Introducing Corporate Reputation Continuity to Support Organizational Resilience Against Crises

As Corporate Reputation (CR) evolves into an important asset for organizations, crises and disasters stand as threats to the preservation of the reputation capital since they usually result to negative projections to their audiences and to problematic evaluations by their stakeholders. Viewing CR as the accumulated trust and positive evaluations of the stakeholders, this paper proposes a conceptual and normative framework for Reputation Continuity, which enhances the ability of organizations to preserve their reputation, instead of working for its recovery in the post-crisis period. In our approach, we propose a process of maintaining trusted links, instead of restoring them and establishing a reputation resilient organization, instead of one struggling to recover from reputation losses, after the crisis has emerged. Working closely with stakeholders during the crisis, injecting a sense of normality continuity through effective leadership and mitigating image problems are seen as critical concerns, alongside a set of managerial practices to be followed. Ultimately, it is argued that, the value-based and strategically integrated view of Business Continuity must be enhanced and supported by Reputation Continuity activities.

El impacto de la crisis en la industria cinematográfica en Europa

Este trabajo analiza el impacto que ha generado la crisis económica y financiera más reciente en las industrias cinematográficas de siete países miembros de la Unión Europea. Las conclusiones señalan que, en efecto, la crisis ha impactado negativamente en las industrias de España e Italia, y muy gravemente en la de Portugal, pero en el lado contrario, la del Reino Unido ha experimentado un crecimiento apreciable y las de Francia y Alemania también lo han hecho, aunque en menor medida. Y en segundo lugar, es muy notable la escasa colaboración alcanzada entre los agentes europeos.

Near-real-time service provision during effusive crises at Etna and Stromboli: basis and implementation of satellite-based IR operations

Using the NEODAAS-Dundee AVHRR receiving station (Scotland), NEODAAS-Plymouth can provide calibrated brightness temperature data to end users or interim users in near-real time. Between 2000 and 2009 these data were used to undertake volcano hot spot detection, reporting and time-average discharge rate dissemination during effusive crises at Mount Etna and Stromboli (Italy). Data were passed via FTP, within an hour of image generation, to the hot spot detection system maintained at Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA). Final product generation and quality control were completed manually at HIGP once a day, so as to provide information to onsite monitoring agencies for their incorporation into daily reporting duties to Italian Civil Protection. We here describe the processing and dissemination chain, which was designed so as to provide timely, useable, quality-controlled and relevant information for ‘one voice’ reporting by the responsible monitoring agencies.

Near-real-time service provision during effusive crises at Etna and Stromboli: basis and implementation of satellite-based IR operations

Using the NEODAAS-Dundee AVHRR receiving station (Scotland), NEODAAS-Plymouth can provide calibrated brightness temperature data to end users or interim users in near-real time. Between 2000 and 2009 these data were used to undertake volcano hot spot detection, reporting and time-average discharge rate dissemination during effusive crises at Mount Etna and Stromboli (Italy). Data were passed via FTP, within an hour of image generation, to the hot spot detection system maintained at Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA). Final product generation and quality control were completed manually at HIGP once a day, so as to provide information to onsite monitoring agencies for their incorporation into daily reporting duties to Italian Civil Protection. We here describe the processing and dissemination chain, which was designed so as to provide timely, useable, quality-controlled and relevant information for ‘one voice’ reporting by the responsible monitoring agencies.

On the new Kenyan sovereign wealth fund

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have been established in several countries to manage the revenues arising from exhaustible natural resources. SWFs allow consumption to be spread between generations, and between periods of high and low natural resource prices. In this paper the arguments for and against establishing an SWF in Kenya are considered. A first section considers the argument that Kenya is too poor to allocate oil revenues to such a fund. A second section discusses the principles underlying such a fund. A final section concludes by considering the steps that are being taken to establish a Kenyan SWF.

Weathering crises on social media – Theory and practices from social media active organizations operating in Finland

Thesis compiles findings from previous research to produce guidelines on addressing crises on social media. These guidelines extracted from previous research are compared qualitatively with empirical evidence from 12 organizations by examining whether organizations apply practices recommended in previous research. Much of guidelines gain support from practitioners with few exceptions. Findings stemming from theory and practice combine to shed light on how controversies are born on social media, how crises can be prevented on social media and how organizations may manage crisis situations on social media. The majority of the resulting guidelines focus on how to address negative information and communicate during a crisis but other means of crisis management are also presented. Previous research had voiced that the field of public relations was very fractured, crisis management was lacking qualitative research and provided very little information on what organizations should do before a crisis. Thesis collects a comprehensive amount of previous research from various fields of PR in an effort to unite findings and guidelines, gathers and analyzes empirical data in a qualitative manner and includes a pre-crisis paradigm. One of the challenges in the field of crisis management still remains the absence of universally agreed definition of a crisis and the lack of means to quantify and compare the magnitude of crises.

