Search results

Integrating anxiety and uncertainty management (AUM) theory and theory of organizing, this study aims to contribute to the knowledge management literature by examining the interdependent and bidirectional nature of knowledge transfer between expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs). Specifically, the authors investigate how receivers’ cognitive response to senders’ behaviors during their interactions becomes an important conduit between senders’ behaviors and the successful transfer of knowledge.

The authors used the actor partner interdependence model to analyze data from 107 expatriate-HCN dyads. The authors collected the responses of these expatriate-HCN dyads in Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and India.

Receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty, as a response to senders’ relationship building behaviors, mediate the relationship between senders’ relationship building behaviors and successful knowledge transfer. When senders are expatriates, senders’ communication patience and relationship building behaviors interact to reduce the direct and indirect effects of both receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty. However, when senders are HCNs, the moderation and moderated mediation models are not supported.

The study contributes to the knowledge management literature by investigating knowledge transfer between expatriates and HCNs using an interpersonal cross-cultural communication lens. The authors make refinements to AUM theory by going beyond the sender role to highlighting the interdependence between senders and receivers in the management of anxiety and uncertainty which, in turn, influences the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication. The study is also unique in that the authors underscore an important yet understudied construct, communication patience, in the successful transfer of knowledge.

Student in-class participation is a crucial aspect in the learning process, including in synchronous learning process. Several variables may hinder students from actively participating in synchronous learning including communication anxiety. As behavior, student in-class participation can be modeled using theory of planned behavior (TPB) with communication anxiety as barrier variable. The current study aims to investigate student decision-making process to actively participate in synchronous online learning using TPB frameworks and examine the effect of communication anxiety as part of extended TPB.

This was quantitative nonexperimental research conducted by gathering cross-sectional data through electronic survey. A total of 1,009 Indonesian college students voluntarily participate in the survey. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and test the hypothesis.

The results indicate that there was significant and positive effect between TPB-related variables: (1) attitude, (2) subjective norms, (3) behavioral control, (4) intention and (5) behavior. Communication anxiety, as an additional variable in the extended model, shows significant and negative effects on behavioral control and active participation behavior. However, the communication anxiety indicates insignificant effect on students’ intention to participate in online synchronous learning. The findings support the evidence that students’ intention to actively participate in synchronous learning can be described using TPB and communication anxiety hinders student to actively participate in synchronous learning.

The paper extends TPB on student active participation. Prior research limited to original theory of planned behavior (TPB) on student in-class and massive open online course (MOOC) participations, whereas the current research includes communication anxiety as additional variable on extended TPB to understand students’ intention to actively participate in synchronous online learning.

This conceptual article provides a basis for designing leader development programs that assess and train leaders to recognize demands for communication and how their personality affects the ways they transmit information, influence others and form positive relationships.

Adult attachment theory, Big Five personality dimensions (extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience and neuroticism) and pro-social and social sensitivity personality traits are proposed to shape the extent to which leaders enact relational, transmission and manipulative models of communication. These personality dimensions and communication models are the basis for assessment and training leaders to use in-person and various electronic media in ways that promote listeners’ attention, understanding and psychological safety.

Secure attachment leaders who are extraverted, prosocial and socially sensitive are proposed to use high touch media to communicate in ways that establish positive relationships. Avoidant and anxious attachment leaders use low-touch media that are manipulative or mitigate accountability.

The behaviors associated with transmitting information, influencing others and forming relationships can be a basis for assessing leaders’ attachment styles. Leaders can learn to diagnose situations to determine the best mixes of communication models to meet the demands of the situation.

Leaders who are promoted to higher levels of responsibility need to learn how to communicate with multiple stakeholders often during times of challenge and stress. How they communicate is likely to be a function of their comfort with interpersonal relationships, which in turn affects their use of personal and impersonal media.

With the growing concern for environmental and sustainability issues, especially in the aftermath of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, organizations feel compelled to pursue green sustainability in their operations. In this regard, the active involvement of employees in pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) is crucial for achieving organizational environmental sustainability goals (Saeed et al., 2019). To shed light on this important issue, this study aims to investigate the impact of interacting/engaging environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication strategy on employees' PEBs through the mediating effects of communal relationship and employee empowerment.

A total of 443 full-time USA employees working across various industries participated in an online survey.

The interacting/engaging environmental CSR communication strategy fosters employees' perceived communal relationship with their organizations and empowers them to support their organization's environmental initiatives, which, in turn, positively influences employees' PEBs at work.

