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JOY
ADVANCES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS
AND COMMUNICATION
MANAGEMENT
Series Editors: European Public Relations Education and
Research Association (EUPRERA). http://euprera.org
Recent Volumes:
Volume 1: The Management Game of Communication –Edited by Peggy
Simcic Brønn, Stefania Romenti, and Ansgar Zerfass
Volume 2: How Strategic Communication Shapes Value and Innovation in
Society –Edited by Betteke van Ruler
Volume 3: Public Relations and the Power of Creativity: Strategic
Opportunities, Innovation And Critical Challenges –Edited by
Sarah Bowman, Adrian Crookes, Stefania Romenti and Øyvind
Ihlen
Volume 4: Big ideas in Public Relations Research and Practice –Edited by Finn
Frandsen, Winni Johansen, Ralph Tench and Stefania Romenti
ADVANCES IN PUBLIC RELATIONS AND
COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT
VOLUME 5
JOY: USING STRATEGIC
COMMUNICATION TO
IMPROVE WELL-BEING
AND ORGANIZATIONAL
SUCCESS
EDITED BY
ANA TKALAC VER
ˇ
CI
ˇ
C
University of Zagreb, Croatia
RALPH TENCH
Leeds Beckett University, UK
SABINE EINWILLER
University of Vienna, Austria
United Kingdom –North America –Japan
India –Malaysia –China
Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK
First edition 2021
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-80043-241-3 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-80043-240-6 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-80043-242-0 (Epub)
ISSN: 2398-3914 (Series)
CONTENTS
List of Figures and Tables vii
About the Authors xi
Introduction xvii
PART I
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION AND
ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS
Love Wins: A Love Lens Approach to Cultivation of
Organization–Stakeholder Relationships 3
Mark Badham
Values-based Communication: A New Impulse to Communication
Effectiveness 21
Erik Kostelijk
Outside-in- versus Inside-out-content: Introducing a New
Approach to the Origins of Content in Strategic Communication 37
Olaf Hoffjann
Quantifying Organizational Trust on Twitter: A Communication
Perspective 55
Alla Kushniryk, Stanislav Orlov and Natalie Doyle Oldfield
PART II
INTERNAL AND EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION
Internal Communication and Employee Engagement as the Key
Prerequisites of Happiness 75
Danijela Lali´
c, Bojana Mili´
c and Jelena Stankovi´
c
v
Communicative Leadership on Internal Social Media: A Way to
Employee Engagement? 93
Vibeke Thøis Madsen
Employees as Corporate Ambassadors: A Qualitative Study
Exploring the Perceived Benefits and Challenges from Three
Perspectives 115
Jana Brockhaus, Laura Dicke, Patricia Hauck and
Sophia Charlotte Volk
PART III
JOYFULLY PRACTISING COMMUNICATION
The Pursuit of Happiness in PR: Joy, Satisfaction and
Motivation during Working as Communication Manager
on Purposeful Cases 137
Lars Rademacher and Kathrin St¨
urmer
The Dancing CEO. New Perspectives on the Leader:
Performer, Chief Happiness Officer or Seducer? 155
Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen
Incorporating Cultural Diversity, Nation Building and Social
Cohesion When Teaching Communication and Relationship
Management 169
Magrita N. Wiggill and Gerrit van der Waldt
Using Education as a Strategic Communication Tool –
A Case Study of Raising Financial Literacy and Voluntary
Pension Fund Promotion 183
Andrea Luˇ
ci´
c, Dajana Barbi´
c and Dijana Bojˇ
ceta Markoja
Health Professionals’Communication Competences Decide
Patients’Well-being: Proposal for a Communication Model 201
Cristina Vaz de Almeida and C´
elia Belim
Index 223
vi CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1. Sternberg’s Triangle of Love. 8
Figure 2. Emotions (in Public Relations Research) and Brand
Love (in Relationship Marketing Research) Tend to
Flow in One Direction. 10
Figure 3. Reciprocity in Organization–Stakeholder Affection. 11
Figure 1. Personal Values as Moderator in the Relationship
between Goal Attainment and Well-being. 26
Figure 2. Personal Values as Moderator in the Relationship
between Context and Well-being. 27
Figure 3. Personal Values as Moderator in the Relationship
between Brand Values and Brand Attachment (Kostelijk,
2016). 27
Figure 4. The Value Compass (Kostelijk, 2016). 30
Figure 5. Model for Values-based Communication. 32
Figure 6. Communication Enriches the Context. 33
Figure 1. Ideal Types of Inside-out- and Outside-in-content. 43
Figure 1. Visualizing Trust for @Airbus. 66
Figure 2. Visualizing Trust for @BoeingAirplanes. 67