Gérer les crises : comment les gouvernements locaux ont-ils réagi à la crise financière de 2008 et comment expliquer les différences ? Le cas des communes suisses

Les communes suisses sont largement souveraines pour financer leurs activités. Leurs ressources proviennent avant tout de l'impôt sur le revenu et de l'impôt foncier prélevés auprès des ménages et des entreprises. Une crise, comme celle de 2008, qui touche la sphère financière et l'économie en général risque d'avoir des répercussions directes sur les budgets locaux. Dans le présent article, nous examinons la manière dont les communes perçoivent ce risque et y réagissent. Dans une enquête menée à l'échelle nationale fin 2009 dans les 2596 communes suisses, nous avons demandé aux secrétaires municipaux quelles mesures avaient été prises face aux pertes fiscales attendues et à la hausse possible des dépenses sociales suite à la crise de 2008. Des mesures keynésiennes ont-elles été prises, en augmentant les dépenses et en acceptant des déficits plus importants, ou y a-t-il eu tentative de limiter les déficits par des mesures d'austérité, notamment en restreignant les investissements prévus ? Nos résultats indiquent que quelques communes seulement (essentiellement les plus grandes) s'attendaient à être durement touchées par la crise. On n'observe cependant pas de tendance systématique et conforme à la théorie. Certes des mesures d'austérité ont été mises en place ou un déficit budgétaire a été provoqué, mais bon nombre de communes ont appliqué simultanément des mesures relevant des deux théories. L'impact perçu de la crise au niveau local et l'appartenance de la commune à la partie francophone du pays sont les principaux facteurs expliquant la réaction des communes et les raisons de cette réaction. La taille de la commune joue aussi un rôle. Mais l'influence du parti social-démocrate est négligeable. Le type de mesures que les communes sont susceptibles de prendre est plus difficile à expliquer. Cependant, plus une commune se sent touchée, plus elle s'orientera vers des mesures d'austérité.

David R. Cole (Hrsg.): Surviving Economic Crises through Education. Global Studies in Education, Vol. 11. New York u.a.: Peter Lang 2011 (267 S.) [Rezension]

Rezension von: David R. Cole (Hrsg.): Surviving Economic Crises through Education. Global Studies in Education, Vol. 11. New York u.a.: Peter Lang 2011 (267 S.; ISBN 978-1433114786)

Crises and Crisis Generations: International Conflict and Military Participation in Politics

Why do states facing high levels of international threat sometimes have militaries that are heavily involved in politics and at other times relatively apolitical, professional militaries? I argue that the answer to this puzzle lies in a state's history of 'acute' international crises rather than its 'chronic' threat environment. Major international crises lead to professionalization and de-politicization of militaries in both the short- and long-term. International crises underscore the need for the military to defend the state and highlight military deficiencies in this regard. Accordingly, major international crises lead to military professionalization and withdrawal from politics in order to increase military effectiveness. This effect persists years, and decades, later due to generational shifts in the officer corps. As the "Crisis Generation" of officers become generals, they bring with them a preference for professionalization and de-politicization. They guide the military towards abstention from politics. I test this theory using a new global dataset on military officers in national governing bodies from 1964-2008 and find strong support for the theory. Major international crises lead to two waves of military withdrawal from government, years apart. Further statistical analysis finds that this effect is most strongly felt in the non-security areas of governing, while in some cases, international crises may lead to militaries increasing their involvement in security policy-making. Further, international crises that end poorly for a state — i.e., defeats or stalemates — are found to drive more rapid waves of military withdrawal from government. The statistical analysis is supported by a case illustration of civil-military relations in the People's Republic of China, which demonstrates that the crisis of the Korean War (1950-53) led to two waves of military professionalization and de-politicization, decades apart. The first occurred immediately after the war. The second wave, occurring in the 1980s, involved wholesale military withdrawal from governing bodies, which was made possible by the ascent of the "Crisis Generation" of officers in the military, who had served as junior officers in the Korean War, decades prior.

Exchange market pressure and incidence of currency crises in Norway

Mestrado em Economia Monetária e Financeira

Interest rate (in)sensitivity of emerging market corporate debt : economic analysis based on 2002-2015 empirical evidence

Interest rate sensitivity assessment framework based on fixed income yield indexes is developed and applied to two types of emerging market corporate debt: investment grade and high yield exposures. Our research advances beyond the correlation analyses focused on co- movements in yields and/or spreads of risky and risk-free assets. We show that correlation- based analyses of interest rate sensitivity could appear rather inconclusive and, hence, we investigate the bottom line profit and loss of a hypothetical model portfolio of corporates. We consider historical data covering the period 2002 – 2015, which enable us to assess interest rate sensitivity of assets during the development, the apogee, and the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Based on empirical evidence, both for investment and speculative grades securities, we find that the emerging market corporates exhibit two different regimes of sensitivity to interest rate changes. We observe switching from a positive sensitivity under the normal market conditions to a negative one during distressed phases of business cycles. This research sheds light on how financial institutions may approach interest rate risk management, evidencing that even plain vanilla portfolios of emerging market corporates, which on average could appear rather insensitive to the interest rate risk in fact present a binary behavior of their interest rate sensitivities. Our findings allow banks and financial institutions for optimizing economic capital under Basel III regulatory capital rules.