ABSTRACT
Public trust in health information is essential to ensure that preventative strategies to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 are accepted and followed. This study explored the way Swiss people accessed and consumed news and information about the coronavirus from different channels, and the role media plays in public trust during the pandemic. Based on a study of 442 randomly assigned participants in French-speaking regions, we examined the following four questions: (1) What are the news sources and platforms and how are they used? (2) How does the public rate the trustworthiness of these sources and platforms? (3) To what extent does the public perceive that these sources and platforms are provided inaccurate information? (4) What roles do these sources and platforms play in the pandemic? Implications are discussed in the conclusion based on our findings.
ABSTRACT
PurposeThis paper provides evidence based quantification of both “actual” disruption of industries as well as a measure of disruption “hype”. The data cover a seven-year period from 2012 to 2018 across 12 industries. The authors’ complemented the research with a survey of 2000 business executives. Whereas there has been some measures of disruption in the past, no research to the authors’ knowledge has been conducted that measure both actual disruption and disruption hype.Design/methodology/approachThe current fascination with disruption hides an awkward truth, we assume it is happening, but do we really know for sure? Disruption is rarely defined and almost never measured. Equally, the influence of the hype around disruption is hard to gauge. The authors do not know to what extent hype is driving management action. This is worrisome as the disruption “noise level” can lead to unhealthy collective thinking and bad business decision-making. Some rigour is required. To craft winning strategies, executives should take a more evidence-based approach for managing disruption.FindingsThe authors’ failed to find evidence of any correlation between the hype around an industry disruption and actual disruption within that industry. So the important conclusion for executives is “do not believe the hype”. We found some surprising differences by industry between actual disruption and the hype by industry.Research limitations/implicationsDisruption is one of the most talked about subject in the field of strategy, yet there is little quantification. With this research, the authors’ aim is to advance the fact-based understanding of disruption. Disruption hype is never measured but has a strong influence on executives. The authors have quantified hype using online, search, social media and survey sources. Much more is needed to be able to measure hype more accurately.Practical implicationsThe authors’ recommend a set of practical guidelines for executives to support fact-based strategy formulation: analysis of actual disruption, scenario planning and strategic responses.Social implicationsThe “noise” around industry disruption is so high that it is assumed to happen. Much of what is written is quasi-fake news. The authors need to rebalance the debate with fact-based analysis.Originality/valueTo authors’ knowledge, there has never been any fact-based analysis of both actual and hype disruption levels.