Figure 3. Visualizing Distrust for @BoeingAirplanes. 68
Figure 1. Research Model. 79
Figure 2. The PLS Analysis of the Research Model. 86
Figure 1. Framework for Analyzing the Role of Corporate
Ambassadors within an Organization. 125
Figure 1. Overview of Research Focus and Research Question. 139
Figure 2. Structural Equation Model: Overall Job Satisfaction of
Communication Management Professionals (Zerfass
et al., 2018 Based on Berger et al., 2017/Plank Center). 142
Figure 3. Overview of Millennial Generations. 143
Figure 4. Overview of Research Design for This Study. 147
vii
Figure 5. Overview of Collected Data for This Study. 148
Figure 6. Participants’Answer ‘I Feel Overall Joy in My Job’,
Regarding Jobs with and without a Moral Background. 149
Figure 7. Participants’Answer on Experienced Joy in Context with
Their Salary. 150
Figure 8. Satisfaction of Individual Categories in Current Job. 151
Photo 1. The CEO of LEGO, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp Presenting
the Results of the Year 2014. 160
Photo 2. The LEGO CEO, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, Presenting the
Results of the Year 2015. 166
Figure 1. Announcement of the Project ‘Finance for Everyone’. 191
Figure 2. Educative Articles in the Media Together with the
Education Report and Impressions of Participants. 192
Figure 3. ZSE Academy Award Media Coverage. 193
Figure 1. Assertiveness, Clear Language and Positivity Model. 214
Table 1. The Value Types of the Value Compass (Kostelijk,
2016). 30
Table 1. Self and External Thematization in Journalism and
Strategic Communication. 42
Table 1. Frequencies of Trust and Distrust Messages. 62
Table 2. Trust Categories. 63
Table 3. Frequencies of Unique Tweets, Retweets and Unique
Users. 63
Table 1. Sample Demographics. 80
Table 2. Latent Variable Statistics. 83
Table 3. Correlations between First-order Factors. 85
Table 4. Second-order to First-order Loadings (Bootstrap Anal-
ysis with 5,000 Samples). 85
Table 5. Heterotrait–Monotrait Ratios. 86
Table 1. Various Communicative Leadership Roles on ISM. 100
Table 2. Formal Leadership Communicative Acts on ISM. 105
Table 3. Coconstructed Leadership Communication Behaviour
on ISM. 108
Table 4. Peer Leadership Communicative Acts on ISM. 110
viii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Table 1. Roles of Communication Professionals in Interaction
with Corporate Ambassadors. 126
Table 2. Typology of Corporate Ambassadors. 128
Table 1. The Main Functions of Dancing. 161
Table 1. ANOVA Knowledge –Before and after Education. 195
Table 2. ANOVA Attitudes on Retirement Savings Knowledge –
Before and after Education. 195
Table 3. Financial Attitudes Answers. 195
Table 5. Financial Behaviour Answers. 196
Table 4. Behavioural Control Answers. 196
Table 1. Highest Scores to the Components of the Assertiveness,
Clear Language and Positivity. 212
Table 2. Recommendations or Components of the Three-factor
Model of Communication Competences: Assertiveness,
Clarity and Positivity. 215
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ix
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mark Badham (PhD) is Postdoctoral Researcher in Corporate Communication at
Jyv¨
askyl¨
a University School of Business and Economics in Finland. His research
focuses on distinct roles news media outlets adopt in mass communication pro-
cesses, particularly to better understand phenomenon involving power struggles
between organizations, activists and their respective publics. This research
extends to crisis communication, agenda-building and other mass communica-
tion-related research focused on how organizations engage with news media in
online and offline environments to reach stakeholders. Prior to entering into a
full-time academic career, he worked in public relations roles for politicians,
political parties and NGOs in Australia.
Dajana Barbi´
cis an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business
in Zagreb, University of Zagreb. She teaches ‘Personal Finance’,‘Public Finance’
and ‘Monetary Policy’at the Department of Finance. She defended her doctoral
dissertation in the field of personal finance ‘Linking financial literacy with the
successfulness in managing personal finances’. She is one of the founders and
director of the Institute for Financial literacy and responsible financial con-
sumption where she actively participates in the programmes of financial educa-
tion. She is an active researcher in many projects including international project
‘Financial literacy and socialization of children as consumers’.
