Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how large, public companies in the health industry communicatively engage in employer branding on career homepages.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory content analysis of the career homepages (N = 42; 8,500) was conducted to analyze the communication of successful organizations in four realms of the public health-care industry to include Biotech (n =10), Managed Health Care (n = 8), Medical and Equipment Supplies (n = 12) and Pharmaceuticals (n = 12).
Findings
The analysis revealed the following ten major themes of content: Worldview, Stakeholders, Environment, Excellence, Dedication, Aid, Unity, Advancement, Distinctiveness and Industry/Organization. Additionally, the results revealed that health-care employer branding often communicated about Stakeholders, Industry/Organization and Advancement.
Research limitations/implications
The results of this study aid researchers in understanding the foundational content of employee branding efforts in the health industry.
Practical implications
The results assist practitioners in understanding how different health-care industries and organizations engage in employer branding on career homepages.
Originality/value
The results of this study function to both confirm previous findings related to employer branding and extend research on employer branding into the career homepages of organizations in the health-care industry.
This study explored how empirical business research is translated into business information for professional use within online news media reports. A hybrid approach to thematic analysis was utilized to investigate a sample of new media reports (N ¼ 53) on recent business research. The analysis revealed that the news media reports generally (1) contained informational categories pertaining to those typically detailed in social-scientific research and (2) utilized either a negative or positive frame for communicating research results. The results of this study reinforce the conceptualization of news media outlets as an intermediary in knowledge mobilization of business information. Additionally, the results of this study identify communicative strategies utilized in news media reports on business research that may allow business information creators to understand how research may be conveyed to knowledge managers and practitioners.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify how the US Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) communicatively engaged in legitimization concerning accreditation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilized the rhetorical analysis approach outlined by Hoffman and Ford (2010) to explore the accreditation-related texts from an online source created by CHEA, Information About Accreditation.
Findings
The analysis identified three overarching approaches to include: isomorphism to address regulatory legitimacy, organizational identity management to address pragmatic legitimacy, and a dialogic approach to address normative legitimacy. This analysis also developed a new theoretical model for the rhetorical construction of legitimacy, “A Model for the Rhetorical Construction of Legitimacy,” that can be summarized as: organizations foster a type of legitimacy through a legitimizing strategy by demonstrating how the purpose of the legitimizing strategy is achieved by the implementation of the legitimizing strategy.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations include that data were gathered only from online, web-based texts during a period in which the rhetorical situation was ongoing.
Practical implications
This study expands research concerning the rhetorical approach to issues management in that it examines the way legitimacy is negotiated through the various rhetorical strategies of an organization. Additionally, information is offered about the rhetorical structure of texts when an organization seeks to legitimize certain ideas.
Originality/value
This analysis developed a theoretical model for the rhetorical construction of legitimacy, “A Model for the Rhetorical Construction of Legitimacy,” that demonstrates important relationships between legitimizing strategies and types of legitimacy. Understanding these relationships may allow for a better interpretation of how legitimacy theory is represented within a communicative venture.
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