Organisations in the Media
Lecture notes and extra explanations
, Lecture 1: Organizations and corporate reputation
An organisation is…
- A group of people working together to reach a goal.
- For example: a market opportunity (Tesla is the first company to produce
electric cars on a large scale).
- By using their environment.
- Organizational environment (resources, personel).
- Political and social boundaries.
- They accomplish tasks and use technologies
- They encounter uncertainties
- Crucial factor → societal developments, political debates, availability of
resources.
- They need leadership: leaders develop strategies that help to reach goals
- Leaders develop strategies through a certain vision → think of Elon Musk at
Tesla.
- Structures and processes help with coordinating these tasks.
- Structures are the relatively stable, observable distributions of work and
responsibilities across the divisions of organization.
- For example: dividing a business in teams.
- Processes are the less directly observable dynamic activities.
- Incentives make (groups of ) individuals work within those structures.
Differences between organizations
- Contingency theory: ‘organizations differ from each other because they have to
adapt to different circumstances.’
- For example: new telephone provider → offering the same services, but look
completely different as a company = consequence of the environment.
- Internal: tasks, size and strategic decisions.
- External: technological, legal, economical, political, demographical,
ecological and cultural developments.
- For example: new demands for climate change, economical changes
and of course the pandemic.
- … including the media landscape.
1
, - Specific factor that affects organizational life, because organizations
take information provided by the media and process it within the
organization.
Why are media relevant to organizations?
- The organization’s environment influences the organization.
- Media are an autonomous aspect of this environment as well as an intermediate
between other parts of the environment and the organization.
- Journalists determine what is going on in the media, organizations don’t have
much influence. It’s an intermediate between the media and the consumers,
because they receive their information from the media as well → duality of the
media.
Differences between organizations
- Goal.
- Ownership.
- Financing.
- Size.
- …
- → (Survival common ground in all companies, it’s the bottomline).
Media in the organizational environment
- Media report in a critical, neutral or favorable way.
- On both social and traditional media.
- They (thus) inform stakeholders such as citizens/clients, competitors, the political
realm, investors etc.
- They also can lead to organizational anticipation: the possibility of coverage is taken
into account for decision-making.
- This is linked to the mediatization theory.
- Based on previous decisions and their coverage in the media, both positive
and negative → organizations can get risk averse.
Reputation and legitimacy
- To some extent the two factors an organization's cares most about, excluding
survival.
2
, - Legitimacy → is a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity
are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed systems of
norms, values, beliefs and definitions.
- … but: legitimacy and its dimensions are analytic concepts, not fully
separable empirical phenomena.
- Legitimacy is questioned → as an organization always involved in the public
debate.
- Reputation → is a generalized expectation about a firm’s future behavior or
performance based on collective perceptions (either direct or, more often, vicarious)
of past behavior or performance.
- … embedded in a network of multiple audiences.
- Evaluation of specific aspects of the organization, that gives information about
the future of the organization.
- Information from the past can have an influence on the reputation.
- For example: difference between Tesla and Volkswagen. Tesla is
making electric cars from the beginning and Volkswagen just had a
scandal about theri petrol cars which needed to be solved, what
reputation is better?
- Investors base their investments on the reputation of an organization.
Corporate reputation
- The public constructs a reputation based on direct experiences and information on
organizations and their competitors.
- Sum of attributes.
- Media are a really important source when it comes to providing information
about organizations, both positive and negative information.
Most important attributes of reputations .
- Familiarity → knowing the companies or its products well.
- Creating value → producing high quality products, providing value for money.
- Operational capability → being well-run, efficient and productive.
- Corporate citizenship → caring about its employees/the community.
3
Lecture notes and extra explanations
, Lecture 1: Organizations and corporate reputation
An organisation is…
- A group of people working together to reach a goal.
- For example: a market opportunity (Tesla is the first company to produce
electric cars on a large scale).
- By using their environment.
- Organizational environment (resources, personel).
- Political and social boundaries.
- They accomplish tasks and use technologies
- They encounter uncertainties
- Crucial factor → societal developments, political debates, availability of
resources.
- They need leadership: leaders develop strategies that help to reach goals
- Leaders develop strategies through a certain vision → think of Elon Musk at
Tesla.
- Structures and processes help with coordinating these tasks.
- Structures are the relatively stable, observable distributions of work and
responsibilities across the divisions of organization.
- For example: dividing a business in teams.
- Processes are the less directly observable dynamic activities.
- Incentives make (groups of ) individuals work within those structures.
Differences between organizations
- Contingency theory: ‘organizations differ from each other because they have to
adapt to different circumstances.’
- For example: new telephone provider → offering the same services, but look
completely different as a company = consequence of the environment.
- Internal: tasks, size and strategic decisions.
- External: technological, legal, economical, political, demographical,
ecological and cultural developments.
- For example: new demands for climate change, economical changes
and of course the pandemic.
- … including the media landscape.
1
, - Specific factor that affects organizational life, because organizations
take information provided by the media and process it within the
organization.
Why are media relevant to organizations?
- The organization’s environment influences the organization.
- Media are an autonomous aspect of this environment as well as an intermediate
between other parts of the environment and the organization.
- Journalists determine what is going on in the media, organizations don’t have
much influence. It’s an intermediate between the media and the consumers,
because they receive their information from the media as well → duality of the
media.
Differences between organizations
- Goal.
- Ownership.
- Financing.
- Size.
- …
- → (Survival common ground in all companies, it’s the bottomline).
Media in the organizational environment
- Media report in a critical, neutral or favorable way.
- On both social and traditional media.
- They (thus) inform stakeholders such as citizens/clients, competitors, the political
realm, investors etc.
- They also can lead to organizational anticipation: the possibility of coverage is taken
into account for decision-making.
- This is linked to the mediatization theory.
- Based on previous decisions and their coverage in the media, both positive
and negative → organizations can get risk averse.
Reputation and legitimacy
- To some extent the two factors an organization's cares most about, excluding
survival.
2
, - Legitimacy → is a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity
are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed systems of
norms, values, beliefs and definitions.
- … but: legitimacy and its dimensions are analytic concepts, not fully
separable empirical phenomena.
- Legitimacy is questioned → as an organization always involved in the public
debate.
- Reputation → is a generalized expectation about a firm’s future behavior or
performance based on collective perceptions (either direct or, more often, vicarious)
of past behavior or performance.
- … embedded in a network of multiple audiences.
- Evaluation of specific aspects of the organization, that gives information about
the future of the organization.
- Information from the past can have an influence on the reputation.
- For example: difference between Tesla and Volkswagen. Tesla is
making electric cars from the beginning and Volkswagen just had a
scandal about theri petrol cars which needed to be solved, what
reputation is better?
- Investors base their investments on the reputation of an organization.
Corporate reputation
- The public constructs a reputation based on direct experiences and information on
organizations and their competitors.
- Sum of attributes.
- Media are a really important source when it comes to providing information
about organizations, both positive and negative information.
Most important attributes of reputations .
- Familiarity → knowing the companies or its products well.
- Creating value → producing high quality products, providing value for money.
- Operational capability → being well-run, efficient and productive.
- Corporate citizenship → caring about its employees/the community.
3