C´
elia Belim is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social and Political Sci-
ences, University of Lisbon (ISCSP-ULisboa), lecturing on Communication
Sciences (CC)’s scientific area since 2000. Currently, she is executive coordinator
of the graduate degree of the referred scientific area. She has a PhD on CC. She
coordinates projects, such as ‘Communicate health’and ‘Agendas and commu-
nication’. Since 2000, she has participated in several conferences, and publishes in
her fields of interest, such as health communication, having published, by invi-
tation from Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. She has received four academic
awards.
Jana Brockhaus, MA, is Research Associate and PhD Candidate at the Chair of
Strategic Communication at Leipzig University, Germany, and has been a
visiting research student at Lund University, Sweden. Her research interests
include professionalization of strategic communication, management concepts,
and employee engagement. In her master thesis, she examines the internal
perception and positioning of communication departments in corporations and
analyses the expectations of internal stakeholders.
xi
Laura Dicke, MA, is a Public Relations Assistant at Fraunhofer IFAM in
Dresden, Germany. In 2020, she finished her master’s degree in Communication
Management at the Department of Strategic Communication at Leipzig Uni-
versity, Germany. Her academic interests lie in challenges and opportunities of
strategic communication for organizations, employee engagement and financial
communication. Her master’s thesis explores the challenges of strategic employer
branding in start-ups.
Sabine Einwiller is a Professor of Public Relations Research at the Department of
Communication, University of Vienna, Austria, where she heads the Corporate
Communication Research Group. Since 2018 she is the Head of the Austrian
Public Relations Ethics Council and serves as the Austrian representative of the
European Communication Monitor. In 2019/2020 she headed the Scientific
Committee of EUPRERA. Sabine Einwiller has published about 40 articles in
international peer-reviewed journals and is co-editor of the Handbook of
Employee Communication (Springer Gabler, in German). In her research, she is
mainly interested in the effects of corporate communication on stakeholders and
in strategic communication management.
Finn Frandsen is Professor in the Department of Management at Aarhus BSS,
Aarhus University, Denmark. In 2019, he was appointed Professor II at BI
Norwegian Business School, Norway. His primary research interests include
organizational crises, crisis management and crisis communication. His most
recent books are Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach
(2017; co-authored with Winni Johansen) and Crisis Communication (Handbooks
of Communication Science HOCS 23, co-edited with Winni Johansen). In 2019,
Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen served as co-editors of Big Ideas in Public
Relations Research and Practice (Advances in Public Relations and Communica-
tion Management, Emerald Publishing).
Patricia Hauck is a Consultant for strategic communication and change man-
agement at FTI Consulting. She finished her master’s degree in Communication
Management at the Department of Strategic Communication at Leipzig Uni-
versity, Germany, in 2020. In 2019, she has been a visiting research student at
Tallinn University, Estonia. Her research interests focus on innovative methods
for strategic communication and employee engagement. Her master’s thesis is
concerned with the use of microtargeting within corporate communications.
Olaf Hoffjann is a Professor at the Department of Communication Studies at
University of Bamberg, Germany. He studied, inter alia, communication studies
in M¨
unster, Germany. From 2006 to 2019 he was Professor of Communication
Management at the Mediadesign University for Applied Sciences in Berlin and
Professor of Media Management at the Ostfalia University for Applied Sciences
in Salzgitter, Germany. He was awarded a PhD for his system-theoretical study
of the relationship between PR and journalism. His research interests cover trust
in public relations (PR), the reality of PR and public affairs.
xii ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Winni Johansen is Professor in the Department of Management at Aarhus BSS,
Aarhus University, Denmark, and adjunct professor at BI Norwegian Business
School, Norway. Her primary research interests include organizational crises,
crisis management and crisis communication. Her most recent books are Orga-
nizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach (2017; co-authored with
Finn Frandsen), International Encyclopedia of Strategic Communication (2018;
co-edited with Robert L. Heath) and Crisis Communication (Handbooks of
Communication Science HOCS 23, 2020; co-edited with Finn Frandsen). In 2019,
Winni Johansen and Finn Frandsen served as co-editors of Big Ideas in Public
Relations Research and Practice (Advances in Public Relations and Communica-
tion Management, Emerald Publishing).
Erik Kostelijk is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Amsterdam School of
International Business of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences,
Netherlands. He has teaching, research and professional experience in several
countries including China, the USA, Lithuania, France, Spain and Italy.
