An Examination of Fortune 500 Companies’ and Philanthropy 200 Nonprofit Organizations’ Relationship Cultivation Strategies on Facebook
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: This study extends research on relationship theory by examining how Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations from the Philanthropy 200 use Facebook to cultivate relationships. The Facebook pages and posts of a random sample of Fortune 500 companies (n = 100) and Philanthropy 200 nonprofit organizations (n = 100) were coded for the presence of relationship cultivation strategies. Both Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations most frequently use strategies—openness and disclosure and access—that exemplify one-way communication. Corporations outperform nonprofit organizations in their usage of the assurance strategy, as evidenced by the fact that corporations responded to users’ questions on average 75% of the time, whereas nonprofit organizations responded on average 45% of the time. Neither type of organization is fully utilizing the interactive relationship cultivation strategies of networking and sharing of tasks. Implications for practice are provided.
Author: Julie O’Neil
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3182793183