Search results

Based on Lasswell’s communication model, this study investigates how four categories of factors (i.e. the source, content, medium and receiver) conjointly affect the relational, financial and social outcomes (i.e. what effect) of CSA communication.

With a survey (N = 366), this study found configurations of core CSA communication factors leading to three different CSA communication outcomes.

While this study found multiways to yield three different CSA outcomes, combinational logic indicated the combined effects from source, content, medium and receiver. With content and medium, individuals’ connectedness (receiver) to a CSA issue is a core factor leading to a high level of purchase intention and issue advocacy. This study also found that message strategies (i.e. informativeness, factual tone, no promotional tone) are core factors leading to a high level of trust and issue advocacy.

With the theoretical guidance, this research contributes to strategic communication practice for various entities involved in advocacy communication by enabling an improved understanding of advocacy communication factors and triggering different communication outcomes.

As CSA communication involves multiple strategies, conventional research agenda focusing on correlational and path analysis approaches provide limited understanding of communication practice. To fill this void, this study adopts a configurational approach to understand current CSA communication practices holistically.

Organizational leaders value effective communication in employees, but ineffective communication persists (Peart, 2019). Communication Skills Training (CST) programs often face time and engagement constraints (Wright et al., 2006), necessitating increased resources for improvement. This study investigates the fields in which communication skills are examined and the research methods used. Given past training-communication associations, it explores CST programs' positive impact through experimental research (Bakker & van Wingerden, 2021). The study aims to enhance CST research by providing insights into effective training methods for facilitators and practitioners.

This systematic literature review examines CST's effectiveness in improving employee communication outcomes and identifying key factors. It highlights the importance of communication training, provides insights into existing research, and identifies areas for future investigation. As communication training is not context-specific, a comprehensive understanding of its effectiveness is necessary. This review establishes a foundational framework to support the creation of impactful training programs.

This research reaffirms the importance of Communication Skills Training (CST) in enhancing key competencies such as communication competence, self-efficacy, and empathy for workplace success, benefiting collaboration, conflict resolution, and problem-solving. It provides a foundational understanding of CST's impact, serving as a resource for researchers, trainers, and leaders, while also emphasizing the need for further research, including larger experiments, diverse skill sets, and long-term assessment. In our digital age, exploring contemporary skills, including digital communication, is essential for comprehensive training. The systematic categorization of skills into intrapersonal and interactional dimensions ensures consistency and supports in-depth analysis.

To address the broad range, outcome skills were categorized as intrapersonal or interactional, excluding the behavioral aspect concerning societal improvement. Leveraging Zimmerman's (1995) empowerment theory to enhance focus, this framework provides value for diverse CST research outcomes. Intrapersonal encompassed self-views, like self-efficacy and knowledge, while interactional involved understanding and aligning exchanges with personal goals. This categorization enhances research clarity and effectiveness by systematically understanding how these skills are related.

This paper’s objective is to provide a systematic literature review of the contextual factors affecting downward communication from supervisors to subordinates in the audit environment. In addition, this review identifies emerging research themes and directions for future research.

I accomplish this review’s objectives by leveraging communication literature to establish a framework to identify and synthesize contextual factors affecting downward communication in the audit environment. The review identifies 50 published articles in the last 20 years from leading accounting and auditing journals.

This study consolidates research findings on downward communication under two primary contextual factors: (1) message and (2) channel. Findings indicate that empirical research examining communication in audit is fragmented and limited. Studies examining the message focus heavily on its content and treatment in the areas of feedback, nonverbal cues, and fraud brainstorming, and a handful of additional studies examine the effectiveness of the channel in these areas. Additional research is needed to understand a broader set of supervisor–subordinate communication practices, including those that are computer-mediated, and their effect on subordinate auditors’ judgments and behaviors in the contemporary audit environment.

Much of the audit literature examining communication to date is topic-versus construct-based, making it difficult to see how the research findings relate to one another. This review is the first to synthesize the literature to provide academics recommendations for a way forward, and inform practitioners of communication practices whereby supervisors can be trained to improve audit quality.