Currently, he also works as marketing consultant in the Netherlands. Erik is the
designer and author of the Value Compass, the method to assess the influence of
values on branding. His book on brand positioning (with K. J. Alsem) won the
Dutch award for the marketing study book 2016. The book was published in
2020 in English at Routledge.
Alla Kushniryk (PhD) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Commu-
nication Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada. Her department has
been nationally recognized for excellence in public relations education in Canada.
She earned a PhD in Communication and Information at the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville. Alla’s research and publications centre on organizational
communication, digital and social media, and quantitative research methods. She
has been engaged in several research projects funded by Communications 1
Public Relations Foundation, Canadian Public Relations Society and other
organizations.
Danijela Lali´
c, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial
Engineering and Management, Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi
Sad, Serbia. Her research interests include public relations, corporate commu-
nications, especially social media, digital and internal communications. She
published over 70 scientific and professional publications. Her PR handbook is
considered as excellent guide for professionals and students. She was the editor
and lead translator of the textbook Business Communication Today, published by
Pearson Education. Dr Lali´
c is a member of Serbian PR Association, a member
of EUPRERA and a national collaborator for Serbia for the European
Communication Monitor.
Andrea Luˇ
ci´
cis an Assistant Professor at the Department of Marketing at the
Faculty of Economics in Zagreb. She teaches ‘Foundations of Marketing’and
‘Sustainable marketing and ethics’. She is leading a Croatian Science Foundation
research project ‘Empowering financial capability of young consumers through
ABOUT THE AUTHORS xiii
education and behavioural intervention’. She is also a research fellow on
‘Strenght2Food: Horizon 2020 –Strengthening European Food Chain Sustain-
ability by Quality and Procurement Policy Activity’project. She is one of the
founders of the Institute for Financial Literacy and responsible financial con-
sumption where she actively participates in the programmes of financial
education.
Vibeke Thøis Madsen is an Assistant Professor in digital and organizational
communication, Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University,
Denmark. Her research interests are interactions among organizational members
on internal social media and employees as strategic communicators in public
relations. She has, for example, studied how employees construct organizational
identity on internal social media and the self-censorship strategies they apply when
they communicate. Presently, she studies the strategic role and the participatory
potential of social intranets in public organizations and develops a framework
to understand employees as communicators in organizational contexts.
Dijana Bojˇ
ceta Markoja is Managing Director of Association of Pension Funds
and Pension Insurance Companies with more than 20 years of working experi-
ence in financial industry with the main focus on corporate communication and
marketing. Her professional and scientific focus is on Financial Literacy, spe-
cifically Pension Literacy. She participated in numerous conferences and panel
discussions with contributed lectures. DBM has degree in political science and
Master Degree in economics –field marketing. She attended IEDC Bled –
Business School. At the moment, she is attending the master course in public
relations.
Bojana Mili´
cis a PhD Candidate and a Scientific Researcher at the Department
of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Technical Sciences at
University of Novi Sad, Serbia. She currently writes her PhD thesis on employee
creativity and their innovative behaviour. Her research interests include employee
engagement, knowledge management, creativity and social media marketing.
Natalie Doyle Oldfield (BA Honours, BPR, MPR) is the author of the book The
Power of Trust: How Top Companies Build, Manage and Protect It. Four times,
Natalie has been named one of the world’s Top Thought Leaders in Trust by
Trust Across America. A former Chief Marketing Officer and keynote speaker,
she publishes business and academic articles.
Natalie advises business owners and leaders on how to increase revenue, trust
and loyalty through a scientifically based framework. She is the creator of the
Client Trust Index™, an award-winning proprietary diagnostic and a digital
program called Becoming a Trusted Advisor.
Stanislav Orlov (MEd, MIST) is a Systems Librarian at Mount Saint Vincent
University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Part of his duties includes facilitating
seamless access to various e-resources by students, faculty and the larger com-
munity. That involves everyday work with journal article databases, e-book
platforms, institutional repository, university archive, online citation managers,
xiv ABOUT THE AUTHORS
etc. He teaches the Intro to Research in Information Age course that focuses on
proper ways of finding, evaluating and using information in academia, as well as
in everyday life. Stanislav’s research interests include Open Education Resources,
and Social Media.
