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The present study investigates the nature of newly formed organizations and how internal communication influences these entities, where change is inherent. Organizational life for government contractors is unusual in that employees experience routine changes to upper management, company values, goals and objectives every few years, which leads to the creation of a new consortium that is loosely coupled. Such research provides insight beyond the single-entity organization, which tends to dominate most public relations and internal communication literature.

Given the lack of research exploring consortia and internal communication to get beyond the homogeneous organization, an in-depth case study methodology was the most appropriate approach. A multi-site government contractor was chosen as the research site, relying on interviews and focus groups (n = 77) to collect data.

Effective internal communication practices are even more important for consortia, like government contractors, since employees of these organizations are guaranteed to experience frequent change. Therefore, communicating to the unknown audience, building trust in the absence of a prior connection, and preparing for the unintended consequences are imperative to navigating the complexity surrounding consortia forming and cultivating employee buy-in.

This study presents new, transferable knowledge of internal communication during consortia forming, where to be successful, internal communication needs anticipate the unintended consequences and develop a strategy around the uncertainty. Such strategy is about welcoming diverse voices and actively listening to their preferred needs. In addition, a definition of the unknown audience is provided.

This study aims to examine the effects of diversity-oriented leadership and strategic internal communication on employees’ knowledge-sharing behavior during a crisis situation, coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in particular. Integrating knowledge sharing research with internal crisis communication literature as well as self-determination theory, the mediating roles of employees’ intrinsic needs satisfaction are also identified.

An online survey was conducted with 490 full-time employees in the USA across industry sectors during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Results suggest that diversity-oriented leadership contributes to transparent internal communication during a crisis and increases employees’ satisfaction of autonomy, competence and relatedness needs. Transparent internal communication also increases employees’ intrinsic needs satisfaction, which in turn fosters their job engagement and knowledge-sharing behavior during the crisis.

This study is one of the earliest studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of diversity-oriented leadership and strategic internal crisis communication in enhancing employees’ knowledge-sharing behavior, especially in the context of COVID-19.

With a focus on millennial employees, this study investigates how employees engage in two types of employees' communicative behaviors (ECBs), that is, their voluntary communicative efforts to acquire and circulate tasks and managerial information (i.e. scouting) and to share and discuss positive and negative aspects of their organization with internal members (i.e. internal megaphoning). Through the lens of social exchange theory (SET) and symmetrical communication model, this study examines the effects of inclusive leadership and internal communication on active information behaviors of employees within their companies.

An online survey was conducted with fulltime millennial employees working across various industry sectors in the US.

Symmetrical internal communication influenced by inclusive leadership enhances employees' scouting behavior as well as positive internal megaphoning behavior. Positive and negative internal megaphoning with supervisors increases the scouting behavior of employees, whereas negative internal megaphoning with peers does not have a significant effect.

This study is among the first attempts to examine the effectiveness of leadership and strategic internal communication on millennial employees' diverse types of communicative behaviors.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak thrust a spotlight on organizational leaders and the challenges that employees face during periods of organizational change. The purpose of the current study is to examine the influence of empathetic supervisor communication on employee turnover intention and the mediating role of affective trust toward supervisors and employee–organization relationship (EOR) quality. Informed by the social exchange theory and EOR literature, the authors develop a model in which affective trust toward supervisors and EOR quality mediates the relationship between empathetic supervisor communication and employee turnover intention.

This study recruited 417 employees based in the USA through an online panel operated by a professional survey company. Data collection that followed a quota sampling procedure lasted for about three weeks in October 2020. The authors used structural equation modeling to test the study hypotheses.

The findings of this study indicated that the extent to which supervisors adopted empathetic communication during organizational change had considerable repercussions on their supervisees' affective trust toward supervisors, relationship perception toward their organizations, and ultimately, their turnover intention.

This study is among the first that identifies empathetic communication as a pivotal force in driving employees' positive relational and behavioral reactions, reinforcing the growing expectation of supervisors in fulfilling communication functions during organizational change. Moreover, the authors contribute to understanding change management as an activity rooted in and enacted through communication between supervisors and subordinates. In addition, this study contributes to the organizational research of empathy during change.

Adopting a social capital theoretical (SCT) lens, this study aims to propose a conceptual framework of effective internal communication (IC) for the hospitality industry. The study explores how to enhance current practices and the suitability of social media as an augmentation to traditional IC channels.

A qualitative research methodology, consisting of 20 semi-structured interviews with hospitality employees, was adopted. Following a “reduction” and “interpretation” process, 16 themes related to effective IC were identified which informed a conceptual framework.

Characteristics of effective IC were identified in addition to IC benefits at both employee and organizational levels. Considering the limitations of current practices, the applicability of social media was explored. Requirements of effective IC suggest that new channels (e.g. social media) should be adopted to build social capital.

The study informs SCT from a meso-level (process) perspective. The articulation of an IC framework informs how social capital can be built through effective IC, providing a foundation for further empirical examination as to the impact of various channels on the IC process. Adoption of a case study design suggests that results and implications can only be generalized to similar environments.