This study advances CSR and internal communication literature through the lens of relationship management and self-determination theories. The findings theoretically suggest the effectiveness of the interacting/engaging environmental CSR communication strategy in nurturing favorable employee–organization relationships (EORs), employee empowerment and PEBs at work. The practical implications of CSR communication are also elaborated.

This chapter discusses the significance and effectiveness of communication strategies in empowering marginalized communities. With a specific focus on reproductive health, this chapter examines the diverse scope of these strategies and their transformative potential. It explores the use of mass media as a dynamic tool for information dissemination and the adoption of information, education, and communication (IEC) approaches to enhance knowledge and awareness. Furthermore, this chapter highlights the catalytic role of social and behavior change communication (SBCC) in driving substantial transformations in behaviors and attitudes. An integral part of the discussion is the customization of communication strategies to effectively reach and empower marginalized communities in Bangladesh. Through these strategies, this chapter illuminates the path toward empowering marginalized communities.

This study aims to propose a model of publics' ethical activism, testing the role of emotional outrage in an extended framework of the previously established STOPS model. Thus, this study aims to investigate (1) how ethical perception of a social issue affects situational motivation that leads to participation in public activism, and (2) how emotional outrage plays a role in mediating between situational motivation and activism behaviors.

The study aims at investigating the mediating role of emotional outrage between situational motivation and activism behaviors, which have not been investigated thoroughly in public relations research. By conducting a national survey with 386 people (N = 386) living in Australia, the study's suggestive model was tested in the context of two ethical issues (e.g. climate change and anti-racism). This study found that people who perceive an ethical issue are likely to be motivated to participate in activism behaviors. Specifically, three situational perceptions (i.e. problem recognition, constraint recognition and involvement recognition) were found to be significant factors affecting situational motivation (SM) in problem solving. A high level of emotional outrage was found to play a mediating role between SM and consequential ethical activism behaviors. The more people feel outraged about an ethical issue, the more likely they will engage in punitive behavior. This study contributes to the theoretical development of public relations by illuminating how situational perceptions lead to emotional outrage that promotes behavioral intentions in an ethical context. This study also suggests that a practitioner should be sought to manage the levels of perceptual factors when setting up a communication plan in response to an ethical public crisis.

This study found that people who perceive an ethical issue are likely to be motivated to participate in activism behaviors. Specifically, three situational perceptions (i.e. problem recognition, constraint recognition and involvement recognition) were found to be significant factors affecting situational motivation (SM) in problem solving. A high level of emotional outrage was found to play a mediating role between SM and consequential ethical activism behaviors. The more people feel outraged about an ethical issue, the more likely they will engage in punitive behavior.

This study substantiates how three perceptual antecedents may conjointly affect situational motivation. Also, the findings in this study also contribute to theoretical development in predicting ethical activism intentions. Another contribution of this study is to demonstrate the mediating role of emotional outrage between situational motivation and ethical activism. The authors strived to explore individuals' perceptions and its impact on intention to boycott against ethical problematic social issues. It should be considered that this study used a hypothetical and manipulated situation where respondents are exposed to the visual stimuli that focus on the moral problems that those specific issues have raised.

First, as problem recognition plays a prime mover role in the overall problem-solving process in an ethical context, organizations should reduce individual's ethical problem recognition. When setting up a communication plan, an organization should showcase their positive role in addressing the ethical problems (e.g. to show Adani's commitment to indigenous people and efforts to protect the environment). The response strategy should be effective enough to create an “ethical dilemma,” which refers to a situation in which one has a difficult choice to make between two ethical options.

This study contributes to theoretical development of public relations by illuminating how situational perceptions lead to emotional outrage that promotes behavioral intentions in an ethical context. This study also suggests that a practitioner should be sought to manage the levels of perceptual factors when setting up a communication plan in response to an ethical public crisis.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) present challenges in their social and communication skills such as difficulties in developing interpersonal relationships and verbal and nonverbal communication; repetitive and restricted behaviors concerning resistance to environmental change, stereotyped movements and unusual reactions to sensory stimuli; and significant delays in motor development and performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a combined visual arts and exercise program on the communication and social behavior skills of people with ASD.

