Specifics and Features of Outsourcing Marketing Communications Activity

The constant development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has led to numerous social and economic changes. In this article, we aimed to identify the framework of use of new technologies in the process of customer value management from the perspective of sustainable development in the context of the concept of the engaged customer. The research objective involves an empirical verification of the forms of customer engagement from the point of view of the utilisation of ICT. To discover and explore the patterns that follow, research based on quantitative methods was carried out. The study was conducted with a sample of 1134 individual respondents from Poland, which is one of the biggest and fastest growing e-market in Europe. The findings prove that in the process of customer value management, informal communication, both offline and online plays a critical role. From the perspective of business practice, a company should stimulate customer engagement by making use of the online environment, thus gaining greater control over the entire process of co-creation of value for both customers and itself. Taking advantage of ICT in the process of customer value management is highly relevant and much desired during the time of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

W artykule przedstawiono specyfikę kryzysów w mediach społecznościowych. Omówiono znaczenie i możliwe konsekwencje pojawienia się negatywnych wpisów użytkowników serwisów społecznościowych dotyczących organizacji. W oparciu o przegląd literatury, własne doświadczenia oraz analizę studiów przypadku wskazano różnice pomiędzy kryzysami wizerunkowymi w mediach tradycyjnych oraz w social media. Zwrócono między innymi uwagę na wysoki poziom spontaniczności i szybkości reakcji użytkowników social media oraz wynikającą z tego wysoką dynamikę przebiegu sytuacji kryzysowych.

This study revisits the globalisation–sustainability nexus by focusing on the divergence between formal policy commitments and realised integration. While the 2030 Agenda assumes coherence across the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), empirical evidence increasingly points to uneven progress and systemic trade-offs. We introduce the concept of the globalisation implementation gap, defined as the normalised difference between de jure commitments and de facto integration, and examine its impact on SDG performance. Using a panel dataset of 101 countries over the period of 2000–2023 (N = 2197), we construct gap indices based on the KOF Globalisation framework and estimate two-way fixed-effects models with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors. The results reveal a significant negative association between implementation gaps and overall SDG performance. However, this relationship is highly heterogeneous across goals. Larger gaps are strongly negatively associated with social outcomes, particularly poverty reduction (SDG 1), clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), and sustainable cities (SDG 11), while being positively associated with certain environmental outcomes, including responsible consumption (SDG 12) and apparent biodiversity protection (SDG 15)—the latter, however, is interpreted as associational only, given evidence of reverse causation in placebo lead-testing. Further analysis using panel threshold regression demonstrates that governance quality moderates this relationship non-linearly. Above a critical threshold of institutional quality, the magnitude of the negative gap–SDG association increases substantially, suggesting that stronger governance amplifies rather than buffers the association. In addition, Gaussian mixture clustering identifies three distinct country archetypes (Balanced, Informal, and Policy-Led Integrators). A diagnostic placebo lead test indicates that the SDG 15 association is associational rather than causal (likely reverse causation), and the result for SDG 15 is therefore reported with that caveat. Each is characterised by different gap structures and sustainability trade-offs. Overall, the findings shift the perspective from a uniform globalisation–SDG relationship to a goal-specific and governance-contingent framework. The study highlights the importance of aligning policy commitments with actual integration processes and provides policy-relevant insights for managing SDG trade-offs under conditions of globalisation. The headline gap–SDG association is conditional on the listwise sample of 101 countries with complete data and on Driscoll–Kraay variance estimation; sensitivity analyses show that the result attenuates under multiple imputation on the full 208-country panel and loses statistical significance under cluster-robust standard errors, while the political-channel decomposition and the governance threshold remain robust under both stress tests.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in creating online advertisements and posts. Yet, its prominent role in content creation remains often undisclosed due to potential aversive consumer reactions. In three studies, we examined how advertisers can transparently disclose AI authorship in ads without compromising marketing effectiveness. Study 1 was a proof-of-concept study, revealing that humor could alleviate negative evaluations (when the joke was less funny, AI received more negative ratings than a human author; however, when the joke was funnier, AI received similar ratings to a human author). Study 2 incorporated jokes into disclosures about AI authorship in advertising and found that humor reduced the negative effect of AI authorship because it shortened the psychological distance toward AI, positively impacting purchase intentions. Study 3 replicated these effects and tested a boundary condition, showing that humor mitigated algorithm aversion only when it was sufficiently funny.