The study details the characteristics of effective IC and its subsequent benefits, highlighting how social media can augment current IC practices in a hospitality organization.

Being a 24/7 labor-intensive operation makes employee communication to ensure service excellence challenging in the hospitality industry. Through the application of SCT and the exploration of social media in a workplace setting to enhance IC, significant theoretical and practical insights are realized.

The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to corporate communication theory by considering the evolution of employee engagement and the role of communication in enhancing employee engagement.

Despite its importance for organisation leaders, there is considerable confusion about the meaning of employee engagement. This paper aims to provide a degree of clarity on the concept by identifying stages in its evolution and discussing its definition.

Surprisingly, corporate communication literature has not yet adequately considered the concept. This may be due to confusion concerning the concept, and to concerns about overlaps with other constructs such as commitment. This paper tackles the gap in the literature with a proposed model of the role of internal corporate communication in enhancing employee engagement.

The article discusses linkages between engagement and communication which suggest research potential for the communication disciplines.

There are practical implications of the model proposed here since it encourages communicators to consider potential engagement effects of communication strategies and tactics.

The paper encourages communicators to consider the communication needs of employees.

This conceptual paper provides an overview of employee engagement literature with a novel contribution identifying evolutionary waves in the development of the concept. It suggests a definition of organisation engagement as a dynamic, changeable psychological state which links employees to their organisations, manifest in organisation member role performances expressed physically, cognitively and emotionally, and influenced by organisation‐level internal communication.

The new economy, or knowledge‐based era, not only brings with it additional challenges to the employee communication process, but also inspired solutions. Historically, employee communication has been constrained by the limitations of traditional media. The choice of media for the dissemination of information has increased over the years but none has had the potential to galvanise broad‐sweeping changes to the process as have intranets. To maximise the benefits for their organisations, communicators must become comfortable working with the new technology, progress up the technology‐adoption curve, learn to balance tech with touch, and be prepared to deconstruct previously held models of communication.

This article explores how employees in a public sector organization (PSO) make sense of the introduction of a social intranet and new employee communication roles. The aim is to understand employee sensemaking and how sensemaking influences the change process within the organization.

The article is based on a case study in a Danish PSO with 30,000 employees. The empirical material includes strategic documents, online observations and seven focus groups with employees conducted before, during and after the introduction of a new social intranet.

The employees found that making sense of the purpose with the social intranet is difficult. A managerial approach to change communication could easily result in employees' frustrations and concerns being dismissed as signs of resistance to change. From a communication perspective, the findings reveal that the employees engaged in seven different sensemaking enactments.

Change cannot be understood simply as something that employees are for or against. Instead, a change process should be perceived as a set of communication processes or sensemaking enactments happening in interactions between employees that can act in favor of, against or neutrally toward change.

Managers and communication professionals can interact with the seven sensemaking enactments, and some tentative initiatives are suggested in the article.

The article explores the employee perspective in a change process in a PSO and identifies seven employee sensemaking enactments highlighting that change happens in communication processes.

Rapport between service employees and customers has been suggested to be an important determinant of customer relationship management, yet existing marketing literature still lacks a sufficient understanding of how service employees’ nonverbal communication affects customer-employee rapport development in service encounters. The purpose of this paper is to fill this research gap by proposing and testing a model that explores how service employees’ nonverbal communication (employee affective delivery and behavioral mimicry) influences customer positive emotions and customer-employee rapport. The mediating role of customer positive emotions and the moderating role of store atmosphere in the process of customer-employee rapport development were also assessed.

Using an observational methodology in conjunction with a customer survey, multi-source survey data collected from 303 customer-employee pairs in the apparel retailing industry was examined through structural equation modeling and regression analysis.

Results showed that employee nonverbal communication positively influenced customer positive emotions and customer-employee rapport. The partial mediating role of customer positive emotions and the moderating role of store atmosphere in the process of rapport development were also confirmed.

Service firms should train and motivate employees to use nonverbal communication to develop and strengthen customer-employee rapport. The importance of customer positive emotions in the service process should be addressed in the customer-employee rapport development process. Moreover, service managers should also allocate firm resources to create a well-designed store atmosphere for target customers.

This research represents one of the earliest studies to explore and empirically test the influence of employee nonverbal communication on customer-employee rapport development in service encounters. The partial mediating role of customer positive emotions and the moderating role of store atmosphere on the relationship between employee nonverbal communication and customer-employee rapport were also proposed and confirmed.

Little research exists on the effects of organisational structure on the public relations function. This study focuses on the effects of structural changes on an internal communication function in a large South African organisation. In this organisation internal communication consultants were appointed at divisional level. They had to oversee the election of a communication champion in each cost centre in the division. Survey research conducted 18 months after the process implementation found the structural changes led to improved information flow and face‐to‐face communication. Employees made better use of organisational media and relied less on the grapevine. Although the process made employees less fearful to speak truthfully and improved employee‐supervisor communication, these effects were less pronounced. The research confirmed the important link between public relations strategy and organisational structure, particularly for communication managers and internal communication practitioners in large organisations.