The research was conducted in a Creative Employment Center of People with Disabilities, and the sample consisted of 18 participants with ASD divided randomly into a control group (CG) (n = 8) and an experiment group (EG) (n = 10). The Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) was used prior and after the implementation of the intervention program. EG participants attended an intervention program, whereas CG individuals followed their daily routine activities, and they only completed the SCQ prior and after the program.

EG demonstrated statically significant improvements in communication skills and social behavior, compared to the results of the CG. Furthermore, participants with Asperger’s syndrome showed a higher improvement rate compared to participants with autism, while no statistically significant differences were noticed concerning gender and age of the participants.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to investigate the effect of a combined visual arts and adapted physical activity program on the social and communication skills of people with ASD.

The response of the receiver to a voiced patient safety concern is frequently cited as a barrier to health professionals speaking up. The authors describe a novel Receiver Mindset Framework (RMF) to help health professionals understand the importance of their response when spoken up to.

The framework draws on the broader receiver-focussed literature and integrates innovative findings from a series of empirical studies. These studies examined different receiver behaviour within vignettes, retrospective descriptions of real interactions and behaviour in a simulated interaction.

The authors' findings indicated that speaking up is an intergroup interaction where social identities, context and speaker stance intersect, directly influencing both perceptions of and responses to the message. The authors' studies demonstrated that when spoken up to, health professionals poorly manage their emotions and ineffectively clarify the speaker's concerns. Currently, targeted training for receivers is overwhelmingly absent from speaking-up programmes. The receiver mindset framework provides an evidence-based, healthcare specific, receiver-focussed framework to inform programmes.

Grounded in communication accommodation theory (CAT), the resulting framework shifts speaking up training from being only speaker skill focussed, to training that recognises speaking up as a mutual negotiation between the healthcare speaker and receiver. This framework provides healthcare professionals with a novel approach to use in response to speaking up that enhances their ability to listen, understand and engage in point-of-care negotiations to ensure the physical and psychological safety of patients and staff.

The study examines the project success factors for leadership behavioural practices and communication impacting project success, providing empirical evidence to address the challenges in the digitalized environment in the Australian construction sector.

A quantitative approach was employed to collect survey data from 109 project managers and followers (project engineers, supervisors, team members, and senior managers) with diverse project management experience in the construction sector. An exploratory factors analysis/multivariate regression/relative importance index/t-test was used to identify the key project success factors and validate the study's results.

Data analysis identified four key project success factors: (1) Relationship Management, (2) Leading by Example, (3) Self-Management, and (4) Effective Communication, along with seventeen “behavioural practices attributes” impacting project success positively and significantly and emphasizing inclusiveness, relationship building, self-feedback objectivity, sharing information, collaboratively resolving disputes, and controlling emotions that significantly impact project success.

The study's results will address the industry's challenges in the complex digitalized environment and specific issues experienced in the construction industry: delays and inefficiencies, supply chain management, communication barriers with multicultural workforce and safety protocols implementation, regulatory and safety compliance, infrastructure demands, skills shortages, sustainability, and new technology adoption to achieve project success.

The quantification of research findings, employing an innovative approach, underscores the distinctive nature of this study. The key success factors will help formulate innovative practices using stakeholder analysis, communication plans, conflict resolution strategies, promoting collaboration, safety leadership, providing cultural awareness, and enhancing the decision-making process to face challenges in the construction sector.

This study aims to conceptualize, rethink and systematize methods used for measurement and evaluation (M&E) corporate communication.

The reflection is based on 462 key English-language books and papers devoted to M&E in the fields of corporate communication and public relations from the 1970th to 2023. Keywords in the titles and abstracts found the necessary materials. A critical analysis of the central concepts, models and methods described in the literature was conducted. As a result, a new model that unifies and structures the M&E toolkit is proposed for discussion.

Despite the significant contribution to developing a wide range of M&E models, they are still not perfect and universal. In addition, this system of approaches is continuously self-evolving and changing under the influence of digital innovations, so it requires steady rethinking and updating. On the other hand, most previous studies focused on communication management processes, losing focus on communication aspects. This led to the need for an alternative view based on proven theories to fill this gap. The proposed model combines quantitative and qualitative M&E methods for the five main components of corporate communication (communicator, audience, content, channels and result), covering a wide range of tools, from statistical and sociological research to big data analysis and neuro research.

This work contributes to developing the M&E theory of corporate communication, systematizing existing methods and opening new research perspectives. From a practical point of view, companies can use the presented approach for a more accurate and objective internal evaluation of the main components of corporate communication.