Lars Rademacher, MA, PhD, is Professor for Public Relations at Darmstadt
University of Applied Sciences and adjunct lecturer & researcher at Cork Insti-
tute of Technology (CIT), Ireland. He serves as Director at the Institute of
Communication & Media. Before joining academia, Lars spent more than 15
years as communication consultant and media relations manager working for a
number of national and multinational companies including BASF and Volks-
wagen. His research interests cover public legitimacy, PR ethics, leadership &
executive communication, CSR and compliance communication. Since 2017 he is
a member and since 2018 the Chairman of the German Public Relations Council.
Jelena Stankovi´
c, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Industrial
Engineering and Management, Faculty of Technical Sciences at University of
Novi Sad, Serbia. Her research interest focuses on marketing management,
corporate communication, branding and entrepreneurship. She is the author of
more than 50 papers published in scientific journals and conferences. She is also
one of the translators of the textbook Business Communication Today, published
by Pearson Education. Dr Stankovi´
c is a member of Mensa since 2013.
Kathrin St¨
urmer, MA, is a PhD Candidate at Cork Institute of Technology in
cooperation with Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. She has been
teaching at Darmstadt UAS since 2018. Before, Kathrin worked in a lobby
agency where her research topic ‘digital lobbying’arose. She worked at the
German Bundestag and currently in the political department of a social media
agency. Her research interests cover online, political, strategic communication;
lobbying and social media. Kathrin holds a Bachelor’s degree in political and
media science (University of Regensburg, Germany) and a Master’s degree in
European and international studies (European Institute Nice, France).
Professor Ralph Tench is Director of Research for Leeds Business School and
Past President (2017–2020) European Public Relations Research and Education
Association. Tench’s research involves national and international projects. He
has written and edited 26 books; published over 40 academic journal papers;
presented worldwide 601peer-reviewed papers. Books include the market-
leading strategic communication textbook, Exploring Public Relations, and
recently Communication Excellence –How to Develop, Manage and Lead
Exceptional Communications, based on the longitudinal, annual European
Communication Monitor project (14 years, www.communicationmontor.eu).
Tench’s research focuses on strategic communication and its impact on societal
issues including health, business, social and public policy.
Cristina Vaz de Almeida is a Specialist in Health Literacy (HL) and director of a
postgraduate course on HL at the Higher Institute of Applied Psychology (ISPA)
since 2012. She has a permanent intervention as a lecturer in HL for training
ABOUT THE AUTHORS xv
health professionals, at national and international level. Since 2007, she has
participated in Portuguese social projects. She has been working for more than 17
years at Lisbon Holy House of Mercy-Santa Casa da Miseric ´
ordia de Lisboa
(SCML). She is co-author of the book Literacia em sa ´
ude na pr´
atica (Health
literacy in practice) and of various articles and chapters.
Ana Tkalac Verˇ
ciˇ
cis a Full Professor of Marketing communications and Public
Relations at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb,
Croatia. She is a former Fulbright scholar and a recipient of the Chartered
Institute of Public Relations diploma. Ana Tkalac Verˇ
ciˇ
c has authored, co-
authored and edited numerous books including Public Relations Metrics:
Research and Evaluation (with B. van Ruler and D. Verˇ
ciˇ
c) and is the author of
the first Croatian public relations textbook. She has published more than a 100
papers in various academic journals and serves in various editorial boards such as
International Journal of Strategic Communication, Journal of Public Relations
Research and Public Relations Review. Throughout her career professor Tkalac
Verˇ
ciˇ
c has received numerous awards, most recently, GrandPRx, the award for
the development of public relations as a profession. She is currently the president
of the Croatian Public Relations Association.
Sophia Charlotte Volk, MA, is Research Associate and PhD candidate at the
Department of Strategic Communication at Leipzig University, Germany. As
project leader in the research program ‘Value Creating Communication’, she
co-authored the book Toolbox Communication Management (Springer Gabler
2019). Her research interests include corporate communications, communication
management, evaluation and measurement, and comparative research. Her
research has been published in renowned international journals and awarded
several prizes at academic conferences. Her doctoral dissertation examines the
state of the art of comparative communication research and generates empirical
insights into the collaborative challenges of international research projects.
Gerrit van der Waldt is Research Professor: Public Governance attached to
North-West University, South Africa. He is author and co-author of 34 text
books and more than a 100 scholarly articles to date. He has published exten-
sively in the field of governance and policy-related domains and serves on various
advisory boards and research committees. He also lectured and conducted
research at the Vrije University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and was appointed
as global expert by the International Swedish Institute for Public Administration
(SIPU) to partake in the design and development of Masters’Programmes for
various African countries.
