Department of Communication (CIS), General

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Browsing Department of Communication (CIS), General by Subject "Business Administration, Management"

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    Antecedents and consequences of ethical leadership of PR practitioners
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2009) Kang, Jin-Ae; Berger, Bruce K.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    The purpose of this research was to explore antecedents and consequences of public relations practitioners' ethical leadership behavior. Before doing so, this study integrated practitioners' ethical behavior into the concept of ethical leadership behaviors. Ethical leadership behavior in public relations is not only the application of ethical standards in day-to-day work, but is also the promotion of ethics: A practitioner promotes ethics by acting as an ethics counselor, and an activist. I administered an online survey to the 252 members of Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) in August and September of 2008. I mainly used factor analysis and regression analyses to test the research questions and hypotheses. Ethical behavior of public relations practitioners are composed of two dimensions - applying ethical standards, and promoting ethics within an organization. This result is consistent with the conceptual definition of ethical leadership. In addition, ethical autonomy was found to be a prerequisite of ethical leadership. The findings suggested that organizational environment and individual factors affect ethical leadership behaviors. Regarding organizational environment, the ethics of the top management were found to be a fundamental source of an organization's ethical culture. Top management's support for ethical behavior facilitated the establishment of formal ethics systems, such as codes of ethics, ethics training programs, and ethics officers. It also fostered an open communication environment. Among formal and informal ethics systems, only an open communication environment significantly affected the level of ethical autonomy. The organizational environment also fostered dissent actions against unethical decisions. If top management did not encourage ethical behavior, public relations practitioners were more likely to confront management against unethical decisions. Agitating tactics were more often used in the organizations which did not have an ethics code. In an organization that repressed discussion, practitioners were more likely to use information selectively to make their own arguments against unethical decisions, and to sabotage the unethical decisions. On the other hand, individual ethical positions affected practitioners. Practitioners with a high level of idealism and low relativisitic ethical stances were more likely to apply ethics standards at work, and to act as ethics counselors. Practitioners with high idealistic and low relativistic ethical stances preferred confrontational actions. Advocates of ethical relativism were more likely to collect information to make their own arguments, use sabotage and even leak information about unethical decisions. As consequences of ethical leadership behaviors, the levels of ethical influence and job satisfaction were examined. The more practitioners perceived that they applied ethical principles to their work; the more likely they were to perceive that their views about ethics were influential. The perceived level of ethical influence was also strong among practitioners who confronted management over unethical decisions. These behaviors appeared to increase job satisfaction through an increase in ethical influence. However, enacting the ethics counselor role was not positively associated with the level of ethical influence. Lastly, answers to the open-ended question suggest that ethical conflicts decrease practitioners' job satisfaction.
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    Examining organizational legitimacy: an empirical analysis of organizational legitimacy, issue legitimacy, legitimacy gaps, and factors affecting the legitimacy regarding the issue of direct-to-consumer advertising in the pharmaceutical industry
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2010) Chung, Jee Young; Berger, Bruce K.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the concepts of issue legitimacy and organizational legitimacy in an issue management context, providing empirical data when little has existed previously. To do so, this dissertation used two studies to explore the trend and features of issue legitimacy of DTC-ads, construction of organizational legitimacy and issue legitimacy, and effectiveness of issues management strategies on perceptions of organizational legitimacy and issue legitimacy. More specifically, Study 1 investigates issue legitimacy of DTC-ads on societal level employing a content analysis. Study 2 develops the measurement of organizational legitimacy and issue legitimacy on the individual level through the use of a statewide survey among Alabama residents, and examines the effect of issues management strategies on organizational legitimacy, issue legitimacy and behavioral intentions toward an organization by employing a 1 within- 2 (CSR: use of CSR versus no use of CSR) × 2 (Issue advocacy: use of advocacy framing versus no use of advocacy framing) × 2 (Self-regulation: use of self-regulation versus no use of self-regulation) quasi-experimental between-subject design. The findings from Study 1 present the trend of issue legitimacy of DTC-ads: moderate illegitimacy - illegitimation - increasing legitimation, and confirm the gap between issue legitimacy of DTC-ads in media coverage and organizational issue advocacy of the pharmaceutical industry. From the findings from Study 2, five measurement items for organizational legitimacy and six measurement items for issue legitimacy are found to be reliable and valid. The findings from an experiment show that the uses of CSR activity, issue advocacy, and self-regulation in corporate messages have influences on organizational legitimacy. However, only the use of self-regulation had significant differences on both perceptions of issue legitimacy and organizational legitimacy. Also the finding empirically confirms the importance of organizational legitimacy and issue legitimacy to organizational success in terms of purchasing intention.