrease of reliability with an increasing age of the product. Future research can be carried out in next works considering the multidimensionality of the concept of quality and the type of defects

Análisis de las estrategias de diferenciación y posicionamiento de los centros comerciales planificados como formato de distribución

Los centros comerciales planificados son un formato de distribución que ha alcanzado un importante nivel de desarrollo en nuestro país. Por su parte, el incremento del número de centros comerciales operativos está generando un aumento significativo del nivel de competencia entre los mismos. Así, este trabajo pretende un acercamiento general a la realidad actual del formato de los centros comerciales, centrándonos más detalladamente en el ámbito del Territorio Histórico de Vizcaya. El objetivo central de la investigación es el análisis de las estrategias de diferenciación y posicionamiento de los centros comerciales planificados, abordándose asimismo diferentes aspectos relacionados con la gestión de marketing. En el trabajo se lleva a cabo una revisión de la literatura académica más relevante desarrollada en los últimos años en torno a esta temática. Asimismo, se ha desarrollado una investigación empírica de carácter cualitativo, a través de la cual quedan definidos aspectos relevantes de la gestión de marketing de los centros, así como la constatación de la existencia de dos líneas destacadas de diferenciación y posicionamiento: las líneas basadas en los factores “proximidad” y “centro repleto de vida y actividad”.Planned shopping centres as distribution form have achieved a very important level of development in our country. Also, the increasing number of operating shopping centres is creating a growing level of competition. Thus, this paper pretends a general approach to the current situation of the shopping centre form, focusing that approach more precisely in the Historic Territory of Biscay. The main objective of the investigation is the analysis of the differentiation and positioning strategies of planned shopping centres; also, and directly related, the investigation is focused on different aspects of the marketing management area. A review of the more relevant academic literature developed in recent years related to the objectives of the study has been undertaken. In the same way, an empiric qualitative research has been undertaken in order to define relevant aspects of the centres´ marketing management; the results of the qualitative research show two main lines of differentiation and positioning: these lines are the ones based on two factors: “proximity” and “mall full of life and activity

Empirical evidence of the main economic differences between the limited labour societies and the societies of limited responsibility

Este trabajo compara los resultados económicos de las empresas participadas mayoritariamente por sus trabajadores respecto aquéllas que no lo están. Para la consecución de dicho objetivo se ha aprovechado el hecho de que en España ambos tipos de empresas funcionan de acuerdo con estructuras reguladas legalmente. Las empresas participadas mayoritariamente por sus trabajadores, con funcionamiento capitalista no convencional y responsabilidad limitada de los socios, operan como Sociedades Limitadas Laborales (SLL) reguladas por la Ley de 1997, mientras que, las empresas que no tienen que estar participadas mayoritariamente por sus trabajadores con funcionamiento capitalista y responsabilidad limitada de sus socios, operan como Sociedades de Responsabilidad Limitada (SRL) reguladas por la Ley de 1995. El marco de referencia del presente análisis es el interés creciente por parte de la Unión Europea por fomentar el acceso de los trabajadores a la propiedad de las empresas en las que desarrollan su actividad, y la relevancia que en el ámbito internacional puede adquirir el modelo de gobierno participativo y socialmente responsable que caracteriza a las Sociedades Laborales en España.This work compares the economic results of the companies informed for the most part by his workpeople regard those that are not. For the mentioned target it has been keep in mind the fact that in Spain both types of companies work in accordance with structures regulated legally. The companies informed for the most part by his workpeople, with capitalist not conventional functioning and limited responsibility of the associates, operate as Limited Labour Societies (SLL) regulated by the Law of 1997, whereas, the companies that are not informed for the most part by his workpeople with capitalist functioning and limited responsibility of his associates, operate as Societies of Limited Responsibility (SRL) regulated by the Law of 1995. The frame of reference of the present analysis is the increasing interest on the part of the European Union to encourage the access of the workpeople to the property of the companies in those who develop his activity, and the relevancy that in the international ambience can acquire the model of government, socially responsibly that characterizes the Labour Societies in Spain