Towards an emerging paradigm of strategic communication: Core driving forces

Abstract

Major forces such as globalisation, the digital network revolution and the empowerment of myriad new stakeholders have resulted in a blurring of communication genres such as marketing and corporate communications, and are redefining the role of the communications professional within business and society. Such fundamental changes require that both scholars and practitioners challenge their own assumptions and consider the implications of these paradigm shifts. The values of the modernist age, resulting in linear, top-down, consensus-seeking decision-making behaviour, must be revisited to make way for emerging values such as activism, dialogue, communal values and dissent, which allow for co-creation and a multiplicity of viewpoints. This article reflects on paradigmatic debates and identifies shifts from modern to postmodern organisational practice, and how these impact on communication practices and integrated communication. Consideration is given to some theoretical, practical, research and educational implications of these shifts as core driving forces towards the new emerging paradigm of strategic communication, which can best be conceptualised as purposeful communication to realise the organisational mission.     

A New Look at the Gender Gap in Offending

Studies of public support for capital punishment have consistently observed a strong and enduring gender gap in the level of death penalty support, with males consistently more inclined than females to support capital punishment. This unexplained relationship has endured over time and space as well as across a myriad of research designs. The present study uses attribution theory in a factorial survey design to account for this relationship. Analyses of data obtained from jurors provide mixed support for attribution theory yet fails to bridge the gender gap in death penalty support. The implications of these findings as they relate to gender, socialization, and attributions are discussed.     

Actively Cultivating Policy Similarity. A Regional Strategy in Education Policy in France and Germany

Regionalization processes across Western Europe have triggered analyses of regional policy divergence. Yet, in a number of cases, regional governments appear to have deliberately strived to achieve policy conformity. Previous research tends to emphasize exogenous explanations of regional policy convergence. In contrast, this paper addresses the issue of regional policy convergence by focusing on endogenous explanatory factors. Its objective is to carry out an investigation of when, how, and with what effect a ‘desire for conformity’ arises, and contends that regional governments may actively cultivate policy similarity as a strategy to develop or secure their policy capacity. Specifically, the paper argues that the adoption of this strategy is contingent upon two requirements that may or may not be met, and that its outcome is the convergence on targeted dimensions of regional policies. The two requirements are: (i) a countrywide public preference for policy uniformity in the policy area of concern, and (ii) the presence of a threat posed to regional policy capacity by various political entrepreneurs, including the central state, who blame regions for providing divergent policies on particular dimensions. This paper is based on the comparison of two case studies where regional governments deliberately pursued policy conformity on targeted dimensions of their education policy: school-building policy in France and curricula policy in Germany. The two case studies also present dissimilar features that make it possible to investigate the effects of institutional setting and policy distribution on the adoption and operation of the active-cultivation-of-policy-similarity strategy.     

Study on the Consensus Issue of the Criminal Procedure Law and the Supervision System

The reform of the supervision system raises the consensus issue of the Supervision Law and the Criminal Procedure Law. The convergence of the two laws cannot be achieved only by the technical connection and synergy, but also by dissolving the inner conflicts of the litigation values. For one thing, the Supervision Law lays stress on the “Criminal Control Value” of the criminal justice; for another, the Criminal Procedure Law strives to attach equal importance to both “Combating Crime” and “Protecting Human Rights”. Because of the conflicting schemes of values which are possessed by the two laws separately, the convergence of the processes becomes complex, which contains the distinction between criminal “investigation” and supervising “survey”, the jurisdiction of the duty crime cases, the conversion of the coercive measures, the process of returning a case for supplementary survey, and the pleading guilty procedure for a lenient punishment, etc. For the political effect, “adopting severe punishment in trouble times” can play an important role in the short term, which may establish the atmosphere that no one dare to commit corruption crimes. But a system of both “Combating Crime” and“Protecting Human Rights” is the long-term solution, which lays the emphasis on both the sustainability and the due process of the anti-corruption in China.     

