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research about business communication

  • 16 Feb 2024
  • Research & Ideas

Is Your Workplace Biased Against Introverts?

Extroverts are more likely to express their passion outwardly, giving them a leg up when it comes to raises and promotions, according to research by Jon Jachimowicz. Introverts are just as motivated and excited about their work, but show it differently. How can managers challenge their assumptions?

research about business communication

  • 06 Nov 2023

Did You Hear What I Said? How to Listen Better

People who seem like they're paying attention often aren't—even when they're smiling and nodding toward the speaker. Research by Alison Wood Brooks, Hanne Collins, and colleagues reveals just how prone the mind is to wandering, and sheds light on ways to stay tuned in to the conversation.

research about business communication

  • 31 Oct 2023

Checking Your Ethics: Would You Speak Up in These 3 Sticky Situations?

Would you complain about a client who verbally abuses their staff? Would you admit to cutting corners on your work? The answers aren't always clear, says David Fubini, who tackles tricky scenarios in a series of case studies and offers his advice from the field.

research about business communication

  • 24 Jul 2023

Part-Time Employees Want More Hours. Can Companies Tap This ‘Hidden’ Talent Pool?

Businesses need more staff and employees need more work, so what's standing in the way? A report by Joseph Fuller and colleagues shows how algorithms and inflexibility prevent companies from accessing valuable talent in a long-term shortage.

research about business communication

  • 23 Jun 2023

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

Dutch home health care organization Buurtzorg avoids middle management positions and instead empowers its nurses to care for patients as they see fit. Tatiana Sandino and Ethan Bernstein explore how removing organizational layers and allowing employees to make decisions can boost performance.

research about business communication

  • 24 Jan 2023

Passion at Work Is a Good Thing—But Only If Bosses Know How to Manage It

Does showing passion mean doing whatever it takes to get the job done? Employees and managers often disagree, says research by Jon Jachimowicz. He offers four pieces of advice for leaders who yearn for more spirit and intensity at their companies.

research about business communication

  • 10 Jan 2023

How to Live Happier in 2023: Diversify Your Social Circle

People need all kinds of relationships to thrive: partners, acquaintances, colleagues, and family. Research by Michael Norton and Alison Wood Brooks offers new reasons to pick up the phone and reconnect with that old friend from home.

research about business communication

  • 15 Nov 2022

Why TikTok Is Beating YouTube for Eyeball Time (It’s Not Just the Dance Videos)

Quirky amateur video clips might draw people to TikTok, but its algorithm keeps them watching. John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld explore the factors that helped propel TikTok ahead of established social platforms, and where it might go next.

research about business communication

  • 03 Nov 2022

Feeling Separation Anxiety at Your Startup? 5 Tips to Soothe These Growing Pains

As startups mature and introduce more managers, early employees may lose the easy closeness they once had with founders. However, with transparency and healthy boundaries, entrepreneurs can help employees weather this transition and build trust, says Julia Austin.

research about business communication

  • 15 Sep 2022

Looking For a Job? Some LinkedIn Connections Matter More Than Others

Debating whether to connect on LinkedIn with that more senior executive you met at that conference? You should, says new research about professional networks by Iavor Bojinov and colleagues. That person just might help you land your next job.

research about business communication

  • 08 Sep 2022

Gen Xers and Millennials, It’s Time To Lead. Are You Ready?

Generation X and Millennials—eagerly waiting to succeed Baby Boom leaders—have the opportunity to bring more collaboration and purpose to business. In the book True North: Emerging Leader Edition, Bill George offers advice for the next wave of CEOs.

research about business communication

  • 05 Aug 2022

Why People Crave Feedback—and Why We’re Afraid to Give It

How am I doing? Research by Francesca Gino and colleagues shows just how badly employees want to know. Is it time for managers to get over their discomfort and get the conversation going at work?

research about business communication

  • 23 Jun 2022

All Those Zoom Meetings May Boost Connection and Curb Loneliness

Zoom fatigue became a thing during the height of the pandemic, but research by Amit Goldenberg shows how virtual interactions can provide a salve for isolation. What does this mean for remote and hybrid workplaces?

research about business communication

  • 13 Jun 2022

Extroverts, Your Colleagues Wish You Would Just Shut Up and Listen

Extroverts may be the life of the party, but at work, they're often viewed as phony and self-centered, says research by Julian Zlatev and colleagues. Here's how extroverts can show others that they're listening, without muting themselves.

research about business communication

  • 24 May 2022

Career Advice for Minorities and Women: Sharing Your Identity Can Open Doors

Women and people of color tend to minimize their identities in professional situations, but highlighting who they are often forces others to check their own biases. Research by Edward Chang and colleagues.

research about business communication

  • 12 May 2022

Why Digital Is a State of Mind, Not Just a Skill Set

You don't have to be a machine learning expert to manage a successful digital transformation. In fact, you only need 30 percent fluency in a handful of technical topics, say Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi in their book, The Digital Mindset.

research about business communication

  • 08 Feb 2022

Silos That Work: How the Pandemic Changed the Way We Collaborate

A study of 360 billion emails shows how remote work isolated teams, but also led to more intense communication within siloed groups. Will these shifts outlast the pandemic? Research by Tiona Zuzul and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

research about business communication

  • Cold Call Podcast

What’s Next for Nigerian Production Studio EbonyLife Media?

After more than 20 years in the media industry in the UK and Nigeria, EbonyLife Media CEO Mo Abudu is considering several strategic changes for her media company’s future. Will her mission to tell authentic African stories to the world be advanced by distributing films and TV shows direct to customers? Or should EbonyLife instead distribute its content through third-party streaming services, like Netflix? Assistant Professor Andy Wu discusses Abudu’s plans for her company in his case, EbonyLife Media. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

research about business communication

  • 11 Jan 2022

Feeling Seen: What to Say When Your Employees Are Not OK

Pandemic life continues to take its toll. Managers who let down their guard and acknowledge their employees' emotions can ease distress and build trust, says research by Julian Zlatev and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

research about business communication

  • 04 Jan 2022

Scrap the Big New Year's Resolutions. Make 6 Simple Changes Instead.

Self-improvement doesn't need to be painful, especially during a pandemic. Rather than set yet another gym goal, look inward, retrain your brain, and get outside, says Hirotaka Takeuchi. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

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How Great Leaders Communicate

  • Carmine Gallo

research about business communication

Four strategies to motivate and inspire your team.

Transformational leaders are exceptional communicators. In this piece, the author outlines four communication strategies to help motivate and inspire your team: 1) Use short words to talk about hard things. 2) Choose sticky metaphors to reinforce key concepts. 3) Humanize data to create value. 4). Make mission your mantra to align teams.

In the age of knowledge, ideas are the foundation of success in almost every field. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can’t persuade anyone else to follow your vision, your influence and impact will be greatly diminished. And that’s why communication is no longer considered a “soft skill” among the world’s top business leaders. Leaders who reach the top do not simply pay lip service to the importance of effective communication. Instead, they study the art in all its forms — writing, speaking, presenting — and constantly strive to improve on those skills.

research about business communication

  • Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

Partner Center

Module 4: Research

Why it matters: research, why learn traditional and online research methods.

Business communication, done well, requires thoughtful planning and carefully crafted media. Research is a key component of building good communication, and research, while perhaps hard to wrap one’s mind around, is like any other project.

Whether you present your communications over email, in a nice glossy, or even a video presentation, you will likely have to research topics in order to support your ideas. Doing research is important for good business communication.

In this module, we will discuss all manner of conducting research. Our guiding principles are from social science inquiry, which uses a fairly specific and largely agreed upon format.

As you consider the role of research in business communication, we invite you to ask yourself the following introspective questions:

  • How important is it to use reliable and factual sources and data when communicating in business?
  • Who is your audience? Do they require formal citation or other forms of attribution and credit?
  • How do you evaluate a source? How do you know if something is any good or not?

In this module, we will look at the above questions, and many more related topics around the idea of research. Before we begin, consider the messages in the following video from Microsoft Research:

What did you learn from the video? Broadly speaking, research is about finding out new things! In this sense, research can be fun and exciting. In this module, we hope you’ll be inspired to use research methods to learn new things, and communicate these new things effectively to people in your organization!

Contribute!

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  • Why It Matters: Research Process. Authored by : Freedom Learning Group. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
  • Why Research Matters. Authored by : Microsoft Research. Located at : https://youtu.be/jnVpC8qWO1s . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

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Social Media Adoption, Usage And Impact In Business-To-Business (B2B) Context: A State-Of-The-Art Literature Review

  • Open access
  • Published: 02 February 2021
  • Volume 25 , pages 971–993, ( 2023 )

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You have full access to this open access article

  • Yogesh K. Dwivedi 1 ,
  • Elvira Ismagilova 2 ,
  • Nripendra P. Rana 2 &
  • Ramakrishnan Raman 3  

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Social media plays an important part in the digital transformation of businesses. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) companies. The current study focuses on the number of aspects of social media such as the effect of social media, social media tools, social media use, adoption of social media use and its barriers, social media strategies, and measuring the effectiveness of use of social media. This research provides a valuable synthesis of the relevant literature on social media in B2B context by analysing, performing weight analysis and discussing the key findings from existing research on social media. The findings of this study can be used as an informative framework on social media for both, academic and practitioners.

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research about business communication

Use of Social Media by b2b Companies: Systematic Literature Review and Suggestions for Future Research

An exploratory investigation of social media adoption by small businesses.

Wu He, Feng-Kwei Wang, … Shenghua Zha

research about business communication

Using Social Media for Business: Tools, Benefits and Pitfalls

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

The Internet has changed social communications and social behaviour, which lead to the development of new forms of communication channels and platforms (Ismagilova et al. 2017 ). Social media plays an important part in the digital transformation of businesses (Kunsman 2018 ). Digital transformation refers to the globally accelerated process of technical adaptation by companies and communities as a result of digitalisation (Sivarajah et al. 2019 ; Westerman et al. 2014 ). Web is developed from a tool used to provide passive information into the collaborative web, which allows and encourages active user engagement and contribution. If before social networks were used to provide the information about a company or brand, nowadays businesses use social media in their marketing aims and strategies to improve consumers’ involvement, relationship with customers and get useful consumers’ insights (Alalwan et al. 2017 ). Business-to-consumer (B2C) companies widely use social media as part of their digital transformation and enjoy its benefits such as an increase in sales, brand awareness, and customer engagement to name a few (Barreda et al. 2015 ; Chatterjee and Kar 2020 ; Harrigan et al. 2020 ; Kamboj et al. 2018 ; Kapoor et al. 2018 ).

From a marketing and sales research perspective, social media is defined as “the technological component of the communication, transaction and relationship building functions of a business which leverages the network of customers and prospects to promote value co-creation” (Andzulis et al. 2012 p.308). Industrial buyers use social media for their purchase as they compare products, research the market and build relationships with salesperson (Itani et al. 2017 ). Social media changed the way how buyers and sellers interact (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ) by enabling open and broad communications and cooperation between them (Rossmann and Stei 2015 ). Social media is an important facilitator of relationships between a company and customers (Agnihotri et al. 2012 ; Tedeschi 2006 ). Customers are more connected to companies, which make them more knowledgable about product selection and more powerful in buyer-seller relationships (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ). Social media also helps companies to increase business exposure, traffic and providing marketplace insight (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Stelzner 2011 ). As a result, the use of social media supports business decision processes and helps to improve companies’ performance (Rossmann and Stei 2015 ).

Due to digitalisation customers are becoming more informed and rely less on traditional selling initiatives (Ancillai et al. 2019 ). Buyers are relying more on digital resources and their buying process more often involves the use of social media. For example, in the research B2B buyer survey, 82% of buyers stated that social media content has a significant impact on the purchase decision (Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Minsky and Quesenberry 2016 ). As a result, these changes in consumer behaviour place high pressure on B2B salespeople and traditional sales companies (Ancillai et al. 2019 ). By using evidence from major B2B companies and consultancy report some studies claim that social media can be applied in sales to establish effective dialogues with buyers (Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Kovac 2016 ; McKinsey and Company 2015 ).

Now, business-to-business (B2B) companies started using social media as part of their digital transformation. 83% of B2B companies use social media, which makes it the most common marketing tactic (Pulizzi and Handley 2017 ; Sobal 2017 ). More than 70% of B2B companies use at least one of the “big 4” social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Additionally, 50% of the companies stated that social media has improved their marketing optimization and customer experience, while 25% stated that their revenue went up (Gregorio 2017 ; Sobal 2017 ). Even though B2B companies are benefitting from social media used by marketers, it is argued that research on that area is still in the embryonic stage and future research is needed (Salo 2017 ; Siamagka et al. 2015 ; Juntunen et al. 2020 ; Iannacci et al. 2020 ). There is a limited understanding of how B2B companies need to change to embrace recent technological innovations and how it can lead to business and societal transformation (Chen et al. 2012 ; Loebbecke and Picot 2015 ; Pappas et al. 2018 ).

The topic of social media in the context of B2B companies has started attracting attention from both academics and practitioners. This is evidenced by the growing number of research output within academic journals and conference proceedings. Some studies provided a comprehensive literature review on social media use by B2B companies (Pascucci et al. 2018 ; Salo 2017 ), but focused only on adoption of social media by B2B or social media influence, without providing the whole picture of the use of social media by B2B companies. Thus, this study aims to close this gap in the literature by conducting a comprehensive analysis of the use of social media by B2B companies and discuss its role in the digital transformation of B2B companies. The findings of this study can provide an informative framework for research on social media in the context of B2B companies for academics and practitioners.

The remaining sections of the study are organised as follows. Section 2 offers a brief overview of the methods used to identify relevant studies to be included in this review. Section 3 synthesises the studies identified in the previous section and provides a detailed overview. Section 4 presents weight analysis and its findings. Next section discusses the key aspects of the research, highlights any limitations within existing studies and explores the potential directions for future research. Finally, the paper is concluded in Section 6 .

2 Literature Search Method

The approach utilised in this study aligns with the recommendations in Webster and Watson ( 2002 ). This study used a keyword search-based approach for identifying relevant articles (Dwivedi et al. 2019b ; Ismagilova et al. 2020a ; Ismagilova et al. 2019 ; Jeyaraj and Dwivedi 2020 ; Williams et al. 2015 ). Keywords such as “Advertising” OR “Marketing” OR “Sales” AND TITLE (“Social Media” OR “Web 2.0” OR “Facebook” OR “LinkedIn” OR “Instagram” OR “Twitter” OR “Snapchat” OR “Pinterest” OR “WhatsApp” OR “Social Networking Sites”) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY (“B2B” OR “B to B” OR “Business to Business” OR “Business 2 Business”) were searched via the Scopus database. Scopus database was chosen to ensure the inclusion of only high quality studies. Use of online databases for conducting a systematic literature review became an emerging culture used by a number of information systems research studies (Dwivedi et al. 2019a ; Gupta et al. 2019 ; Ismagilova et al. 2020b ; Muhammad et al. 2018 ; Rana et al. 2019 ). The search resulted in 80 articles. All studies were processed by the authors in order to ensure relevance and that the research offered a contribution to the social media in the context B2B discussion. The search and review resulted in 70 articles and conference papers that formed the literature review for this study. The selected studies appeared in 33 separate journals and conference proceedings, including journals such as Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing and Journal of Business Research.

3 Literature Synthesis

The studies on social media research in the context of B2B companies were divided into the following themes: effect of social media, adoption of social media, social media strategies, social media use, measuring the effectiveness of use of social media, and social media tools (see Table 1 ). The following subsections provide an overview of each theme.

3.1 Effect of Social Media

Some studies focus on the effect of social media for B2B companies, which include customer satisfaction, value creation, intention to buy and sales, building relationships with customers, brand awareness, knowledge creation, perceived corporate credibility, acquiring of new customers, salesperson performance, employee brand engagement, and sustainability (Table 2 ).

3.1.1 Customer Satisfaction

Some studies investigated how the use of social media affected customer satisfaction (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Rossmann and Stei 2015 ). For example, Agnihotri et al. ( 2016 ) investigated how the implementation of social media by B2B salesperson affects consumer satisfaction. Salesperson’s social media use is defined as a “salesperson’s utilization and integration of social media technology to perform his or her job” (Agnihotri et al. 2016 , p.2). The study used data from 111 sales professionals involved in B2B industrial selling to test the proposed hypotheses. It was found that a salesperson’s use of social media will have a positive effect on information communication, which will, in turn, lead to improved customer satisfaction with the salesperson. Also, it was investigated that information communication will be positively related to responsiveness, which impacts customer satisfaction.

Another study by Rossmann and Stei ( 2015 ) looked at the antecedents of social media use, social media use by B2B companies and their effect on customers. By using data from 362 chief information officers of B2B companies the study found the following. Social media usage of sales representative has a positive impact on customer satisfaction. Age has a negative effect on content generation. It seems that older salespeople use social media in passive ways or interacting with the customer rather than creating their own content. It was found that the quality of corporate social media strategy has a positive impact on social media usage in terms of the consumption of information, content generation, and active interaction with customers. Also, the expertise of a salesperson in the area of social media has a positive impact on social media usage.

3.1.2 Value Creation

Research in B2B found that social media can create value for customers and salesperson (Agnihotri et al. 2012 ; Agnihotri et al. 2017 ). Agnihotri et al. ( 2012 ) proposed a theoretical framework to explain the mechanisms through which salespeople’s use of social media operates to create value and propose a strategic approach to social media use to achieve competitive goals. The study draws on the existing literature on relationship marketing, task–technology fit theory, and sales service behavior to sketch a social media strategy for business-to-business sales organizations with relational selling objectives. The proposed framework describes how social media tools can help salespeople perform service behaviors (information sharing, customer service, and trust-building) leading to value creation.

Some researchers investigated the role of the salesperson in the value creation process after closing the sale. By employing salesperson-customer data within a business-to-business context, Agnihotri et al. ( 2017 ) analysed the direct effects of sales-based CRM technology on the post-sale service behaviors: diligence, information communication, inducements, empathy, and sportsmanship. Additionally, the study examines the interactive effects of sales-based CRM technology and social media on these behaviors. The results indicate that sales-based CRM technology has a positive influence on salesperson service behaviors and that salespeople using CRM technology in conjunction with social media are more likely to exhibit higher levels of SSBs than their counterparts with low social media technology use. Data were collected from 162 salespeople from India. SmartPLS was used to analyse the data.

3.1.3 Intention to Buy and Sales

Another group of studies investigated the effect of social media on the level of sales and consumer purchase intention (Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Itani et al. 2017 ; Salo 2017 ; Hsiao et al. 2020 ; Mahrous 2013 ). For example, Itani et al. ( 2017 ) used the theory of reasoned actions to develop a model that tests the factors affecting the use of social media by salesperson and its impact. By collecting data from 120 salespersons from different industries and using SmartPLS to analyse the data, it was found that attitude towards social media usefulness did not affect the use of social media. It was found that social media use positively affects competitive intelligence collection, adaptive selling behaviour, which in turn influenced sales performance. Another study by Ancillai et al. ( 2019 ) used in-depth interviews with social selling professionals. The findings suggest that the use of social media improves not only the level of sales but also affects relationship and customer performance (trust, customer satisfaction, customer referrals); and organisational performance (organisational selling performance and brand performance).

It was investigated that social media has a positive effect on the intention to purchase (Hsiao et al. 2020 ; Mahrous 2013 ). For instance, Mahrous ( 2013 ) by reviewing the literature on B2B and B2C companies concluded that social media has a significant influence on consumer buying behaviour.

3.1.4 Customer Relationships

Another group of studies focused on the effect of social media on customer relationships (Bhattacharjya and Ellison 2015 ; Gáti et al. 2018 ; Gruner and Power 2018 ; Hollebeek 2019 ; Iankova et al. 2018 ; Jussila et al. 2011 ; Kho 2008 ; Niedermeier et al. 2016 ; Ogilvie et al. 2018 ). For example, Bhattacharjya and Ellison ( 2015 ) investigated the way companies build relationships with customers by using responsive customer relationship management. The study analysed customer relationship management activities from Twitter account of a Canadian company Shopify (B2B service provider). The company uses Twitter to engage with small business customers, develops and consumers. Jussila et al. ( 2011 ), by reviewing the literature, found that social media leads to increased customer focus and understanding, increased level of customer service and decreased time-to-market.

Gáti et al. ( 2018 ) focused their research efforts on social media use in customer relationship performance, particularly in customer relations. The study investigated the adoption and impact of social media by salespeople of B2B companies. By using data of 112 salespeople from several industries the study found that the intensity of technology use positively affects attitude towards social media, which positively affects social media use. Intensive technology use in turn positively affects customer relationship performance (customer retention). PLS-SEM was applied for analysis.

Another study by Gruner and Power ( 2018 ) investigated the effectiveness of the use of multiple social media platforms in communications with customers. By using data from 208 large Australian organisations, the paper explores how companies’ investment in one form of social media impacts activity on another form of social media. A regression analysis was performed to analyse the data. It was found that widespread activities on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube have a negative effect on a company’s marketing activity on Facebook. Thus, having it is more effective for the company to focus on a specific social media platform in forming successful inter-organisational relationships with customers.

Hollebeek ( 2019 ) proposed an integrative S-D logic/resource-based view (RBV) model of customer engagement. The proposed model considers business customer actors and resources in driving business customer resource integration, business customer resource integration effectiveness and business customer resource integration efficiency, which are antecedents of business customer engagement. Business customer engagement, in turn, results in business customer co-creation and relationship productivity.

