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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore consumers’ responses to emotional and normative communication in comparison with traditional informational campaigns promoting pro-environmental behavior in the context of biodiversity. By adopting the approach of likeability of the communication, the paper identifies which type of communication strategy is liked by consumers’ and which dimensions define likeability in the context of biodiversity. The goal is to improve the effectiveness of communication messages delivered by social marketers or public policy makers through a better understanding of consumers’ responses to different communication strategies. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate which communications strategies are perceived as likeable in the context of promoting biodiversity and to explore the dimensions that underlie likeability of the communication a qualitative study was conducted. First, the information design with the different communication strategies has been developed. Second, focused interviews with 25 individuals have been conducted. Findings – Results indicate that communication strategies using positive emotions led to most favorable responses. Further, findings suggest that informational strategies seem to result in positive attitudes when they tap on procedural knowledge. Favorable judgments are linked with communication strategies that create awareness or which are relevant and informative. Research limitations/implications – Further empirical research is suggested exploring consumers’ responses to communication strategies that combine emotions and facts. Practical implications – Based on the findings of this study, social marketers and public policy makers are recommended to use a combination of communication strategies that evoke positive emotions and provide consumers with the facts necessary to take action. Originality/value – The paper allows for an integrated view and contributes to an increased understanding of responses to communication strategies and provides valuable practical implications for social marketers and public policy makers.

PurposeIn a time where stakeholders increasingly demand social, environmental, and economic sustainability, mismanaging suppliers can impose substantial sustainability risks for a company and harm its reputation and business severely. This research explores the implementation of a corporate sustainable supplier strategy designed to cope with such risks from an agency theory perspective.Design/methodology/approachA case study of a multinational enterprise, a provider of leading mobility solutions in the realm of escalators, moving walkways and elevators, is conducted. Data is collected from multiple sources of evidence, including strategy documents, a focus group and semi-structured interviews.FindingsThe study identifies several implementation challenges and coping mechanisms in firstly, the agency relationships between the headquarter and the regional subsidiary units and secondly, the relationships between the regional subsidiary units and their suppliers.Research limitations/implicationsA framework conceptualising the implementation of sustainable supplier strategies is proposed. The framework positions the topic at the interface between supply chain sustainability risk, supplier quality management as well as agency relationships and identifies avenues for further research. The key limitations refer to the single case study methodology and the exclusion of suppliers in the data collection approach.Practical implicationsThe proposed framework can support multinational enterprises in developing corporate sustainability strategies and in implementing them in the supplier network.Originality/valueThe originality of the framework lies in the integrated approach combining supply chain sustainability risk, supplier quality management and triadic agency relationships.

The sharing economy offers great potential for companies to access resources in a more sustainable way, to create knowledge synergies or to save costs. This potential is particularly attractive to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as it provides access to scarce resources that otherwise are not affordable. However, sharing resources in B2B is not yet widespread. Therefore, in this project, which is supported by the Swiss federation, we aimed at promoting sharing between SMEs. To do so, we developed tools supporting different phases of sharing projects. This paper focuses on the initial phase of a sharing project where SMEs interested in sharing need to find partners. The tool we developed for that purpose supports partner matching. To develop the tool, we started with an extensive literature review to identify the factors that contribute to a successful sharing. This review revealed a total of about 40 success factors. From these, the most critical factors were selected through expert judgment and testing as described below. This resulted in a final set of 16 factors deemed important and demonstrated to be distinctive. Expert judgment to validate the success factors was conducted by the means of interviews (n=10) with representatives of Swiss SMEs interested in B2B sharing. Beside factor validation, results from the interviews showed that companies have a very heterogeneous understanding of what factors are important for a successful sharing. The importance assigned to the different success factors seemed to strongly depend on characteristics of the resource to be shared and on the importance of a particular resource to the individual SME's business. We concluded that consensus on the importance of success factors is not a prerequisite for successful sharing. Rather, it is important that the different objectives and associated expectations for sharing are not incompatible. Thus, the success factors can help identify potential areas of incompatibility and thus clarify where consensus needs to be found and where heterogeneous views will not have a negative impact on a successful partnership. To test the success factors, we operationalized and integrated them into a diagnostic tool that allows interested companies to self-assess and enables them to find potentially suitable sharing partners. This tool was tested by Swiss SMEs (n=10). Based on the tests, two version of the diagnostic tool were developed: A short version with five items that supports platform-based online matching, and a long version with 16 items that supports a more comprehensive negotiating process between partners willing to share resources. The two versions of the tool, the operationalized criteria as well as the tool application will be presented in the paper.