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Building on evolutionary emancipation theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of workplace fun on employees’ scouting behavior through the serial mediation of employees’ psychological empowerment and megaphoning.

A questionnaire survey technique is used to elicit the responses of 445 employees from service organizations.

The statistical results revealed that fun at work influences employees scouting behavior through the serial mediation of psychological empowerment and megaphoning. The direction relationship between fun and scouting was not statistically significant, thus a full mediation mechanism was proved.

The value of employees’ communication behavior has increased in the recent past, and it overweighs the conventional mediums (e.g. TV, radio and newspaper). But the antecedents and mechanisms through which communication behavior can be influenced are an area that has not gained researchers’ attention. This study proposes such a conceptual model and empirically tests it.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the five‐factor model of personality (FFM) and employees' voice behavior in Greece.

Employees' personality characteristics were assessed along with their voice behavior towards their supervisor and the top management of their company. Data were collected from a cross‐sectional sample of 334 professionals.

The findings demonstrate the relationship between personality and voice behavior towards the immediate supervisor, but not towards the top management of the company, and show that conscientiousness and emotional stability are the strongest predictors of employees' voice behavior.

The results of the study should be interpreted with caution, since they are based on self‐report measures. However, the findings suggest that two personality dimensions (emotional stability and conscientiousness) are significantly related with employees' voice behavior towards their supervisor.

The findings suggest important practical implications for HR practices, such as employee communication and personnel selection, since at least two personality dimensions are related with employees' voice behavior. The study also emphasizes the significance of first line supervisors' communication style in enhancing employees' voice behavior.

This is the first study exploring the relationship between the FFM and employees' voice behavior carried out in a EU‐country, such as Greece.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a company’s symmetrical internal communication efforts could influence its employees’ perception of relationship outcomes with the company and the subsequent employee communication behaviors about the company to others and their turnover intention. Additionally, the mediation effects of employee-organization relationship (EOR) quality between symmetrical internal communication and employee engagement were tested.

The study collected the data from a survey of randomly selected 438 individuals who work as sales representatives of the case organization. Respondents were randomly selected through stratified sampling. For the overall statistical procedure, this study adopted the two-step structural equation modeling: on the basis of the final measurement model analysis from confirmatory factor analysis, the proposed structural model was tested using latent variables.

The findings of this research clearly demonstrate: employee/internal communication management is linked with employee engagement; employee engagement enhances supportive employee communication behaviors and reduces turnover intention. Also, the mediation results show strong mediation of EORs on the effects of symmetrical internal communication on employee engagement.

Employees’ communication behaviors such as megaphoning and scouting have special strategic values to organizations. With information seeking, selecting, forwarding, and sharing behaviors of employees, organizations may obtain more valuable information than through formal procedures and channels. Professional literature has long been supporting the importance of fostering positive employee communication behaviors (ECBs), suggesting that WOM and information from the employees deemed as most trustworthy by the external publics. ECBs about their organizations may be viewed as a testament of the quality of EOR. This study results show that employee engagement plays a key role in creating positive ECBs.

Pragmatically, as noted in the findings, symmetrical communication is an important factor that leads to positive ECB. To facilitate employees’ favorable communication regarding an organization, therefore, the organization needs to practice a two-way, employee-centered symmetrical communication system in its everyday communication management. Communication managers are advised to nurture internal communication practices that listen to the employees and invite their participation in addition to providing complete and fair information to employees. Second, by showing the significant positive influence of EOR on employee engagement and ECB, the finding of the study suggests that strategic relationship management with internal publics affect overall management effectiveness. Hence, organizational managers need to adopt various relationship cultivation strategies in their communication with employees, which have been previously proposed by several studies.

The findings of the study demonstrated that the effects of employee relationship management and symmetrical internal communication indeed exist beyond ECBs to the actual managerial outcomes. The findings also suggest a three-stage model of employee communication management: employee/internal communication management antecedents; employee engagement; and supportive outcomes of effective employee communication programs, such as supportive/extra ECBs.

This paper aims to explore the role of employee engagement for competitiveness. In particular, the role of employee communication to create engaging workplaces.

Two field surveys were conducted to assess, which are the most relevant leverages that contribute to create engaging (or disengaging) workplaces in Italy: the first one on a statistical sample of large companies, the second one on a snowball sample of employees.

Italian companies often miss the opportunity to create engaging workplaces and to exploit the potential of employee communication to foster employee engagement.

Further research could focus on a survey on a sample of managers and employees belonging to the same company.

Companies should pursue an inclusive relational approach, using employee communication appropriately.

The study develops and tests a model showing the linkages among managerial approaches and engaging workplace contexts and examines the role of employee communication to foster employee engagement.

The chapter develops a typology of eight different expected employee communication roles based on literature in public relations (PR), corporate communication and related fields. As PR professionals are increasingly taking on a coaching and training role, and communication technology has made employees more visible and approachable, employees more and more take on active roles in the communication with external publics. While PR professionals’ roles are conceptualized fairly well, no framework exists that describes the many communication roles that employees play in contemporary organizations. In the chapter, it is found that employees externally (1) embody, (2) promote, and (3) defend the organization. In addition, employees use communication to (4) scout for information and insights about environmental changes, and (5) build and maintain relationships with stakeholders. Internally, employees use communication to (6) make sense of information, (7) initiate and stimulate innovation, and (8) criticize organizational behaviour and decisions. The typology highlights that employees increasingly fulfil the tactic communication roles as producers and executers of corporate communication as social media have made them more visible and approachable. The communication roles require considerable tactical skills and resources on the part of employees, which they may not always possess sufficiently. PR professionals can play a coaching role in terms of helping employees frame content and communicate in a manner appropriate for the organization, the context and the media. The chapter can help PR professionals and scholars understand the changed role of PR professionals, as well as the changed relationships between organizations and their environment, in the context of dissolving organizational boundaries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how employees' work-related communication is managed in knowledge-intensive organizations.