Niedermeier et al. ( 2016 ) investigated the use of social media among salespeople in the pharmaceutical industry in China. Also, the study investigated the impact of social media on building culturally specific Guanxi relationships-it involves the exchange of factors to build trust and connection for business purpose. By using in-depth interviews with 3 sales managers and a survey of 42 pharmaceutical sales representatives that study found that WeChat is the most common social media platform used by businesses. Also, it was found to be an important tool in building Guanxi. Future studies should focus on other industries and other types of cultural features in doing business.

Ogilvie et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the effect of social media technologies on customer relationship performance and objective sales performance by using two empirical studies conducted in the United States. The first study used 375 salespeople from 1200 B2B companies. The second study used 181 respondents from the energy solution company. It was found that social media significantly affects salesperson product information communication, diligence, product knowledge and adaptability, which in turn affect customer relationship performance. It was also found that the use of social media technologies without training on technology will not lead to good results. Thus, the results propose that companies should allocate the resources required for the proper implementation of social media strategies. Future research should examine how the personality traits of a salesperson can moderate the implementation of social media technologies.

While most of the studies focused on a single country, Iankova et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the perceived effectiveness of social media by different types of businesses in two countries. By using 449 respondents from the US and the UK businesses, it was found that social media is potentially less important, at the present time, for managing ongoing relationships in B2B organizations than for B2C, Mixed or B2B2C organizations. All types of businesses ascribe similar importance to social media for acquisition-related activities. Also it was found that B2B organizations see social media as a less effective communication channel, and to have less potential as a channel for the business.

3.1.5 Brand Awareness

Some researchers argued that social media can influence brand awareness (Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Hsiao et al. 2020 ). For instance, Hsiao et al. ( 2020 ) investigated the effect of social media in the fashion industry. By collecting 1395 posts from lookbook.nu and employing regression analysis it was found that the inclusion of national brand and private fashion brands in the post increased the level of popularity which leads to purchasing interest and brand awareness.

3.1.6 Knowledge Creation

Multiple types of collaborative web tools can help and significantly increase the collaboration and the use of the distributed knowledge inside and outside of the company (McAfee 2006 ). Kärkkäinen et al. ( 2011 ) by analysing previous literature on social media proposed that social media use has a positive effect on sharing and creation of customer information and knowledge in the case of B2B companies.

3.1.7 Corporate Credibility

Another study by Kho ( 2008 ) states the advantages of using social media by B2B companies, which include faster and more personalised communications between customer and vendor, which can improve corporate credibility and strengthen the relationships. Thanks to social media companies can provide more detailed information about their products and services. Kho ( 2008 ) also mentions that customer forums and blog comments in the B2B environment should be carefully monitored in order to make sure that inappropriate discussions are taken offline and negative eWOM communications should be addressed in a timely manner.

3.1.8 Acquiring New Customers

Meire et al. ( 2017 ) investigated the impact of social media on acquiring B2B customers. By using commercially purchased prospecting data, website data and Facebook data from beverage companies the study conducted an experiment and found that social media us an effective tool in acquiring B2B customers. Future work might assess the added value of social media pages for profitability prediction instead of prospect conversion. When a longer timeframe becomes available (e.g., after one year), the profitability of the converted prospects can be assessed.

3.1.9 Salesperson Performance

Moncrief et al. ( 2015 ) investigated the impact of social media technologies on the role of salesperson position. It was found that social media affects sales management functions (supervision, selection, training, compensation, and deployment) and salesperson performance (role, skill, and motivation). Another study by Rodriguez et al. ( 2012 ) examines the effect of social media on B2B sales performance by using social capital theory and collecting data from 1699 B2B salespeople from over 25 different industries. By employing SEM AMOS, the study found that social media usage has a positive significant relationship with selling companies’ ability to create opportunities and manage relationships. The study also found that social media usage has a positive and significant relationship with sales performance (based on relational measurers of sales that focus on behaviours that strengthen the relationship between buyers and sellers), but not with outcome-based sales performance (reflected by quota achievement, growth in average billing size, and overall revenue gain).

3.1.10 Employee Brand Management

The study by Pitt et al. ( 2018 ) focuses on employee engagement with B2B companies on social media. By using results from Glassdoor (2315 five-star and 1983 one-star reviews for the highest-ranked firms, and 1013 five star and 1025 one-star reviews for lowest ranked firms) on employee brand engagement on social media, two key drivers of employee brand engagement by using the content analysis tool DICTION were identified-optimism and commonality. Individuals working in top-ranked companies expressed a higher level of optimism and commonality in comparison with individuals working in low-ranked companies. As a result, a 2 × 2 matrix was constructed which can help managers to choose strategies in order to increase and improve employee brand engagement. Another study by Pitt et al. ( 2017 ) focused on employee engagement of B2B companies on social media. By using a conceptual framework based on a theory of word choice and verbal tone and 6300 reviews collected from Glassdoor and analysed using DICTION. The study found that employees of highly ranked B2B companies are more positive about their employer brand and talk more optimistically about these brands. For low ranked B2B companies it was found that employees express a greater level of activity, certainty, and realism. Also, it was found that they used more aggressive language.

3.1.11 Sustainability

Sustainability refers to the strategy that helps a business “to meet its current requirements without compromising its ability to meet future needs” (World Commission Report on Environment and Development 1987 , p 41). Two studies out of 70 focused on the role of social media for B2B sustainability (Sivarajah et al. 2019 ; Kasper et al. 2015 ). For example, Sivarajah et al. ( 2019 ) argued that big data and social media within a participatory web environment to enable B2B organisations to become profitable and remain sustainable through strategic operations and marketing related business activities.

Another study by Kasper et al. ( 2015 ) proposed the Social Media Matrix which helps companies to decide which social media activities to execute based on their corporate and communication goals. The matrix includes three parts. The first part is focusing on social media goals and task areas, which were identified and matched. The second part consists of five types of social media activities (content, interaction/dialog, listening and analysing, application and networking). The third part provides a structure to assess the suitability of each activity type on each social media platform for each goal. The matrix was successfully tested by assessing the German B2B sector by using expert interviews with practitioners.

Based on the reviewed studies, it can be seen that if used appropriately social media have positive effect on B2B companies before and after sales, such as customer satisfaction, value creation, intention to buy and sales, customer relationships, brand awareness, knowledge creation, corporate credibility, acquiring new customers, salesperson performance, employee brand management, and sustainability. However, limited research is done on the negative effect of social media on b2b companies.

3.2 Adoption of Social Media

Some scholars investigated factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B companies (Buratti et al. 2018 ; Gáti et al. 2018 ; Gazal et al. 2016 ; Itani et al. 2017 ; Kumar and Möller 2018 ; Lacka and Chong 2016 ). For instance, Lacka and Chong ( 2016 ) investigated factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B companies from different industries in China. The study collected the data from 181 respondents and used the technology acceptance model with Nielsen’s model of attributes of system acceptability as a theoretical framework. By using SEM AMOS for analysis the study found that perceived usability, perceived usefulness, and perceived utility positively affect adoption and use of social media by B2B marketing professionals. The usefulness is subject to the assessment of whether social media sites are suitable means through which marketing activities can be conducted. The ability to use social media sites for B2B marketing purposes, in turn, is due to those sites learnability and memorability attributes.

Another study by Müller et al. ( 2018 ) investigated factors affecting the usage of social media. By using survey data from 100 Polish and 39 German sensor suppliers, it was found that buying frequency, the function of a buyer, the industry sector and the country does not affect the usage of social media in the context of sensor technology from Poland and Germany. The study used correlation analysis and ANOVA.

Lashgari et al. ( 2018 ) studied the adoption and use of social media by using face-to-face interviews with key managers of four multinational corporations and observations from companies’ websites and social media platforms. It was found that that the elements essential in forming the B2B firm’s social media adoption strategies are content (depth and diversity), corresponding social media platform, the structure of social media channels, the role of moderators, information accessibility approaches (public vs. gated-content), and online communities. These elements are customized to the goals and target group the firm sets to pursue. Similarly, integration of social media into other promotional channels can fall under an ad-hoc or continuous approach depending on the scope and the breadth of the communication plan, derived from the goal.

Similar to Lashgari et al. ( 2018 ), Shaltoni ( 2017 ) used data from managers. The study applied technology organisational environmental framework and diffusion of innovations to investigate factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B companies. By using data from marketing managers or business owners of 480 SMEs, the study found that perceived relative advance, perceive compatibility, organizational innovativeness, competitor pressure, and customer pressure influence the adoption of social media by B2B companies. The findings also suggest that many decision-makers in B2B companies think that Internet marketing is not beneficial, as it is not compatible with the nature of B2B markets.

Buratti et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the adoption of social media by tanker shipping companies and ocean carriers. By using data from 60 companies the following was found. LinkedIn is the most used tool, with a 93.3% adoption rate. Firm size emerges as a predictor of Twitter’s adoption: big companies unveil a higher attitude to use it. Finally, the country of origin is not a strong influential factor in the adoption rate. Nonetheless, Asian firms clearly show a lower attitude to join SM tools such as Facebook (70%) and LinkedIn (86.7%), probably also due to governmental web restrictions imposed in China. External dimensions such as the core business, the firm size, the geographic area of origin, etc., seem to affect network wideness. Firm size, also, discriminates the capacity of firms to build relational networks. Bigger firms create networks larger than small firms do. Looking at geographical dimensions, Asian firms confirm to be far less active on SM respect to European and North American firms. Finally, the study analyzed the format of the contents disclosed by sample firms, observing quite limited use of photos and videos: in the sample industries, informational contents seem more appropriate for activating a dialogue with stakeholders and communication still appears formulated in a very traditional manner. Preliminary findings suggest that companies operating in conservative B2B services pursue different strategic approaches toward SMM and develop ad hoc communication tactics. Nonetheless, to be successful in managing SM tools, a high degree of commitment and a clear vision concerning the role of SM within communication and marketing strategy is necessary.

Gazal et al. ( 2016 ) investigated the adoption and measuring of the effectiveness of social media in the context of the US forest industry by using organisational-level adoption framework and TAM. By using data from 166 companies and performing regression analysis, the following results were received. Years in business, new sales revenue, product type, amount of available information on a company website, perceived importance of e-commerce and perceived ease of use of social media significantly affected social media use. Also, it was found that companies’ strategies and internal resources and capabilities and influence a company’s decision to adopt social media. Also, it was found that 94 of respondents do not measure the ROI from social media use. The reason is that the use of social media in marketing is relatively new and companies do not possess the knowledge of measuring ROI from the use of social media. Companies mostly use quantitative metrics (number of site visits, number of social network friends, number of comments and profile views) and qualitative metrics (growth of relationships with the key audience, audience participation, moving from monologue to dialogue with consumers. Facebook was found to be the most effective social media platform reported by the US forest industry.

The study by Kumar and Möller ( 2018 ) investigated the role of social media for B2B companies in their recruitment practices. By using data from international B2B company with headquarter in Helsinki, Finland comprised of 139 respondents it was found that brand familiarity encourages them to adopt social media platforms for a job search; however, the effect of the persuasiveness of recruitment messages on users’ adoption of social media platforms for their job search behavior is negative. The study used correlation analysis and descriptive analysis to analyse the data.

Nunan et al. ( 2018 ) identified areas for future research such as patterns of social media adoption, the role of social media platforms within the sales process, B2B consumer engagement and social media, modeling the ROI of social media, and the risks of social media within B2B sales relationships.

The study by Pascucci et al. ( 2018 ) conducted a systematic literature review on antecedents affecting the adoption and use of social media by B2B companies. By reviewing 29 studies published in academic journal and conferences from 2001 to 2017, the study identified external (pressure from customers, competitors, availability of external information about social media) and internal factors (personal characteristics -managers age, individual commitment, perceptions of social media-perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived utility), which can affect adoption of social media.

The study by Siamagka et al. ( 2015 ) aims to investigate factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B organisations. The conceptual model was based on the technology acceptance model and the resource-based theory. AMOS software and Structural equation modelling were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. By using a sample of 105 UK companies, the study found that perceived usefulness of social media is influenced by image, perceived ease of use and perceived barriers. Also, it was found that social media adoption is significantly determined by organisational innovativeness and perceived usefulness. Additionally, the study tested the moderating role of organisational innovativeness and found that it does not affect the adoption of social media by B2B organisations. The study also identified that perceived barriers to SNS (uncertainty about how to use SNS to achieve objectives, employee’s lack of knowledge about SNS, high cost of investment needed to adopt the technology) have a negative impact on perceived usefulness of social media by B2B organisations. The study also used nine in-depth interviews with B2B senior managers and social media specialists about adoption of social media by B2B. It was found that perceived pressure from stakeholders influences B2B organisations’ adoption intention of social media. Future research should test it by using quantitative methods.

While most of the studies focused on the antecedents of social media adoption by B2B companies, Michaelidou et al. ( 2011 ) investigated the usage, perceived barriers and measuring the effectiveness of social media. By using data from 92 SMEs the study found that over a quarter of B2B SMEs in the UK are currently using SNS to achieve brand objectives, the most popular of which is to attract new customers. The barriers that prevent SMEs from using social media to support their brands were lack of staff familiarity and technical skills. Innovativeness of a company determined the adoption of social media. It was found that most of the companies do not evaluate the effectiveness of their SNS in supporting their brand. The most popular measures were the number of users joining the groups/discussion and the number of comments made. The findings showed that the size of the company does not influence the usage of social media for small and medium-sized companies. Future research should investigate the usage of social media in large companies and determine if the size can have and influence on the use. The benefits of using social media include increasing awareness and communicating the brand online. B2B companies can employ social media to create customer value in the form of interacting with customers, as well as building and fostering customer relationships. Future research should investigate the reasons why most of the users do not assess the effectiveness of their SNS. Future research should also investigate how the attitude towards technology can influence the adoption of social media.

Based on the reviewed studies it can be seen that the main factors affecting the adoption of social media by B2B companies are perceived usability, technical skills of employees, pressure from stakeholders, perceived usefulness and innovativeness.

3.3 Social Media Strategies

Another group of studies investigated types of strategies B2B companies apply (Cawsey and Rowley 2016 ; Huotari et al. 2015 ; Kasper et al. 2015 ; McShane et al. 2019 ; Mudambi et al. 2019 ; Swani et al. 2013 ; Swani et al. 2014 ; Swani et al. 2017 ; Watt 2010 ). For example, Cawsey and Rowley ( 2016 ) focused on the social media strategies of B2B companies. By conducting semi-structured interviews with marketing professionals from France, Ireland, the UK and the USA it was found that enhancing brand image, extending brand awareness and facilitating customer engagement were considered the most common social media objective. The study proposed the B2B social media strategy framework, which includes six components of a social media strategy: 1) monitoring and listening 2) empowering and engaging employees 3) creating compelling content 4) stimulating eWOM 5) evaluating and selecting channels 6) enhancing brand presence through integrating social media.

Chirumalla et al. ( 2018 ) focused on the social media engagement strategies of manufacturing companies. By using semi-structured interviews (36), observations (4), focus group meetings (6), and documentation, the study developed the process of social media adoption through a three-phase engagement strategy which includes coordination, cooperation, and co-production.

McShane et al. ( 2019 ) proposed social media strategies to influence online users’ engagement with B2B companies. Taking into consideration fluency lens the study analysed Twitter feeds of top 50 social B2B brands to examine the influence of hashtags, text difficulty embedded media and message timing on user engagement, which was evaluated in terms of likes and retweets. It was found that hashtags and text difficulty are connected to lower levels of engagement while embedded media such as images and videos improve the level of engagement.

Swani et al. ( 2014 ) investigate the use of Twitter by B2B and B2C companies and predict factors that influence message strategies. The study conducted a longitudinal content analysis by collecting 7000 tweets from Fortune 500 companies. It was found that B2B and B2C companies used different message appeals, cues, links and hashtags. B2B companies tend to use more emotional than functional appeals. It was found that B2B and B2C companies do not use hard-sell message strategies.

Another study by Swani et al. ( 2013 ) aimed to investigate message strategies that can help in promoting eWOM activity for B2B companies. By applying content analysis and hierarchical linear modeling the study analysed 1143 wall post messages from 193 fortune 500 Facebook accounts. The study found that B2B account posts will be more effective if they include corporate brand names and avoid hard sell or explicitly commercial statement. Also, companies should use emotional sentiment in Facebook posts.

Huotari et al. ( 2015 ) aimed to investigate how B2B marketers can influence content creation in social media. By conducting four face-to-face interviews with B2B marketers, it was found that a B2B company can influence content creation in social media directly by adding new content, participating in a discussion and removing content through corporate user accounts and controlling employees social media behaviour. Also, it can influence it indirectly by training employees to create desired content and perfuming marketing activities that influence other users to create content that is favorable for the company.

Most of the studies investigated the strategies and content of social media communications of B2B companies. However, the limited number of studies investigated the importance of CEO engagement on social media in the company’s strategies. Mudambi et al. ( 2019 ) emphasise the importance of the CEO of B2B companies to be present and active on social media. The study discusses the advantages of social media presence for the CEO and how it will benefit the company. For example, one of the benefits for the CEO can be perceived as being more trustworthy and effective than non-social CEOs, which will benefit the company in increased customer trust. Mudambi et al. ( 2019 ) also discussed the platforms the CEO should use and posting frequencies depending on the content of the post.

From the above review of the studies, it can be seen that B2B companies social media strategies include enhancing brand image, extending brand awareness and facilitating customer engagement. Companies use various message strategies, such as using emotional appeal, use of brand names, and use of hashtags. Majority of the companies avoid hard sell or explicitly commercial statement.

3.4 Social Media Use

Studies investigated the way how companies used social media and factors affecting the use of social media by B2B (Andersson et al. 2013 ; Bernard 2016 ; Bolat et al. 2016 ; Denktaş-Şakar and Sürücü 2018 ; Dyck 2010 ; Guesalaga 2016 ; Habibi et al. 2015 ). For example, Vasudevan and Kumar ( 2018 ) investigated how B2B companies use social media by analysing 325 brand posts of Canon India, Epson India, and HP India on Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. By employing content analysis the study found that most of the posts had a combination of text and message. More than 50% of the posts were about product or brand-centric. The study argued that likes proved to be an unreliable measure of engagement, while shares were considered a more reliable metric. The reason was that likes had high spikes when brand posts were boosted during promotional activities.

Andersson and Wikström ( 2017 ) used case studies of three B2B companies to investigate reasons for using social media. It was found that companies use social media to enhance customer relationships, support sales and build their brands. Also, social media is used as a recruiting tool, a seeking tool, and a product information and service tool.

Bell and Shirzad ( 2013 ) aimed to conduct social media use analysis in the context of pharmaceutical companies. The study analysed 54,365 tweets from the top five pharmaceutical companies. The study analysed the popular time slots, the average number of positive and negative tweets and its content by using Nvivo9.

Bernard ( 2016 ) aims to examine how chief marketing officers use social media. By using case studies from IBM experience with social media it was found that B2B CMO’s are not ready to make use of social media. It was proposed that social media can be used for after-sales service, getting sales leads, engaging with key influencers, building the company’s reputation and enhancing the industry status of key individuals. B2B firms need to exploit the capabilities of processing massive amounts of data to get the most from social media.

Bolat et al. ( 2016 ) explore how companies apply mobile social media. By employing a grounded theory approach to analyse interviews from 26 B2B company representatives from UK advertising and marketing sector companies. It was found that companies use social media for branding, sensing market, managing relationships, and developing content.

Denktaş-Şakar and Sürücü ( 2018 ) investigated how social media usage influence stakeholder engagement focusing on the corporate Facebook page of 30 3PLs companies. In total 1532 Facebook posts were analysed. It was found that the number of followers, post sharing frequency, negatively affect stakeholder engagement. It was found that content including photos facilitates more stakeholder engagement (likes, comment, share) in comparison with other forms. Vivid posts and special day celebration posts strengthen relationships with stakeholders.

Dyck ( 2010 ) discussed the advantages of using social media for the device industry. Social media can be used for product innovation and development, to build a team and collaborate globally. Also, there is an opportunity to connect with all of the stakeholders needed in order to deliver the device to the market. Additionally, it provides to receive feedback from customers (doctors, hospitals) in real-time.

The study by Guesalaga ( 2016 ) draws on interactional psychology theory to propose and test a model of usage of social media in sales, analysing individual, organizational, and customer-related factors. It was found that organizational competence and commitment to social media are key determinants of social media usage in sales, as well as individual commitment. Customer engagement with social media also predicts social media usage in sales, both directly and (mostly) through the individual and organizational factors analysed, especially organizational competence and commitment. Finally, the study found evidence of synergistic effects between individual competence and commitment, which is not found at the organizational level. The data obtained by surveying 220 sales executives in the United States were analysed using regression analysis.

Habibi et al. ( 2015 ) proposed a conceptual model for the implementation of social media by B2B companies. Based on existing B2B marketing, social media and organisational orientational literature the study proposed that four components of electronic market orientation (philosophical, initiation, implementation and adoption) address different implementation issues faced in implementing social media.

Katona and Sarvary ( 2014 ) presented a case of using social media by Maersk-the largest container shipping company in the world. The case provided details on the program launch and the integration strategy which focused on integrating the largest independent social media operation into the company’s broader marketing efforts.

Moore et al. ( 2013 ) provided insights into the understanding of the use of social media by salespersons. 395 salespeople in B2B and B2C markets, utilization of relationship-oriented social media applications are presented and examined. Overall, findings show that B2B practitioners tend to use media targeted at professionals whereas their B2C counterparts tend to utilize more sites targeted to the general public for engaging in one-on-one dialogue with their customers. Moreover, B2B professionals tend to use relationship-oriented social media technologies more than B2C professionals for the purpose of prospecting, handling objections, and after-sale follow-up.

