In this paper, we investigate whether and to what extent exposure to a company's social media activities over time is beneficial for corporate reputation, and whether conversational human voice mediates this relation. In a two-wave longitudinal survey among 1969 respondents, we assessed consumers' exposure to an international airline's social media activities, perceived level of conversational human voice and perception of corporate reputation. The results show that consumers' level of exposure to company social media activities precedes perceptions of corporate reputation. Also, conversational human voice mediates the relation between consumers' level of exposure to company social media activities and perceptions of corporate reputation. We discuss the implications of the results for the presence of organizations in social media.
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This research demonstrates the power and robustness of the vocabulary method by Hernández-Rubio et al. (2019) for aspect extraction from online review data. We showcase that this algorithm not only works on the English language based on the CoreNLP toolkit, but also extend it on the Dutch language, specifically with aid of the Frog toolkit. Results on sampled datasets for three different retailers show that it can be used to extract fine-grained aspects that are relevant to acquire corporate reputation insights.
Attracting the best candidates online for job vacancies has become a challenging task for companies. One thing that could influence the attractiveness of organisations for employees is their reputation that is an essential component of marketing research and plays a crucial role in customer and employee acquisition and retention. Prior research has shown the importance for companies to improve their corporate reputation (CR) for its effect on attracting the best candidates for job vacancies. Company ratings and vacancy advertisements are nowadays a massive, rich valued, online data source for forming opinions regarding corporations. This study focuses on the effect of CR cues that are present in the description of online vacancies on vacancy attractiveness. Our findings show that departments that are responsible for writing vacancy descriptions are recommended to include the CR themes citizenship, leadership, innovation, and governance and to exclude performance. This will increase vacancies’ attractiveness which helps prevent labour shortage.
Aeres University of Applied Sciences has placed internationalisation as a key driver in its overall strategy. By prioritising the internationalisation of education and educational consultancy the university has created solid opportunities for students, lecturers, and partners at regional, national, and international levels. Currently, more strategic development on internationalisation in applied research at Aeres is needed. There is an opportunity to utilise highly proficient researchers, state-of-the-art facilities, and an impressive national research portfolio, and for this, there is a need to develop international research agenda, a key priority for AeresResearch4EU. To address this need, Aeres University of Applied Sciences aims to strengthen its internationalisation efforts with its research activities, opening the door to many opportunities, and most importantly, creating an international research agenda spanning the university's three locations. The main objectives of AeresResearch4EU are to analyse the existing research strategy and professorships and develop them towards a global research agenda for the European Union. By focusing on international research projects, Aeres can further enhance its reputation as a leading institution for applied research in agriculture, food, environment, and green technologies. AeresResearch4EU aims to create new partnerships and collaborations with researchers and institutions across Europe, allowing Aeres to contribute to developing innovative and sustainable solutions to global challenges. With its strong commitment to internationalisation and its focus on applied research, Aeres University of Applied Sciences is poised to become an essential player in the European research landscape.
The project is a field study for several diverse hotel chains, including individual properties operated under the Marriott brand, Postillion Hotels. Each brand has unique values, missions, and visions. Therefore, this integration will lead to the development of company-specific sustainability strategies and processes. The study will use the model of levers of control to provide such tailor-made solutions and determine if a generic approach can be developed to match a corporate sustainability strategy with a corporate strategy and develop a supporting management control system for operationalizing the sustainability strategy. Research question: How can a hotel brand formulate and implement a sustainability strategy with a supporting management control system that not only complies with the new CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) legislation but also emphasizes the creation of substantial value in financial and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) aspects, based on double materiality, in line with the organization's corporate values and beliefs? Objective The aim is to develop a validated method, including tools, that hotels can use to create a sustainability strategy in line with the CSRD guidelines. This strategy should create value for the organization, the environment, and society, while aligning with the hotel's values and beliefs. Merely being compliant with the CSRD is not enough for hotels. Instead, they should view the implementation of the CSRD as an opportunity to stand out in terms of sustainability. By creating value in areas such as environment, safety, and governance, or through the six capitals (financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social and relationship, and natural) that align with the UN-SDGs, and explicitly taking both an inside-out and an outside in perspective (double materiality), hotels can significantly enhance their sustainability reputation.
Client: Foundation Innovation Alliance (SIA - Stichting Innovatie Alliantie) with funding from the ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) Funder: RAAK (Regional Attention and Action for Knowledge circulation) The RAAK scheme is managed by the Foundation Innovation Alliance (SIA - Stichting Innovatie Alliantie) with funding from the ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW). Early 2013 the Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport started work on the RAAK-MKB project ‘Carbon management for tour operators’ (CARMATOP). Besides NHTV, eleven Dutch SME tour operators, ANVR, HZ University of Applied Sciences, Climate Neutral Group and ECEAT initially joined this 2-year project. The consortium was later extended with IT-partner iBuildings and five more tour operators. The project goal of CARMATOP was to develop and test new knowledge about the measurement of tour package carbon footprints and translate this into a simple application which allows tour operators to integrate carbon management into their daily operations. By doing this Dutch tour operators are international frontrunners.Why address the carbon footprint of tour packages?Global tourism contribution to man-made CO2 emissions is around 5%, and all scenarios point towards rapid growth of tourism emissions, whereas a reverse development is required in order to prevent climate change exceeding ‘acceptable’ boundaries. Tour packages have a high long-haul and aviation content, and the increase of this type of travel is a major factor in tourism emission growth. Dutch tour operators recognise their responsibility, and feel the need to engage in carbon management.What is Carbon management?Carbon management is the strategic management of emissions in one’s business. This is becoming more important for businesses, also in tourism, because of several economical, societal and political developments. For tour operators some of the most important factors asking for action are increasing energy costs, international aviation policy, pressure from society to become greener, increasing demand for green trips, and the wish to obtain a green image and become a frontrunner among consumers and colleagues in doing so.NetworkProject management was in the hands of the Centre for Sustainable Tourism and Transport (CSTT) of NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences. CSTT has 10 years’ experience in measuring tourism emissions and developing strategies to mitigate emissions, and enjoys an international reputation in this field. The ICT Associate Professorship of HZ University of Applied Sciences has longstanding expertise in linking varying databases of different organisations. Its key role in CARMATOP was to create the semantic wiki for the carbon calculator, which links touroperator input with all necessary databases on carbon emissions. Web developer ibuildings created the Graphical User Interface; the front end of the semantic wiki. ANVR, the Dutch Association of Travel Agents and Tour operators, represents 180 tour operators and 1500 retail agencies in the Netherlands, and requires all its members to meet a minimum of sustainable practices through a number of criteria. ANVR’s role was in dissemination, networking and ensuring CARMATOP products will last. Climate Neutral Group’s experience with sustainable entrepreneurship and knowledge about carbon footprint (mitigation), and ECEAT’s broad sustainable tourism network, provided further essential inputs for CARMATOP. Finally, most of the eleven tour operators are sustainable tourism frontrunners in the Netherlands, and are the driving forces behind this project.
