Intelligences in Strategic Issues Management: Challenging the Mutually Beneficial Relationships Paradigm

Mutually beneficial relationships (MBRs), a concept used to conceptualize public relations processes and outcomes, has been featured relatively uncritically for many years. This normative concept became an elixir for collective problem solving and shared decision making. Careful consideration of highly contested issues reveals evidence that within-group MBRs can prevent overarching solutions, decisions between issue groups, and can constitute stalemating or hegemonic tribalism. Strategic issues management (SIM) provides decision-making intelligences by which conflict between businesses and other members of society can be understood and resolved. Issue advocates' adversarial strategies can frustrate any society's ability to solve problems and make meaningful decisions, even when parties share a common motivating value. Stalemated public policy interpretations create sores that cannot heal; complex problems cannot be solved. Thus, MBRs are not the promised panacea or even a normative approach. Within-group MBRs can prevent between-group MBRs. An ethically engaged and rhetorically astute SIM process offers a constructive alternative to understanding complex, contested issues and offering informed problem resolution. Relationships do not have to be mutually beneficial to be included within the realm of public relations. In fact, relationships can span a continuum while still warranting and requiring the attentions, expertise, and activities of public relations. As long as ethical standards are maintained, those relationships can exist in whatever form is most intelligent for the handling of issues. In that view, public relations truly joins strategic management

RE-CONNECTING VOICES. The (New) Strategic Role of Public Sector Communication After the Covid-19 crisis

This article aims to investigate the evolution of public sector communication before and after the Covid-19 crisis that has strongly impacted governmental institutions, public policy, contemporary society, and media ecologies. After a review of the main characteristics of public sector communication, the article proposes an interpretative and dynamic model to better understand the new challenges for public institutions. The model introduces ethics as the new, primary driver for public sector communication to surround all decisions, pointing out the need for transparent, authentic participation and dialogue to build trust. Focusing on two dimensions (trust/distrust, openness/closedness), the authors investigate the main trajectories of change for public sector communication, conceiving the three pillars of open government (transparency, participation and collaboration) as strategic values for improving the quality and efficacy of communication. In this time of uncertainty, the new trajectories of communication should fully embrace an ethical approach in order to become resilient, able to respond to citizens\u2019 needs and expectations, and to maintain responsible relationships with media, varied strategic publics, and a rapidly changing global community

Re-Connecting Voices. The (New) Strategic Role of Public Sector Communication After the Covid-19 Crisis

This article aims to investigate the evolution of public sector communication before and after the Covid-19 crisis that has strongly impacted governmental institutions, public policy, contemporary society, and media ecologies. After a review of the main characteristics of public sector communication, the article proposes an interpretative and dynamic model to better understand the new challenges for public institutions. The model introduces ethics as the new, primary driver for public sector communication to surround all decisions, pointing out the need for transparent, authentic participation and dialogue to build trust. Focusing on two dimensions (trust/distrust, openness/closedness), the authors investigate the main trajectories of change for public sector communication, conceiving the three pillars of open government (transparency, participation and collaboration) as strategic values for improving the quality and efficacy of communication. In this time of uncertainty, the new trajectories of communication should fully embrace an ethical approach in order to become resilient, able to respond to citizens' needs and expectations, and to maintain responsible relationships with media, varied strategic publics, and a rapidly changing global community

Why Assessment Matters: On the Road for Change

In higher education, assessment is used to intentionally develop, implement, and modify programs that are grounded in student learning outcomes (SLOs). Assessment results may highlight program effectiveness, or lack thereof. This gives educators the chance to revise components of the program in order to improve student learning (Meixner, 2016). Assessment also creates a sense of accountability by offering methods to justify the value of a program, especially when time and resources are limited. We offer a model for assessment as foundational to program development by highlighting our course-related consulting work with the Dux Leadership Center’s pilot On the Road for Change Spring Break Experience. This program challenged undergraduate students to apply leadership and ethical reasoning outside the classroom using the framework of the Student Leadership Challenge (SLC), by Kouzes and Posner, and JMU’s Eight Key Questions (8KQ) established by the Madison Collaborative. We developed specific, measurable learning outcomes, mapped programming components to learning outcomes, developed summative and formative assessment, and offered implementation appendices. In our presentation we will highlight the importance of assessment, our process, and best practices for program assessment in Student Affairs