Moore et al. ( 2015 ) investigated the use of social media between B2B and B2C salespeople. By using survey data from 395 sales professionals from different industries they found that B2B sales managers use social selling tools significantly more frequently than B2C managers and B2C sales representatives while conducting sales presentations. Also, it was found that B2B managers used social selling tools significantly more frequently than all sales representatives while closing sales.

Müller et al. ( 2013 ) investigated social media use in the German automotive market. By using online analysis of 10 most popular car manufacturers online social networks and surveys of six manufacturers, 42 car dealers, 199 buyers the study found that social media communication relations are widely established between manufacturers and (prospective) buyers and only partially established between car dealers and prospective buyers. In contrast to that, on the B2B side, social media communication is rarely used. Social Online Networks (SONs) are the most popular social media channels employed by businesses. Manufacturers and car dealers focus their social media engagement, especially on Facebook. From the perspective of prospective buyers, however, forums are the most important source of information.

Sułkowski and Kaczorowska-Spychalska ( 2016 ) investigated the adoption of social media by companies in the Polish textile-clothing industry. By interviewing seven companies representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises the study found that companies started implementing social media activities in their marketing activities.

Vukanovic ( 2013 ) by reviewing previous literature on social media outlined advantages of using social media for B2B companies, which include: increase customer loyalty and trust, building and improving corporate reputation, facilitating open communications, improvement in customer engagement to name a few.

Keinänen and Kuivalainen ( 2015 ) investigated factors affecting the use of social media by B2B customers by conducting an online survey among 82 key customer accounts of an information technology service company. Partial least squares path modelling was used to analysed the proposed hypotheses. It was found that social media private use, colleague support for using SM, age, job position affected the use of social media by B2B customers. The study also found that corporate culture, gender, easiness to use, and perception of usability did not affect the use of social media by B2B customers.

By using interviews and survey social media research found that mostly B2B companies use social media to enhance customer relationships, support sales, build their brands, sense market, manage relationships, and develop content. Additionally, some companies use it social media as a recruitment tool. The main difference between B2B and B2C was that B2B sales managers use social selling tools significantly more frequently than B2C managers.

3.5 Measuring the Effectiveness of Social Media

It is important for a business to be able to measure the effectiveness of social media by calculating return on investment (ROI). ROI is the relationship between profit and the investment that generate that profit. Some studies focused on the ways B2B companies can measure ROI and the challenges they face (Gazal et al. 2016 ; Michaelidou et al. 2011 ; Vasudevan and Kumar 2018 ). For example, Gazal et al. ( 2016 ) investigated the adoption and measuring of the effectiveness of social media in the context of the US forest industry by using organisational-level adoption framework and TAM. By using data from 166 companies it was found that 94% of respondents do not measure the ROI from social media use. The reason is that the use of social media in marketing is relatively new and companies do not possess the knowledge of measuring ROI from the use of social media. Companies mostly use quantitative metrics (number of site visits, number of social network friends, number of comments and profile views) and qualitative metrics (growth of relationships with the key audience, audience participation, moving from monologue to dialogue with consumers).

Another study by Michaelidou et al. ( 2011 ) found that most of the companies do not evaluate the effectiveness of their SNS in supporting their brand. The most popular measures were the number of users joining the groups/discussion and the number of comments made.

Vasudevan and Kumar ( 2018 ) investigated how B2B companies use social media and measure ROI from social media by analysing 325 brand posts of Canon India, Epson India, and HP India on Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. By employing content analysis the study found that most of the post has a combination of text and message. More than 50% of the posts were about product or brand-centric. The study argued that likes proved to be an unreliable measure of engagement, while shares were considered a more reliable metric. The reason was that likes had high spikes when brand posts were boosted during promotional activities. Future research should conduct longitudinal studies.

By reviewing the above studies, it can be concluded that companies still struggle to find ways of measuring ROI and applying correct metrics. By gaining knowledge in how to measure ROI from social media activities, B2B companies will be able to produce valuable insights leading to better marketing strategies (Lal et al. 2020 ).

3.6 Social Media Tools

Some studies proposed tools that could be employed by companies to advance their use of social media. For example, Mehmet and Clarke ( 2016 ) proposed a social semiotic multimodal (SSMM) framework that improved the analysis of social media communications. This framework employs multimodal extensions to systemic functional linguistics enabling it to be applying to analysing non-language as well as language constituents of social media messages. Furthermore, the framework also utilises expansion theory to identify, categorise and analyse various marketing communication resources associated with marketing messages and also to reveal how conversations are chained together to form extended online marketing conversations. This semantic approach is exemplified using a Fairtrade Australia B2B case study demonstrating how marketing conversations can be mapped and analysed. The framework emphasises the importance of acknowledging the impact of all stakeholders, particularly messages that may distract or confuse the original purpose of the conversation.

Yang et al. ( 2012 ) proposed the temporal analysis technique to identify user relationships on social media platforms. The experiment was conducted by using data from Digg.com . The results showed that the proposed techniques achieved substantially higher recall but not very good at precision. This technique will help companies to identify their future consumers based on their user relationships.

Based on the literature review, it can be seen that B2B companies can benefit by using the discussed tools. However, it is important to consider that employee should have some technical skills and knowledge to use these tools successfully. As a result, companies will need to invest some resources in staff training.

4 Weight Analysis

Weight analysis enables scrutiny of the predictive power of independent variables in studied relationships and the degree of effectiveness of the relationships (Jeyaraj et al. 2006 ; Rana et al. 2015 ; Ismagilova et al. 2020a ). The results of weight analysis are depicted in Table 3 providing information about an independent variable, dependent variable, number of significant relationships, number of non-significant relationships, the total number of relationships and weight. To perform weight analysis, the number of significant relationships was divided by the total number of analysed relationships between the independent variable and the dependent variable (Jeyaraj et al. 2006 ; Rana et al. 2015 ). For example, the weight for the relationship between attitude towards social media and social media is calculated by dividing ‘1’ (the number of significant relationships) by ‘2’ (the total number of relationships) which equals 0.5.

A predictor is defined as well-utilised if it was examined five or more times, otherwise, it is defined as experimental. It can be seen from Table 3 that all relationships were examined less than five times. Thus all studied predictors are experimental. The predictor is defined as promising when it has been examined less than five times by existing studies but has a weight equal to ‘1’ (Jeyaraj et al. 2006 ). From the predictors affecting the adoption of social media, it can be seen that two are promising, technical skills of employees and pressure from stakeholders. Social media usage is a promising predictor for acquiring new customers, sales, stakeholder engagement and customer satisfaction. Perceived ease of use and age of salesperson are promising predictors of social media usage. Even though this relationship was found to be significant every time it was examined, it is suggested that this variable, which can also be referred to as experimental, will need to be further tested in order to qualify as the best predictor. Another predictor, average rating of product/service, was examined less than five times with a weight equal to 0.75, thus it is considered as an experimental predictor.

Figure 1 shows the diagrammatic representation of the factors affecting different relationships in B2B social media with their corresponding weights, based on the results of weight analysis. The findings suggest that promising predictors should be included in further empirical studies to determine their overall performance.

figure 1

Diagrammatic representation of results of weight analysis. Note: experimental predictors

It can be seen from Fig. 1 that social media usage is affected by internal (e.g. attitude towards social media, technical skills of employees) and external factors (e.g. pressure from stakeholders) of the company. Also, the figure depicts the effect of social media on the business (e.g. sales) and society (e.g. customer satisfaction).

5 Discussion

In reviewing the publications gathered for this paper, the following themes were identified. Some studies investigated the effect of social media use by B2B companies. By using mostly survey to collect the data from salespeople and managers, the studies found that social media has a positive effect on number of outcomes important for the business such as customer satisfaction, value creation, intention to buy and sales, customer relationships, brand awareness, knowledge creation, corporate credibility, acquiring new customers, salespersons performance, employee brand management, and sustainability. Most of the outcomes are similar to the research on social media in the context of B2C companies. However, some of the outcomes are unique for B2B context (e.g. employee brand management, company credibility). Just recently, studies started investigating the impact of the use of social media on sustainability.

Another group of studies looked at the adoption of social media by B2B companies (Buratti et al. 2018 ; Gáti et al. 2018 ; Gazal et al. 2016 ; Itani et al. 2017 ; Kumar and Möller 2018 ). The studies investigated it mostly from the perspectives of salespersons and identify some of the key factors which affect the adoption, such as innovativeness, technical skills of employees, pressure from stakeholders, perceived usefulness, and perceived usability. As these factors are derived mostly from surveys conducted with salespersons findings can be different for other individuals working in the organisation. This it is important to conduct studies that will examine factors affecting the adoption of social media across the entire organisation, in different departments. Using social media as part of the digital transformation is much bigger than sales and marketing, it encompasses the entire company. Additionally, most of the studies were cross-sectional, which limits the understanding of the adoption of social media by B2B over time depending on the outcomes and environment (e.g. competitors using social media).

Some studies looked at social media strategies of B2B companies (Cawsey and Rowley 2016 ; Huotari et al. 2015 ; Kasper et al. 2015 ; McShane et al. 2019 ; Mudambi et al. 2019 ). By employing interviews with companies’ managers and analysing its social media platforms (e.g. Twitter) it was found that most of the companies follow the following strategies: 1) monitoring and listening 2) empowering and engaging employees 3) creating compelling content 4) stimulating eWOM 5) evaluating and selecting channels 6) enhancing brand presence through integrating social media (Cawsey and Rowley 2016 ). Some studies investigated the difference between social media strategies of B2B and B2C companies. For example, a study by Swani et al. ( 2017 ) focused on effective social media strategies. By applying psychological motivation theory the study examined the key differences in B2B and B2C social media message strategies in terms of branding, message appeals, selling, and information search. The study used Facebook posts on brand pages of 280 Fortune companies. In total, 1467 posts were analysed. By using Bayesian models, the results showed that the inclusion of corporate brand names, functional and emotional appeals and information search cues increases the popularity of B2B messages in comparison with B2C messages. Also, it was found that readers of B2B content show a higher message liking rate and lower message commenting rate in comparison with readers of B2C messages.

The next group of studies looked at social media use by B2B companies (Andersson et al. 2013 ; Bernard 2016 ; Bolat et al. 2016 ; Denktaş-Şakar and Sürücü 2018 ; Dyck 2010 ; Guesalaga 2016 ; Habibi et al. 2015 ). B2B companies use social media for enhancing and managing customer relationships (Andersson and Wikström 2017 ; Bolat et al. ( 2016 ); branding (Andersson and Wikström 2017 ; Bolat et al. 2016 ), sensing market (Bolat et al. 2016 ) and co-production (Chirumalla et al. 2018 ). Additionally, it was mentioned that some of the B2B companies use social media as a recruiting tool, and tool which helps to collaborate globally (Andersson and Wikström 2017 ; Dyck 2010 ).

It is important for companies to not only use social media to achieve positive business outcomes but also it is important to measure their achievements. As a result, some of the studies focused on the measuring effectiveness of social media (Gazal et al. 2016 ; Michaelidou et al. 2011 ; Vasudevan and Kumar 2018 ). Surprisingly, it was found that not so many companies measure ROI from social media (Gazal et al. 2016 ; Michaelidou et al. 2011 ). The ones who do it mostly use quantitative metrics (number of site visits, number of social network friends, number of comments and profile views) and qualitative metrics (growth of relationships with key audience, audience participation, moving from monologue to dialogue with consumers) (Gazal et al. 2016 ). Some future studies should investigate how ROI influences the strategy of B2B companies over period of time.

The last group of studies focused on social media tools used by B2B companies (Keinänen and Kuivalainen 2015 ; Mehmet and Clarke 2016 ; Yang et al. 2012 ). By using number of social media tools (Social Semiotic Multimodal) companies are able to improve their analysis of social media communications and identify their future consumers based on their user relationships. Studies investigating barriers and factors adoption of various social media tools by B2B companies are needed.

After reviewing studies on b2B social media, weight analysis was performed. Based on the results of weight analysis the conceptual model for future studies was proposed (Fig.  2 ). It is important to note that a limited number of studies focused and empirically tested factors affecting the adoption, use, and effect of social media. As a result, identified factors were considered as experimental (examined less than five times). It is too early to label these experimental predictors as worst or best, thus their further investigation is encouraged.

figure 2

Social media impact on digital transformation and sustainable societies

Additionally, our review of the literature on B2B social media identified dominant research methods used by scholars. Qualitative and quantitative techniques were used by most of these studies. Closer analysis of 70 publications reviewed in this study revealed the multiple techniques applied for gathering data. Quantitative methods used in the studies mostly used surveys (see Table 4 ).

The data was mostly gathered from salespersons, managers and data from social media platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). Just a limited number of studies employed consumer reported data (see Table 5 ).

On the other hand, publications using qualitative methods mainly used interviews and web scraping for the collection of the required data. To analyse the data studies used a variety of techniques including SEM, regression analysis and content analysis being one of the most used (see Table 6 ).

5.1 Digital Transformation and Sustainability Model

Based on the conducted literature review and adapting the model by Pappas et al. ( 2018 ) Fig. 2 presents the digital transformation and sustainability model in the context of B2B companies, which conceptualise the social media ecosystems, and the factors that need to collaborate to enable the use of social media towards the achievement of digital transformation and the creation of sustainable societies. The model comprises of social media stakeholders, the use of social media by B2B companies, and effect of social media on business and society.

5.1.1 Social Media Stakeholders

Building on the discussion and model provided by Pappas et al. ( 2018 ), this paper posits that the social media ecosystem comprises of the data stakeholders (company, society), who engage on social media (posting, reading, using information from social media). The use of social media by different stakeholders will lead to different effects affecting companies, customers and society. This is an iterative process based on which the stakeholders use their experience to constantly improve and evolve their use of social media, which has impacts on both, business and society. The successful implementation of this process is key to digital transformation and the creation of sustainable societies. Most of the current studies (Andersson et al. 2013 ; Bernard 2016 ; Bolat et al. 2016 ; Denktaş-Şakar and Sürücü 2018 ; Dyck 2010 ; Guesalaga 2016 ) focus mostly on the company as a stakeholder. However, more research is needed on other types of stakeholders (e.g. society).

5.1.2 Use of Social Media by B2B Companies

Social media affects not only ways how companies connect with their clients, but it is also changing their business models, the way how the value is delivered and profit is made. To successfully implement and use social media, B2B companies need to consider various social media tools, antecedents/barriers of its adoption, identify suitable social media strategies which are in line with the company’s overall strategy, and measure effectiveness of the use of social media. There are various factors that affect the use of social media by B2B companies. The study found that social media usage is influenced by perceived ease of use, adoption of social media, attitude towards social media and age of salesperson.

The majority of the studies focus on the management of the marketing department. However, digital transformation is much bigger than just marketing as it encompasses the entire organisation. As a result, future studies should look like the entire organisation and investigate barriers and factors affecting the use of social media.

It is crucial for companies to design content which will be noticed on social media by their potential, actual and former customers. Social media content should be interesting and offer some beneficial information, rather than just focus on services the company provides. Companies could use fresh views on relevant industry news, provide information how they are contributing to society and environment, include humour in their posts, share information about the team, make it more personal. It is also useful to use images, infographics, and video content.

It is also important for companies to measure digital marketing actions. More studies are needed on how to isolate the impact of specific media marketing actions to demonstrate their impact on the desired business outcomes (Salo 2017 ). Thus, future studies can consider how particular social media channels (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn) in a campaign of a new product/ service influence brand awareness and sales level. Also, a limited number of studies discussed the way B2B companies can measure ROI. Future research should investigate how companies can measure intangible ROI, such as eWOM, brand awareness, and customer engagement (Kumar and Mirchandani 2012 ). Also, future research should investigate the reasons why most of the users do not assess the effectiveness of their SNS. Furthermore, most of the studies focused on likes, shares, and comments to evaluate social media engagement. Future research should focus on other types of measures. More research needs considering the impact of legislation on the use of social media by companies. Recent B2B studies did not consider recent legislation (General Data Protection Regulation 2018 ) in the context B2B (Sivarajah et al. 2019 ).

5.1.3 Effect of Social Media on Business and Society

Social media plays an important part in the company’s decision-making process. Social media can bring positive changes into company, which will result in improving customer satisfaction, value creation, increase in sales, building relationships with customers, knowledge creation, improve the perception of corporate credibility, acquisition of new customers, and improve employment brand engagement. Using information collected from social media can help companies to have a set of reliable attributes that comprise social, economic and environmental aspects in their decision-making process (Tseng 2017 ). Additionally, by using social media B2B companies can provide information to other stakeholders on their sustainability activities. By using data from social media companies will be able to provide products and services which are demanded by society. It will improve the quality of life and result in less waste. Additionally, social media can be considered as a tool that helps managers to integrate business practices with sustainability (Sivarajah et al. 2019 ). As a result, social media use by B2B companies can lead to business and societal changes.

A limited number of studies investigated the effect of social media on word of mouth communications in the B2B context. Future research should investigate the differences and similarities between B2C and B2B eWOM communications. Also, studies should investigate how these types of communications can be improved and ways to deal with negative eWOM. It is important for companies to respond to comments on social media. Additionally, future research should investigate its perceived helpfulness by customers.

Majority of studies (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Rossmann and Stei 2015 ; Agnihotri et al. 2012 ; Agnihotri et al. 2017 ; Itani et al. 2017 ; Salo 2017 ; Bhattacharjya and Ellison 2015 ; Gáti et al. 2018 ; Gruner and Power 2018 ; Hollebeek 2019 ) investigated positive effect of social media such consumer satisfaction, consumer engagement, and brand awareness. However, it will be interesting to consider the dark side of social media use such as an excessive number of requests on social media to salespeople (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ), which can result in the reduction of the responsiveness; spread of misinformation which can damage the reputation of the company.

Studies were performed in China (Lacka and Chong 2016 ; Niedermeier et al. 2016 ), the USA (Guesalaga 2016 ; Iankova et al. 2018 ; Ogilvie et al. 2018 ), India (Agnihotri et al. 2017 ; Vasudevan and Kumar 2018 ), the UK (Bolat et al. 2016 ; Iankova et al. 2018 ; Michaelidou et al. 2011 ). It is strongly advised that future studies conduct research in other countries as findings can be different due to the culture and social media adoption rates. Future studies should pay particular attention to other emerging markets (such as Russia, Brazil, and South Africa) as they suffer from the slow adoption rate of social media marketing. Some companies in these countries still rely more on traditional media for advertising of their products and services, as they are more trusted in comparison with social media channels (Olotewo 2016 ). The majority of studies investigate the effect of social media in B2B or B2C context. Future studies should pay attention to other contexts (e.g. B2B2B, B2B2C). Another limitation of the current research on B2B companies is that most of the studies on social media in the context of B2B focus on the effect of social media use only on business outcomes. It is important for future research to focus on societal outcomes.

Lastly, most of the studies on social media in the context of B2B companies use a cross-sectional approach to collect the data. Future research can use the longitudinal approach in order to advance understanding of social media use and its impact over time.

5.2 Research Propositions

Based on the social media research in the context of B2B companies and the discussion above the following is proposed, which could serve as a foundation for future empirical work.

Social media is a powerful tool to deliver information to customers. However, social media can be used to get consumer and market insights (Kazienko et al. 2013 ). A number of studies highlighted how information obtained from a number of social media platforms could be used for various marketing purposes, such as understanding the needs and preferences of consumers, marketing potential for new products/services, and current market trends (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Constantinides et al. 2008 ). It is advised that future research employs a longitudinal approach to study the impact of social media use on understanding customers. Therefore, the following proposition can be formulated:

Proposition 1

Social media usage of B2B companies has a positive influence on understanding its customers.

By using social media companies can examiner valuable information on competitors. It can help to understand competitors’ habits and strategies, which can lead to the competitive advantage and help strategic planning (Dey et al. 2011 ; Eid et al. 2019 ; Teo and Choo 2001 ). It is advised that future research employs a longitudinal approach to study the impact of social media use on understanding its competitors. As a result, using social media to understand customers and competitors can create business value (Mikalef et al. 2020a ) for key stakeholders and lead to positive changes in the business and societies. The above discussion leads to the following proposition:

Proposition 2

Social media usage of B2B companies has a positive influence on understanding its competitors.

Proposition 3

Culture influences the adoption and use of social media by B2B companies.

Usage of social media can result in some positive marketing outcomes such as building new customer relationships, increasing brand awareness, and level of sales to name a few (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ; Ancillai et al. 2019 ; Dwivedi et al. 2020 ; Rossmann and Stei 2015 ). However, when social media is not used appropriately it can lead to negative consequences. If a company does not have enough resources to implement social media tools the burden usually comes on a salesperson. A high number of customer inquiries, the pressure to engage with customers on social media, and monitor communications happening on various social media platforms can result in the increased workload of a salesperson putting extra pressure (Agnihotri et al. 2016 ). As a result, a salesperson might not have enough time to engage with all the customers online promptly or engage in reactive and proactive web care. As a result, customer satisfaction can be affected as well as company reputation. To investigate the negative impact of social media research could apply novel methods for data collection and analysis such as fsQCA (Pappas et al. 2020 ), or implying eye-tracking (Mikalef et al. 2020b ). This leads to the following proposition:

Proposition 4

Inappropriate use of social media by B2B companies has a negative effect on a) customer satisfaction and b) company reputation.