Magrita N. Wiggill is Associate Professor at the Department of Strategic
Communication at the Helsingborg Campus of Lund University, Sweden. She has
published several scholarly articles on strategic communication management in the
non-profit sector as well as in a disaster risk context. Her research interests include
strategic communication and relationship management, disaster risk communi-
cation management, communication and sustainability, and social media.
xvi ABOUT THE AUTHORS
INTRODUCTION
As I write the introduction to this latest book in the European Public Relations
Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) Congress series for Emerald,
I cannot help but hold some sense of irony. Our excellent Congress in Zagreb –
held during early October 2019 –was another annual celebration of international
exchanges of research and new ideas in the scholarship of public relations and
strategic communication. The theme of the congress was ‘Joy’. And yet, as I
compose these introductory thoughts and reflections for the book, my fellow
editors and I are each sitting in our home offices as many of you will have done.
All of us experiencing for the first time in our lives an extraordinary, enforced
lockdown during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis in the spring of 2020. As
such ‘joy’may not be the first emotion academics and research students think of
when reflecting on this challenging period of our lives, but it is perhaps poignant
to recall the discussions and debates we held in Zagreb and the fascinating papers
we shared during the Congress. Whilst many of the papers touched literally on
the issue of joy, others explored related emotions and in some papers the flip or
opposing sensations to positivity. In essence the theme of the 2019 Congress is
perhaps never more appropriate than in times of stress, international emergency
and genuine societal challenge. We need to be able to understand how and where
we can sense happiness, well-being, social cohesion, togetherness, appreciation of
others and, arguably, attributes of joy.
Even before this exceptional year of 2020, it would have been possible to argue
that we are living in an era of societal pessimism. That challenging viewpoint
appears only to have been reinforced and heightened by the international expe-
riences of the COVID-19 crisis. As we observe our everyday academic worlds, it
is possible to see that everyone potentially has a voice, and in the contemporary
climate it is very often used to criticize. Publics see problems and discuss them in
multifarious ways and on a plethora of platforms and media outlets. And, in turn,
academic research reflects this and often views the world through a negative lens
and focuses on difficulties, issues and bad practices. With this meeting of the
international public relations and strategic communication research community,
it was the ambition of the Congress organizers from the University of Zagreb and
the EUPRERA Board to encourage and promote some optimism in both the
public discourse and academic research about the discipline.
The conference call proposed that public relations and strategic communica-
tion could be used for cultivating a positive environment. This means commu-
nicators could accept that one of the biggest competitive advantages in today’s
business world is a positive and engaged public. Satisfied participants are at the
core of any successful relationship. To succeed in the future, public relations will
xvii
have the aim of keeping various stakeholders not only informed, nor even
satisfied, but happy. Whether they are employees, customers or business partners,
only happy stakeholders will ensure long-term organizational success.
The success of relationships with publics is mostly based on how people are
valued and treated, which in turn affects their self-perceptions and level of per-
formance. Both of these elements are correlated with life happiness. So it seems
logical that public relations should put additional effort in fostering happiness
and joy among their publics and by improving both organizational success and
the well-being of people. These were the thoughts and aspirations to encourage
academic papers to join in the debate about ‘joy’and its implications for strategic
communication and public relations.
The Zagreb Congress was the 21st to be organized by The European Public
Relations Education and Research Association. EUPRERA is an autonomous
organization with nearly 500 members from 40 countries interested in advancing
academic research and knowledge in strategic communication. Several cross-
national and comparative research and education projects are organized by
affiliated universities. In order to spread new methodologies and research results,
EUPRERA organizes its Annual Congress each autumn in collaboration with a
selected university or college in Europe. The organizer of the 2019 Congress was
one of my co-editors, Professor Ana Tkalac Verˇ
ciˇ
c, from the University of
Zagreb. The Congress attracted 60 full papers, and this book is a selection of the
best papers that were not included in the special issue of the Journal of
Communication Management.
The book is divided into three parts. The following pages provide a summary
for each part of the book and a flavour of the chapters within each section.
Part I: Strategic Communication and Organizational Goals
Not all contingencies named ‘societal development’add to joy –some have
positive some negative effects. Questioning the role of public relations in society
and a strategic approach to communication can induce the spreading of positive
human and corporate behaviour that contributes to joy. How can public relations
contribute to the communication of social change through ethical persuasion and
promotion of public interest? Additionally, measuring the effectiveness of
communication is vital for understanding its value and for shaping future plans in
a way that contributes to greater effectiveness. If joy is a part of successful
communication, how can we measure it? Can joy be measured through results
and performance indicators and consequently integrated into strategic commu-
nication plans? In order to be precise, we need to first define the role of joy and its
related constructs in the process of communication.
