Ganga Dhanesh
Associate Professor, Communication
Education
Ph.D., Public Relations, National University of Singapore
Research Expertise
Public Relations
Strategic Communication
Dr Dhanesh’s prior experience in corporate and non-profit sectors has informed her extensive research program on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and strategic communication across issues, publics, cultures, and geographies. Her work has appeared in books and journals including Business Horizons, Journal of International Management, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Communication Management, Journal of Public Relations Research, and Public Relations Review. A recent bibliometric analysis placed her among the top two most productive scholars on CSR within public relations research. She has won multiple research awards including the Bob Heath Top Paper Award at the annual conference of the International Communication Association, 2012 and the Best Paper award at the annual congress of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA), 2021. She will deliver a keynote speech at the annual congress of the EUPRERA, 2023.
Dr Dhanesh serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Communication Management and is on the editorial board of Business Horizons and Public Relations Journal. Bridging academia and practice, Dr. Dhanesh actively consults for national and multinational organizations on strategic communication. She was the founding university lead for the partnership between Zayed University and the Unstereotype Alliance UAE chapter, convened by UN Women, and her research has helped to inform the creation of gender stereotyping guidelines for the advertising industry in the United Arab Emirates. Dr. Dhanesh was also a lead researcher for the first Global Capabilities Framework study in the Middle East. She is a regular speaker at industry events and contributor of thought pieces on CSR and strategic communication. Her work has appeared in outlets of The Institute for Public Relations, EUPRERA, and Dubai Chamber of Commerce.
Prior to her Maryland stint, she was Assistant Professor at the Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore, and Associate Professor and Associate Dean at the College of Communication and Media Sciences, Zayed University, UAE.
Publications
Gender representations and user engagement in social media posts of companies: Dream crazier or keep walking?
Study on gender and social media published in Business Horizons
Author/Lead: Ganga DhaneshHarmful gender stereotypes perpetuated and reinforced via gendered corporate communication can have deeply adverse consequences—particularly for women. Although a rich body of work has examined gender representation and its effects on advertising, there are hardly any insights into corporate social media communication. It is important to examine this as social media is a critical channel for stakeholder engagement, especially when leveraging its visual affordances. Hence, we conducted a visual social semiotic content analysis of 543 Instagram posts of international B2C companies to see how companies represented gender on social media and how various aspects of gender representation are related to user engagement. We found both diverse and inclusive gender portrayals and the sticky persistence of stereotypes. While women were depicted more as individual, central figures compared to men—allowing women to gain more visibility—women were more often associated with female gender-stereotypical topics than men. While no differences were found between gender representations and user engagement, user engagement differed between visuals showing men and women when considering their ethnicity. As such, we offer five evidence-based recommendations on how companies can contribute to gender equity by addressing gendered communication on social media.
Corporate Social Responsibility in Hypermodern Times: How to Identify Socially Responsible Consumers
Organizations have been increasingly paying attention to their myriad economic, ethical, social, and environmental responsibilities, partly driven by consumer pressure.
Author/Lead: Ganga DhaneshNon-ARHU Contributor(s): Sarah Marschlich
Organizations have been increasingly paying attention to their myriad economic, ethical, social, and environmental responsibilities, partly driven by consumer pressure. It is imperative for organizations to identify who these socially responsible consumers are so that they can respond appropriately to their demands. Adopting the theoretical lens of hypermodernity, this study sought to develop a measurement to identify socially responsible consumers by their personality traits and behavioral intentions along five dimensions of hypermodernity. The study combined a systematic review of journal articles within business ethics, consumer psychology, and communication studies to propose a measurement, which was subsequently tested and refined. This study first offers a set of theoretically grounded psychographic variables that give robust insights into socially responsible consumers with high corporate social responsibility expectations. Second, the article offers practitioners a toolkit to identify socially responsible consumers.