According to Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE) framework environmental context significantly affects a company’s use of innovations (Abed 2020 ; Oliveira and Martins 2011 ). Environment refers to the factors which affect companies from outside, including competitors and customers. Adopting innovation can help companies to change the rules of the competition and reach a competitive advantage (Porter and Millar 1985 ). In a competitive environment, companies have a tendency to adopt an innovation. AlSharji et al. ( 2018 ) argued that the adoption of innovation can be extended to social media use by companies. A study by AlSharji et al. ( 2018 ) by using data from 1700 SMEs operating in the United Arab Emirates found that competitive pressure significantly affects the use of social media by SMEs. It can be explained by the fact that companies could feel pressure when other companies in the industry start adopting a particular technology and as a result adopt it to remain competitive (Kuan and Chau 2001 ). Based on the above discussion, the following proposition can be formulated:

Proposition 5

Competitive pressure positively affects the adoption of social media by B2B companies.

Companies might feel that they are forced to adopt and use IT innovations because their customers would expect them to do so. Meeting customers’ expectations could result in adoption of new technologies by B2B companies. Some research studies investigated the impact of customer pressure on companies (AlSharji et al. 2018 ; Maduku et al. 2016 ). For example, a study by Maduku et al. ( 2016 ) found that customer pressure has a positive effect on SMEs adoption of mobile marketing in the context of South Africa. Future research could implement longitudinal approach to investigate how environment affects adoption of social media by B2B companies. This leads to the formulation of the following proposition:

Proposition 6

Customer pressure positively affects the adoption of social media by B2B companies.

6 Conclusion

The aim of this research was to provide a comprehensive systematic review of the literature on social media in the context of B2B companies and propose the framework outlining the role of social media in the digital transformation of B2B companies. It was found that B2B companies use social media, but not all companies consider it as part of their marketing strategies. The studies on social media in the B2B context focused on the effect of social media, antecedents, and barriers of adoption of social media, social media strategies, social media use, and measuring the effectiveness of social media. Academics and practitioners can employ the current study as an informative framework for research on the use of social media by B2B companies. The summary of the key observations provided from this literature review is the following: [i] Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most famous social media platforms used by B2B companies, [ii] Social media has a positive effect on customer satisfaction, acquisition of new customers, sales, stakeholder engagement, and customer relationships, [iii] In systematically reviewing 70 publications on social media in the context of B2B companies it was observed that most of the studies use online surveys and online content analysis, [iv] Companies still look for ways to evaluate the effectiveness of social media, [v] Innovativeness, pressure from stakeholders, perceived usefulness, and perceived usability have a significant positive effect on companies’ adoption to use social media, [vi] Lack of staff familiarity and technical skills are the main barriers that affect the adoption of social media by B2B, [vii] Social media has an impact not only on business but also on society, [viii] There is a dark side of social media: fake online reviews, an excessive number of requests on social media to salespeople, distribution of misinformation, negative eWOM, [ix] Use of social media by companies has a positive effect on sustainability, and [x] For successful digital transformation social media should change not only the way how companies integrate it into their marketing strategies but the way how companies deliver values to their customers and conduct their business. This research has a number of limitations. First, only publications from the Scopus database were included in literature analysis and synthesis. Second, this research did not use meta-analysis. To provide a broader picture of the research on social media in the B2B context and reconcile conflicting findings of the existing studies future research should conduct a meta-analysis (Ismagilova et al. 2020c ). It will advance knowledge of the social media domain.

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Chapter 10: The Research Process

Venecia Williams

Learning Objectives

  • Distinguish between formal and informal research
  • Determine how to conduct research and investigation to gather information
  • Learn to evaluate sources
  • Understand how to be ethical, avoid plagiarism, and use reputable sources

Not every piece of business writing requires research or investigation. For example, if you receive an email asking for the correct spelling of your boss’s name and her official title, you will probably be able to answer without having to look anything up. But what if the sender of the email wants to know who in the company is the decision-maker for purchasing a certain supply item? Unless you work for a very small company, you will likely have to look through the organizational chart, and possibly make a phone call or two, before you are able to write an email answering this question. You have just done the research for a piece of business writing.

The first step in research is to know what the situation calls for in terms of the formality or rigour of research required. Although formal research carefully documents sources with citations and references, most messages relay informal research such as when you quickly look up some information you have access to and email it to the person who requested it. Either way, you apply skills in retrieving and delivering the needed information to meet your audience’s needs, often by paraphrasing or summarizing, which are extremely valuable skills coveted by employers. Knowing what research type or “methodology” the situation calls for—formal or informal research, or primary or secondary research—in the first place will keep you on track in the writing process.

Formal and Informal Research

The research methodology where you look up information and deliver the goods in an email answering someone’s question without needing to formally cite your sources is informal research . It is by far the most common type of research because any professional does it several times a day in their routine communication with the various audiences they serve. Say your manager emails asking you to recommend a new printer to replace the one that’s dying. You’re no expert on printers but you know who to ask. You go to Erika, the administrative assistant in your previous department, and she says to definitely go with the Ricoh printer. You trust what she says, so you end your research there and pass along this recommendation to your manager. Now, because your source for the information, whom you don’t necessarily need to identify in informal research, was relatively subjective and didn’t explain in full why the Ricoh was better than all the other models available, you can’t really have 100% confidence in the recommendation you pass along. This type of research will do when you’re short on time and your audience doesn’t need to check your sources.

Formal research , on the other hand, takes a more systematic approach and documents the sources of information compiled using a conventional citation and reference system designed to make it easy for the audience to check out your sources themselves to verify their credibility. Formal research is more scientific in discovering needed information or solving a problem, beginning with a hypothesis (your main idea when you begin, which, in the case above, could be that the Ricoh might be the best printer), and then testing that hypothesis in a rigorous way. In this case, you would come up with a set of criteria including certain features and capabilities that you need your printer to have- cost, warranty and service plan, availability, etc. Next, you would look at all the accessible literature on the printers available to you, including the product webpages and specifications manuals, customer reviews from other vendors, and reviews from reputable sources such as Consumer Reports , which gets experts to test the various available models against a set of criteria. You check out their selection criteria and determine which printer is right for your needs, so you respond to your manager with the make and model number. Finally, to prove that the recommendation comes from a reputable authority, you cite the Consumer Reports article showing the author, year, title, and retrieval information so that your manager can verify that you used a reputable, current source. Formal research requires more time, labour, practice, skill, and resources in following a rigorous procedure.

Primary and Secondary Research

Research can also be categorized as primary and secondary research. Like formal vs . informal research, primary vs . secondary has much to do with the level of rigour.

Primary Research

Primary research generates new knowledge and secondary research applies it. In the above case, the authors of the Consumer Reports article conducted primary research because they came up with the assessment criteria, arranged for access to all the printers, tested and scored each according to how well they performed against each criterion, analyzed the data, determined the ranking of best to worst printer on the market, and reported it in a published article. Other forms of primary research include surveys of randomly sampled people to gauge general attitudes on certain subjects and lab experiments that follow the scientific method. Primary research is labour-intensive, typically expensive, and may include aspects of secondary research if referring to previous primary research. Whether for business or academic writing, primary research can help to strengthen your topic. Interviews, surveys and observation are some common types of primary research.

Speaking to experts or individuals directly connected to your topic of research can provide valuable insight.  Prepare well before conducting an interview. Find out as much as you can about the person or persons if possible so that you can craft effective questions. Open-ended questions are better than closed-ended questions as the interviewee can choose how to respond to the questions. During the interview be courteous, stay on topic and be sure to end the interview on time.

Surveys collect information from larger groups of people. Unlike interviews, the types of questions on surveys tend to be close-ended and quantifiable. If you plan on creating a survey, clearly define your research question and identify your target audience. Doing so will help you design appropriate questions and choose the best way to gather data- face-to-face, over the phone or self-administered online. Nowadays it is easy to create online surveys that quickly compile the results automatically. Several free survey tools such as Survey Monkey and Google Forms are available online to design surveys and interpret the data.

Observation

Another way of collecting information is through careful observation and note-taking. Depending on the type of data you wish to collect, you may decide to simply watch or listen and take notes or perhaps become an active participant. Observation can be subjective; therefore, it is important to first, understand that your feelings and opinions may affect your observations and second, take detailed notes about what you see.

Whichever primary research method you use, make sure you are aware of the drawbacks. People may not always be truthful when answering questions they think cast them in a negative light and the way people normally behave can change significantly when they know they are being observed.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is what most people do when they have academic or professional tasks because it involves finding and using primary research. To use the printer example above, accessing the Consumer Reports article and using its recommendation to make a case for office printer selection was secondary research. Depending on whether that secondary research is informal or formal, it may or may not cite and reference sources. Common secondary sources include print sources and electronic sources.

Books are an excellent source for in-depth data but may contain more out-of-date information compared to other sources because of the time it takes for a book to be published. Whenever you use a book as a source, always check to make sure the information is still relevant.

Periodicals

Periodicals can provide up-to-date information in a specific research area as they are published at regular intervals. Periodicals include scholarly or peer-reviewed journals, trade journals, newspapers and popular magazines. Unlike newspapers and popular magazines which are written for a more general audience, peer-reviewed and trade journals often contain technical jargon which can make them difficult to understand.

Online Sources

Increasingly, it had become rare to start the research process by going to the library to access printed resources (many books and periodicals are available in digital form). Most students and business professionals start online. With the vast amount of information available online through websites, social media, multimedia and blogs, it is easy to find almost any kind of information. Online sources pose special challenges to students and professionals conducting research since most will expediently conduct research entirely online, and with the vast amount of information online, credibility becomes an issue. The most credible information is may not always be the first to appear in your internet search. In fact, with sponsored links common on most search engines, it is likely that the first link(s) will be advertisements that may or may not contain information related to your topic.

Once a source has been located online, other issues arise. Sometimes the author isn’t revealed on a webpage, perhaps because it’s a company or organization’s website, in which case your scrutiny shifts to the organization, its potential biases, and its agenda. A research project on electronic surveillance, for instance, might turn up the websites of companies selling monitoring systems, in which case you must be wary of any facts or statistics (especially uncited ones, but even cited sources) they use because they will likely be selected to help sell products and services. And instead of checking the publisher as you would for a print source, you could consider the domain name; websites with .edu or .gov URL endings usually have higher standards of credibility for the information they publish than sites ending with .com or .org, which are typically the province of commercial enterprises and special interest groups with unique agendas.

Wikipedia is sometimes one of the first sources students and professionals turn to when conducting research online. Although successful in being a comprehensive repository of knowledge, Wikipedia.org , for instance, is not generally considered credible and should therefore not appear as a source in a research document unless it’s for a topic so new or niche that no other credible sources for it exist. By the organization’s own admission, “ Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found [on their site].” The Web 2.0, user-generated nature of Wikipedia means that its articles are susceptible to vandalism or content changes inconsistent with expert opinion, and they aren’t improved by any formal peer-review process (Wikipedia, 2020) . A Wikipedia article can be a good place to start in a research task, however. If you’re approaching a topic for the first time, use Wikipedia for a general introduction and a sense of the topic’s scope and key subtopics. But if you’re going to cite any sources, don’t stop there; use the credible ones that the Wikipedia article cites by scrolling down to the References section- check them out, and assess them for their credibility using the criteria outlined below.

 Evaluating Sources

Evaluating your sources is critical to the process of research. When you write for business and industry you will want to draw on reputable, reliable sources—printed as well as electronic ones—because they reflect on the credibility of the message and the messenger. A question that is central to your assessment of your sources is how credible the source is. This question is difficult to address even with years of training and expertise. Sarah Blakeslee and the librarians at California State University, Chico, came up with the CRAAP Test to help researchers easily determine whether a source is trustworthy. Figure 10.1 explains the important questions to ask when evaluating sources using the CRAAP Test.

research about business communication

If you’ve found a source that fails a few criteria on the CRAAP Test, you don’t necessarily have to throw the source away. Instead, see if you can find other, more reliable sources to corroborate what your source tells you.

Writing With Integrity

Writing with integrity requires accurately representing what you contributed as well as acknowledging how others have influenced your work. Plagiarism occurs when someone uses another person’s “intellectual property” and doesn’t give them credit. Intellectual property is defined as material or ideas envisioned and created by another person. There are many kinds of intellectual property, including books, articles, essays, stories, poems, films, photographs, works of art or craft, or even just ideas.  I n the course of research, it’s entirely likely that you may find a perfect turn of phrase or a way of communicating ideas that fits your needs perfectly. Using it in your writing is fine, provided that you credit the source fully enough that your readers can find it on their own. If you fail to take careful notes or the sentence is present in your writing but later fails to get accurate attribution, it can have a negative impact on you and your organization. That is why it is important that when you find an element you would like to incorporate in your document, in the same moment as you copy and paste or make a note of it in your research file, you need to note the source in a complete enough form to find it again.

Giving credit where credit is due will build your credibility and enhance your document. Moreover, when your writing is authentically yours, your audience will catch your enthusiasm, and you will feel more confident in the material you produce. Just as you have a responsibility in business to be honest in selling your product or service and avoid cheating your customers, so you have a responsibility in business writing to be honest in presenting your idea, and the ideas of others, and to avoid cheating your readers with plagiarized material.

What Is Citing?

Citing is basically giving credit. If your source is well-cited, you’ve told the audience who the ideas or words belong to and you’ve told the audience exactly where to go to find those words.

Why Cite Sources?

1. To Avoid Plagiarism Plagiarism can occur on purpose or be accidental. It can also result from performance pressure, lapses in judgement, total ignorance, or a plethora of other reasons. This is why it is important to be vigilant and aim to be above reproach in your quest to write and communicate ethically.

2. To Acknowledge the Work of Others One major purpose of citations is to simply provide credit where it is due. When you provide accurate citations, you are acknowledging both the hard work that has gone into producing research and the person(s) who performed that research.

3. To Provide Credibility to Your Work & to Place Your Work in Context Providing accurate citations puts your work and ideas into context. They tell your reader that you’ve done your research and know what others have said about your topic. Not only do citations provide context for your work but they also lend credibility and authority to your claims. Further, proper citation also demonstrates the ways in which research is social: no one researches in a vacuum—we all rely on the work of others to help us during the research process.

4. To Help Your Future Researching Self & Other Researchers Easily Locate Sources Having accurate citations will help you as a researcher and writer keep track of the sources and information you find so that you can easily find the source again. Accurate citations may take some effort to produce, but they will save you time in the long run.

How to Cite Sources

Citation and source use are all about balance. If you don’t use enough sources, you might struggle to make a thorough argument. If you cite too much, you won’t leave room for your own voice in your piece. To cite sources, you should make two things clear:

  • The difference between your words and the source’s words.
  • The difference between your ideas and the source’s ideas.

You essentially have three ways of using source material available to you:

  • Quoting text: copying the source’s exact words and marking them off with quotation marks
  • Paraphrasing text: representing the source’s ideas in your own words (without quotation marks)
  • Summarizing text: representing the source’s main ideas in your own words (without quotation marks)

Quoting Sources

Quoting is the easiest way to use sources in a research document, but it also requires care in using it properly so that you don’t accidentally plagiarize, misquote, or overquote. At its simplest, quoting takes source text exactly as it is and puts quotation marks (“ ”) around that text to set it off from your own words. The following points represent conventions and best practices when quoting:

  • Use double quotation marks: In North America, we set off quoted words from our own words with double quotation marks (“ ”). Opening quotation marks look a little like a tiny superscript “66” and the closing marks like “99.”
  • According to researchers Tblisky and Darion (2003), “. . .”
  • As Vice President of Operations Rhonda Rendell has noted, “. . .”
  • John Rucker, the first responder who pulled Mr. Warren from the wreckage, said that “. . .”
  • Spokespersons Gloria and Tom Grady clarified the new regulations: “. . .”
  • “. . . ,” confirmed the minister responsible for the initiative.
  • “. . . ,” writes Eva Hess, “. . .”
  • Quote purposefully: Quote only when the original wording is important. When we quote famous thinkers like Albert Einstein or Marshall McLuhan, we use their exact words because no one could say it better or more interestingly than they did. Also, quote when you want your audience to see wording exactly as it appeared in the source text or as it was said in speech so that they can be sure that you’re not distorting the words as you might if you paraphrased instead. But if there’s nothing special about the original wording, then it’s better to paraphrase.
  • Don’t overquote: A good rule of thumb is that your completed document should contain no more than 10% quoted material. Otherwise, it will appear that you have few original ideas and rely on quotations to write your document for you.

Paraphrasing Sources

Paraphrasing or “indirect quotation” is putting source text in your own words and altering the sentence structure to avoid using the quotation marks required in direct quotation. Paraphrasing is the preferred way of using a source when the original wording isn’t important. This way, you can incorporate the source’s ideas so they’re stylistically consistent with the rest of your document and thus better tailored to the needs of your audience. Also, paraphrasing a source into your own words proves your advanced understanding of the source text. A paraphrase must faithfully represent the source text by containing the same ideas as in the original in about the same length. As a matter of good writing, however, you should try to streamline your paraphrase so that it tallies fewer words than the source passage while still preserving the original meaning.

A common mistake made when paraphrasing is to go only partway towards paraphrasing by substituting-out major words (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) here and there while leaving the source passage’s basic sentence structure intact. This inevitably leaves strings of words from the original untouched in the “paraphrased” version, which can be dangerous because including such direct quotation without quotation marks is considered plagiarism. Figure 10.2 compares an unsuccessful and successful paraphrase.

Figure 10.2- Unsuccessful and Successful Paraphrase

In the unsuccessful paraphrase, several strings of words from the original are left untouched because the writer didn’t go the distance in changing the sentence structure of the original. The fix would be to paraphrase more thoroughly by altering the words and the sentence structure, as shown in the successful paraphrase.

How to Paraphrase in 5 Steps

  • Read and re-read the source-text passage so that you thoroughly understand each point it makes. If it’s a long passage, you might want to break it up into digestible chunks. If you’re unsure of the meaning of any of the words, look them up in a dictionary.
  • Without looking back at the source text, jot down your understanding of the source-text and tailor the language so that it’s stylistically appropriate for your audience; edit and proofread your version to make it grammatically correct.
  • Deleting any of the original points
  • Adding any points of your own
  • Distorting any of the ideas so they mean something substantially different from those in the original
  • You haven’t repeated any two identical words from the original in a row
  • For instance, the noun party can mean a group that is involved in something serious (e.g., a third-party software company in a data-collection process), but the verb party means something you might do on a night out with friends; it can also function as an adjective related to the verb (e.g., party trick , meaning a trick performed at a party).
  • Cite your source. Just because you didn’t put quotation marks around the words doesn’t mean that you don’t have to cite your source.

Summarizing Sources

Summarizing is one of the most important skills in communications because professionals of every kind must explain to non-expert customers, managers, and even co-workers the complex concepts on which they are experts, but in a way that those non-experts can understand. Adapting the message to such audiences requires brevity but also translating jargon-heavy technical details into plain, accessible language.

Summarizing is thus paraphrasing only the highlights of a source text or speech. Like paraphrasing, a summary is an indirect quotation that re-casts the source in your own words; unlike a paraphrase, however, a summary is a fraction of the source length—anywhere from less than 1% to a quarter depending on the source length and length of the summary. A summary can reduce a whole novel or film to a single-sentence blurb, for instance, or it could reduce a 50-word paragraph to a 15-word sentence. It can be as casual as a spoken run-down of a meeting your colleague was absent from and wanted to know what he missed, or an elevator pitch selling a project idea to a manager. It can also be as formal as a memo report on a conference you attended on behalf of your organization, so your colleagues can learn in a few minutes of reading the highlights what you learned in a few days of attending the conference, saving them time and money. The procedure for summarizing is much like that of paraphrasing except that it involves the extra step of pulling out highlights from the source.

How to Summarize

  • Determine how long your summary should be (according to your audience’s needs) so that you have a sense of how much material you should collect from the source.
  • Read and re-read the source text so that you thoroughly understand it.
  • Disregard detail such as supporting evidence and examples.
  • If you have an electronic copy of the source, copy and paste the main points into your notes; for a print source that you can mark up, use a highlighter then transcribe those main points into your electronic notes.
  • How many points you collect depends on how big your summary should be.
  • Paraphrase those main points following steps 1-4 for paraphrasing outlined above.
  • Edit your draft to make it coherent, clear, and especially concise.
  • Ensure that your summary meets the needs of your audience and that your source is cited. Again, not having quotation marks around words doesn’t mean that documenting your source(s) is not necessary.

Using quotations, summaries and paraphrases effectively takes time and practice. Purdue Online Writing Lab provides more information on how to effectively incorporate sources into your writing.

Creating In-Text Citations And References

To prove formally that research has been carried out, a two-part system for documenting sources is used. The first part is a citation that gives a few brief pieces of information about the source right where that source is used in the document and points to the second part, the bibliographic reference at the end of the document. This second part gives further details about the source so that readers can easily retrieve it themselves. American Psychology Association (APA), Modern Languages Association (MLA), and The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) are some of the most common styles.

The American Psychological Association’s documentation style is preferred by the social sciences and general disciplines such as business because it strips the essential elements of a citation down to a few pieces of information that briefly identify the source and cue the reader to further details in the references list at the end of the document.

Creating an In-Text Citation

An in-text citation tells the reader where the information in a particular sentence came from. If the in-text citation is done well, the reader will be able to use it to find the full reference in the bibliography, then easily find the exact source where the idea/quote came from.

In APA style, an in-text citation generally consists of the author’s last name and the date the work was created. If you are quoting directly, you should include the page number.

  • “We know our cultures have meaning and worth, and that culture lives and breathes inside our languages.” (Elliot, 2019, p. 18).
  • According to Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliot, “We know our cultures have meaning and worth, and that culture lives and breathes inside our languages.” (2019, p. 18).

If you’ve already used the author’s name in the sentence, you don’t have to repeat it in the in-text citation.

  • If you don’t know the name of the author, simply put the first few words of the title.
  • If you don’t know the date, write “n.d.” for No Date .
  • If you don’t know the page number, put in the paragraph number.

