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The time is right for renewed and updated attention to the relationship between public relations (PR) and human resources (HR) departments in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. For too long, conflict between the two practice areas has obscured opportunities for collaboration which benefits organizations and stakeholders. This chapter offers theoretical underpinnings for examining an interdepartmental, cross-unit working relationship between HR and PR – and advances a vision for why it is needed now.

Reassesses the role of the grapevine in employee communications. Argues that it has a role to play in socializing employees to a company, initiating behavioural change, disciplining employees and providing information. Discusses the implementation of the grapevine as a part of the employee communications mix, through management by walking about (MBWA) and electronic communications. Concludes that it can enhance corporate culture and increases allegiance to corporate goals.

This study aims to understand how integration efforts at both communication and channel levels can foster customer engagement behavior in the retail sector from the perspective of employees.

Data were collected through 231 face-to-face questionnaires completed by frontline employees in shopping centers. A structural equation modeling approach was applied to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results highlight the importance of integration efforts as external stimuli for enhancing employees’ perceptions about customer engagement behavior. Findings extend the stimulus-organism-response model by predicting responses that go beyond employees’ behavior to predict customer engagement behavior. Results also confirm the mediating role of attitudes toward marketing communications and synergy realization in the proposed model.

Retailers should integrate their multiple channels and operate consistently and in coordination through them to develop employees’ perceptions about customer engagement behavior. Managers should regularly collect information from their employees as they represent an important touchpoint in omnichannel retailing.

There is a gap in the omnichannel retailing literature regarding how integration efforts at a communication level may complement integration efforts at a channel level for developing customer engagement. This study addresses this gap by adopting a novel perspective using frontline employees as a source of information for assessing customer engagement behavior. It extends knowledge about how customer engagement behavior may be developed and strengthened from the employees’ point of view.

Este estudio analiza, desde la perspectiva del empleado, cómo la integración de la comunicación y la coordinación de los canales de distribución fomenta el engagement de los clientes en el sector minorista.

Los datos fueron recogidos a través de 231 cuestionarios personales realizados a empleados de centros comerciales. Las hipótesis se contrastaron mediante un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales.

Los resultados destacan la importancia de la integración para fomentar la percepción de los empleados acerca del engagement del cliente. Estos resultados extienden la aplicación del Modelo de Estimulo-Organismo-Respuesta para predecir no sólo el comportamiento de los empleados si no el engagement del cliente. Los resultados también corroboran el rol mediador de la actitud hacia las comunicaciones de marketing y la obtención de sinergias.

Los distribuidores deben integrar todos los canales y actuar de forma coordinada y consistente para mejorar la percepción de los empleados acerca del engagement del cliente. Se debe recabar información periódica sobre las percepciones de los empleados ya que constituyen un importante punto de contacto en la gestión omnicanal de los establecimientos comerciales.

Este estudio aborda un gap existente en la literatura acerca de cómo los esfuerzos de integración a nivel de comunicación complementan los esfuerzos a nivel de canal para fomentar el engagement del cliente. La novedad de este estudio reside en estudiar estos aspectos desde la perspectiva de los empleados.

本研究旨在从员工的角度了解沟通和渠道层面的整合工作如何促进零售部门的顾客参与行为。

数据收集于购物中心一线员工所填写的231份面对面问卷。应用结构方程建模方法来检验所提出的假设。

本文结果强调了整合工作作为外部激励对于提高员工对顾客参与行为的认知的重要性。研究结果通过预测超越员工行为的反应来预测客户参与行为, 从而扩展了刺激-机体-反应模型。结果还证实了对营销传播和协同实现的态度在所提出的模型中的中介作用。

零售商应该整合其多种渠道, 并通过这些渠道持续协调地运作, 以培养员工对顾客参与行为的认知。管理者应该定期从员工那里收集信息, 因为他们是全渠道零售的一个重要接触点。

在全渠道零售业的文献中, 关于沟通层面的整合工作如何补充渠道层面的整合工作以发展顾客参与的问题, 存在研究差距。本研究通过采用新颖的视角, 将一线员工作为评估顾客参与行为的信息来源来解决这一差距。它扩展了关于如何从员工的角度发展和加强顾客参与行为的知识。