The study was conducted by applying an exploratory, qualitative approach. The data were collected from six knowledge-intensive organizations operating in the professional service sector in Finland, and the data set used included altogether 23 interviews.

The interviews confirmed that employees' work-related communication on social media is regarded as an increasingly important area, and that it has required companies to establish new managerial processes that are aimed to affect employees’ communication behaviors (ECB) either as enablers or motivators. How companies apply these processes depends on contextual factors, and three different managerial approaches were identified, namely, individual-, corporate- and business-oriented approaches.

Based on the findings, this article proposes a new field for the communication management literature, management of the communicative organization (MCO), which builds on behavior management knowledge and focuses on managing employee communicators in multivocal organizational communication systems (MOCSs) that are dependent on employee-generated content.

The study advances the field of communication management and ECB by empirically proving that organizations manage their employees' work-related communication and the management processes and practices identified derive from behavioral management tradition. The proposed MCO framework introduces a novel area for academic discussion on how communication management affects ECB and attitudes, such as motivation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the organizational effectiveness of internal crisis communication within the strategic management approach, whether it enhanced voluntary and positive employee communication behaviors (ECBs) for sensemaking and sensegiving. By doing so, this study provides meaningful insight into: new crisis communication theory development that takes a strategic management approach, emphasizing employees’ valuable assets from an organization, and effective crisis communication practice that reduces misalignment with employees and that enhances voluntary and positive ECBs for the organization during a crisis.

This study conducted a nationwide survey in the USA among full-time employees (n=544). After dimensionality check through confirmatory factor analysis, this study tested hypothesis and research question by conducting ordinary least squares multiple regression analyses using STATA 13.

This study found that strategic internal communication factors, including two-way symmetrical communication and transparent communication, were positive and strong antecedents of ECBs for sensemaking and sensegiving in crisis situations, when controlling for other effects. The post hoc analysis confirmed theses positive and strong associations across different industry areas.

This study suggests that voluntary and valuable ECBs can be enhanced by listening and responding to employee concerns and interests; encouraging employee participation in crisis communication; and organizational accountability through words, actions and decisions during the crisis. As a theoretical implication, the results of this study indicate the need for crisis communication theories that emphasize employees as valuable assets to an organization.

This study aims to examine the effects of transformational leadership on employees' internal (i.e. voice) and external (i.e. megaphoning) communication behaviors and to explore the mediating role of employees' communal and exchange relationship norms with their organization.

An online survey was conducted with full-time employees working in various industry sectors in the USA.

Transformational leadership significantly increased employees' voice behaviors and their positive and negative megaphoning behaviors. Communal relationship norms exerted a significant mediation effect on employees' communicative behaviors and exchange relationship norms had positive impacts on employees' megaphoning behaviors.

This study is among the first attempts to test the effect of transformational leadership style on employees' communicative actions within and outside of a company and the mediating role of exchange-communal relationship norms.

Employees are increasingly speaking out against their employer on relevant social issues, which raises the human factor to a next level in organisational affairs. The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the concept of employee activism and locate it in the academic and professional discussion about employees' active role as organisational communicators. After scrutinising some of the most popular cases from recent years, the relevant literature in the fields of social activism and employee communication as well as strategic organisational communication and public relations is critically reviewed with the idea to (1) provide a terminological clarification regarding employee activism, (2) outline the unique characteristics of its current forms, (3) discuss several factors that may trigger externally directed employee activism and (4) elaborate on the communicative nature of this phenomenon as well as its implications for organisational development and reputation. As a result, five propositions are suggested to explain what constitutes employee activism as a specific form of employee communication behaviour. The chapter also calls particular attention to related risks and opportunities for organisations and opens up questions for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of perceived authenticity of organizational behaviors and types of organization-employee relationship (i.e. communal and exchange relationship) on intangible assets of organizations generated by employees’ communicative behaviors (ECBs) (e.g. megaphoning, scouting).

A web-based survey was conducted with full-time 528 employees working in medium- and large-sized companies in the USA.

Results showed that an organization’s authentic behaviors are positively related with employees’ perceived communal relationships, but not with exchange relationships. However, both communal and exchange relationships turned out to increase ECBs: positive megaphoning, negative megaphoning, and scouting. The existence of both communal and exchange relationships was more significant than having only communal relationships in terms of encouraging employees’ active communicative actions.

By building links between employees’ communicative actions and its antecedents, perceived authenticity, types of relationship; this study contributed to the body of knowledge on exchange and communal relationship in the context of employee communication and extended the understanding of motivations of ECBs.

The findings suggest that employees’ communicative actions are highly facilitated by organizations’ authentic behavioral efforts and perceived relationship. To encourage employees’ information seeking and sharing behaviors, for organizational effectiveness, organizations should behave in authentic ways – be trustful, transparent, and consistent – and build both communal and exchange relationship.

This study first attempted to demonstrate the impacts of both communal and exchange relationships for organizations empirically in internal communication and relationship building practices.