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The question of whether and how communication departments contribute to organizational value creation has rarely been addressed in research. Such evidence is crucial, however, as communications compete internally with other functions (e.g. marketing and human resources (HR)) for budgets and staff. This article fills the gap by applying the business model concept, an established approach from management theory and practice, to communication units.

Based on an interdisciplinary literature review, the authors propose the Communication Business Model (CBM) as a new management approach for communications. To this end, pertinent definitions, frameworks and typologies of business models are analyzed and combined with insights from corporate communications literature.

The CBM outlines the generic architecture of business models for communication departments. Such models describe the basic principles of how such a unit operates, what services and products it provides, how it creates value for an organization and what revenues and resources are allocated.

The approach stimulates the debate on communication units as objects of observation when researching communication management practices. Further research with appropriate empirical methods is needed to identify and study different types of business models for communications.

The CBM can be used as a management tool to analyze, explain and innovate communication management in organizations. It is a fertile approach for communication practitioners to make the work of their department visible and to position themselves internally and externally.

Transferring a well-known concept from general management to communication management enriches the value creation debate in theory and practice. It allows communication leaders to align their work with organizational goals and make it accessible to top management and other decision-makers in the organization. It also opens up new avenues for research and education.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Communication departments are increasing in importance and scope to generate value for the organization. By adopting a business model approach, firms become able to optimize the services provide by communication departments, and to identify how to maximize value and enhance the efficiency of communications management.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this study is to learn what factors liaison librarians in academic research libraries consider in determining whether to refer chat reference patrons to subject specialists.

Subject specialists were asked what policies guided their decisions to refer to a specialist and then assessed unreferred chat session transcripts both within and outside their specializations to determine need for a referral.

Few respondents were guided by formal policies. Contrary to an initial hypothesis, subject area was not a key factor in referring chat. A broader set of criteria included reference interviewing, provision of relevant resources and information literacy instruction. Respondents valued both the depth that subject specialists can provide to reference interactions and the ability of a skilled generalist to support information literacy.

Findings are most applicable to large, public doctoral universities with liaison librarian programs. Assignment of respondents to subject specialist categories was complicated by their broad range of background and expertise.

The study contributes new understanding of referrals to subject specialists who have potential to guide development of formal referral policies in academic library virtual reference services.

The study is the first empirical examination of chat reference referral decisions.

Qualitative methodology is used to examine social and dialogic interactions, in a fifth‐grade classroom known as ‘Freedom Falls’. The author discusses social interaction through dialogue as a means of constructing a democratic classroom community for students. In this case study, through descriptive data, classroom dialogue is examined from the collective group to individual members. The author explains how she discovered that meanings about democracy in the classroom were transferred from the collective group to the individual members, and ways of expressing democratic practices in the classroom enhanced students’ participation as active classroom members responsible for their classroom culture.

While the need for leadership in health care is well recognised, there is still the need to better understand how leadership contributes to improving healthcare services. The body of knowledge concerning improvement has grown significantly in recent years, but evidence about links between leadership and health services improvement remains poor, especially within the UK National Health Service. It remains unclear how and why leadership is important to service improvement, and how leadership development can optimise service improvement.This paper describes a study commissioned by The Health Foundation, exploring the links between leadership behaviours reported by clinicians and managers in NHS organisations and their service improvement work. The study highlights leadership behaviours that appear to be positively associated with NHS improvement work. This paper provides insights into which aspects of leadership are used for different types of improvement work and considers lessons for leadership development.

Traditional boundaries formed by geography, governance structure, and type of library are being set aside as libraries face an issue of common concern: equity of access. Demand from library users, pressure from funding sources, and the high cost of automation, connectivity, and information are resulting in a greater realization of common interests within the library community. Libraries not only are joining together, but also are forging partnerships with government, education, business, and other nonprofit organizations.

Residential college campuses remain dangerous – especially for women students who face a persistent threat of sexual violence, despite passage of the 1990 Campus Security Act and its multiple amendments. Campuses have developed new programming, yet recent research confirms one in five women will experience some form of sexual assault before graduating. Research on campus crime legislation does not describe in detail the context in which it developed. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the effects of early rhetorical frames on the ineffective policy.

The authors discuss the rhetorical construction of “campus crime,” and related “criminals” and “victims,” through content analysis and a close interpretive reading of related newspaper articles.

The 1986 violent rape and murder of Jeanne Clery at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania became iconic in media descriptions of campus crime. Media drew attention to the racial and classed dimensions of the attack on Clery, but elided the misogyny central to all sexual assaults. This reinforced a stereotype that “insiders” on campuses, primarily white and middle class, were most vulnerable to “outsider” attacks by persons of color. Colleges and universities adopted rhetoric of “endangerment” and “unreason” and focused on what potential victims could do to protect themselves, ignoring the role of students in perpetrating crime.

This analysis does not link rhetoric in newspapers to legislative discussion. Further analysis is necessary to confirm the impact of particular claims and to understand why some claims may have superseded others.

This analysis focuses critical attention on how campus crime policy is shaped by cultural frames.

When the vice president of operations for Casual Corner, the $600 million retail women's clothing chain, left his position, it was for reasons unrelated to compensation. He felt that the parent company, U.S. Shoe Corporation, should have continued his division's historical autonomy—a move that perhaps would have enhanced its financial position. Had that been the case, perhaps this vice president, Joe Corso, and other top managers would still be working for the company today. But with declines in corporate profitability, U.S. Shoe imposed strong corporate controls that crimped Corso's management style and curtailed his growth.

This work presents a model of a two-period economy to discuss the link between the precautionary motivation for holding international reserves and the country's monetary policy concerns due to a crisis.

There are two possible states of nature in the second period of the economy: a normal state and a crisis state. These states of nature represent uncertainty to the policy maker and he can insure against a crisis. The household has a constant-elasticity-of-substitution (CES) utility function, where utility depends on consumption and money.

By allowing money in the utility function and in the household financial constraint and considering that the objective of the central bank is to smooth inflation, it is concluded that monetary policy plays a role in the precautionary motivation of holding international reserves.

The model can be used to calculate optimal reserves holdings in its complete or even in its simplified version. Furthermore, it is possible to evaluate the impact of the intra-temporal substitution elasticity between consumption and real money in the decision of accumulating international reserves.

Higher intra-temporal substitution elasticities implies in more insurance via international reserves, and this discussion is not found in the existent literature on international reserves.