In his paper ‘Love Wins: A Love Lens Approach to Cultivation of Organi-
zation Stakeholder Relationships’, Mark Badham’s chapter draws on the theory
of brand love developed in relationship marketing research and the theory of love
from psychological research to build a theoretical framework of organization–
stakeholder love (OSL) that can be applied to organizational relationships with
xviii INTRODUCTION
publics and stakeholders. Badham argues that OSL is important as it has the
potential to contribute to addressing public relations’image problems (e.g.
relating to terms such as spin, fake news and corporate greenwashing). It also
offers a new love orientation that guides organizations towards a focus on the
primacy of stakeholder needs and values, which in turn may shape the way
organizations initiate and manage their relationships with stakeholders. The
chapter concludes with practical ways OSL can be implemented and offers a
research agenda.
Erik Kostelijk takes the view that people decide what is good or bad, or what
they should or should not do, based on the values they cherish. Someone’s values
create the feeling that something is important for him or her, and then motivate
him or her to take action. Titled ‘Values-Based Communications: A New Impulse
to Communication Effectiveness’, Kostelijk’s chapter explores the use of values in
communication and introduces mechanisms through which values can be used to
stimulate communication effectiveness.
In ‘Outside-In- versus Inside-Out-Content. Introducing a New Approach on
the Origins of Contents in Strategic Communication’, Olaf Hoffjann introduces
the concept of outside-in-content, which facilitates a new perspective in the
decoupling of discourse. Outside-in-content encourages decoupling for three
reasons: (1) like a lighthouse, it draws attention away from negative issues. (2) As
neither-true-nor-false-content, it encourages non-committal and arbitrary stra-
tegic communication. (3) If organizations no longer talk about themselves, or do
so less frequently, talk and action can also no longer be examined using the
standards of tight or loose coupling.
In ‘Quantifying Organizational Trust on Twitter: A Communication
Perspective’, Alla Kushniryk, Stanislav Orlov and Natalie Doyle Oldfield draw
on both theoretical and empirical literature on trust and discuss the role of trust
in strategic communication. They examine the importance of trust for organi-
zational success, the dimensions of trust and distrust, and discuss quantifiable
proxies to measure trust and distrust on social media. They use theoretically
driven dimensions of trust and distrust as a framework to examine how Boeing
and Airbus use Twitter to communicate with their stakeholders and publics. Two
separate lists of words and phrases were created, one for proxies of trust and one
for proxies of distrust. In addition, trust building actions that organization can
engage in on Twitter were identified: listening and engaging in dialogue by
following users, mentioning users in messages, replying to inquiries, providing
and encouraging feedback.
Part II: Internal and Employee Communication
Strategic internal communication is a part of the organizational context in which
employees are engaged or disengaged, while strategic external communication is
an antecedent of a company’s image on the market which designates consumer
engagement. Both are vital in the digital era in which employees prioritize on fun
working environments awakening positive emotions including happiness, joy and
INTRODUCTION xix
enthusiasm. How can we use communication to attract and preserve engaged
employees –employees that believe that working is fun? Are lucrative commu-
nication activities such as employer brand communication, innovative organi-
zational communication initiatives and open channels of communication helpful?
How can we use communication to secure customer loyalty? Are extensive
communications with diverse external stakeholders, especially on social media
platforms, the right solution?
In the chapter, ‘Internal Communication and Employee Engagement as the
Key Prerequisites of Happiness’, Danijela Lali´
c, Jelena Stankovi´
c and Bojana
Mili´
c investigate internal communication satisfaction and employee engagement
as prerequisites of employee happiness. The outcomes of their study reveal how
organizations can employ an internal communications strategy in order to
enhance engagement of their employees and their happiness as the ultimate goal.
Vibeke Thøis Madsen explores interactions on internal social media (ISM) in a
Danish bank in order to understand how communicative leadership is enacted in
social media dialogues within an organizational context. The chapter titled
‘Communicative Leadership on Internal Social Media –A way to Employee
Engagement?’identifies three types of communicative leadership: Formal
communicative leadership, coconstructed communicative leadership and peer
communicative leadership. Madsen argues the findings help us understand
leadership as a complex set of interactions in organizational contexts and know
that empowering communication on ISM can therefore enhance employee
engagement.
