This paper seeks to present the moral and ethical frameworks in which to consider the effect of bribing on business and the great community; confront the cultural differences that lie between American businesses and its potential interest abroad, as well as the growing international move to implementation similar to that of the FCPA; analyze prior anti-bribery legislation and the historical events that prompted the need for a policy like the FCPA, discuss the basic elements of the policy’s two pronged approach of anti-bribery and disclosure regulation; examine several cases in the enforcement of the FCPA on American businesses; and consider the advantages and disadvantages of the statute on the performance of American businesses as a factor of total international exports.

The prominence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives today suggests that the corporate perception of such policies has shifted from an unnecessary addition to a critical business function. Using a reliable source of data on corporate social performance (CSP), this study explores and tests the relationship between CSP and corporate financial performance (CFP). Unlike prior research, this study additionally tests the impact CSP has on sales and gross margin in hopes of providing insight on sales strategies that can be implemented to maximize the impact of the relationship. The dataset includes most of the S&P 500 firms and covers years 2001-2005. The relationships are tested using time-series regressions. Results indicate that CSP and CFP have a significantly positive relationship in both directions, supporting the view that CSR programs have positive impacts on the bottom-line. Results also indicate that increased CSP leads to increases in gross margin, indicating that some customers are willing to pay a premium for the products and/or services of a company with CSR initiatives. Lastly, results also indicate that increases in CSP leads to a decrease in sales, which implies a decrease in customer base because less people are willing to buy the products at premium. Despite the result on sales, I argue in this paper that firms can increase sales by increasing CSR investments—assuming increases in CSR investments leads to higher CSP—as long as the perception of programs transform from socially responsible, philanthropic actions to programs promoting corporate shared value (CSV).

Environmental sustainability is an issue facing our global society and one that must be addressed through communication in order to encourage change amongst individuals. The current research focuses on the organization, in this instance a “Green” printing company, and its role in building identification amongst employees. This study focuses on environmental sustainable practices initiated or continued by employees through the use of a directed mission statement and organizational rhetoric. Utilizing individual interviews, the findings suggest that by building organizational identification, more environmentally-friendly practices amongst organizational members may be achieved.

Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to develop a better understanding on how businesses should communicate their sustainability strategy to their stakeholders. Businesses are facing the challenge of designing sustainability communications strategies that appeal to stakeholders of various interest and knowledge on the topic, and stakeholders whose objectives might even be contradictory to that of the company. In order to facilitate the communications process to encourage a better uptake of sustainability initiatives by corporations and the public, it is essential to find solutions to these communications challenges. Methodology: The study focuses on the food and drink value chain in Western Europe and is based on empirical evidence from a multiple case study methodology involving in-depth interviews with 25 senior managers and directors from food and drink manufacturing companies, retailers, and some of their stakeholders. Findings: A framework for corporate sustainability communications is developed, depicting five communications strategies. The framework also offers an insight how stakeholders can be categorised into the most appropriate communications strategy through the application of certain segmentation attributes. It is further illustrated how the application of strategic ambiguity can add value to the communications process in order to stimulate interest, initiatives and innovation from stakeholders. Theoretical and practical implications/originality: Previous research on corporate communications strategies, has seen limited empirical validation, is primarily focussed on consumers, and more importantly is lacking in advice regarding how to craft communications that not only appeal to a multitude of stakeholders, but that also encourage collaboration. The findings therefore add confirmation and extension to the previous research and, importantly, it provides a link between theories of strategic ambiguity and the corporate communications literature. The framework also offers practical value as it provides managers with a clear guidance on how to design effective corporate sustainability communications, ensuring diverse appeal and/or engagement for collaboration. Thus it provides a tool that has the potential of facilitating holistic sustainability progress in a value chain.

The topic of the thesis is a change of corporate identity of the company and role of communication during this process. There are components of corporate identity and relationship between corporate identity, image and reputation described in the thesis. Furthermore it is dedicated to integrated marketing communication, internal communication and role of communication in change management. The theoretical knowledge is applied on company Nicoll Česká republika, s.r.o. which have been coming through the changes of name and corporate identity since January 2015. The main goal is to describe in detail and analyze the process of this change from the preparation phase to realization with respect on communication, evaluate this communication and suggest further recommendations. The analysis contains of description of the company including former communication mix, furthermore there is a description and analysis of changes and also analysis and evaluation of communication. In the end of the thesis there are summarized the main problems connected with the changes and also key mistakes, which were done in communication. Finally it suggests further steps for future.