Creating a Reference

The purpose of a reference is to give enough information for the reader to find the original source.

The APA reference for the quotation cited above is as follows:

  • Elliot, A. (2019). A Mind Spread Out on the Ground.  Toronto: Doubleday Canada. Print.

Citation styles have different rules and learning them all can be daunting. Purdue Owl provides an up-to-date guide on how to cite sources in the different styles. You can also use a citation generator to create your references as long as you double-check for accuracy.

When Don’t You Cite?

Do you need to cite every source you use in your research? With so much emphasis on plagiarism and citation, it is can be difficult to determine when citation is not necessary.

  • Don’t cite when what you are saying is your own insight. Research involves forming opinions and insights around what you learn. You may be citing several sources that have helped you learn, but at some point, you are integrating your own opinion, conclusion, or insight into the work. The fact that you are NOT citing it helps the reader understand that this portion of the work is your unique contribution developed through your own research efforts.
  • Vancouver is the 8th largest city in Canada.
  • The earth revolves around the sun.

It may seem like it’s hard work to assess your sources, make sure your information is accurate and truthful, and document your sources, but the effort is worth it. Business and industry rely on reputation and trust in order to maintain healthy relationships. Your document, regardless of how small it may appear in the larger picture, is an important part of that reputation and interaction.

End of Chapter Activities

10a. thinking about the content.

What are your key takeaways from this chapter? What is something you have learned or something you would like to add from your experience?

10b. Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions

  • Before the Internet improved information access, how did people find information? Are the strategies they used still valid and how might they serve you as a business writer? Interview several people who are old enough to have done research in the “old days” and report your findings.
  • Find an example of a bogus or less than credible Web site. Indicate why you perceive it to be untrustworthy.
  • Visit the parody Web site The Onion at  http://www.theonion.com  and find one story that you think has plausible or believable elements. Share your findings with the class.
  • How do you prepare yourself for a writing project? How do others? What strategies work best for you? Survey ten colleagues or coworkers and compare your results with your classmates.
  • Think of a time when someone asked you to gather information to make a decision, whether for work, school, or in your personal life. How specific was the request? What did you need to know before you could determine how much and what kind of information to gather?

10c. Applying chapter concepts to a situation

Dealing with Plagiarism in a Group Project

Nina is a third-year student completing her bachelor’s degree at the University of West Haven. She is a member of a team with four other students in her class, and they have a week to complete their latest group assignment. This assignment accounts for forty percent of their final grade, so Nina is determined to get an A.

Nina is the team leader and assigns a section to each member of the team to complete. She tells them to submit their sections to her one day before the assignment due date for her to have sufficient time to edit and collate the document.

While editing the sections received from her teammates,  Nina discovers that they plagiarised most of the information they submitted to her. She immediately requests that they make the necessary changes as she knows that plagiarism can lead to expulsion at the university.

Nina’s team members are laid back and have no interest in rewriting their sections. Instead, they reassure her that the instructor will not check their project for plagiarism. Nina is frustrated and does not know how to address this.

What advice would you give to Nina?

10d. Writing Activity

Watch this video from TED.com on What really motivates people to be honest in business . Summarize the video. What is the most interesting point made by Alexander Wagner in your opinion?

Attribution

This chapter contains information from Business Communication for Success  which is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) in 2010 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the  University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing  through the  eLearning Support Initiative  , Business Communication For Everyone  (c) 2019 by Arley Cruthers and is licensed under a  Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license  ,Communication at Work  by Jordan Smith is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Hacker, Diana. (2006). The Bedford handbook (7th ed.) . New York: St. Martin’s. Retrieved from https://department.monm.edu/english/mew/signal_phrases.htm

Purdue Writing Lab. (2020). Conducting Primary Research- Observing. Purdue Writing Lab . Retrieved June 19, 2020, from https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/conducting_primary_research/observing.html

Wikipedia. (2020). Wikipedia: General disclaimer . Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved June 23, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer.

Chapter 10: The Research Process by Venecia Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Bus. Commun. Res. Pract. 2021 ; 4 ( 1 ): 65 - 67

pISSN: 2586-5293, eISSN: 2586-534X

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22682/bcrp.2021.4.1.65

Communication for High-Performance

Copyright © 2021 Korean Association for Business Communication. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jul 30, 2020 ; Revised: Sep 27, 2020 ; Accepted: Sep 29, 2020

Published Online: Jan 31, 2021

Introduction

Communication skills are of great interest in the workplace and have been listed as the number one skill required for new graduates in Japan for 16 consecutive years ( Keidanren, 2018 ). Communication, together with integrity, is regarded as an overwhelmingly important soft skill by the US executives as well ( Robles, 2012 ). However, meanings of communication could be broad, and it is not straightforward when we try to define its domain.

We would agree that workplace communication has a different focus than general social communication. General communication mainly focuses on interpersonal relationships whereas workplace communication focuses on task completion as well as interpersonal relationship building. Even though both task completion and interpersonal relationship building are essential for high performance organizations, some managers seem to be more interested in tasks. Managers would even view “communication as a means to an end, something to be exploited in the service of organizational objectives after weighing the cost-benefit considerations” ( Smeltzer, Glab, & Golen, 1983 ).

Practically, managers would be interested in the desirable allocation between interpersonal relationship building and task completion. This article intends to introduce some perspectives on effective communication in a managerial context through reviewing some research on the communication that takes place in a high-performance team in Japan.

Communication for Shared Goals

Communication can be described as “the process of sharing meaning by transmitting messages through media such as words, behavior, or material artifacts and it is a complex process of linking up or sharing the perceptual fields of sender and receiver” ( Deresky, 2017 , pp. 150-151). Drucker (2008) described four characteristics of communication for the managerial context: perception of receivers; expectation of receivers; a burden on receivers; different from information. Drucker (2008) pointed out that receivers play a more important role than senders and that the receivers selectively understand messages consistent with their own expectations and perceptions of reality.

The process of communication is often modeled as an exchange of meaning through encoding, sending, receiving, and decoding, and messages are not always interpreted as intended as a result of noise. From a social constructivist viewpoint, however, meanings held by the sender and the receiver are different anyway because the realities of the communicators are simply different. Considering the fact that realities held by individuals are necessarily different, communicating messages perfectly as intended would be impossible.

Also, neither managers nor subordinates understand reality in a single right way. So, as Drucker (2008) pointed out, communication between managers and subordinates should primarily focus on discussing shared goals instead of competing on who knows “the truth.” In a managerial context, all activities including communication, should serve a company’s organizational goals. It may sound obvious to some readers, but it is not necessarily explicitly shared in some cultures.

Communication for High Performance in a Japanese Context

Management communication focuses on examining how “managers” use language to “get work done with and through people” ( Rogers, 2014 ), but the expression “through people” does not seem to fit in most Japanese contexts. The old definition of management is “getting things done through others” ( Nakagawa, 2020 ). Some people may be uncomfortable with this understanding of the word, as it implies controlling others and moving them at will. A more personable understanding of this word may be “getting things done with others” ( Nakagawa, 2020 ).

An emphasis on “we” in communication could also be observed in flatter organizational structures. As research on leadership has expanded from a focus on the leader to one on followers and the team as a whole, many scholars have been interested in effective team communication. For example, Wheelan (2016) noted that members of high-performance work teams spend between 70% and 80% of the time talking about goals, tasks, and supportive messages, and the team will be less successful if members talk too much about reminders such as social statements unrelated to work.

This seems in line with classic research conducted in Japan indicating that a high-performance team shared more messages related to task procedural information than formal relationship building messages such as greetings. Furukawa (2003) analyzed the content of comments from the electronic communication system of a sales department of a general electronics manufacturer in Tokyo and found four message categories: information exchange; work procedure and progress; supportive messages; greetings. On average, 35% was occupied by the information exchange category, 20% by work procedures, 20% by supportive messages, and 20% by greetings.

Contrasting the high-performance team and the low-performance team, the high-performance team exchanged more messages in the information exchange category (47%) than low performance teams (23%) while low performance team filled it with greetings (36% in low-performance team versus 11% in high performance team) ( Furukawa, 2003 ). This is important because they tend to emphasize co-existing in the physical workplace and spending time together without much verbal communication to support interpersonal relation building.

It should be also noted that hierarchy in organization still matters for effective communication in spite of the current trend toward flatter company structure. For example, in the Japanese context, Furukawa (2011) gave some examples of downward (supervisors to supervisees), upward (supervisees to supervisors), and horizontal communication. Downward communication includes setting goals, instruction of policies and procedures, guidance, arousing problems, feedback and evaluation; upward communication includes reporting progress and problems, inquiries about activities; and horizontal communication includes requests, confirmations, exchanges of opinions, consultations ( Furukawa, 2011 ). All messages could be sent by any member regardless of hierarchical position, but if team members are ignorant of expected roles, there would be a risk of facing a threatening act, which would lead to low productivity.

Business communication within organizations should serve organizational goals taking care of both task completion and relationship building. It is essential to contextualize business communication in management activities integrating knowledge of communication, management, psychology, and language. The message construct of high-performance teams clarifying the context would be helpful for practical purposes.

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10,000 citations strong: How a dissertation topic defied skepticism and redefined marketing narratives

Estimated Reading Time:  

BGSU Distinguished Research and Teaching Professor Dr. Dwayne Gremler trailblazed the digital age in a quest to decode online word-of-mouth communication.

#1 University in Ohio for Student Experience

Innovative engineering degrees, #1 public university in the midwest students would choose again for the fourth consecutive year.

While considering his dissertation topic some 30 years ago, a certain Ph.D. candidate, now professor at Bowling Green State University, was interested in researching word-of-mouth communication, but he ran into a stone wall.

A senior professor offered this terse rebuke: “Word-of-mouth is dead. Move on to a different topic.”

After quietly and respectfully disagreeing, the allure of examining the power and potential in this area of the exchange of information remained a topic of interest, if the right project presented itself.

“I thought the topic of word-of-mouth communication was intriguing,” said Dr. Dwayne Gremler, a professor of marketing who has been named as both BGSU Distinguished Research Professor and BGSU Distinguished Teaching Professor.

He found another route to complete his Ph.D. studies, but his interest in researching word-of-mouth persisted, even as the primary focus early in his career centered on other issues.

The growth of the internet changed word-of-mouth communication, which is “the informal spread of information, opinions and recommendations about a product, service or brand from one person to another.” This communication morphed from a casual conversation in the breakroom at work or a brief exchange over the hedgerow with a neighbor into something that could involve thousands or millions of other individuals.

Gremler-Dwayne

After his own research on the topic, Gremler was invited about 25 years ago to be part of an extensive study led by Professor Thorsten Hennig-Thurau in Germany. Their research was published in 2004 in the Journal of Interactive Marketing, and it has proven to be groundbreaking, at a minimum. 

The research has been cited more than 10,000 times and is regarded as a foundational element in the study of the digital communication and marketing landscape. It is the most cited work among all research about word of mouth and consumer communication.

Their collaborative effort looked at what eventually would be called electronic word-of-mouth communication - or EWOM. Gianfranco Walsh, another German professor, along with Kevin Gwinner, a marketing professor from Kansas State, were also part of the team. 

The four scholars came together to examine what prompted people to share their opinions online. They collected data from an online sample of more than 2,000 German opinion-platform users who had previously written comments about products they had experienced.

As the research ideas, drafts of papers and exchange of information zipped back and forth across the Atlantic via the internet, a scholarly document titled “Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: What motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the internet?” eventually was generated by the group.

“The results revealed that the motivation for providing such comments was social (being an active part of a community and concern for those consumers who would read the reviews), intrinsic (self-expression) and extrinsic (rewards by the platform) incentives,” Gremler said.

Gremler said the two American professors were called on to provide additional insight into the research, plus they had experience with the publication process needed to get the study published in a U.S. journal. 

The BGSU professor said he and his co-authors were fortunate to address the topic at the same time the use, reach and capabilities of the internet were experiencing explosive growth.

“I think in part it was a timing issue, since had the research been four or five years later, someone else might have beaten us to the punch,” he said. 

The paper was not an immediate hit, but researchers around the globe eventually found that the work offered an extensive examination of a topic few others had visited.

“Once the momentum started, since we came along early on and our research had started the conversation, others have used our work and have built on that,” he said. “It certainly has surprised us that interest in our research has grown exponentially, especially in recent years. It is surprising to me it is still being heavily cited.”

Gremler, who joined the BGSU faculty in 2000, said the German-American research team was able to document the early stages of a paradigm shift that continues to grow as it cascades across the globe. Word-of-mouth in the comment and review sections of company websites, as well as crowd-sourced entities such as Yelp, have proven to be a game-changer.

“Historically, word-of-mouth was one-on-one, or one-on-three, and consumers had very little power,” he said. “What has changed with the internet is the power has shifted to the consumer. In a matter of seconds, someone sitting on a flight with their phone can capture a guy being hauled off an airplane, and within very little time a video can be sent out and shared with hundreds, thousands or millions of people.”

Gremler-MYBG0723

His interest in word-of-mouth communication began in the late 1980s before his time in academia, while Gremler was working for a large corporation in Phoenix. The company had an in-house communication network called “Forum” that was a forerunner to social media. If an employee was looking for a house painter, a babysitter or a Volkswagen repair shop, they could post that need on the internal site and review the feedback they would receive from the 5,000-person workforce.

“At that point, I realized how powerful this was, and I could envision that this online thing might make it fairly easy to see responses from hundreds or even thousands of other people. I might have a limited circle of friends, but this kind of connection and capability was both interesting and fascinating.”

He said word-of-mouth communication is often considered highly influential and trustworthy because it comes from personal connections rather than direct advertising and is therefore thought to be unbiased. What resulted from the growth of the internet was a mechanism for a single consumer to reach many others via word of mouth.

Gremler said he jumped at the opportunity to be part of the research team, although the trans-Atlantic operation was a bit cumbersome more than two decades ago.

“We didn’t have all of the cool tools we have now, so no Zoom meetings or screen sharing. We would each work on our aspect of the project and send drafts of papers back and forth,” he said. “It took a lot of planning and coordination since there were different timetables and different cultures involved.”

While the German professors excelled at the quantitative aspect of the work, Gremler focused on making their study more readable and digestible, and finding the pathway to getting the paper into a journal publication. He is still sharing that skill set today.

Gremler has developed a seminar on scholarly research and how to get such works published, and he has presented that at 20 universities in 10 countries with more than 450 participants, primarily Ph.D. candidates seeking advice on how to get their research published in academic journals.

“Most universities don’t teach their Ph.D. candidates how to do that,” he said.

The distinction that has accompanied the frequently cited work has taken place inside the academic ranks, but Gremler said he remains proud of the longevity of the research and its sustained place in the field of communication.

“It is surprising to me that it is still being cited so often, and the exponential growth it has experienced, especially in recent years,” he said. “We found and examined a research question that has generated a lot of interest.”

Gremler-Dwayne-A62T4345

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This 10-second trick immediately makes you a better conversationalist, according to emerging Harvard research

  • Charles Duhigg, the author of "The Power of Habit," swears by this 10-second communication trick.
  • Before you enter a conversation, jot down or think of three topics to talk about if there's a lull.
  • Even if you don't cover them, having questions to ask makes you more confident and relaxed.

Insider Today

Whether you're networking , mingling with potential new friends , or trying to make a first date less stilted , it's daunting to talk to a near-stranger. What if your small talk feels too small? What if they don't ask you any questions? Worse: what if your mind fully draws a blank when it's your turn to ask them one?

Charles Duhigg, the author of the best-selling book " The Power of Habit ," recently published " Supercommunicators " to help readers have better conversations and push past surface-level, tedious chats that don't foster meaningful connection.

When it comes to conversations with new or new-ish people, there is one research-backed hack for "almost any time where you have that little bit of dread or a little anxiety" talking to someone, Duhigg told Business Insider.

It only takes 10 to 20 seconds .

Prepare at least 3 quick topics

"If you're going to a holiday party, if you are going to a work function, it really helps to just jot down three topics in advance," Duhigg told BI.

He learned this from Alison Wood Brooks , an associate professor and researcher at Harvard Business School currently studying the effects of topic preparation with researchers at London School of Economics and Political Science, Imperial College London, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Brooks told Business Insider that her research is still ongoing. But three studies of live, face-to-face conversations have found speakers are more confident and verbally dexterous if they brainstorm flexible topics ahead of time.

These are topics that the speaker can bring up but don't have to — simply doing the prep will calm you down and skill you up.

In his book, Duhigg suggested options for possible topics:

What are two topics you might discuss? General topics such as last night's game or a favorite TV show are fine.

What is one thing you hope to say?

What is one question you will ask?

You probably won't get to the topics

Don't spend too much time trying to find the best topics, because you likely won't get to them, Duhigg said.

"Most of the time, you won't actually discuss those things, but your anxiety levels will go down considerably because you feel like you have something to fall back on," Duhigg said. "If there's an uncomfortable silence, you know exactly what you're going to bring up."

He said the preparation is worth it, if only to give you peace of mind, because "the more calm and relaxed we are, the easier it's going to be for us to really connect with someone and have a great conversation."

It's a good habit for all conversations

Brooks told The New York Times that you don't necessarily need to write down topics way in advance. "Even just thinking about one or two ideas in the 20 seconds before a conversation seems to help," she said.

While it can seem forced or like extra work, Duhigg said the technique can help you build a deeper relationship with someone.

"If I care about communicating with you enough that I take a couple of seconds and jot down some topics, I'm not doing anything inauthentic," he said. "I'm showing you that I genuinely want to connect with you, and there's nothing that feels better than that."

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Responding to Two Years of Russia’s Full-Scale War On Ukraine and Navalny’s Death

Office of the Spokesperson

February 23, 2024

Following Russia’s two years of unprovoked full-scale war, the death of opposition politician and anticorruption activist Aleksey Navalny, and a decade of aggression against Ukraine, the United States is sanctioning more than 500 individuals and entities in Russia and globally. There is a clear link between Russia’s authoritarianism, its domestic crackdown on dissent, and its aggression abroad. Today, we are imposing additional costs on Russia for both its internal repression and foreign aggression.

The Department of State is sanctioning three individuals in connection with the death of Navalny in Russian Penal Colony IK-3: the prison warden, regional prison head, and deputy director of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. In addition, the Department is imposing sanctions on more than 250 entities and individuals, including those engaged in sanctions evasion and circumvention, and those bolstering Russia’s future energy and metals and mining production.

Along with these actions, the Department is sanctioning several individuals to promote accountability for acts supporting Russia’s war, including by those involved in the unlawful transfer and/or deportation of Ukrainian children. Today’s financial sanctions targets are being designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14024, as amended, which authorizes sanctions with respect to specified harmful foreign activities of the Government of the Russian Federation.

The Department is also taking steps to impose visa restrictions on Russian Federation-installed purported authorities involved in human rights abuses in connection with the transfer, deportation and confinement of Ukrainian children.

Additionally, the U.S. government is issuing a business advisory to assist companies in making informed decisions regarding the risks of conducting business in Russia.

PROMOTING ACCOUNTABILITY FOR INDIVIDUALS INVOLVED IN THE DEATH OF ALEKSEY NAVALNY

The Department is designating the following three individuals connected to the death of Aleksey Navalny pursuant to section 1(a)(iii)(A) for being or having been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of the Government of the Russian Federation:

  • VALERIY GENNADEVICH BOYARINEV (BOYARINEV) is the Deputy Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, which includes oversight of Penal Colony IK-3. BOYARINEV reportedly instructed prison staff to exert harsher treatment on Aleksey Navalny while he was in detention. Following Navalny’s death, BOYARINEV was promoted to “Colonel General” by decree of Vladimir Putin.
  • IGOR BORISOVICH RAKITIN (RAKITIN) and VADIM KONSTANTINOVICH KALININ (KALININ) are officials in the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. RAKITIN is the overall head of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, in which Penal Colony IK-3 is located. KALININ is the warden of Penal Colony IK-3.

CONSTRAINING RUSSIA’S FUTURE ENERGY PRODUCTION AND EXPORTS

Further Sanctions on Entities Involved in the Arctic LNG 2 Project

The Department continues to designate entities involved in the development of Russia’s future energy production and export capacity. Today, the Department is designating two major entities involved in the financing and construction of highly specialized liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers designed specifically for Limited Liability Company Arctic LNG 2 (LLC Arctic LNG 2), the operator of the Arctic LNG 2 project, as well as several other entities involved in Arctic LNG 2 and other future energy projects in Russia. Construction and development of the Arctic LNG 2 Project has relied on foreign service companies’ expertise and technology to significantly expand Russia’s future LNG export capacity.

These actions follow the Department of State’s designation of LLC Arctic LNG 2 in November 2023, as well as multiple other entities involved in the development of the Arctic LNG 2 project. These designations have already produced delays in the project exports and resulted in significant increases in the project’s construction costs. Today’s actions demonstrate the United States’ continued commitment and resolve to constrain the Arctic LNG 2 project’s production and export capacity.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i) the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the manufacturing sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY SHIPBUILDING COMPLEX ZVEZDA is a Russia-based shipbuilding company that is involved in the construction of up to 15 highly specialized LNG tankers intended for use in support of Arctic LNG 2 exports.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the marine sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY MODERN MARINE ARCTIC TRANSPORT SPG (SMART LNG) is a Russia-based joint venture to lease new ice-class LNG carriers in support of Arctic LNG 2 exports.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the construction sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY NOVATEK MURMANSK (NOVATEK MURMANSK) is a Russia-based civil engineering construction company. NOVATEK MURMANSK, also known as the Belokamenka shipyard, is involved in the assembly of the gravity-based structures and LNG production lines for the Arctic LNG 2 project.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entities are being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the Government of the Russian Federation:

  • AZORIA SHIPPING COMPANY LIMITED (AZORIA SHIPPING COMPANY) is a Cyprus-based shipping company intended to acquire a vessel supporting exports from the Arctic LNG 2 project. AZORIA SHIPPING COMPANY‘s global ultimate parent is Joint Stock Company Sovcomflot, a Russian state-owned enterprise.
  • ELIXON SHIPPING COMPANY LIMITED (ELIXON SHIPPING COMPANY) is a Cyprus-based shipping company intended to acquire a vessel supporting exports from the Arctic LNG 2 project. ELIXON SHIPPING COMPANY‘s global ultimate parent is Joint Stock Company Sovcomflot, a Russian state-owned enterprise.
  • GLORINA SHIPPING COMPANY LIMITED (GLORINA SHIPPING COMPANY) is a Cyprus-based shipping company intended to acquire a vessel supporting exports from the Arctic LNG 2 project. GLORINA SHIPPING COMPANY‘s global ultimate parent is Joint Stock Company Sovcomflot, a Russian state-owned enterprise.