The research team of Jana Brockhaus, Laura Dicke, Patricia Hauck and
Sophia Charlotte Volk explores corporate ambassadors in their chapter,
‘Employees as Corporate Ambassadors: A Qualitative Study Exploring the
Perceived Benefits and Challenges from Three Perspectives’. The goal of this
qualitative study is to analyze the communicative engagement of employees
within an organization and explore the expectations towards ambassador
communication from three perspectives: the communication department, other
departments such as marketing or human resources, and corporate ambassadors
themselves. The chapter lays the groundwork for further discussions about
corporate ambassadors in the field of corporate communications and outlines
directions for future research and implications for practice.
Part III: Joyfully Practising Communication
The world is definitely going through a transition, and strategic communication
has to participate in the debate on major issues and help shape values and beliefs
of the society as a whole. Through shaping communication, public relations
experts help shape core values. Is satisfaction a prerequisite of good communi-
cation? What is the role of communication professionals in discussions about a
society in transition? What is our professional responsibility? Are we (at least
partially) in charge of satisfaction in society? When and why does communication
foster health, happiness and well-being?
xx INTRODUCTION
In ‘The Pursuit of Happiness in PR: Joy, Satisfaction & Motivation during
working as Communication Manager on Purposeful Cases’, Lars Rademacher
and Kathrin St ¨
urmer explore the job satisfaction of communication managers.
This chapter discusses the connection between a good cause and job satisfaction
and the difference it makes when it comes to working in communication man-
agement over time. Unlike other studies, the focus in the chapter is on purpose-
driven projects as a change in business routine to stay motivated.
If you reach this part of the book and you are not already elated, then after the
next chapter you will be. Aarhus colleagues Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen
take us on a whirlwind journey across the corporate dance floor in the riveting
chapter ‘The Dancing CEO: Perspectives on the Leader: Performer, Chief
Happiness Officer or Seducer?’. The chapter is a riveting case study about the
Danish CEO who suddenly began to dance in front of journalists while singing
Everything is awesome’from the LEGO Movie. Why did he do it? Was it out of
spontaneous joy? Or was there a strategy behind his actions? And what were the
reactions of the media and LEGO employees? These are questions handsomely
answered in this chapter that contributes to a broader understanding of strategic
communication and leadership and adds a dramaturgical and multimodal
perspective.
In ‘Incorporating Cultural Diversity, Nation Building and Social Cohesion
When Teaching Communication and Relationship Management’, Magrita Nic-
olene Wiggill and Gerrit Van der Waldt reflect on the necessity of incorporating
practical and experiential learning modalities in higher education to prepare
communication and relationship management students for engaging others in
potentially conflicting socio-cultural heterogeneous settings. The case study
illustrates students’general anxiety to engage people from different ethnic, racial
and cultural backgrounds. The authors recommend innovative teaching strategies
are developed to foster harmony, tolerance, understanding and cultural sensi-
tivity in communication and relationship management education.
Andrea Luˇ
ci´
c, Dajana Barbi´
c and Dijana Bojˇ
ceta Markoja develop an
interesting case study chapter in ‘Using Education As a Strategic Communication
Tool –A Case Study of Raising Financial Literacy And Voluntary Pension Fund
Promotion’. The chapter has the purpose of showing how purposeful content-
based valuable information can be created with the aim of influencing attitudes
and behaviours in the field of personal and pension savings. A quantitative study
was conducted in order to investigate the effectiveness of education on the atti-
tudes and knowledge related to pension fund savings. The results of the quasi-
experiment indicate that the education has increased respondents’knowledge and
positive attitudes towards retirement savings.
To conclude the book, Cristina Vaz de Almeida and C´
elia Belim Rodrigues
explore health professional’s communication competences. The chapter, ‘When
the Health Professional’s Communication Competences Decide Patient’s Health:
Proposal of a Communication Model’focuses on the impact of health pro-
fessional’s communication competences on patients. The study is a response to
the lack of consensus in the literature on what specific and operative communi-
cation competences the health professional should perform in clinical encounters
INTRODUCTION xxi
with patients, and how these competences can improve, in the final instance,
health and well-being.
I hope you enjoy reading these valuable contributions to our research com-
munity and share them with your peers. I look forward to seeing you soon at one
of the forthcoming EUPRERA Congresses held every autumn.
Professor Ralph Tench, April 2020
xxii INTRODUCTION