Prodigious teamwork is the basis for augmenting the level of productivity on construction projects. Globalisation of the construction market has meant that many practitioners work outside of their geographical spectrum; however, the multicultural dissimilarities of construction workforces within the project management team (and how these may impact upon project productivity performance) have been given scant academic attention. To bridge this knowledge gap, this paper aims to analyse the effects of a multicultural workforce on construction productivity.

The epistemological positioning of the research adopted mixed philosophies (consisting of both interpretivism and postpositivism) to undertake a deductive and cross-sectional survey to collate primary quantitative data collected via a closed-ended structured questionnaire. Census sampling and convenience sampling techniques were adopted to target Ghana’s construction workforce and their opinions of the phenomenon under investigation. Out of 96 questionnaires administered, 61 were retrieved. The data obtained were analysed by using mean score ranking, relative important index, one sample t-test and multiple regression. The reliability of the scale was checked by using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient.

From the t-test analysis, 11 variables sourced from extant literature, and the null hypothesis for the study was not rejected and all factors (except high cost of training and improper gender diversity management) were affirmed as negative effects of the multicultural workforce on construction productivity. Using multiple regression analysis, six of the independent variables were shown to impact upon productivity. The goodness of fit was verified by collinearity and residual analysis. The model’s validation revealed a relatively high predictive accuracy (R² = 0. 589), implying that the results could be generalized. In culmination, these findings suggest that the predictors can be used to accurately predict the effects of multicultural workforce on construction productivity performance.

The findings indicate that multicultural workforce/teams have a substantial effect on overall construction productivity in the construction sector; consequently, stakeholders must address this issue to enhance productivity across the sector.

The current study significantly contributes to our understanding of how multicultural workers/teams affect construction productivity in the construction business perspective and how to respond to the negative menace.

This research paper aims to illustrate that the new product communication effects of mental simulation (process-vs. outcome-focused) might depend on product attributes (typicality and benefits). Communication effects include ad attitudes and product attitudes in this study.

One 2 (mental simulation: process-focused vs. outcome-focused) x 2 (attribute typicality: high vs. low) x 2 (attribute benefits: hedonic vs. utilitarian) between-subjects experiment design was conducted. SPSS was used to do data analysis.

This article reveals that high (low) typicality of new attributes causes a process-focused (outcome-focused) simulation to lead to better consumer attitudes (i.e. ad attitude and product attitude). In addition, for a new hedonic attribute, a low typical attribute induces better consumer attitudes. Furthermore, there are interaction among mental simulation, product attribute typicality and benefits. These findings have important implications for academic developments and marketing management.

Compared with previous studies, this study is unique in several ways. First, enterprises often develop new products by introducing new product attributes (i.e. new features). Product attribute typicality is an interesting issue for new product design and communication. This research illustrates that the marketing communication effects of attribute typicality depends on attribute benefits and mental simulation. Second, the current research finds the new product attribute benefit (i.e. hedonic/utilitarian) play an important role and moderates the effects of mental simulation on consumer attitudes.

This study is designed to bridge a gap in the existing leadership communication literature by delving into lesser-explored facets of the field. It particularly concentrates on investigating how the verbal aggressiveness of supervisors influences various aspects of the workplace, including workplace emotional culture, the quality of employee–organization relationships (EORs) and the prevalence of counterproductive work behaviors (CWB).

This study employed a quantitative research design to investigate the impact of supervisors' verbal aggressiveness on employee and organizational outcomes. The data were collected from 392 full-time employees across various organizations and industries in the USA using a self-report questionnaire. The researchers used structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the data and test hypotheses.

The findings of this study showed that supervisors' verbal aggressiveness had a significant positive association with negative emotional culture and employee CWB. However, it had no direct impact on employee–organization relationships. The effect of supervisor verbal aggressiveness on employee CWB was found to be mediated by a negative team-level emotional culture.