The aim of this chapter is to shed light on a growing phenomenon in communication practice: employees speaking voluntarily for, about or on behalf of their organization, hereafter labelled as corporate ambassadors. The goal of this qualitative study is to analyze the role of corporate ambassadors within an organization and explore the perceived benefits and risks from three perspectives: the communication department, other departments such as marketing or human resources, and corporate ambassadors themselves. The research is based on an interdisciplinary literature review and 25 qualitative in-depth interviews with employees in one large, internationally operating German organization. By combining the theoretical and empirical insights, a conceptual framework that depicts the benefits (e.g., joy, increased trust, positive impact on reputation) and risks (e.g., work stress, lack of integration, loss of quality) of integrating corporate ambassadors into the overall communication of the organization was developed. In addition, this chapter suggests two typologies that help to distinguish between different roles of communication professionals and of corporate ambassadors. The contribution of this study is to lay a groundwork for further discussions about corporate ambassadors in the field of corporate communications. The chapter outlines directions for future research and implications for practice on how the framework can be applied in organizations.

The potential impact of employee benefits on individuals and their dependants is significant and growing as new products and solutions come on to the market. The aim of this paper is to investigate how benefits impact on employees and the organization as a whole, and how organizations are choosing to inform their people about the type of benefits on offer.

Research conducted by AIG UK Benefits seeks to provide an insight into the current employee benefits environment and in particular to the areas highlighted above. The research consisted of a two‐stage study undertaken by the AIG UK corporate research and development team between November 2007 and January 2008.

The study highlights the differences between the perceptions of employers/HR professionals and employees when it comes to the awareness and understanding of the benefits on offer and asks whether employees are really to blame if they fail to appreciate the true value of their employers' voluntary employee benefits.

There is an opportunity for HR to improve benefits communications. The study looks at how one UK retailer has successfully implemented a strong communications program and presents steps that employers and reward professionals can take to improve their own benefits communications.

This study focuses on managers' perceptions of employees' communicative role in social media, and explores the changes in the contractual nature of employment relations in mediatized workplaces in which the boundaries of professional and private life are becoming more fluid.

A qualitative approach was employed to explore this relatively new phenomenon. The data, comprising 24 interviews with managers responsible for corporate communication and human resources in knowledge-intensive organizations, was thematically analysed.

The analysis shows that employees' work-related social media use creates new types of exchanges and dependencies between an organization and individual employees, which relate to employees' representation, knowledge and networks.

The study is among the first to examine the exchanges and dependencies in an employment relationship that emerge from increased use of social media for professional purposes.

This chapter describes two change efforts involving participatory action research within the pharmacy operations division of Kaiser Permanente. Focus is on a parallel learning mechanism that has been used to support communications and change during two large-scale information technology interventions. It begins with basic background information on participatory action research in organizations. Since the case setting is Kaiser Permanente, the chapter provides some information on the U.S. healthcare industry context and then shifts to Kaiser’s communication forum, a learning mechanism that has been in place for 35 years. Cognitive, structural, and procedural aspects of the learning mechanism are explored, and the chapter features interviews with some of the key forum players. Both in the forum’s infancy and in its current more institutionalized state, the pharmacy organization has been in crisis. Implications for the use of parallel learning structures on a long-term basis to support long-term participatory action research are explored along with contributions to theory on insider/outsider action research.

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.

To review recent enforcement actions in which the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) enforced Rule 21F-17(a) under the Securities Exchange Act, which prohibits actions to impede whistleblower communications with the SEC, and to identify changes that entities subject to SEC regulation (including public companies, broker-dealers and investment managers) may wish to consider in their employee separation agreements and other documents that may include confidentiality provisions.

Examines settled cases since 2015, in which the SEC found that contractual provisions in employee separation agreements and other documents impeded employees from communicating with the SEC staff about possible violations of the securities laws, to identify the types of language that the SEC found to be problematic and the types of provisions that the SEC believes are desirable, if not legally mandated, to protect employee whistleblower rights and avoid impeding communications under Rule 21F-17(a).

Beginning in 2015, the SEC has actively enforced Rule 21F-17(a), focusing on provisions in separation agreements and other employee-related documents that potentially prevent employees from reporting legal violations to the SEC. The SEC’s efforts have resulted in settled orders involving alleged violations of the rule. The cases generally allege that provisions in employee separation agreements or other documents violated the rule because they prohibited or chilled employee communications with the SEC about possible legal violations.

Entities subject to SEC regulation (including public companies, broker-dealers and investment managers) should review their confidentiality agreements with employees and consider whether changes are warranted to address the SEC’s concerns as identified in the Rule 21F-17(a) cases.

Practical guidance regarding important whistleblower developments from experienced securities lawyer.