Evolving communication technology, the increased volume of information needed by businesses, and the intensified competitive environment have made internal company communication more critical to business success. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies used by managers and leaders of 3 law firms in the Commonwealth of Virginia for assessing the effectiveness of their organization's internal communication channels. The participating firms were recognized by their peers as being exceptionally well-managed. Data from interviews and company documents were analyzed through the conceptual lens of the channel expansion theory and the use of software coding to identify patterns and themes. Three important themes emerged: informal assessment strategies, indirect assessment strategies, and efficient versus timely assessments. The first theme suggested the effectiveness of an informal assessment strategy, depending on the size and complexity of the organization. The second theme reflected the effectiveness of an indirect assessment for organizations that lack the resources to support a more direct and specific assessment process. The third theme reflected the participants' perceptions of informal and indirect assessments may be more efficient, the feedback from the assessments are often less timely. Managers may consider these themes in formulating communication policies. The findings of this case study may have implications for positive social and economic change. Small professional service firms, such as legal firms, provide important services to individuals, families, and businesses in their community.

China is one of the largest and most promising markets for new global business ventures. This exploratory research investigates the current news-related themes regarding business in China by comparing news originating from eastern countries to western countries. This study applied agenda-setting and framing theoretical frameworks. A mixed-method approach of both qualitative and quantitative content analyses was used to generate key themes and their related concepts. The results indicate some thematic similarities as well as differences in agenda and news framing between eastern and western news samples. This exploratory study contributes to agenda-setting and framing literature as well as by creating a media agenda benchmark for future agenda-setting studies focused doing business in China.

Corporate websites provide outsiders with a glimpse into organizations. 200 companies from among Glassdoor's "Best Companies to Work For" lists for 2013 and 2014, along with a list of Fortune 100 companies were analyzed through a textual analysis for how a company communicates diversity on their corporate websites. Findings revealed six suggestions for organizations on how best to communicate diversity on their corporate websites. The suggestions include: Be transparent, dedicate a single webpage, use testimonials, title the web page "Diversity and Inclusion," have diversity reach beyond the corporate website, and provide realistic pictures. Using Geertz and Pacanowsky's Cultural Approach to Organizations, this study developed a new approach to studying corporate culture through websites called, the Website Approach to Corporate Culture. This new approach explains that corporate culture transcends the workplace into the Internet sphere and is studied through corporate websites.

E sta tese de doutorado objetiva entender como as redes sociais on-line impactam a comunicação das organizações frente ao conteúdo informativo disseminado na internet pelos usuários, que nomeamos por usuário-mídia. Para comprovar como se dá esse processo, além da revisão bibliográfica baseada nas formas contemporâneas da comunicação organizacional e nas teorias de relacionamento social em redes digitais, buscamos pesquisar como algumas corporações de destaque do cenário atual se comportam frente às mídias sociais. Para delimitar tais corporações, escolhemos dois rankings de marcas mais influentes e mais valiosas elaborados pela Revista Época e observamos as organizações em relação à quantidade de canais em que estão presentes para dialogar com seus públicos e o nível de engajamento destes com os internautas, o que nos rendeu dois instrumentos inovadores, por nós criados, que possibilitam orientar a gestão da relação da comunicação organizacional com os usuários-mídia: uma matriz de presença e engajamento e uma régua de presença. Toda a pesquisa está embasada em autores que trabalham o tema das redes sociais, das mídias sociais e da comunicação organizacional. / T his doctoral thesis aimed to understand how the on-line social networks impacts on the corporate communications front of the informative content disseminated on the web by users, which we denominated user-media. To prove how this process had developed, besides the bibliographic review based on contemporary forms of corporate communications and on the social relationship theories, we have searched some outstanding organizations in the social media scenario. To delimit these corporations, we have chosen two rankings of Época´s Magazine (the most influent and the most valuable brands) and have observated the corporations regarding the number of channels that they were in and their level of engagement with web users, what got us two innovative tools that can orientate the corporate communications relationship management with the user-media: a presence and engagement matrix and a presence scale. All the research was based on authors involved with social networks, social media and corporate communications.

The benefits of converting single-person drivers to alternative transit options are well-established. One option to accomplish this is for employers to provide alternative commute incentive programs. However, the research on the implementation of such programs is lacking. To provide a test, this research analyzes data obtained from a field experiment on daily alternative transit commute choices for a seven-month period. Participants are divided into four treatment groups in a two-by-two design for the first three-month period: incentives with either loss or gain framing, and messaging nudges with either the private or public benefits of alternative transit commute choices. The participants then continue in the field experiment for the remaining four-month period with all groups receiving only gain framing incentives and messaging nudges are discontinued. The results from the two time periods are compared. Loss framing and private messaging have the most significant effect on participants’ decisions to revert back to single-person driving when nudges are discontinued, and thus nudges are not persistent. The incentive program did not provide enduring conversion to alternative transit options, but the results suggest employers who want to optimize their alternative transit incentive programs should utilize loss framing incentives and combine both private and public messaging into continuous nudges.