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Organizational resilience: unveiling the role of strategic internal crisis management on employee sensemaking and sensegiving

Adamu Abbas Adamu (Department of Management, Marketing and Digital Business, Curtin University Malaysia Campus, Miri, Malaysia)
Syed Hassan Raza (Department of Communication Studies, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan)
Bahtiar Mohamad (Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business (OYAGSB), Universiti Utara Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Campus, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management

ISSN: 1741-0401

Article publication date: 13 November 2023

Issue publication date: 5 August 2024

537

Abstract

Purpose

Communication with employees during times of crisis has become a crucial aspect of crisis management for building organizational resilience knowledge. Thus, explaining how internal crisis management promotes positive employee behaviour has become imperative. This study aims to investigate the relationship between internal crisis communication, job engagement, Organizational Citizenship Behaviour towards the Environment, Communicative behaviour for sensemaking and sensegiving and organizational resilience.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey was conducted with 483 full-time employees in Pakistan. The structural equation modelling technique was employed to assess the study's hypotheses.

Findings

The findings of this study demonstrate that internal crisis communication can boost employee job engagement, organizational citizenship behaviour towards environment, sensemaking and sensegiving, which will also have a downstream effect on organizational resilience.

Practical implications

The findings of this study indicated that effective internal communication can aid managers in making well-informed decisions, coordinating response efforts and disseminating vital information to relevant stakeholders. As a result, this study contributes to the literature on internal crisis management by incorporating employee behavioural intention towards the environment. It provides managers and practitioners with knowledge on managing employees during a crisis.

Originality/value

Surprisingly, the conservation of resource theory (COR) does not explain communicative conduct (sensegiving) and environmental (e.g. organizational citizenship behaviour towards environment) components. This research combines the tenets of COR theory that have yet to be researched with the employees' environmental responses element. The mechanisms of cognition and communication were also ignored in earlier studies. This study sheds light on the process through which higher levels of job engagement, organizational citizenship behaviour towards environment and the capacity for comprehension (e.g. sensemaking) and meaning-transmission (e.g. sensegiving) ultimately help organizations navigate the crisis successfully.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by Curtin Malaysia Sustainability Research Grant 2021 (CCN – 002112).

Since submission of this article, the following author(s) have updated their affiliation(s): Syed Hassan Raza is at the Department of Communication and Media Studies, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan.

Citation

Adamu, A.A., Raza, S.H. and Mohamad, B. (2024), "Organizational resilience: unveiling the role of strategic internal crisis management on employee sensemaking and sensegiving", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 73 No. 7, pp. 2068-2091. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-05-2023-0239

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

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