The Sulzer Hip Replacement Recall Crisis: A Patient\u27s Perspective

This case discusses a product recall that resulted from a manufacturing defect and the degree to which the company distributed accurate and timely information to affected patients. More specifically, the case examines the crisis communication of Sulzer Orthopedics and its efforts to negotiate the interests of various stakeholders, while limiting liability. Written from the perspective of a patient, the case raises interesting questions regarding organizational duties related to product liability. It also provides valuable insights into how organizational communication may have both short- and long-term effects on its relationship with patients and physicians, among others

A Goal-based Framework Integrating Disparate Media Choice Theories

Media choice and selection theories are numerous and highly fragmented. While much of this theorizing has helped IS researchers better understand what influences people’s media choices and selections, the proliferation of theories also leads to redundancies, and decreased clarity and impact. Here, we develop and apply an approach to better know what we know about a set of related theories. We present a unifying framework of media choice that (1) builds on prior work, (2) streamlines disparate lines of research, and (3) links media choices to goals. In addition to advancing media choice theorizing, the framework is a useful template for relating future research contributions to previous theories, an effective teaching aid, and a tool for practitioners applying media choice theories

Meetings as Persistent Conversations that use ICTs and Face-to-Face to Build Social Capital

Attending meetings is a common activity where people accomplish tasks and extend their relationships. But what happens when a meeting is over? Is that the end of the meeting conversation? This study empirically demonstrates that meetings are not discrete events; rather they are a form of persistent conversation processes, involving combinations of ICTs and face-to-face communication. Conversations between meetings contribute to a meeting process-perspective and link to the development of bonding and bridging social capital. The findings suggest that the frequency of face-to-face conversations and text messaging between meetings, positively impact bonding social capital. Peoples’ attitudes toward continuing conversations between meetings positively impacts bridging social capital. The frequency of using many contemporary ICTs—e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and GroupMe—between meetings was not a significant predictor in developing social capital, even in a sample of young adults

DisasterNet: Evaluating the Performance of Transfer Learning to Classify Hurricane-Related Images Posted on Twitter

Social media platforms are increasingly used during disasters. In the U.S., victims consider these platforms to be reliable news sources and they believe first responders will see what they publicly post. While having ways to request help during disasters might save lives, this information is difficult to find because non-relevant content on social media completely overshadows content reflective of who needs help. To resolve this issue, we develop a framework for classifying hurricane-related images that have been human-annotated. Our transfer learning framework classifies each image using the VGG-16 convolutional neural network and multi-layer perceptron classifiers according to the urgency, relevance, and time period, in addition to the presence of damage and relief motifs. We find that our framework not only successfully functions as an accurate method for hurricane-related image classification, but also that real-time classification of social media images using a small training set is possible

Disaster Continuity for Businesses and Communities in Rural Texas: Investigating Infrastructure, Communication, and Planning Needs

Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to weather shocks. While there is a plethora of publicly available resources on how to prepare for natural disasters, information tailored specifically for small business owners and their business operations and assets is more limited. This project studied the most disaster-vulnerable areas in Texas, particularly the Texas Gulf Coast’s Coastal Bend and Rio Grande Valley regions, with the goal of making small businesses and communities along the coast more disaster resilient. A primary goal of this project was to develop resources for small businesses in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV). They were developed with extensive community input, and the local Chambers of Commerce and the Agrilife Extension Agents have agreed to distribute these materials.IC2 Institut

Bring Your Own Mobile Device (BYOD) to the Hospital: Layered Boundary Barriers and Divergent Boundary Management Strategies

This study examined how one US hospital implemented a mobile communication app to improve workplace communication. The hospital did not provide the technology, instead they asked their workers to use their own personal mobiles at work, through a permissive bring your own device to work (BYOD) policy. Using boundary theory, we conducted a constant-comparative analysis to examine the layers of boundary management issues. At the organizational level, the key issues were policy legacy, communicating the policy, control, dead zones, and mobile costs. At the group level, different hospital units created their own formal and informal policies. At the individual level, themes included personal mobile device use, job role expectations, and decision-making autonomy. The discussion presents examples of how healthcare workers enacted segregator and integrator boundaries. Our findings explain why it is not easy to tell hospital employees, “Go ahead and use your mobiles for patient care,” and have them embrace this practice

Design simplicity influences patient portal use: the role of aesthetic evaluations for technology acceptance

Objective This study focused on patient portal use and investigated whether aesthetic evaluations of patient portals function are antecedent variables to variables in the Technology Acceptance Model

Alert Networks of ICTs and Sources in Campus Emergencies

ABSTRACT This study contributes an understanding of how ICTs and varying information sources work together during emergency alerts. It builds on the prior work on campus active shooter events by examining an organization that used a range of ICTs including mobile devices, social media, organizational tools, and news media, to notify their stakeholders about an emergency. The study design used a survey to capture the responses from a random sample of over 1000 stakeholders-students, faculty, and staff-who were notified of an active shooter emergency. The findings from the first three notifications suggest that messages reaching the most stakeholders were (a) sent by official sources through ICTs like mobile phones; (b) official email communication, and (c) messages that included face-to-face communication. While 11 different ICTs were included in the study, mass media (i.e., television and radio), and social media (Twitter and Facebook) did not function substantially in the emergency alert process