Targeting Other Russian Future Energy Projects

The Department is also taking action against entities involved in other Russian future energy projects.

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GLOBALTEK was established in 2019 to implement and develop the future Yakutia Gas Project.

The Department is designating an additional two entities involved in the development and operation of Russia’s Ust-Luga LNG terminal. These actions follow previous sanctions against entities involved in the development of the Ust-Luga LNG terminal.

  • OOO RUSKHIMALYANS (RUSKHIMALYANS) is a Russia-based joint-venture company building an LNG complex at the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga. RUSKHIMALYANS is also the LNG project’s operator.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the transportation sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY NEW COMMUNAL TECHNOLOGIES (NKT) is a subsidiary of RUSKHIMALYANS and is involved in transportation services and cargo handling on behalf of RUSKHIMALYANS.

Targeting a Major Russian State-Owned Enterprise Supporting Future Energy Projects

The Department is targeting a significant geological exploration company wholly owned by the Government of the Russian Federation. JSC ROSGEOLOGIA (ROSGEO) is a Russian state-owned multidisciplinary geological holding company, which provides geological exploration services. Within Russia, ROSGEO and its subsidiaries perform a range of geophysical services in the search and exploration of oil and gas fields. ROSGEO is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(vii) for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the Government of the Russian Federation.

ROSGEO performs similar operations for hydrocarbon and solid mineral exploration in over a dozen countries, primarily through two subsidiaries, YUZHMORGEOLOGIYA AO and ZARUBEZHGEOLOGIYA AO (ZARUBEZHGEOLOGIYA) . YUZHMORGEOLOGIYA AO and ZARUBEZHGEOLOGIA are being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the engineering sector of the Russian Federation economy.

  • The following vessels are being identified as property in which YUZHMORGEOLOGIYA AO has an interest: YUZHMORGEOLOGIYA and GELENDZHIK are research vessels operated by YUZHMORGEOLOGIYA AO for the purpose of geophysical exploration and are ultimately managed by ROSEGO.

The following entities affiliated with ROSGEO are engaged in activities such as surveying, industrial engineering, and providing engineering-related services in Russia. All eight entities are being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the engineering sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • NPTS NEDRA AO
  • IRKUTSKGEOFIZIKA AO
  • SEVERO VOSTOCHNOE PGO AO
  • SEVERO KAVKAZSKOE PGO AO
  • SIBIRSKOE PGO AO
  • CHELYABINSKGEOSEMKA AO
  • DALNEVOSTOCHNOE PGO AO
  • DALMORNEFTEGEOFIZIKA AO

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the architecture sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • TSENTRALNOE PGO PAO (TSENTRALNOE PGO) is owned by ROSGEO. TSENTRALNOE PGO provides architectural, engineering, and related services for geological exploration projects in Russia.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following two entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the manufacturing sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • TULSKOE NIGP AO and VNIGRI GEOLOGORAZVEDKA AO are both ultimately owned or managed by ROSGEO. Both entities are engaged in the manufacture of geophysical and mining equipment

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following two entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • TSENTRKVARTS PAO is managed by ROSGEO and is involved in geophysical exploration work for projects in Russia.
  • SEVERO ZAPADNOE PGO AO is owned by ROSGEO. SEVERO ZAPADNOE PGO AO is engaged in mineral exploration and mining activities.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the engineering sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • SEVMORNEFTEGEOFIZIKA AO (SMNG) is managed by ROSGEO. SMNG is involved in geophysical exploration and marine exploratory drilling in Russia, as well as for international projects on behalf of the Russian government.

The following vessels are being identified as property in which SMNG has an interest. The following five vessels are survey and research vessels used for the purpose of geophysical exploration and are ultimately managed by ROSGEO:

  • AKADEMIK PRIMAKOV
  • PROFESSOR LOGACHEV
  • AKADEMIK LAZEREV
  • AKADEMIK NEMCHINOV
  • PROFESSOR RYABINKIN
  • The AKADEMIK ALEKSANDR KARPINSKIY is being identified as property in which PMGRE has an interest. AKADEMIK ALEKSANDR KARPINSKIYis a survey and research vessel operated by PMGRE for the purpose of geophysical exploration and is ultimately managed by ROSGEO.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following three entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the engineering sector of the Russian Federation economy. These three entities are engaged in scientific engineering research, and are all managed by ROSGEO:

  • VNIGRIUGOL AO
  • VNIIZARUBEZHGEOLOGIYA VZG AO
  • The BAVENIT is being identified as property in which AMIGE has an interest. BAVENITis a survey and research vessel operated by AMIGE for the purpose of geophysical exploration and is ultimately managed by ROSGEO.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • URANGEOLOGORAZVEDKA AO (URANGEO) is managed by ROSGEO. URANGEO provides drilling services and related support for geological exploration projects in Russia.

Continued Pressure on Rosatom Subsidiaries

This is the sixth Russia sanctions action that includes designations of State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom (Rosatom) subsidiaries. These targets include Rosatom entities supporting Russia’s development of the Arctic region, future business development, and an enterprise of Russia’s nuclear weapons complex.

The Department is designating the following entities pursuant to section 1(a)(vii) for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the Government of the Russian Federation:

  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY RUSATOM ARCTIC (RUSATOM ARCTIC) is a subsidiary of Rosatom that was established in 2023 to aid in Russia’s development of the Arctic region.
  • INNOVATION HUB LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY (INNOHUB) is a subsidiary of Rosatom that serves as Rosatom’s business accelerator and includes an investment portfolio, a project office, and a research and development center.
  • FEDERAL STATE UNITARY ENTERPRISE ALEXANDROV RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (ALEXANDROV RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY) is a subsidiary of Rosatom described as being a key enterprise of the nuclear weapons complex and involved in designing, testing, and supporting nuclear power and naval propulsion reactors, including for Russian submarines.

DISRUPTING SANCTIONS EVASION AND BACKFILLING EFFORTS

The Department continues to disrupt the networks and channels through which Russia attempts to procure technology and equipment from third countries to support its war effort. Specifically, these designations target producers, exporters, and importers of items critical to Russia’s defense-industrial base, including common high-priority items identified by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, alongside the EU, UK, and Japan. Entities based in the PRC, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries, continue to send these items and other important dual-use goods to Russia, including critical components that Russia relies on for its weapons systems. Many of these procured components also include U.S.-origin aviation parts from top U.S. manufacturers. Russia has continued to leverage sanctions evasion and circumvention networks to procure aviation and microelectronic components in an effort to sustain its military industrial base and aviation industry, to include expropriated U.S. and European aircraft.

Targeting a Pathway for Microelectronics Imports to Russia

The Department is designating the following entity pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the electronics sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY PARTNERSHIP DA GROUP 22 (DA GROUP 22) is a Kazakhstan-based company that is receiving common high-priority items from Germany-based company, ELIX ST LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, and is sending common high-priority items to Russia-based company LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY STEK. The end users of these common high-priority items include the Russian military and Russian space and defense manufacturers.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vi)(B), the following entity is being designated for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of DA GROUP 22, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • ELIX ST LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY (ELIX ST) is a Germany-based company that has supplied common high-priority items to Kazakhstan-based company, DA GROUP 22.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(iii)(C), the following individual is being designated for being or having been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of ELIX ST:

  • YELENA LVOVNA CHERNET is the Managing Director of ELIX ST.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the electronics sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY STEK (STEK) is a Russia-based company involved in the production of electrical wiring works. STEK is receiving common high-priority items from DA GROUP 22.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY SET 1 (SET 1) is a Russia-based company involved in the production of radio and television-transmission apparatuses. SET 1 uses microelectronic imports from STEK to develop products for the Russian military.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity and individual are being designated for operating or having operated in the manufacturing sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ELIKS M (ELIKS M) is a Russia-based company involved primarily in the wholesale distribution of industrial machinery and equipment. ELIKS M clients include various Russian defense companies.
  • YEVGENIY OLEGOVICH CHERNET is the General Director and majority shareholder of ELIKS M.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the electronics sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY PARTNERSHIP ELEM GROUP (ELEM GROUP) is a Kazakhstan-based company that has supplied common high-priority items to Russia-based, U.S.-designated STRELOI EKOMMERTS.

Türkiye-based Entities Supplying Common High-Priority Items to Russia

The Department is designating the following entities pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the electronics sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • MBK LOJISTIK MEDIKAL PAZARLAMA SANAYI IC VE DIS TICARET LIMITED SIRKETI (MBK LOJISTIK) is a Türkiye-based company that has supplied common high-priority items to Russia-based company, LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY A AVERS.
  • OLIMPIK GAMA IC VE TICARET SANAYI LIMITED SIRKETI (OLIMPIK GAMA) is a Türkiye-based company that has supplied common high-priority items to Russia-based company, LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TRADE HOUSE KYUTEK.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TRADE HOUSE KYUTEK (TRADE HOUSE) is a Russia-based company that has received common high-priority electronic components supplied by Türkiye-based company, OLIMPIK GAMA.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY A AVERS (A AVERS) is a Russia-based company that has received common high-priority electronic components supplied by Türkiye-based company, MBK LOJISTIK.

Türkiye-based Entities Involved in Procuring G7-Origin Aircraft Components for Entities Based in Russia

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the aerospace sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • ALPHA VISIT SHOP FOREIGN TRADE LIMITED COMPANY (ALPHA VISIT) is a Türkiye-based company, founded by a Russian national in May 2022, that supplied aircraft parts to Russia-based companies, including an entity that is Entity Listed by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security.

A UAE-based Entity Supplying Common High-Priority Items to Russia

  • ASIA INTERNATIONAL TRADE PROVIDER LLC (ASIA INTERNATIONAL) is a UAE-based company that has supplied common high-priority items to Russia-based, U.S.-designated LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY MDIKAM EK.

UAE-based Entities Involved in Procuring G7-Origin Aircraft Components for Entities Based in Russia

The Department is designating the following entity pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the transportation sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • POLARSTAR LOGISTICS LLC (POLARSTAR) is a UAE-based company that offers cargo shipping services from the UAE to Russia. POLARSTAR is listed as an S7 Airlines representative office and acts as a cargo agent in the UAE on behalf of S7 Airlines, which is Entity Listed by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the aerospace sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ANGAR (ANGAR) is solely owned by S7 ENGINEERING. ANGAR is primarily engaged in renting, buying, selling, managing, and appraising real estate.
  • MIRAGE AIR CRAFT SERVICES SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP LLC is a UAE-based company that supplied aircraft parts to the Russia-based company S7 ENGINEERING.
  • CRYNOFIST AVIATION FZCO is a UAE-based company that supplied Russian aviation companies with G7-origin aircraft parts.
  • RBG SOLUTION FZE is a UAE-based company that supplied G7-origin aircraft parts to the Russia-based company, S7 ENGINEERING.

PRC-based Entities Involved in Procuring Electronic Components for Entities with Ties to the Russian Military

  • ZHEJIANG OULONG ELECTRIC CO LTD (ZHEJIANG OULONG ELECTRIC) is a private manufacturer of printed circuit boards based in Wenzhou, PRC. From January to October 2023, Zhejiang Oulong Electric supplied Russian entities with more than $2 million worth of products found on the BIS List of Common High Priority Items. ZHEJIANG OULONG ELECTRIC has supplied common high-priority items to Russia-based, U.S.-designated INELSO OOO. INELSO OOO was sanctioned by the United States in May 2023 and has also been identified in the Official Journal of the European Union as an entity that has contributed to Russia’s military and technological enhancement or to the development of Russia’s defense and security sector.
  • WUHAN MAIWE COMMUNICATION CO LTD (WUHAN MAIWE) is a PRC-based company that supplies common high priority items to Russian companies. WUHAN MAIWE has supplied common high-priority items to Russia-based, U.S.-designated company REGION-PROF LLC. REGION-PROF LLC has procured multiple shipments of common high priority items on behalf of the Russian military and security services.
  • COREBAI MICROELECTRONICS BEIJING COMPANY LIMITED is a PRC-based micro-electronics producer that has Russian distributors, works with SDN listed INELSO OOO, and has a distribution warehouse in Russia.

CONSTRAINING RUSSIA’S METALS AND MINING REVENUE

The Department of State continues to designate individuals and entities involved in Russia’s metals and mining sector to further constrict Russia’s revenue generation from this key source of funds for the Russian federal budget.

Targeting Russia’s Largest Pipe Producer

The Department is designating PUBLIC JOINT STOCK COMPANY PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY (PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY) , Russia’s leading supplier of steel pipe, piping solutions, and related services. PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY also supplied piping for U.S.-designated Nord Stream 2 AG, the project implementation company for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i), for operating or having operated in the metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy.

The following five entities, all of which are subsidiaries of PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY, are being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(vii) for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TUBES 2000
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TMK OIL FIELD SERVICES
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TMK PREMIUM SERVICES
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TMK TECHNICAL SERVICE
  • SPS ME FZCO

The following additional subsidiaries of PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY are all being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY CHELYABINSK PIPE ROLLING PLANT is the leading supplier of steel pipe, piping solutions, and related services for a variety of sectors of the Russian economy.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TMK YARTSEVSKIY METALLURGICAL PLANT is a modern casting and rolling factory for the production of long products with a capacity of more than 300 thousand tons per year.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY VOLZHSKIY PIPE PLANT is involved in the production of steel pipes, hollow profiles, and fittings.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY ORSKIY MACHINE BUILDING PLANT is involved in the production of steel pipes, hollow profiles, and fittings.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY PERVOURALSKIY NEW PIPE PLANT produces steel pipes and cylinders.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY SINARSKIY PIPE PLANT (SINARSKIY PIPE PLANT) is a specialized enterprise for the production of steel pipes, providing industrial services.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY TAGANROG METALLURGICAL PLANT (TAGANROG METALLURGICAL PLANT) produces many types of steel pipes.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY SEVERSKIY PIPE PLANT (SEVERSKIY PIPE PLANT) is one of the oldest metallurgical enterprises in Russia and produces various steel pipe products.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY SMARTMET manufactures steel tubes, pipes, and related fittings.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TMK PIPELINE SOLUTIONS manufactures steel tubes, pipes, and related fittings.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TMK TAYMIR treats and coats metals.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • INTERNATIONAL COMPANY LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TMK STEEL HOLDING is a subsidiary of PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY and is primarily engaged in holding or owning securities of companies and is involved in financial asset investing.

The following two additional subsidiaries of PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY are being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the transportation sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY SINARATRANSAUTO has worked in the automobiles logistics market since 2005 and provides comprehensive road transportation services for the SINARSKIY PIPE PLANT.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY SINARAPROMTRANS (SINARAPROMTRANS) is the only operator of internal railway logistics for the TAGANROG METALLURGICAL PLANT, VOLZHSKIY PIPE PLANT, and SEVERSKIY PIPE PLANT pipe factories, included in the PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY network. Additionally, SINARAPROMTRANS has two divisions in Siberia, which carry out rail delivery of coal from mining sites.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the accounting sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TMK BUSINESS SERVICES CENTER is a subsidiary of PIPE METALLURGICAL COMPANY whose main business activities are accounting, bookkeeping, auditing activities, and tax consultancy.

Further Targeting Russian Gold Mining

The Department is designating KONSTANTIN IVANOVICH STRUKOV (STRUKOV) and PUBLIC JOINT STOCK COMPANY UZHURALZOLOTO GROUP OF COMPANIES (JSC UGC) , one of Russia’s top ten gold miners. STRUKOV is the founder and majority owner of JSC UGC and was sanctioned by the United Kingdom on November 8, 2023. STRUKOV and JSC UGC are both being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, STRUKOV, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY MANAGEMENT COMPANY UGC is owned by STRUKOV.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities are being designated for operating or having operated in metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY SOVRUDNIK extracts metal ores and is owned by JSC UGC.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY KOMMUNAROVSKIY GOLD MINE is involved in the mining of ores and sands of precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum.

Targeting A Russian Aluminum Products Producer

The Department is designating JOINT STOCK COMPANY SAMARA METALLURGICAL PLANT (SAMARA METALLURGICAL PLANT) , a Russia-based firm that produces a broad assortment of aluminum products and is the largest producer of semi-fabricated aluminum products in Russia. SAMARA METALLURGICAL PLANT is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy. MIKHAIL GRIGORYEVICH SPICHAK (SPICHAK) is the General Director of the SAMARA METALLURICAL PLANT and MAXIM YURYEVICH SMIRNOV (SMIRNOV) is the President of the SAMARA METALLURGICAL PLANT. Both SPICHAK and SMIRNOV are being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy.

Targeting A Key Russian Metals & Mining Network

The Department is targeting a network of Russian mining companies connected to the wealthy Russian Trotsenko family believed to be close to President of Russia Vladimir Putin. The following entities are being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • ILLC GEOPROMINING INVESTMENT is involved in activities including security and commodity exchanges among other financial service activities.
  • LLC HOLDING GPM (HOLDING GPM) is involved in activities including investments in securities and financial asset investing.HOLDING GPM is the founder and majority owner of the following four entities which are being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(vii) for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, HOLDING GPM, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:
  • LLC GEOPROMAINING
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRYAZH INVEST
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GEOPROMAINING VERKHNE MENKECHE
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY NATSIONALNAYA SURMYANAYA KOMPANIYA (NSK)

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, NSK, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GROSS was founded and is owned by NSK.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY VISMUT is primarily engaged in the mining and enrichment of iron ores.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY ZVEZDA is primarily engaged in mining, milling, or otherwise preparing ferroalloy ores.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY SARYLAKH SURMA is primarily engaged in mining, milling, or otherwise preparing ferroalloy ores.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY AEON MINING is primarily engaged in the mining of ores and sands of precious metals.

