Migration and Swiss identity: How much space for the foreign in the familiar?

Twentyfive years ago, in 1992, the Seville Expo world exhibition took place on the subject of “national identity”. The Swiss pavilion presented its country in a rather controversial and provocative way with the slogan “La Suisse n’existe pas” (Switzerland does not exist), created by the artist Ben Vautier.Today, the topic is even more relevant and up-to-date, probably more so than ever before, as voting results show society to be deeply divided on many aspects of the issue.Therefore, the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAHSS) launched a series of events under the slogan “La Suisse existe – la Suisse n’existe pas” – one of them dedicated to “Constructing Swiss Identity and Country Image in times of Migration: Integration and Exclusion in Europe” on 20.03.2017 at the University of Fribourg, which sought to reflect on the discursive construction of Swiss identity and country image in the recurrent debates about migration and refugees in Switzerland and Europe.

The contribution of G. W. Leibniz's ‘cognitio symbolica' theory to current debates on knowledge and communication management

The aim of this paper is to clarify the concepts of knowledge to develop a better theoretical understanding based on one of the eldest semiotic insights from one unfortunately often forgotten philosopher of modern semiotic: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). In his ‘Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate, et Ideis' (1684), he develops a systematical, dichotomous characterization of the different levels of knowledge acquisitions. According to his view, knowledge is essentially symbolic: it takes place in a system of representations which possesses language-like structures and which can be characterized on specific hierarchic levels from ‘dark knowledge' (‘notio obscura') up to ‘distinct knowledge' (‘notio distincta') to be distinguished by the criteria of recognizing and communicating the single elements (‘notarum notae') constructing knowledge as a continuum. From a semiotic point of view, the paper shows that the awareness of the hierarchy of knowledge intensity can supply a framework for conceptual analysis and modeling of knowledge creation processes. As a result, we actually should focus, not only in knowledge management, on the communication processes when creating knowledge. Leibniz shows the fundamental problem of decomposing knowledge in externalization processes, which is only possible by the use of symbols, needing clear explanations through symbols again. Therefore, organization should be concerned with the creation of shared representations and meaning systems with respect to different levels of explicitly as Leibniz showed u

Trust in companies and in CEOs: a comparative study of the main influences

Trust is a crucial factor for the long-term economic success of a company. However, not only does the company establish trust, but the CEO representing the company builds up trust as well and, therefore, also influences the company's success. Our study examines how different dimensions of trust (i.e., ability, integrity, benevolence, and information quality) influence the degree of overall trust in a company and in CEOs. Nevertheless, dimensions that influence trust in a CEO can be completely different to those influencing trust in companies. Companies and CEOs that act on an international level can hardly be experienced individually, and thus people get information about the company via media use. Therefore, additionally we examine which kind of media is used for getting information about a company or CEO and whether a relationship exists between media use and trust. Findings from a survey in Switzerland (n=245) show that companies are more trusted than CEOs and that the items which influence overall trust differ between CEOs and companies. Social responsibility as a benevolence item is important for both groups. Regarding information on different media channels, users of traditional media like newspapers, TV, and radio are most critical regarding trust in companies and CEO

Corporate Social Responsibility Communication: A Multi-method Approach on Stakeholder Expectations and Managers’ Intentions

Organisations need to legitimise their behaviour in order to be accepted and supported by society. This study analyses the different perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a multi-method approach. First, a content analysis of the companies’ annual and CSR reports and qualitative interviews with the communications executives analyses the social engagement that is communicated and the companies’ motives for their activities. Second, the expectations of potential stakeholders regarding the social engagement of companies are analysed via a quantitative survey. Results show that the reporting of philanthropic activities dominates the annual reports. However, as interviews show, these altruistic motives were mostly associated with expectations on economic benefits, where differentiation from competitors is mentioned as the main motive for the CSR engagement. With respect to topics, the CSR activities of the companies correspond in general to the stakeholders’ expectations. Nonetheless, hardly any of the stakeholders are able to bring an explicit CSR activity of a company to mind. This might be because this is ‘pull-information’ for which they actively have to look, but companies might also be failing to effectively communicate their CSR engagement

Advancing the country image construct from a public relations perspective: from model to measurement

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a new model for the measurement of the constitution and effects of the country image as a central target construct in international public relations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors combine concepts from reputation management (Eisenegger and Imhof, 2008; Ingenhoff and Sommer, 2007), national identity theory (Smith, 1987), and attitude theory (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) to derive a four-dimensional model, conceptualizing country images as stakeholder attitudes toward a nation and its state, comprising specific beliefs and general feelings in a functional, normative, aesthetic, and emotional dimension. Furthermore, the authors develop a path model to analyze the country image’s effect on stakeholder behavior. This model is operationalized and tested in a survey regarding the country image of the USA and its effects on travel behavior. Findings – Results show how functional, normative and aesthetic image dimensions vary in affecting the formation of the affective image component. It is also demonstrated how the affective image dimension acts as a mediator in the image’s effect on stakeholder behavior. Practical implications – For international public relations and public diplomacy practice the developed model supplies a new approach for country image analyses which will serve and improve the development and evaluation of cross-national communication strategies. Originality/value – The paper introduces a new theory-grounded approach to clarify the dimensionality of the country image construct. It is the first to operationalize cognitive and affective dimensions of the country image by combining formative and reflective indicators in a mixed specified construct

Safeguarding reputation through strategic, integrated and situational crisis communication management: development of the integrative model of crisis communication

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the often missing theoretical foundation of crisis communication from an integrated perspective on the micro, meso and macro level. Based on the theory of structuration, a systematic, integrative framework is developed for safeguarding organizational legitimization and multidimensional reputation through communication during crisis situations which is applicable both for profit and non-profit organizations. Design/methodology/approach – Gidden’s theory of structuration was chosen as a basis to develop the integrative model of crisis communication that proposes a communicative impact on reputation on a situative level of message strategies (micro level), an organizational level (meso level) and a societal level (macro level). A well-organized crisis communication management on all of these levels is seen as the key communicative driver to safeguard long-term organizational reputation. Findings – The paper shows that successful crisis communication management must be conceptualized and addressed on distinctive levels of complexity. While on a message level (situative crisis communication) it creates meaning, crisis communication must be seen as management task on an organizational level (integrative crisis communication). However, in order to fully safeguard reputation in the long term and trustworthiness in the short term, crisis communication has also a societal component when addressing moral standards and norms (strategic crisis communication). Research limitations/implications – The paper is a conceptual contribution which build the basis of a follow-up empirical, experimental study where the proposed model is successfully tested. Practical implications – For PR managers, this paper gives reasons to conceptualize crisis communication management, not only on a message strategy level, but also to take into consideration the organizational and societal levels. Originality/value – The paper stands in line with the theoretical discourse of organizational crisis communication. So far, few approaches conceptualize organizational crisis communication thoroughly on an integrated level of different perspectives so that the paper provides an important input, pushing the discussion forward

Communities on Social Networking Sites: Testing a Socio-Cognitive Model for Brand Page Usage

In recent years many corporations have become active on social networking sites (SNS). However, our understanding about how and why community members use corporate pages on SNS has not kept pace. In our study, we test a socio-cognitive model of brand page usage to investigate users’ incentives to consume and interact with corporations on Facebook. In order to do so, we conducted an online survey (N=1294) and analyzed our data using exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). We find that motives among the activity, self-reactive-novel and monetary incentive dimension drive consumption behavior; incentives among the status, practical-novel and self-reactive dimension drive participation; and finally, social, self-reactive and status incentives were found to stimulate production behavior on Facebook brand pages. The implications for community management on SNS will be discussed at the end of the paper