July 22, 2021

By Marlene S. Neill, Baylor University, and Juan Meng, University of Georgia

Servant leadership and ethics of care both emphasize the importance of interpersonal relationships, listening to others and empathy, all of which are critical to public relations practice. However, these two perspectives have received limited attention in public relations scholarship, despite the fact that public relations theory and practice have long advocated that public relations professionals have an obligation to seek out and consider the views of… More

July 7, 2021

By Hyejoon Rim, University of Minnesota; Moonhee Cho, University of Tennessee; and Katie Haejung Kim, University of Minnesota

Corporations today face pressure to express their positions on controversial issues and exercise their power to influence social and political change. As publics’ expectations have moved beyond traditional CSR to corporate social advocacy (CSA), it has become critical to understand transactional and relational consequences of CSA engagement.

There has been increasing scholarly interest in beginning to explore CSA, but… More

June 29, 2021

By Dunja Antunovic, University of Minnesota; Nicole M. LaVoi, University of Minnesota; Katie Lebel, Ted Rogers School of Management; Nancy Lough, University of Nevada Las Vegas; Ceyda Mumcu, University of New Haven; and Ann Pegoraro, University of Guelph

In 2020, women’s sports leagues in the United States saw remarkable commercial success. As we noted in our article for The Conversation, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) viewership numbers… More

June 21, 2021

By Jiun-Yi Tsai, Northern Arizona University, Ioana A. Coman, Texas Tech University, and Shupei Yuan, Northern Illinois University

In an age when most Americans feel deep political and ideological division, it is no exception whether the public thinks it is important for corporations to advocate controversial issues.

According to a 2020 Pew Research survey, 52 percent of U.S. adults increasingly demand corporations to take a stance on hot-button issues, while 48 percent consider companies’ neutral or no… More

June 16, 2021

By Hao Xu, Jisu Huh, and Hyejoon Rim, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

In today’s increasingly polarized political environment, a growing number of companies are taking a stance on controversial sociopolitical topics or public policy issues that their stakeholders care about. This includes issues like same-sex marriage, gun control, racial equality, immigration and transgender bathroom policies.

Companies, however, need to be very cautious about how they speak up on such divisive issues. We have seen consumers with opposing… More

June 10, 2021

By Jessica Gall Myrick, professor of media studies at Penn State

Do you care deeply about the ways in which early rhizosphere microbiome composition is related to the growth and zinc uptake in willow plants? And how intense are your feelings about specialized bacterial assemblages used in bioremediation? If you answered “yes” or “very intense” to either of these questions, then you are in a very small portion of the population well versed in the details of microbiology… More