Ethical Decision Making in Issues Management Within Activist Groups

Public relations practitioners face many ethical challenges, specifically in issues management (e.g., Bowen & Heath, 2005; J. Grunig & L. Grunig, 1996). By its definition, issues management is concerned with defining issues and problems, manages them through internal and external communication with publics, and often confronts conflicting value systems among publics. Therefore, issues management is on the forefront of ethical decision making in an organization (Heath, 1990). Deontology has been suggested as one of the major theoretical underpinnings for ethics research (e.g., Crawley & Sinclair, 2003; Smudde, 2005). Bowen (2004) proposed a normative theoretical model for ethical decision making in issues management based on Kantian deontology (autonomy, the principle of universality, duty, dignity and respect for others, and the morally good will) and two-way symmetrical communication. Support was found, but more research is warranted to examine the model in different organizational contexts. It is imperative to test the applicability of the normative deontological model (Bowen, 2004) in a new context—that of a non-profit activist coalition. Demands for accountability, ethical transparency, institutionalization concerns, competing values and demands of various publics groups have made it necessary to examine the ethical basis of decision making in non-profit organizations (Dando & Swift, 2003). With its mission of problematizing the fiscal policies of the Word Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the participating activist coalition was actually an issues management group engaging thoughtfully in the process of public policies on environmental, labor, development, peace, gender, and social justice issues confronting less developed nations in the world. Through a five-month participant observation in the membership groups of the coalition and 19 in-depth interviews with its issues managers and public relations practitioners, this study attempted to answer the following research questions: (1) What is the process of issues decision making in the coalition?; (2) What is the underlying moral philosophy used in the issues management decisionmaking process?. This study yielded the following findings. Participants argued that decision making should be consensus-oriented and based on equal participation and continuous discussion. Unfortunately, the lack of consistent, dedicated, and enthusiastic input by member groups was a significant impediment to a more inclusive decision making process for the management of issues. Participants’ valued equality – their emphases on being against stereotypes, inequality, and biases was consistent with the deontological paradigm. Moral autonomy was a dominant theme that also emerged through discussion of the sovereign right of each country to decide its own macroeconomic/fiscal policies. Transparency was another ethical consideration that the coalition used in its issues management. Overall, there was a remarkably high degree of congruence between the philosophical approach of deontology and the beliefs espoused by coalition members. The data gathered in this study has far-reaching implications in the positive social role of issues management and public relations. The implications for both businesses and activist coalitions are enormous: more responsive organizations, better policy, and more inclusive and socially responsible private and government initiatives

Time-resolved homodyne characterization of individual quadrature-entangled pulses

We describe a simple and efficient setup to generate and characterize femtosecond quadrature-entangled pulses. Quantum correlations equivalent to about 2.5 dB squeezing are efficiently and easily reached using the non-degenerate parametric amplification of femtosecond pulses through a single-pass in a thin (0.1 mm) potassium niobate crystal. The entangled pulses are then individually sampled to characterize the non-separability and the entropy of formation of the states. The complete experiment is analysed in the time-domain, from the pulsed source of quadrature entanglement to the time-resolved homodyne detection. This particularity allows for applications in quantum communication protocols using continuous-variable entanglement.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Coding Theorem for a Class of Quantum Channels with Long-Term Memory

In this paper we consider the transmission of classical information through a class of quantum channels with long-term memory, which are given by convex combinations of product channels. Hence, the memory of such channels is given by a Markov chain which is aperiodic but not irreducible. We prove the coding theorem and weak converse for this class of channels. The main techniques that we employ, are a quantum version of Feinstein's Fundamental Lemma and a generalization of Helstrom's Theorem.Comment: Some typos correcte

Quantum Cryptography without Switching

We propose a new coherent state quantum key distribution protocol that eliminates the need to randomly switch between measurement bases. This protocol provides significantly higher secret key rates with increased bandwidths than previous schemes that only make single quadrature measurements. It also offers the further advantage of simplicity compared to all previous protocols which, to date, have relied on switching.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Submitte

Mutual information--based approach to adaptive homodyne detection of quantum optical states

I propose an approach to adaptive homodyne detection of digitally modulated quantum optical pulses in which the phase of the local oscillator is chosen to maximize the average information gain, i.e., the mutual information, at each step of the measurement. I study the properties of this adaptive detection scheme by considering the problem of classical information content of ensembles of coherent states. Using simulations of quantum trajectories and visualizations of corresponding measurement operators, I show that the proposed measurement scheme adapts itself to the features of each ensemble. For all considered ensembles of coherent states, it consistently outperforms heterodyne detection and Wiseman's adaptive scheme for phase measurements [H.M. Wiseman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 4587 (1995)].Comment: Submutted to Phys. Rev.

Classical capacity of quantum channels with general Markovian correlated noise

The classical capacity of a quantum channel with arbitrary Markovian correlated noise is evaluated. For the general case of a channel with long-term memory, which corresponds to a Markov chain which does not converge to equilibrium, the capacity is expressed in terms of the communicating classes of the Markov chain. For an irreducible and aperiodic Markov chain, the channel is forgetful, and one retrieves the known expression for the capacity