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Effective internal environment‐related communication: An employee perspective

Christa Uusi‐Rauva (Aalto University School of Economics, Aalto, Finland)
Johanna Nurkka (Aalto University School of Economics, Aalto, Finland)

Corporate Communications: An International Journal

ISSN: 1356-3289

Article publication date: 10 August 2010

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to understand what kinds of internal messages concerning a company's environment‐related corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities would be most effective in engaging employees in implementing an organization's environmental strategy. Furthermore, the paper explores how environmentally active employees could be utilized as internal communicators to spread environmental activity internally.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reports on findings from interviews (n=12) conducted within a multinational case company that has recently adopted an active approach to communicating its environmental policy internally.

Findings

Employees whose work does not have a clear environmental impact can find corporate environmental policies distant, and would rather see simple, practical messages about what they can do for the environment in their jobs. Furthermore, employees might ignore environmental considerations if they are too busy at work. To encourage environmentally active employees to share their ideas, it might be useful to assign clear environmental contact persons to each department, because employees may be unwilling to approach colleagues directly with environment‐related suggestions.

Practical implications

At a time when most companies are striving to be greener, the findings help organizations understand how they can communicate effectively to encourage all employees to consider the environment in their jobs. In addition, the results point to how organizations can better utilize environmentally active employees for internal promotion of environmental strategies.

Originality/value

The paper extends research on CSR communication to consider internal communication within an organization. In addition, it adopts the perspective of employees to bring new insight into their role in CSR‐related activities.

Keywords

Citation

Uusi‐Rauva, C. and Nurkka, J. (2010), "Effective internal environment‐related communication: An employee perspective", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 299-314. https://doi.org/10.1108/13563281011068140

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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