Conference Agenda

Purpose: The role of business in stabilizing societies, improving democratic conditions, and promoting human rights has increased during the past decade. Business role in conflict mitigation actions has been acknowledged but its effects are less well-studied. This study examines the relations between publics’ satisfaction with corporate conflict engagement actions and publics' perceptions of corporate goodwill, their intentions to financially support the company, and to positively communicate about these actions to others.

Design/methodology/approach: An experimental between-subject research design is used to manipulate publics’ perceptions of different corporate engagement actions. Respondents from consumer panels in Finland and Sweden will be exposed to four experimental conditions representing four different corporate engagement actions undertaken by a focal organization during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Findings: The findings will shed some light into the types of corporate conflict engagement actions that produce positive public acceptance, corporate goodwill perceptions and positive public behavioral intentions. It will also address the main factors influencing these outcomes.

Originality: The results will add important and novel understanding of a new business role during conflicts, thus contributing to literature on CSR, conflict management, and corporate reputation.

Practical implications: The study will offer empirical evidence on what types of corporate conflict engagement actions are expected by publics on business organizations and whether meeting or not meeting such expectations translate in public support or opposition towards business organizations.

This study addresses how multinational corporations (MNCs) engage in corporate diplomacy during the Russia-Ukraine war. Using political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) as a theoretical framework to advance the meaning of corporate diplomacy, this study explores how MNCs communicate with foreign publics and align their actions with their home countries’ national interests. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of new releases of Fortune Global 500 companies. Preliminary findings indicated that multinational corporations explained the actions that are taken to provide a safe space for the victims of the war in their news releases and their responses have changed according to where the company is based. They also mentioned strengthening the power of public authorities through rebalancing the power between governments and intergovernmental initiatives under conditions of war.

On February 24, 2022, Russia attacked its neighboring country of Ukraine. From the early days of what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a special military operation, fears mounted that the conflict may grow into World War III, causing Russia and the United States to engage in nuclear warfare effectively ending the whole world in a nuclear Armageddon. This study compares the current views of American and Russian youths on the issues of global nuclear war testing their attitudes toward nuclear war and nuclear weapons, their likelihood to support the first nuclear strike and nuclear retaliation, and their willingness to sacrifice their lives in a nuclear conflict. The study relies on the co-orientation theory to measure the levels of agreement, congruency, and accuracy for the peoples of both countries on the issues related to the nuclear conflict. The results show that Americans and Russians are currently in a state of failed co-orientation – a newly-discovered state in the co-orientation theory – when it comes to their opinions on nuclear war and nuclear weapons. Additionally, the study provides recommendations for strategic public diplomacy efforts to improve mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States of America and the Russian Federation.

Our research documents the experiences of business leaders’ responsibilities and communications in wartime Ukraine. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the owners and managers of 20 Ukrainian companies, spanning both sectors and geography of the country, we illuminate various dimensions of Ukrainian senior leadership response to the crisis, and contribute this to the current literature on crisis management and communications responsibility. As we know almost nothing about the crisis management of companies located in a warzone, the overall goal of this paper is to contribute to this under-researched area. The paper brings some first insights and answers to the following three research questions: How prepared were the Ukrainian companies for this war, and what have they learned from previous crises? How resilient are the business leaders in their handling of the wartime? What is the role of leadership and internal communications? Among the findings of the study are insights into the crisis experiences and crisis preparedness of Ukrainian managers, and how they have practiced an emergent approach to managing their changed and still-changing situations. Their responsibility has been consistently guided by a “people-first” focus on employee welfare as both a social and business priority. Further we document how leadership communications has featured a prospective vision and a discourse of renewal beyond rebuilding, as a bulwark against organizational and societal upheaval. These insights contribute to academic work within crisis leadership and communications responsibility and are relevant to leadership resilience in other societies and situations exposed to external shocks.