Sora Kim, Ph.D., The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Mary Ann T. Ferguson, Ph.D., University of Florida
In celebration of IPR's 65th Anniversary, we are taking a look back at past Public Relations Journal issues. This study was originally published in Volume 8 of the Journal in 2014.

Dr. Sora Kim and Dr. Mary Ann Ferguson examined stakeholders' expectations for corporate CSR communication.

A survey of 663 consumers was conducted.

Key findings include:
  • Practitioners should make sure their message is based on factual information, contains transparent information without intentional omission of any negative information, and shares specific CSR information.
  • These messages should not be promotional.
  • Practitioners should make their CSR activities personally relevant to external stakeholders and provide specific examples of how companies’ CSR can impact stakeholders' daily life. 
  • CSR practitioners should actively involve CSR beneficiaries in their CSR communication process as they are the most preferred CSR communication source.
Daniel Wolfgruber, Lina Sturmer, and Sabine Einwiller, Ph.D., University of Vienna
This summary is provided by the IPR Organizational Communication Research Center

Researchers examined how internal communication facilitates or obstructs employees’ perception of an inclusive work environment.

Interviews with 84 employees from organizations in Austria and Germany were conducted.

Key findings include:
  • There were significant gender differences when it comes to viewing promotion opportunities and using gender-sensitive language.
  • More women than men observed unequal promotion opportunities in their organizations and complained about the lack of gender-sensitive language.
  • Compared to participants who were "highly included," participants who feel "moderately" or "not included" demanded communication about equity, diversity, and inclusion issues more frequently.
  • Formal interpersonal communication, which occurs primarily between leaders and subordinates, has the most significant impact on fostering employees’ sense of inclusion.
PwC examined the changes executives are making as they redesign work with a more employee-focused approach.

This article is based on two pulse studies conducted on Aug. 19, 2021: a survey of 752 business executives and a survey of 1,007 full-time and part-time employees.

Key findings include:
  • 36% of executives say the loss of corporate culture is the biggest challenge to hybrid work.
  • 33% of executives plan on implementing a mixed work model, with some employees in-person full time, some hybrid, and some fully remote.
  • 19% of all employees would like to be fully remote today, even if COVID-19 were no longer a concern.
  • 22% of employees say they would like to be mostly in the office.
  • 21% say the nature of their work does not allow them to work remotely at all.
  • The remaining respondents (37%) prefer a hybrid work setup, with some days in the office and others remote.
Pew Research Center examined U.S. news media consumption throughout 2020.

An analysis of news audience behavior and a secondary analysis of industry data was conducted.

Key findings include:
  • For the first time, newspapers made more money from circulation than from advertising in 2020.
  • In primetime, Fox News’s average audience increased by 61%, CNN’s increased by 72%, and MSNBC’s grew by 28%.
  • The average audience for network nightly news increased between 7% and 16%, and the average audience for local TV evening news increased 4%.

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