Direct Response Television (DRTV) programming for child sponsorship is an extremely effective form of fundraising in Canada. However, it also proves to be one way in which racialized knowledge is being reproduced. This project deconstructs the DRTV for three child-sponsorship NGOs: World Vision Canada, Plan Canada, and Christian Children's Fund. What the analysis reveals is a type of advertising dependent on antiquated dynamics of colonial dominance between Canada and Africa. This project also explores the reasons for its success despite Canada's anti-racist rhetoric. Drawing from the works of Roland Barthes, Pierre Bourdieu, Fances Henry and Carol Tator, and others, this study draws conclusions about the cultural identity of the Canadian mainstream, and proposes critical consumption and the questioning of sociocultural norms as a way forward.

The thesis expands Signitzer and Coombs' (1992) seminal study on the conceptual convergence of public diplomacy and public relations. Similar to international public relations, public diplomacy serves to transmit infolination, promote influence, create understanding and build relationships. However, a review of the existing academic literature reveals that the public diplomacy/public relations nexus has received insufficient attention from scholars. The purpose of the study is to determine whether there exists a strong enough similarity between the two domains to actively theorize public diplomacy from a communications (public relations) perspective. The research systematically applies the Signitzer and Coombs comparative model to interpret evidence of conceptual convergence in five areas of Quebec's public diplomacy (academic and cultural relations, investment and tourism promotion, and sports diplomacy). It is demonstrated that public diplomacy and public relations are both premised on the concept of symmetry, but also share asymmetrical tendencies. The findings suggest that the two disciplines are experiencing a process of convergence and support the value of exploring public diplomacy with public relations-based theories and models. However, public diplomacy practitioners are generally unwilling to recognize the relationship between public diplomacy and public relations. The development of shared concepts is therefore encouraged to overcome these perceptual gaps. Future research centred on common functions, such as reputation management and relationship building, is proposed and the thesis concludes that interdisciplinary cooperation is necessary to advance the public diplomacy scholarship. Keywords. public diplomacy, public relations, Quebec international relations, international communications, nation branding, cultural relations, academic relations, investment promotion, tourism promotion, sports diplomacy, conceptual convergence.

My aim is to design a research program that emphasizes inclusivity through empiricism rather than anecdotes and benevolent sexism. To accomplish this goal, I review and build on the work assessing the influence of fertility in the female consumer experience (FCE). Fertility, especially menstruation, has been used anecdotally for too long. This research was designed to address the gap in knowledge around the way in which women perceive advertisements. More specifically, the role fertility plays in the process women go through when assessing advertisements and offerings. Does a woman's desire to seek variety become reduced when she sees a rival endorsing the offering? If this is the case, then there is a need to find a mediating variable that can overcome this effect. Internal locus of control, the level a person feels they are in control of the outcomes in their lives, was selected as a starting point. Having a high internal LOC should buffer a person's perceptions of another as a threat. A cross-sectional design from a convenience sample of university students was used to address a series of five research questions: 1) Does fertility status influence locus of control, 2) Does fertility status influence rival assessment, 3) Does locus of control mediate rival assessment, 4) Does rival assessment influence advertisement assessment and purchase intent, and 5) Does external locus of control have more than a single factor? The results from the multiple one-way ANOVAs and linear regressions were not significant, but it was promising given the limitations of the study. Namely, the rate of unusable data combined with the rate of birth control use limited the final analyses to a sample of 62 cases. Additional considerations and future research directions are outlined in chapter 5.

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This dissertation provides empirical and theoretical support for the antecedents and consequences of cyber resilience via three essays on cyber resilience. Essay 1 comprises 2 studies using a multi-method empirical research effort to determine whether emphasizing suppliers' implementation and use of business continuity management (S-BCM) is actually beneficial to buyers. In Study 1, data from 150 managers was collected via a survey-based questionnaire to determine whether buyers' adoption of monitoring supplier operational performance (MS-OP) and monitoring S-BCM (MS-BCM) enhances S-BCM implementation and use. Evidence from Study 1 suggests that MS-BCM is more effective than MS-OP. Moreover, the results suggest that while buyer power positively augments the effectiveness of MS-BCM, it actually has a diminishing effect on the effectiveness of MS-OP. Study 2 uses the data of 114 managers from a vignette-based experiment to determine whether S-BCM leads to improved buyer operational and financial performance. Study 2 offers evidence that confirms the positive link between S-BCM and buyer operational and financial performance. The results also suggest that the use of reward power further enhances the association between S-BCM and buyer performance. Using two studies, Essay 2 examines how supply chain power and learning can be related to cyber resilience capability. Study 1 indicated that powerful buyers and supply chain learning from new knowledge contribute to visibility to build cyber resilience while dominant suppliers are reluctant to share information. The results of Study-2 show that supply chain and operations managers believe that companies and their suppliers would have better operational performance if they invest in the accuracy of visibility. Moreover, supply chains properly can avoid, maintain, and recover from cyber disruption when real-time information is available. Essay 3 focuses on the role of downstream complexity along with enterprise resource planning (ERP) in building cyber resilience in supply chains. The results reveal that ERP systems help supply chains to mitigate the negative effect of downstream complexity on the impact of information sharing in a secure system needed to build cyber resilience in times of data breaches and cyber-attacks. Although the use of information technology increases cyber risk, supply chain managers should take advantage of ERP systems to mitigate the negative effect of complexity in supply chain cyber resilience.

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