CONSTRAINING RUSSIA’S WAR EFFORT

Entities and Individuals Manufacturing Weapons, Ammunitions, and Other Equipment

The Department is continuing to take significant action to disrupt and degrade Russia’s military industrial base and today is targeting nearly 60 entities and individuals involved in the manufacture of weapons, ammunition, and associated materiel. The defense industry entities and individuals included below manufacture weapons, ammunition, and related equipment for the Russian defense sector to support its illegal war against Ukraine.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY TULA MACHINE BUILDING PLANT (TULAMASHZAVOD) is one of the largest enterprises of the Russian military industrial base manufacturing numerous gun systems for Russian armored vehicles, aircraft, and anti-aircraft systems.
  • EVGENII ANATOLEVICH DRONOV is the Director General of TULAMASHZAVOD.
  • PUBLIC JOINT STOCK COMPANY IMPERIAL TULA ARMS PLANT (IMPERIAL TULA ARMS PLANT) manufactures high-precision antitank guided missiles and various small arms for the Russian military.
  • GUN-MAKING COMPANY LEVSHA-T LLC manufactures small arms and is wholly owned by IMPERIAL TULA ARMS PLANT.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY SCIENTIFIC AND PRODUCTION ASSOCIATION PRIBOR NAMED AFTER S.S. GOLEMBIOVSKY (JSC NPO PRIBOR) is one of Russia’s largest manufacturers of small-caliber ammunition and weapons systems for use by the Russian military.
  • YURI ALEXANDROVICH NABOKOV is the General Director of JSC NPO PRIBOR.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY NOVOSIBIRSK MECHANICAL PLANT ISKRA (NMZ ISKRA) manufactures ammunition, explosives and other specialized components for the Russian defense industry.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY VERKHNYAYA SALDA CHEMICAL CONTAINER PLANT (AO VZKHE) manufactures missile technology for the Russian defense industry.
  • JSC IZHEVSK MOTOR PLANT AKSION HOLDING (AKSION HOLDING) manufactures equipment for control systems for the Topol-M and Yars missile systems, as well as communication and information processing systems.
  • GENNADY IVANOVICH KUDRYAVTSEV is the Director General of AKSION HOLDING.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY VOSKRESENSKY AGGREGATION FACTORY (JSC VAF) assembles antiaircraft guided missiles, air-to-air and air-to-surface guided missiles, and cruise missiles for use by the Russian military.
  • ALEKSANDR VIACHESLAVOVICH SYCHUGOV is the General Director of JSC VAF.
  • FEDERAL STATE ENTERPRISE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION KAZAN PLANT OF PRECISION ENGINEERING (NPO KZTM) manufactures explosives for the Russian defense industry.
  • JSC SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION ASSOCIATION EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN BUREAU NAMED AFTER M SIMONOV (OKB SIMONOV) develops and produces unmanned aerial systems and aerial training targets.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TRIMIX (3MX) manufactures electronic warfare systems and anti-UAV systems used by the Russian military.
  • CENTRAL RESEARCH RADIO ENGINEERING INSTITUTE NAMED AFTER ACADEMICIAN A I BERG (TSNIRTI BERG) builds satellite and radar equipment for contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE EKRAN (EKRAN) works on the development, production, testing, and repair of aviation equipment used by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY ARZAMAS MACHINE BUILDING PLANT (ARZAMAS) manufactures armored vehicles used by the Russian military in Ukraine.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPANY (MIC) develops and manufactures armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, and armored cars for the Russian military.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY SPECIAL DESIGN BUREAU OF TRANSPORT MECHANICAL ENGINEERING (SPETSMASH) develops and manufactures armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery, and other specialized equipment for the Russian military.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY ASTEIS manufactures armored vehicles for the Russian defense industry.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY SPECIAL DESIGN BUREAU OF INSTRUMENT MAKING AND AUTOMATION (SKB PA) develops and manufactures electro-hydraulic, electromechanical, navigation, and control systems for mobile robotic complexes for the Russian defense industry.
  • FEDERAL STATE UNITARY ENTERPRISE STATE RESEARCH AND PRODUCTION ENTERPRISE BAZALT (NPO BAZALT) is involved in the design and construction of air launched ordnance, rocket propelled grenades, and armored fighting vehicle ammunition. NPO BAZALT was designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 on July 16, 2014.
  • OTKRYTOE AKTSIONERNOE OBSHCHESTVO NOVO-VYATKA (NOVO-VYATKA) manufactures various technical equipment with defense applications. NOVO-VYATKA was designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 on December 22, 2015.
  • NIKOLAY VLADIMIROVICH PORKHACHEV (PORKHACHEV) is the General Director of NPO BAZALT, and was the temporary General Director of OTKRYTOE AKTSIONERNOE OBSHCHESTVO NOVO-VYATKA.
  • FARID KHABIBULLOVICH ABDRAKHMANOV is the General Director of JOINT STOCK COMPANY EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN BUREAU NOVATOR, which develops and produces cruise missiles, including the Kalibr cruise missile, and was designated pursuant to E.O. 14024 in September 2023.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TRADING HOUSE LOBAEV ARMS (LOBAEV ARMS) is a company registered in Russia that manufactures weapons and ammunition.
  • VLADISLAV YEVGENYEVICH LOBAEV (VLADISLAV LOBAEV) is the founder of LOBAEV ARMS.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY LOBAEV ROBOTICS (LOBAEV ROBOTICS) is a company registered in Russia that manufactures weapons and ammunition.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY CONSTRUCTION BUREAU OF INTEGRATED SYSTEMS (LLC KBIS) is a company registered in Russia that produces weapons and ammunition.
  • ELENA ANATOLYEVNA LOBAEVA (ELENA LOBAEVA) is a founder and owner of LLC KBIS.
  • FUND FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF WEAPONS TECHNOLOGIES AND PRODUCTION LOBAEV FOUNDATION (LOBAEV FOUNDATION) is registered in Russia and its programs include the development of precision small arms technologies, development of the production of precision weapons, development and modernization of specialized UAVs, and development and supply of special equipment.
  • NIKOLAY YEVGENYEVICH LOBAEV (NIKOLAY LOBAEV) is a shareholder, director, and legal representative of LOBAEV ARMS.

Entities Supporting Russia’s Military Industrial Base

The Department continues to designate entities involved in the development of advanced technologies and high-tech machine tools being used to substitute production of goods Russia can no longer import, as well as entities involved in the manufacture of weapons and ammunition supporting Russia’s defense industry. The Department is designating the following entities involved in the development of additive manufacturing (3D printing) and computer numerical control (CNC) technologies, among other individuals and entities within the Russian military industrial base.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY ELEKTRONNAYA MOSKVA is contracted to cover technical support and maintenance of Moscow’s facial recognition system.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY 2050 ADDITIVE TECHNOLOGIES is a Russia-based additive manufacturing company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ADDITIVE TECHNOLOGY is a Russia-based additive manufacturing company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY OFFICE TECHNOLOGY JETCOM is a Russia-based additive manufacturing company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY NPC ANTEY is a Russia-based additive manufacturing company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY MAKETIR is a Russia-based additive manufacturing company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ENGINEERING CENTER OF ADDITIVE TECHNOLOGIES is a Russia-based additive manufacturing company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY NOVAPRINT 3D is a Russia-based additive manufacturing company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ONSINT is a Russia-based additive manufacturing company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TPK FOLIPLAST is a Russia-based additive manufacturing company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY SPRUT TECHNOLOGY is a Russia-based company that develops software for computer numerical control machines.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY CENTER SPRUT T is a Russia-based company that develops software for computer numerical control machines.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY DIAPAZON is a supplier of electronic components throughout Russia.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the manufacturing sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY KLINTSOVSKIY MOBILE CRANE PLANT is one of the largest and most reputable manufacturers of lifting equipment in Russia. The plant produces modern automobile and crawler cranes.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GALIKA MET repairs metalworking machines and is involved in the sale of machinery and equipment.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GALIKA SKD is involved in the sale of woodworking machines.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GALIKA TSENTR TEKHNOLOGI I SERVIS is an industrial machinery and equipment wholesaler headquartered in Russia.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GALIKA SERVIS repairs machinery and equipment.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY PROIZVODSTVENNYE RESHENIYA is involved in the machining of metal products, manufacture of metalworking machines, and manufactures of other machine tools.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY PROIZVODSTVENNOE OBEDINENIE FORT (JSC PO FORT) operates in the machinery wholesale industry.
  • DIANA EVGENEVNA KALEDINA is the Director General of JSC PO FORT.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY MACHINE BUILDING FACTORY FORT is involved in the machining of metal products, manufacture of metalworking machines, and manufactures of other machine tools.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY SASOVSKI LITEINY ZAVOD operates in the casting of iron industry.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY MANAGEMENT COMPANY ABAMET is a Russia-based industrial machinery and equipment wholesale company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY HERMLE VOSTOK is a Russia-based industrial machinery and equipment wholesale company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ATM GRUPP is a Russia-based machinery wholesale company that supplies CNC machines.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY INZHENERNO TEKHNOLOGICHESKI TSENTR ATM is a Russia-based machinery wholesale company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ATM TEKHNOLODZHI is a Russia-based machinery wholesale company that supplies high-quality metalworking equipment.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KNAUER ENGINEERING is a Russia-based company that operates in the Industrial Machinery Repair and Maintenance industry.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY AMS TEKHNIKA is a Russia-based company involved in the wholesale distribution of industrial machinery and equipment.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY JOINT TECHNOLOGICAL ENTERPRISE PERM PLANT OF METAL WORKING CENTERS (PZMC) manufactures CNC metalworking machines, lathes, turn-milling, and milling machines including the PROTON T series machines.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY MEKHANIKA produces advanced industrial equipment for high-performance turning and milling of steels and alloys.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY KOVROV ELECTROMECHANICAL PLANT (KEMZ) designs and manufactures a variety of multifunctional turning, milling, and turn-mill machining CNC machines and associated equipment.
  • AKTSIONERNOE OBSHCHESTVO TOZ-METIZ manufactures high-precision fasteners and other hardware for the Russian defense industry and is wholly owned by IMPERIAL TULA ARMS PLANT.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY NATIONAL CENTRE FOR INFORMATION SECURITY is a Russia-based company that develops counter-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems and develops information security systems that are used by multiple Russian government agencies.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY NEIT is a Russia-based company and is involved in the wholesale trade of electronic equipment and its spare parts.

Countering Russia-Iran Military Cooperation and Arms Proliferation

The Department remains focused on highlighting and disrupting the ongoing military cooperation between Iran and Russia to further Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine. In December 2022 and October 2023, we designated numerous Russian and Iranian entities for their involvement in the proliferation of arms including transfers of UAVs from Iran for Russia’s use against Ukraine, conventional arms and related materiel from Iran to Russia, and major weapons systems from Russia to Iran, including the Yak-130 combat aircraft.

Today, we continue these efforts by designating the Iranian MINISTRY OF DEFENSE AND ARMED FORCES LOGISTICS (MODAFL) for the first time under a Russia-related sanctions authority, as well as two shipping companies that have previously been involved in arms related transfers between Iran and Russia. At least as of 2022, ROSOBORONEKSPORT OAO had worked through MODAFL to facilitate Iranian munitions transfers to Russia. Additionally, MODAFL worked with other Iranian military entities to facilitate the transfer of armed UAVs to Russia beginning in 2022. This action aligns with the Department of the Treasury’s designations today of a network of entities and individuals that has supported efforts by the Government of the Russian Federation and MODAFL to establish a facility in Russia to supply the Russian military with one-way attack UAVs, such as the Shahed-136 UAVs, and the Russian version, the Geran-2, for use in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vi)(B), the following entity is being designated for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of ROSOBORONEKSPORT OAO, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • MINISTRY OF DEFENSE AND ARMED FORCES LOGISTICS (MODAFL) is the Iranian Ministry of Defense and has been involved in transfers of major weapons systems between Russia and Iran. MODAFL was previously designated pursuant to E.O. 13382, E.O. 13224, and E.O. 13949.
  • Pursuant to the Order, the following vessels are being identified as property in which DALIR LTD has an interest: ALIREZA 1 and BALTIYSKIY-111 . ALIREZA 1 and BALTIYSKIY-111 are general cargo ships.
  • Pursuant to the Order, SKIF-V is being identified as property in which LADOGA LTD has an interest. SKIF-V is a general cargo ship.

Disrupting Russia-DPRK Munitions Transfers

The Department will continue to disrupt and expose arms transfers between the DPRK and Russia. As part of that ongoing effort, the Department is designating two additional entities that have been involved in the transfer of munitions from the DPRK to Russia. Since September 2023, the DPRK has delivered more than 10,000 containers of munitions or munitions-related materials to Russia.

Russia has imported shipping containers carrying military-related cargo from the DPRK through Vostochny Port for use in the Ukraine conflict since early October 2023. Specifically, more than 7,400 containers of munitions and munitions-related materials have been delivered to Russia through the VOSTOCHNAYA STEVEDORING COMPANY LLC (VSC)-owned terminal at Vostochny Port. Containers of munitions and munitions-related materials have also been delivered to Russia through the nearby DUNAY PROBABLE NAVAL MISSILE FACILITY.

These designations follow the Department’s designations of several other entities and individuals involved in munitions transfers from the DPRK to Russia in July, September, and December 2023 as well as designations of entities involved in the transfer of ballistic missiles from the DPRK to Russia in January 2024.

  • VOSTOCHNAYA STEVEDORING COMPANY LLC (VSC) manages a terminal at Vostochny Port in Russia’s far east through which more than 7,400 containers of munitions and munitions-related materials have been delivered from the DPRK.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • DUNAY PROBABLE NAVAL MISSILE FACILITY is a Russian naval base and port facility that has been involved in the transfer of munitions from the DPRK to Russia.

Targeting Third-Party Support to Russia’s Defense Sector

The Department continues to be vigilant against entities and individuals in third countries that provide support to Russia’s defense sector. Today’s actions demonstrate that we will not hesitate to take action under all relevant authorities against those engaging in transactions with or providing other forms of support to Russia’s defense sector.

  • JSC 558 AIRCRAFT REPAIR PLANT is a Belarusian defense company that maintains and repairs aircraft equipment and trains other personnel in the repair and operation of certain aviation materiel. JSC 558 AIRCRAFT REPAIR PLANT retains close ties to the Russian defense sector and was previously designated pursuant to E.O. 14038 on February 24, 2022.
  • PAVEL IVANOVICH PINIGIN is the former director of JSC 558 AIRCRAFT REPAIR PLANT.
  • PRO HELI INTERNATIONAL SERVICES LIMITED (PRO HELI) is a Uganda-based joint venture with the National Enterprises Corporation that provides maintenance, repair, and overhaul services for Uganda’s fleet of Russian-origin helicopters. Additionally, PRO HELI maintains a partnership with the JSC 558 AIRCRAFT REPAIR PLANT and has procured weapons from U.S.-designated Russian arms companies as recently as 2023.
  • VALERII COPEICHIN is the CEO of PRO HELI and has previously been named in a United Nations report for involvement in weapons shipments to South Sudan.

Continued Pressure on Private Military Companies

The Department is continuing our efforts to expose and disrupt the activities of Russian private military companies and individuals supporting Russia’s war aims against Ukraine. Despite the demise of the PMC Wagner’s Yevgeniy Prigozhin, today’s actions highlight our focus on countering the malign activities of such groups and individuals operating in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities and individual are being designated for operating or having operated in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANY CONVOY (PMC CONVOY) is a private military company operating in Ukraine.
  • KONSTANTIN ALEXANDROVICH PIKALOV is a leader of PMC CONVOY operating in Ukraine.
  • AKTSIONERNOE OBSHCHESTVO KONSALT is the new legal form of the PMC Wagner Center in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
  • ALEXEY VASILYEVICH TENSIN is the former leader of PMC Wagner Center and a former manager at JSC Concern Kalashnikov.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(ii)(F), the following individuals are being designated for being responsible for or complicit in, or having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in, activities that undermine the peace, security, political stability, or territorial integrity of the United States, its allies, or its partners, for or on behalf of, or for the benefit of, directly or indirectly, the Government of the Russian Federation:

  • ANDREI NIKOLAEVICH TROSHEV is a former senior leader of PMC Wagner and reportedly now holds a position in the Russian Ministry of Defense.
  • ANTON OLEGOVICH ELIZAREV is a former commander in PMC Wagner.
  • STANISLAV ALEXANDROVICH ORLOV is a commander of a private military company that has operated in Ukraine.
  • MIKHAIL VICTOROVICH TURKANOV is a member of a private military company that has operated in Ukraine.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, JOINT STOCK COMPANY BARNAUL CARTRIDGE PLANT, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • SHOOTING CENTER ALTAY SHOOTING LTD (SHOOTING CENTER ALTAY) is a shooting range owned by JOINT STOCK COMPANY BARNAUL CARTRIDGE PLANT. Additionally, Shooting Center Altay reportedly has been used by PMC Wagner-affiliated individuals to conduct trainings.

Continued Targeting of Russian State-Owned Enterprises

The Department is further targeting Russian state-owned enterprises in the automotive sector, which continues to be a key aspect of the Russian military industrial base, as well as the state-owned enterprise involved in the development of the Russian Far East and Russian Arctic regions.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designed for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the Government of the Russian Federation:

  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY FAR EAST AND ARCTIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (JSC KRDV) is the management company responsible for coordinating investment projects in the Free Port of Vladivostok, the Special Administrative Region on Russky Island, and the advanced special economic zones in the Far Eastern and Arctic regions of Russia.The following ten entities are majority owned by JSC KRDV and coordinate future energy and mining projects, among others, in their respective titular region. Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), all ten entities are being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, JSC KRDV:
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV PRIMORYE
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV AMURSKAYA
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV BURYATIYA
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV CHUKOTKA
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV KAMCHATKA
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV MURMANSK
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV SAKHALIN AND KURILY
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV YAKUTIYA
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV YUZHNAYA YAKUTIYA
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KRDV ZABAYKALYE

Pursuant to section 1(a)(iv), the following entity is being designated for being a political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality of the Government of the Russian Federation:

  • FEDERAL STATE UNITARY ENTERPRISE CENTRAL ORDER OF THE RED BANNER SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AUTOMOBILE AND AUTOMOTIVE ENGINES INSTITUTE NAMI (NAMI) is the parent company of several entities conducting engineering research, manufacturing, and sales of automotives in Russia. NAMI is included in a list of strategic enterprises essential for the national defense and security of Russia and is subordinate to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, NAMI, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY AUTO HOLDING (AUTO HOLDING) is a Russia-based holding company owned by NAMI.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following NAMI-affiliated entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the transportation sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY SHUSHARY AVTO produces motor vehicles.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY AURUS produces motor vehicles.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY FIBET NAMI ADVANCED ENGINEERING is an automobile and auto parts company located in Russia and conducts sales of spare parts and accessories for cars and industrial vehicles.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY NAMI INNOVATIVE COMPONENTS produces components and accessories for motor vehicles.

PROMOTING ACCOUNTABILITY FOR MALIGN ACTORS

The Department is also taking further action today to target a range of individuals and entities involved in supporting the Russian government’s war effort and other malign activities.

Targeting a Russian Proxy Authority in Occupied Territories of Ukraine

VITALIY VIKTOROVICH BULYUK (BULYUK) is a so-called deputy head of the Russian-backed military-civilian administration of the Kherson Region. BULYUK is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(ii)(F) for being responsible for or complicit in, or having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in, activities that undermine the peace, security, political stability, or territorial integrity of the United States, its allies, or its partners, for or on behalf of, or for the benefit of, directly or indirectly, the Government of the Russian Federation.

Targeting Individuals Supporting Russia’s Expropriation of Foreign Companies

The Department continues to impose sanctions to highlight the Government of the Russian Federation’s seizure of Russian subsidiaries of foreign companies.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following individuals are being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the Government of the Russian Federation:

  • VASILI VLADISLAVOVICH NIKONOV was appointed interim CEO of PJSC Unipro, the Russian subsidiary of Germany’s Uniper that has been placed under “temporary control” by the Government of the Russian Federation.
  • VYACHESLAV EVGENEVICH KOZHEVNIKOV was appointed the interim CEO of PAO Forward Energo, the Russian subsidiary of Finland’s Fortum that has been placed under “temporary control” by the Government of the Russian Federation.

Targeting Russia’s Malign Influence in Moldova

The Department is imposing sanctions on MARINA TAUBER (TAUBER) , chief representative in Moldova of ILAN MIRONOVICH SHOR (SHOR), a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order. During last year’s local elections, TAUBER helped the fugitive, U.S.-sanctioned SHOR shift his party apparatus from the U.S.-sanctioned SHOR PARTY to other parties and subvert Moldova’s electoral process through illegal vote buying on behalf of the Kremlin. SHOR has demonstrated his intent to use his malign criminal network, and TAUBER as his chief representative, to wage similar subversion campaigns in upcoming election cycles. Moldovans deserve free and fair democratic processes. The United States supports Moldova’s progress on democratic and economic reforms and a future free from the grip of the Kremlin’s malign influence. We will continue to promote accountability for those who try to subvert the will of the Moldovan electorate.

TAUBER is described as SHOR’s second-in-command and has directed the operations of SHOR’s malign networks in Moldova, as well as operations of the SHOR PARTY, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order. TAUBER is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, SHOR, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order.

The Network of Sergey Gordeev

SERGEY EDUARDOVICH GORDEEV (GORDEEV) is a Russian businessman whose ventures have benefitted from connections to SULIEMAN ABUSAIDOVICH KERIMOV and SERGEY SEMYONOVICH SOBYANIN, persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order. GORDEEV is the founder, general manager, and owner of LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY HOLDING FINANCE. GORDEEV is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy. Additionally, two of GORDEEV’s affiliated companies have allegedly been recruiting contract soldiers for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY HOLDING FINANCE (HOLDING FINANCE) is involved in investments in securities and dealer activities.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY PIK PLUS (PIK PLUS) is involved in investments in securities and dealer activities.
  • INTERNATIONAL COMPANY LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY LEDAMEN (LEDAMEN) is located in Kaliningrad, Russia and is involved in investments in securities. Additionally, GORDEEV is the General Director of LEDAMEN.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the construction sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY INZHTEPLOPROGRESS (INZHTEP) is a construction company located in Russia. INZHTEP is allegedly involved in the recruitment of contract soldiers for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
  • PUBLIC JOINT STOCK COMPANY PIK SPECIALIZED HOMEBUILDER (PIK) is a construction company located in Russia. Additionally, GORDEEV was the head of PIK until September 28, 2022.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, PIK, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY PIK KORPORATSIYA (PIK KORPORATSIYA) is a wholly owned subsidiary of PIK and is involved in construction activities.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, PIK KORPORATSIYA, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY PIK GENPODRYAD (GENPODRYAD) is majority owned by PIK KORPORATSIYA.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, GENPODRYAD, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GENERAL CONTRACTOR MFS (GP-MFS) is owned by GENPODRYAD. GP-MFS is allegedly involved in the recruitment of contract soldiers for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Network of Andrey Komarov

ANDREY ILYICH KOMAROV (KOMAROV) is a Russian businessman active in various sectors of the Russian Federation economy. Ministry of Trade and Industry officials within the Government of the Russian Federation have planned to use ANDREY KOMAROV as a front man to acquire companies for Rostec. KOMAROV is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the construction sector of the Russian Federation economy. KOMAROV is also the founder and owner of LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY SEPTEMBER (SEPTEMBER) , which is active in the construction sector. SEPTEMBER is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i) for operating or having operated in the construction sector of the Russian Federation economy.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, KOMAROV, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY OKTYABR (OKTYABR) is solely owned by KOMAROV and is a facilities management company for KOMAROV’s companies.

The Department is taking action to target a wide range of additional entities connected to KOMAROV’s corporate network.