This study advances the literature on leadership communication by highlighting the detrimental influence of the dark side of leadership communication. More specifically, by identifying negative emotional culture and employee CWB as the direct outcomes of supervisor verbal aggressiveness, the authors add to the existing theoretical knowledge on verbal aggressiveness in the workplace. Additionally, this study provides empirical evidence of the impact of a negative emotional culture on eliciting employees' CWBs and diminishing relationship quality, adding to the body of knowledge on why managing emotional culture is crucial for organizations and workgroups.

This study aims to capture how the association between a multichannel relational communication strategy (MRCS) and customer performance is contingent upon such customer performance (low- versus high-performance customers) and to reconcile past contradictory results in this marketing-related topic. To this end, the authors propose and validate the method of quantile regression as an unconventional, yet effective, means to proceed to that reconciliation.

This study collected data from 4,934 customers of a private pension fund firm and accounted for both firm- and customer-initiated relational communication channels (RCCs) and for customer lifetime value (CLV). This study estimated a generalized linear model and then a quantile regression model was used to account for customer performance heterogeneity.

This study finds that specific RCCs present different levels of association with performance for low- versus high-performance customers, where outcome customer performance is the dependent variable. For example, the relation between firm-initiated communication (FIC) and performance is stronger for low-CLV customers, whereas the relation between customer-initiated communication (CIC) and performance is increasingly stronger for high-CLV customers but not for low-CLV ones. This study also finds that combining different forms of FIC can result in a negative association with customer performance, especially for low-CLV customers.

The authors tested the conceptual model in one single firm in the specific context of financial services and with cross-sectional data, so there should be caution when extrapolating this study’s findings.

This study offers nuanced and precise managerial insights on recommended resource allocation along with relational communication efforts, showing how managers can benefit from adopting a differentiated-customer performance approach when designing their MRCS.

This study provides an overview of the state of the art of MRCS, proposes a contingency analysis of the relationship between MRCS and performance based on customer performance heterogeneity and suggests the quantile method to perform such analysis and help reconcile past contradictory findings. This study shows how the association between RCCs and CLV varies across the conditional quantiles of the distribution of customer performance. This study also addresses a recent call for a more holistic perspective on the relationships between independent and dependent variables.

This study aims to explore how transformational leaders enhance public service employees’ growth satisfaction in the job and mitigate job stress and burnout, incorporating follower interpersonal communication satisfaction with the leader (IPCSL) as a mediator.

On the basis of the survey data collected from the Indian public service employees, regression analysis, bootstrapping and SOBEL test are used to test the proposed research model.

The findings highlighted a partial mediation of follower interpersonal communication satisfaction with leader between transformational leadership (TL) and public service employees’ growth satisfaction in the job. Although there was no significant direct effect of TL on job stress and burnout, the results underlined a significant indirect effect of follower IPCSL.

By examining the important role of follower IPCSL, this study unravels the precise intervening mechanism between TL and follower affective outcomes like growth satisfaction in job, job stress and burnout among public service employees.

This study explored whether the critical incident management systems (CIMS) model can predict the EMS performance in the COVID-19 context. Past research has established the significance of early detection and response (ER) in the context of Ebola virus disease (EVD), prompting a question of whether the model can also be helpful in the COVID-19 context. Consequently, the authors assessed whether ER influences the impact of communication capacity (CC), reliable information channel (RC) and environment (EN) on COVID-19 EMS performance. Assessing these relationships will advance emerging infectious disease (EID) preparedness.

The authors employed standardized measurement instruments of the CIMS model (CC, ER, RC and EN) to predict the performance of COVID-19 EMS using structural equation modeling (SEM) in a study of 313 participants from frontline responders.

The results show that the relationship of ER and EN with COVID-19 EMS performance is positive, while that of EN on CC is negative. The relationship between EN and COVID-19 EMS performance was insignificant. Contrary to the hypothesis, CC was negatively significant to COVID-19 EMS performance due to poor communication capacities.