The limits of regulatory convergence: globalization and GMO politics in the south

Is globalization promoting regulatory convergence in agricultural biotechnology policies in the South? This article examines the nature and limits of regulatory convergence in the field of agri-biotechnology and investigates the effects that international forces have on biotechnology and biosafety policies in developing countries. Based on detailed case studies of Mexico, China and South Africa this article shows that these three leading biotechnology countries in the South are exposed to powerful international influences but are responding to the regulatory challenges of genetically modified organisms (GMO) adoption in distinctive ways. The existing regulatory polarization between US and EU biotechnology approaches has not forced a convergence around either of these two international models. GMO policies in the South do not simply follow the binary logic of the US–EU regulatory conflict. Instead, they integrate elements from both regulatory approaches and are steering a course that suggests substantial regulatory diversity in the South. The globalization of biotechnology thus goes hand in hand with regulatory diversity in the developing world. Furthermore, regulatory polarization between the EU and US has helped to open up political space in key developing countries.     

商的正当性与儒的新出路：余英时对韦伯论题的回应

揭示现代理性资本主义精神的宗教起源和追索现代理性资本主义所承载的伦理精神,乃韦伯论题的一体两面,而重塑现代资本主义的伦理精神则是潜藏在韦伯竭力避免“价值判断和信仰判断”的科学话语之下的一个意图。余英时对“韦伯论题”的承接,一方面纠正了韦伯在一定程度上对于中国宗教特别是对于近世儒家工作伦理的误读;另一方面他试图得出“恰好与韦伯相反”的结论,即中国近世的宗教伦理,尤其是儒家伦理,能够“为中国资本主义的出现提供精神的基础”的努力,则并不完全成功。而余英时对“韦伯论题”论述方向的转换,则通过对明清儒学、儒士之“转向”的考察分析,表达了一个与韦伯不一样的关怀,那就是,在新的政治社会生态下,何处是儒学、儒士,特别是作为儒士后代传人的现代知识人新的出路、新的安身立命之所。     

Migration and Healthcare Reforms in Spain: Symbolic Politics,Converging Outputs,Oppositions from the Field

ABSTRACT

Migrants’ healthcare entitlement represents a conflictive issue in the political battlefield, with research pointing towards the determinant role of party politics in determining policy outputs. Addressing the 2012 healthcare reform and 2018 counter-reform adopted in Spain by a right-wing and left-wing government respectively and drawing on qualitative analysis of parties’ discourses and policy measures, we argue that ideological differences along the healthcare-migration nexus were overemphasised to play symbolic politics. Partisan competition had less impact on actual outputs, while clashes between the central and regional governments, path-dependent practices and opposition from multiple venues played a central role in the policymaking process.     

The GE/Honeywell merger controversy and the path to analytical convergence in international merger assessment: A critical commentary

Globalisation, with its concomitant rise in international merger activity, allied to the proliferation of merger control regimes vetting such activity, increases the likelihood of two or more competition authorities reaching divergent decisions in the same case. This article reveals that this situation arose in the proposed merger between two US-based companies, General Electric (GE) and Honeywell, with the EU prohibiting the merger, and the US Department of Justice approving it. Further, it discusses the analytical and interpretational differences which led to those divergent outcomes. The analytical debate centres on the appropriateness of the two theoretical approaches used to assess proposed mergers, with the EU using the range effects of competitive harm approach and the US giving greater weight to an economic efficiencies merger defence. The fallout from the GE/Honeywell case has given added impetus to progress analytical convergence in relation to the vetting of international mergers. This has found expression at the multilateral level, which links to EU initiatives. The article predicts that the EU is highly likely to incorporate an economic efficiencies defence into its merger control law, bringing it into line with other key players. Of course, analytical convergence cannot guarantee that interpretational differences will not arise, as was evident in aspects of the GE/Honeywell case. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

欧美合同冲突法中意思自治原则的趋同化——从经济效率角度分析

比较欧美有关合同冲突立法中的意思自治原则可以发现,两者都将意思自治作为法律选择的首要方法,并且对于意思自治的限度呈现出在普通合同领域逐渐放松,在特殊合同领域渐趋加强的共同趋势。此种共同趋势的出现并不是偶然的,而是可以从经济效率角度作出解释。     

论地方政府竞争导致区域产业政策趋同的机理

在区域经济的发展过程中,地方政府之间日益激烈的竞争必然会造成区域之间的产业政策趋同。这对于区域经济的协调发展和长远发展极为不利。化解问题应当靠提高中央政府的宏观调控水平,强化地方政府的责、权、利边界,引导地方政府在区域产业政策中体现差异性。