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY CYBERSTEEL (CYBERSTEEL) is one of Russia’s leading suppliers of stainless-steel tubular products.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY CYBERSTEEL ALABUGA (CYBERSTEEL ALABUGA) is involved in the manufacturing of steel pipes, hollow profiles and fittings.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY CYBERSTEEL PROJECT 2 (CYBERSTEEL PROJECT 2) is involved in the manufacturing of steel pipes, hollow profiles and fittings.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY HS INVESTMENTS (HS INVESTMENTS) is a Russia-based holding company.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entity is being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY HS INVESTMENTS, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY PRESSMAN SOFT PACKAGING NOVGOROD is involved in the manufacturing of other paper and cardboard products in Velikiy Novgorod, Russia.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY PRESSMAN PREMIUM PACKAGING NOVGOROD (PRESSMAN PREMIUM PACKAGING NOVGOROD) is a Russia-based company that operates in the paper product manufacturing industry.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY PRESSMAN PREMIUM PACKAGING SPB (PRESSMAN PREMIUM PACKAGING SPB) manufactures paper and cardboard products in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY START (START) is a Russia-based holding company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY HYPERSPACE (HYPERSPACE) is a Russia-based holding company.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entities are being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, HYPERSPACE, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 14024:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY VARNA MINERALS is a Russia-based company solely owned by HYPERSPACE involved in geological exploration and geochemical studies.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GEYSER GOLD is a Russia-based company solely owned by HYPERSPACE involved in geological exploration and geochemical studies.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY DATA 51 is a Russia-based company solely owned by HYPERSPACE involved in geological exploration and geochemical studies.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY INNOVATIVE EDUCATION is a Russia-based company solely owned by HYPERSPACE involved in real estate management.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TERRA GRUP is a Russia-based company solely owned by HYPERSPACE involved in land purchasing and sales.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY URAL EDUCATIONAL RESIDENCE is a Russia-based company solely owned by HYPERSPACE involved in real estate management.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY THREEAGRO (THREEAGRO) is a Russia-based holding company.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GORA GOLDEN RATIO (GORA) is a Russia-based holding company.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entities are being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY GORA GOLDEN RATIO, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY KAMCHATSKAYA GORNAYA KOMPANIYA is a Russia-based company that was founded by and is solely owned by GORA.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TIKHOOKEANSKAYA GORNAYA KOMPANIYA is a Russia-based company that was founded by and is solely owned by GORA.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY DIGITAL CENTER HYPERSPACE is a Russia-based company that operates in the accounting and tax preparation industry.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ZHELTUGINSKAYA MINING COMPANY (ZHELTUGINSKAYA) is a Russia-based company that is involved in the mining of ore and precious metal dusts.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following are being designated for operating or having operated in the manufacturing sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY RIMERA ALNAS (RIMERA ALNAS) is a Russia-based company that operates in the machinery and equipment manufacturing industry.
  • PUBLIC JOINT STOCK COMPANY IZHNEFTEMASH (IZHNEFTEMASH) is a Russia-based company that operates in the machinery and equipment manufacturing industry.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY RIMERA (LLC RIMERA) is a Russia-based company that operates in the machinery and equipment manufacturing industry.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following are being designated for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy.

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY FEDOROVO MINERALZ is a holding company in Russia majority owned by START.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY FEDOROVO KHOLDING is a holding company in Russia.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entities are being designated for operating or having operated in the metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY BYSTRINSKAYA MINING COMPANY is a Russia-based company that is involved in the mining of ores of other non-ferrous metals, as well as mining of ores and sands of precious metals.
  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY FEDOROVO RISORSES is a Russia-based company involved in mining of ores of other non-ferrous metals.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(i), the following entity is being designated for operating or having operated in the management consulting sector of the Russian Federation economy:

  • JOINT STOCK COMPANY RIMERA (JSC RIMERA) is a Russia-based company that provides consulting services.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(vii), the following entities are being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, JSC RIMERA, a person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the Order:

  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY RIMERA SERVIS (RIMERA SERVIS) is a Russia-based company solely owned by JSC RIMERA that provides services to oil and natural gas companies.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY API FAKTORI (API FAKTORI) is a Russia-based company solely owned by JSC RIMERA that conducts research and development in natural sciences and engineering.
  • LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY HYPERSPACE TECHNOLOGIES (HYPERSPACE TECHNOLOGIES) is a Russia-based company solely owned by JSC RIMERA that conducts computer programming activities.

Targeting Individuals Involved in the Forced Transfer, Deportation, and/or “Re-education” of Ukraine’s Children

The Department continues to impose sanctions on persons involved in the forcible transfer and/or deportation of Ukraine’s children to camps promoting indoctrination of children in Russia, Belarus, and Russia-occupied Crimea. Today’s actions demonstrate the United States’ commitment to promoting accountability for the atrocities and other abuses inflicted by the Government of the Russian Federation on the people of Ukraine.

  • BORIS VYACHESLAVOVICH GRYZLOV (GRYZLOV) is the current Russian Ambassador to Belarus and is involved in transferring Ukrainian children to Belarus. GRYZLOV has stated that children will continue to be deported from Ukraine as a part of the official policy of the Government of the Russian Federation.
  • DMITRIY FEDOROVICH MEZENTSEV (MEZENTSEV) is the Secretary of State of the Union State between Belarus and Russia. MEZENTSEV is Russia’s former Ambassador to Belarus and has personally helped organize the transportation of children from Ukraine to Belarus. MEZENTSEV announced a resolution from the Union State to “host” 1,050 children from Ukraine in Belarus and has visited camps where deported children from Ukraine are staying.
  • ALEXEY KONSTANTINOVICH TALAI (TALAI) and his foundation have orchestrated the transport of multiple groups of children from Ukraine to Belarus. The deportations to Belarus have been funded by the Union State, an economic and political union between Moscow and Minsk. The Union State had already given tens of millions of rubbles to support TALAI’s efforts.
  • ALLA VIKTOROVNA BARKHATNOVA (BARKHATNOVA) is the so-called Head of the Department of Labor and Social Policy of Russia’s occupation administration in Kherson and stated that occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast are working to increase the number of children who go on “trips” to “health recreation” camps in Russia. BARKHATNOVA is also identified as being personally involved in the transportation of Ukrainian children.
  • VITALIY KONSTANTINOVICH GANCHEV is the Head of the Military-Civilian Administration of Russia’s occupation administration in the Kharkiv Region and is identified as being one of the individuals involved in deporting and “re-educating” Ukrainian children.

Pursuant to section 1(a)(iii)(A), the following individuals are being designated for being or having been leaders, officials, senior executive officers, or members of the board of directors of the Government of the Russian Federation:

  • VLADIMIR VIKTOROVICH KHROMOV (KHROMOV) is a Representative for the Commissioner of Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation and is involved in the deportation of Ukrainian children from Russia-occupied regions of Ukraine.
  • AKHMED MAKHMUDOVICH DUDAEV (DUDAEV) is the Minister of National Policy, Foreign Relations, Press and Information of Chechnya and organized trips to deport Ukrainian children.

Imposing Visa Restrictions on Russian Federation-installed Purported Authorities Involved in Human Rights Abuses in Connection with the Transfer, Deportation and Confinement of Ukraine’s Children

Additionally, the Department is taking steps to impose visa restrictions on five Russia-installed purported officials, including one immediate family member, for their involvement in human rights abuses of Ukrainian civilian minors, in connection with the transfer, deportation, and confinement of Ukraine’s children by Russian Federation and Russia-backed authorities.

This action is taken under the Immigration and Nationality Act 212(a)(3)(C) visa policy approved by Secretary Blinken in May 2022 to restrict visa issuance to Russian Federation military officials and Russia-backed or Russia-installed purported authorities who are believed to have been involved in human rights abuses, violations of international humanitarian law, or public corruption in Ukraine, and immediate family members of such individuals, as appropriate.

SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS

As a result of today’s sanctions-related actions, and in accordance with E.O. 14024, as amended, all property and interests in property of the sanctioned persons described above that are in the United States or in possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Additionally, all individuals or entities that have ownership, either directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked.

All transactions by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons are prohibited unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC or exempt. These prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any blocked person and the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

The power and integrity of U.S. government sanctions derive not only from the U.S. government’s ability to designate and add persons to the SDN List, but also from its willingness to remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior.

Petitions for removal from the SDN List may be sent to: [email protected]. Petitioners may also refer to the Department of State’s Delisting Guidance page.

For more information on E.O. 14024, as amended , see full tex t.

U.S. Department of State

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College of Business and Economics announces annual faculty awards

The College of Business and Economics recently announced the recipients of their annual faculty awards and stipends. The following faculty members were selected from a strong and deep pool of nominees. A few of their many accomplishments and contributions are listed below.

COBE Advisory Council Research Award

Kyle Allen, an associate professor in the Department of Finance received this award which recognizes a faculty member’s research accomplishments.

Kyle Allen

Allen’s research area is broadly defined as financial markets and institutions,  specifically examining the risk and inefficiencies in the community banking sector. He has published 15 peer-reviewed journal publications in highly respected finance journals such as the Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Stability, The Financial Review and Finance Research Letters.

Allen published a six peer-reviewed academic papers in 2023. One of these papers was published in the Journal of Banking and Finance, marking his second publication in this leading scholarly journal. He has several papers under review at other leading finance journals as well, showcasing his ongoing commitment to scholarly excellence.

COBE Advisory Council Service Award

Christie Fuller, an associate professor in the Department of Information Technology and Supply Chain Management, received this award which recognizes a faculty member’s dedication to service outside of the classroom.

Christie Fuller

Fuller has taken on engagement opportunities at the university, in the community and in her profession throughout her career. She has followed her passion for community engagement and preparing her students for their careers, creating or co-creating a student analytics group doing projects for nonprofits, an event series connecting students with former students, industry professionals and faculty in her department, an analytics certificate, and a mentoring program.

Fuller has had more than 20 service assignments in the last five years. These include serving on department employee search committees and the college’s committees for promotion and tenure, curriculum, improvement and assessment. She also recently joined the Boise State University LGBTQIA+ advocacy board.

Over the course of Fuller’s career, she has made many contributions to the profession. She have completed reviews for nine journals, two conferences and a textbook publisher in the past five years. She serves on the editorial boards for three analytics-focused journals.

John Elorriaga Endowed Fellowship

Susan Park, an associate professor in the Department of Management, received this fellowship. Funded by the late John Elorriaga, a business graduate of Boise Junior College and CEO of U.S. Bank, recognizes a faculty member for accomplishments in teaching.

Susan Park

Park’s approach to teaching is distinguished by her true commitment to continuous improvement. Never complacent or satisfied with ‘good enough,’ she always seeks to find the best way to reach students. She has taught an impressive portfolio of courses which reflect her willingness to take on teaching challenges. She has the courage to change and to experiment with new formats, methods and content. She has consistently enrolled in training seminars, including a year-long Teaching Scholars seminar in which participants develop new strategies to engage students in large enrollment courses.

“It was a great course, my favorite course this semester. I found it very interesting and the instructor did a wonderful job, she really wants to help her students succeed,” a sample of a student testimonial said.

“Professor Park was one of the best instructors I had in this program. She was responsive, accommodating and extremely helpful with providing feedback on assignments. It was apparent she was engaged,” another said.

Ada Burke Endowed Fellowship

Shikhar Sarin, a professor in the Department of Marketing received this award which recognizes overall accomplishments in teaching, research and service. John Elorriaga funds this award in honor of Ada Burke, a valued and dedicated teacher of his at Boise Junior College.

Shikhar Sarin

Sarin leads his undergraduate courses in ways that help students connect the latest insights about marketing and research design to real-world problems, incorporating live case clients into his classes. During his career at Boise State, his students have completed numerous projects for nonprofit and for-profit organizations throughout the Treasure Valley. This approach brings marketing research topics to life, illustrating how complex marketing strategy and research concepts are applied to tangible business challenges.

Sarin has made remarkable research contributions to the field of marketing. He has works in 34 journals, 33 conference publications and his work has appeared in some of the leading journals in marketing and related fields over the course of his over 20 year career.

Sarin’s service role as a senior faculty involves serving many different constituencies. He serves his discipline, university, college, department and community in varied capacities.

Distinguished Teaching Professorship

Jeff Lingwall, an associate professor in the Department of Management, received this professorship which rewards outstanding teaching effectiveness and developments that advance the quality of the educational delivery. Recipients exemplify the mission, values and culture of the College of Business and Economics.

Jeff Lingwall

Lingwall’s stellar ratings and reviews from his students are a testament to his passion for teaching and his dedication to students. His evaluations are consistently among the highest in the Department of Management.

Students have said, “Experience and knowledge were off the charts,” “Phenomenal lectures,” “I have never been so excited to attend a lecture,” “My favorite class from the whole [MBA] program,” and “THIS CLASS WAS HANDS DOWN THE BEST COLLEGE CLASS I’VE EVER TAKEN!

Lindwall consistently provides students energetic lectures using interactive demonstrations and hypotheticals which cultivate comprehension and prompt collaboration. His application of multimedia platforms gets students to participate in class. His teaching innovations and extra efforts benefit not only his students, but students across the college and country. He has written three Open Educational Resource (OER) textbooks that he uses in his legal studies and ethics courses, each free to students. A faculty member from another university referred to one of Lingwall’s textbooks as “by far the best business law OER I’ve seen yet.”

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research about business communication

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UGA Today

Outer Space: Streamlined Satellite Communications

research about business communication

This year, UGA hopes to send its technology into space—again. The launch of MOCI: Multi-view On-board Computational Imager will be the second satellite sent into orbit from the university’s Small Satellite Research Laboratory.

Weighing in at fewer than 16 pounds, MOCI (pronounced mo-chee) will not only capture images but check and process those images, extracting data and deleting images that aren’t needed. The satellite also will use feature detection and matching software to process them and send data back to the research laboratory.

“Whatever the scientists typically run on the machines here in our labs, we want that AI model to run on the satellite,” says Deepak Mishra , Merle C. Prunty, Jr. Professor in Geography and the director of the satellite lab. “We are really pushing the limit of space AI.”

At less than two feet tall and only a few inches wide, storage is limited on satellites like MOCI. Processing data on board not only increases efficiency but also makes the most of available space. The images the satellite captures are then used to enhance terrain awareness and understand terrain features and phenomena along the Georgia coast. From sediment plumes to algal blooms, these images and the data collected by the satellite provide insight into environmental changes, coastal development, and other natural events.

“A lot of people are interested in what UGA is doing because we occupy a unique space in the AI conversation,” Mishra says. “We’re not looking up into space. We’re looking down to Earth.”

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COMMENTS

  1. Business Communication Research and Practice

    Business Communication Research and Practice Current Issue : Jul 2023, Vol. 6 , No. 2 Searching for the Right Metaphors to Understand and Interrogate the AI Age Peter Cardon Bus. Commun. Res. Pract. 2023;6 (2):65-69. https://doi.org/10.22682/bcrp.2023.6.2.65 HTML PDF PubReader

  2. Communication: Articles, Research, & Case Studies on Communication

    Communication New research on communication from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including intentiona nd meaning, communication technology, and communication strategies. Page 1 of 94 Results → 16 Feb 2024 Research & Ideas Is Your Workplace Biased Against Introverts? by Ben Rand

  3. Artificial Intelligence in Business Communication: The Changing

    Artificial Intelligence in Business Communication: The Changing Landscape of Research and Teaching - Kristen M. Getchell, Stephen Carradini, Peter W. Cardon, Carolin Fleischmann, Haibing Ma, Jolanta Aritz, James Stapp, 2022 Business and Professional Communication Quarterly 1.3 5-Year Impact Factor: 1.6 JOURNAL HOMEPAGE SUBMIT PAPER Free access

  4. Communication and culture in international business

    Communication is at the core of most international business operations. Organizations are created, managed, lead, and dissolved through communication, which plays a major role in the exchange of knowledge, the development and maintenance of relationships, the negotiation of deals, and the establishment and preservation of partnerships.

  5. A Review of Business Communication Under the Leading Function

    For this study, we undertook an extensive review of significant scholarly works on Business Communication as a discipline. We discovered there are prevalent themes in the broader context of ...

  6. Business Communication Research and Practice

    The Economist Intelligent Unit found that 52% of workers indicated added stress because of poor communication, 44% noted that poor communication can slow or fail project completion, 31% indicated low morale, 25% said that performance goals are missed, and 18% said that ineffective communication can result in lost sales ( Lewis, 2018; Plumberg, 2...

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    The authors present new research that suggests remote communication is most effective when teams coordinate to communicate in rapid-fire bursts, followed by periods of uninterrupted "deep work ...

  8. Research in Corporate Communication: An Overview of an Emerging Field

    This commentary is intended as an amendment to Argenti's (1996) viewpoint, published in Volume 10, Issue 1, of Management Communication Quarterly. Van Riel provides an overview of research in corporate communication, focusing on achievements found in the international academic literature in both communication and business school disciplines.

  9. Business communication

    Business communication Magazine Article. Max H. Bazerman. James J. Gillespie. Many negotiations collapse over differences of opinion about how the future will unfold. Companies need to realize ...

  10. Business Communication Research and Practice

    Business communication research and teaching has played a role in making business more central as a domain for scholarly inquiry in its own right. I remember that when I wrote my PhD on press releases back in the 90s, other linguists looked at me and wondered if there was no other, more traditional set of data to work with.

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    Summary. Transformational leaders are exceptional communicators. In this piece, the author outlines four communication strategies to help motivate and inspire your team: 1) Use short words to...

  12. Organizational Communication: A Review and Analysis of Three Current

    8. For views on current problems in communication theory and prac tice see Karlene H. Roberts, "Some Conceptual Issues About Organiza tional Communication Research," in Purdue Lecture Series on "theoretical perspectives of organizational communication," Precis of lecture presenta tions, Dept. of Communication, Purdue University, Fall, 1979; see also Lee Thayer, "Communication-Organization.

  13. 12895 PDFs

    Science topics: Econ Business Administration Business Management Business Communication Teguh Hidayatul Rachmad Rabina Yunus Hasbi Zixiu Liu Cite Assessing the awareness and perception of...

  14. PDF Introduction: Business Communication in the Digital Age

    In spite of these rapid developments, and the very pressing need for organizations and communication professionals to understand digitally mediated communication practices, research addressing digital business communication is still fragmented.

  15. PDF The Essential Theories of Business Communication

    We asked editorial board members of major business communication journals to rate seventy-eight theories widely used in business communication research on four aspects: how knowledgeable they were about the theory, the theory's application to business activities, the theory's scientific support, and

  16. Why It Matters: Research

    Doing research is important for good business communication. In this module, we will discuss all manner of conducting research. Our guiding principles are from social science inquiry, which uses a fairly specific and largely agreed upon format.

  17. Social Media Adoption, Usage And Impact In Business-To-Business (B2B

    Social media plays an important part in the digital transformation of businesses. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) companies. The current study focuses on the number of aspects of social media such as the effect of social media, social media tools, social media use, adoption of social media use and its barriers, social ...

  18. Chapter 10: The Research Process

    Chapter 10: The Research Process - Fundamentals of Business Communication Chapter 10: The Research Process Venecia Williams Learning Objectives Distinguish between formal and informal research Determine how to conduct research and investigation to gather information Learn to evaluate sources

  19. (PDF) Impact of Business Communication on the ...

    Business communication is known as a major pa rt of business success. Communication can be effective in case of maintaining good relationships with business partners, customers, and

  20. Business Communication Research and Practice

    Business communication within organizations should serve organizational goals taking care of both task completion and relationship building. It is essential to contextualize business communication in management activities integrating knowledge of communication, management, psychology, and language. ... Business Communication Research and ...

  21. Journal of Business, Communication & Technology

    Journal of Business, Communication and Technology (BCT) is an open-access and fully peer-reviewed journal that publishes original research and review articles on business, communication, technology, and the relationship between them.BCT favors articles which have a sound theoretical base with visible practical applications that can be used by specialists in management, linguistics, education ...

  22. Ethics Research in Business Communication: The State of the Art

    Abstract. This paper surveys treatments of business communication ethics in Association for Business Communication (ABC) Publications for the last 30 years. Pedagogical papers reveal an almost unanimous opinion that business communication is inherently a moral subject and that ethics has a place in the classroom.

  23. 10,000 citations strong: How a dissertation topic defied skepticism and

    It is the most cited work among all research about word of mouth and consumer communication. Their collaborative effort looked at what eventually would be called electronic word-of-mouth communication - or EWOM. Gianfranco Walsh, another German professor, along with Kevin Gwinner, a marketing professor from Kansas State, were also part of the team.

  24. This 10-Second Trick Makes You a Better Conversationalist

    Charles Duhigg, the author of "The Power of Habit," swears by this 10-second communication trick. Before you enter a conversation, jot down or think of three topics to talk about if there's a lull.

  25. Responding to Two Years of Russia's Full-Scale War On Ukraine and

    Following Russia's two years of unprovoked full-scale war, the death of opposition politician and anticorruption activist Aleksey Navalny, and a decade of aggression against Ukraine, the United States is sanctioning more than 500 individuals and entities in Russia and globally. There is a clear link between Russia's authoritarianism, its domestic crackdown on dissent, and its […]

  26. College of Business and Economics announces annual faculty awards

    The College of Business and Economics recently announced the recipients of their annual faculty awards and stipends. The following faculty members were selected from a strong and deep pool of nominees. A few of their many accomplishments and contributions are listed below. COBE Advisory Council Research Award

  27. International Journal of Business Communication: Sage Journals

    Research article First published Feb 5, 2024 An Integrated Framework for Exploring the Impact of Leadership Communication on Employee Trust During Disruptive Crisis Times Linjuan Rita Men Yufan Sunny Qin Alexis Bajalia Fitzsimmons [...] View all Restricted access Research article First published Jan 30, 2024

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    Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world ...

  29. Outer Space: Streamlined Satellite Communications

    This year, UGA hopes to send its technology into space—again. The launch of MOCI: Multi-view On-board Computational Imager will be the second satellite sent into orbit from the university's Small Satellite Research Laboratory.. Weighing in at fewer than 16 pounds, MOCI (pronounced mo-chee) will not only capture images but check and process those images, extracting data and deleting images ...