The authors acknowledge some limitations due to challenges faced in this study. First, Data collection was a significant limitation as these questionnaires were built and distributed in June 2020, but the response time was prolonged due to the recurring nature of the pandemic. The authors had wanted to implore the inputs of all stakeholders, and efforts were made to reach out to various Ministry of Health, the local CDC and related agencies in the region via repeated emails explaining the purpose of the study to no avail. The study finally used the frontline workers as the respondents. The authors used international students from various countries as the representatives to reach out to their countries' frontline workers. Second, since the study was only partially supported using the CIMS model, future studies may combine the CIMS model with other models or theories. Subsequent research reassesses this outcome in other contexts or regions. Consequently, further research can explore how CC can be improved with COVID-19 and another future EID in the region. This may improve the COVID-19 EMS performance, thereby expanding the lesson learned from the pandemic and sustaining public health EID response. Additionally, other authors may combine the CIMS model with other emergency management models or theories to establish a fully supported theoretical model in the context of COVID-19.

The findings have practical implications for incident managers, local CDCs, governments, international organizations and scholars. The outcome of the study might inform these stakeholders on future direction and contribution to EID preparedness. This study unfolds the impact of lessons learned in the region demonstrated by moderating early detection and responses with other constructs to achieve COVID-19 EMS performance. The findings reveal that countries that experienced the 2013–2016 Ebola outbreak, were not necessarily more prepared for an epidemic or pandemic, judging by the negative moderating impact of early detection and response. However, these experiences provide a foundation for the fight against COVID-19. There is a need for localized plans tailored to each country's situation, resources, culture and lifestyle. The localized plan will be to mitigate and prevent an unsustainable EID management system, post-epidemic fund withdrawals and governance. This plan might be more adaptable and sustainable for the local health system when international interventions are withdrawn after an epidemic. Public health EID plans must be adapted to each country's unique situation to ensure sustainability and constantly improve EID management of epidemics and pandemics in emergency response. The high to moderate importation risk in African countries shows Africa's largest window of vulnerability to be West Africa (Gilbert et al., 2020). Therefore, they should be in the spotlight for heightened assistance towards the preparedness and response for a future pandemic like COVID-19. The West African region has a low capacity to manage the health emergency to match the population capacities. The COVID-19 outbreak in West Africa undoubtedly inflicted many disruptions in most countries' economic, social and environmental circumstances. The region's unique challenges observed in this study with CC and reliable information channels as being negatively significant highlight the poor maintenance culture and weak institutions due to brain drain and inadequate training and monitoring. This outcome practically informs West African stakeholders and governments on aspects to indulge when trying to improve emergency preparedness as the outcomes from other regions might not be applicable.

This study explored the relevance of the CIMS model in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing different patterns of influence on COVID-19 EMS performance. In contrast to the extant literature on EVD, the authors found the moderating effects of ER in the COVID-19 context. Thus, the authors contribute to the COVID-19 EMS performance domain by developing a context-driven EMS model. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

This paper describes the development of a digital role play game (RPG) designed to help construction apprentices to better communicate with their supervisors about issues with the potential to impact on their physical and psychological health and safety.

A participatory approach was adopted to utilise the knowledge and insights of the target users to inform the digital RPG development. Apprentices and supervisors were interviewed to identify characteristics of effective supervisor-apprentice communication, which became the RPG’s learning objectives. The scenarios constructed in the RPG were drawn from lived experiences shared by the apprentices in the interviews. During the development process, consultations were conducted with an advisory committee comprising of apprentices and supervisors to improve the realism of the RPG scenarios.

Three scenarios were developed for the RPG. In each scenario, players are asked to make decisions at various interaction points about how the characters should respond to the unfolding and challenging situations. Scripts were developed for the game, which were acted out and motion captured to animate digital MetaHuman characters embedded in a virtual construction site. Two example situations are introduced in this paper to illustrate the development process.

To our knowledge, the RPG introduced is one of the first applications of digital game-based training in the construction industry. The adoption of a participatory design approach ensures that the game content relates to real-world experiences. The digital RPG is highly interactive and engaging in nature and presents a novel approach to developing “soft” skills in construction.