Internal audience segmentation and diversity in internal communication
Corporate Communications: An International Journal
ISSN: 1356-3289
Article publication date: 3 October 2016
Abstract
Purpose
Workforce diversity is becoming a crucial matter in the area of internal communication. Realizing that there are multiple brackets within the body of a workforce (i.e. internal audience), the purpose of this paper is to develop an intermediate approach to manage diversity by segmenting the internal audience.
Design/methodology/approach
Developing a segmentation approach for managing diversity, the authors recommended the use of a few mathematical methodologies, including the expectation-maximization algorithm, partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) methodology, and Chow test, on a surveyed data set collected from 1,236 nurses of the US healthcare system. A PLS-SEM model, including employees’ mission awareness, management’s mission fulfillment, employees’ mission fulfillment, and turnover intention, was examined with respect to two internal segments.
Findings
Using a simple set of demographic variables, the authors demonstrated a practical approach to segmenting an internal audience and showed that causal relationships in a nomological network of variables regarding mission integration are significantly different between internal segments. Based on the segmentation approach, the authors proved that managers, in an effort to gain maximum diversity, can mix and match both the centrifugal force of diversity and the centripetal force of diversity to value individuals and for mission integration in their practices, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
The authors highlighted a practical matter of internal communication by connecting the concepts of diversity and internal audience segmentation. However, the generalizability of the results must be assessed in other settings.
Practical implications
While managing diversity involves valuing employees as individuals, the segmentation concept can function as a practical and useful intermediate tool for managing diversity. Practitioners can utilize varied sets of segmented variables according to their contexts.
Social implications
The authors emphasized valuing employees as individuals and developed a managerial way to make personal differences an asset to the productivity of an organization and society.
Originality/value
Introducing a segmentation approach to internal communication and adopting a set of useful statistical techniques, the authors attempted to develop a unique managing model of diversity. The authors suggested a dynamic and substantial segmentation of an internal audience with a smaller set of appropriate variables in each context.
Keywords
Citation
Suh, T. and Lee, J. (2016), "Internal audience segmentation and diversity in internal communication", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 450-464. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-05-2015-0024
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited