Understanding Communication of Sustainability Reporting: Application of Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of rhetoric and rhetorical strategies that are implicit in the standalone sustainability reporting of the top 24 companies of the Fortune 500 Global. We adopt Bormann’s (Q J Speech 58(4):396–407, 1972) SCT framework to study the rhetorical situation and how corporate sustainability reporting (CSR) messages can be communicated to the audience (public). The SCT concepts in the sustainability reporting’s communication are subject to different types of legitimacy strategies that are used by corporations as a validity and legitimacy claim in the reports. A content analysis has been conducted and structural coding schemes have been developed based on the literature. The schemes are applied to the SCT model which recognizes the symbolic convergent processes of fantasy among communicators in a Society. The study reveals that most of the sample companies communicate fantasy type and rhetorical vision in their corporate sustainability reporting. However, the disclosure or messages are different across locations and other taxonomies of the SCT framework. This study contributes to the current CSR literature about how symbolic or fantasy understandings can be interpreted by the users. It also discusses the persuasion styles that are adopted by the companies for communication purposes. This study is the theoretical extension of the SCT. Researchers may be interested in further investigating other online communication paths, such as human rights reports and director’s reports

Aerosolized amphotericin B inhalations as prophylaxis of invasive aspergillus infections during prolonged neutropenia: results of a prospective randomized multicenter trial

We performed a prospective, randomized, multicenter trial to evaluate the effectiveness of prophylactic inhalations with aerosolized amphotericin B (aeroAmB) to reduce the incidence of invasive aspergillus (IA) infections in patients after chemotherapy or autologous bone marrow transplantation and an expected duration of neutropenia of at least 10 days. From March 1993 until April 1996, 382 patients with leukemias, relapsed high-grade non-Hodgkin lymphomas, or solid tumors were randomized with a 13:10 ratio to receive either prophylactic aeroAmB inhalations at a dose of 10 mg twice daily or no inhalation prophylaxis in an unblinded fashion. The incidence of proven, probable, or possible IA infections was 10 of 227 (4%) in patients who received prophylactic aeroAmB. This did not differ significantly from the 11 of 155 (7%) incidence in patients who received no inhalation prophylaxis (P = .37). Moreover, no differences in the overall mortality (13% v 10%; P= .37) or in the infection-related mortality (8% v 7%;P = .79) were found. In contrast to other nonrandomized trials, we observed no benefit from prophylactic aeroAmB inhalations, but the overall incidence of IA infections was low

Phasing out nuclear energy in Germany

The German Red-Green government decided to phase out all nuclear power stations and stop the reprocessing of German nuclear fuel in Britain and France. The coalition agreement between the Greens and SPD set out a well-defined timetable for the implementation of this policy, involving new legislation within the first 100 days and the negotiation of a consensus with the electricity utilities to be achieved within 12 months. While these deadlines passed without political results, an agreement between the government and the nuclear utilities was reached in mid-June 2000. This analysis of the genesis and development of the policy of phasing out nuclear power focuses in particular on the difficulties of the Green Environment Minister, Jrgen Trittin, to put the anti-nuclear policies of his party into practice. It is argued that the Greens faced a 'no win' situation in their attempt to design a constitutionally and politically viable phasing out policy. The party remains caught in the middle between the radical anti-nuclear movement that continues its protest against all nuclear operations and an intransigent electricity industry fighting for its commercial self-interest to keep nuclear stations running as long as possible. A range of theoretical approaches that could help the understanding of these processes is discussed, with an 'advocacy coalition' approach appearing to be the most promising option