Search results

This paper aims to understand if, and how, internal communication strategies can promote strategic employee communicative actions such as to disseminate positive information that enhances the company's reputation. These communicative actions sustain the competitive advantage of a company.

This paper is based on interviews with internal communication experts; internal communication managers in ten American and 22 Italian companies. Three focus groups in Italy comprised of internal communication managers, scholars and experts.

Employee communicative actions have been categorized into: exploration, interpretation, sharing and acting. Internal communication strategies enable employees to be effective communicators.

A survey among employees was used to investigate the link between employee communicative actions and internal communication and relationship quality.

Internal communication managers are expected first, to become enablers towards employees and line managers; and second, to facilitate sense-making processes and the quality relationship building.

This article provides empirical evidence of the emerging issues of employee communicative actions and the enablement function of internal communication. It adds a broader and validated range of employee communicative actions to those that had previously been studied, and develops a preliminary inventory of enablement strategies that have been adopted by leading companies.

Previous crisis communication research has primarily examined the external dimension of crisis communication, i.e. the crisis response strategies applied by organizations to protect and/or restore their image or reputation among external stakeholders in a crisis situation. The purpose of this paper is to set up an integrative framework for the study of internal crisis communication in private and public organizations.

The paper takes a theoretical approach reviewing the literature on crisis management and crisis communication and discussing the concept of internal stakeholder and the implications of a staged approach.

An integrative framework for the study of internal crisis communication is developed based on two assumptions: first, that internal crisis communication research must start with a detailed study of the relationship between an organization and its internal stakeholders (in this case: the employees) to clarify to what extent internal crisis communication differs from external crisis communication; and second, that internal crisis communication research can best be systematized applying a staged approach (precrisis stage, crisis event, postcrisis stage) as an heuristic method.

Apart from a few exceptions, the internal dimension of crises, crisis management, and crisis communication has, by and large, been unexplored.

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.

Journalists moving into corporate communication have for many years been regarded as a move to the “dark side”. This paper turns the lens to explore how trained journalists working as internal communication practitioners due to their journalistic self-concept and skills can contribute to internal communication.

An interview study was conducted with twelve trained journalists working with internal communication in different types of organizations. Three indicators of professionalism, namely autonomy, altruism and expert knowledge, were used as categories to structure the interviews and analysis.

The respondents perceived that their journalistic self-concept and skills helped them identify the employee perspective, write relevant stories and deliver them quickly. Furthermore, their courage and lack of fear of authorities enabled them to challenge decisions made by their senior managers, especially regarding how, what and when to communicate.

The three indicators of the journalist profession, – autonomy, altruism and journalistic knowledge and skills – may help establish internal communication that is relevant, transparent and trustworthy.

Organizations may benefit from building their internal communication around the three indicators of the journalist profession. They could, for example, host independent internal media that present the employees’ perspective and maintain a critical attitude to the organization in a relevant and compelling manner.

Few studies have explored the role of journalists working as internal communication practitioners and their contributions to internal communication.

Internal crisis communication (ICC) has become a burgeoning area of research in crisis communication. However, the importance of ICC as a tool to enhance employee positive communicative behaviour in crisis has not been explored. This study aims to develop a research model by drawing from the ideas of sensemaking and network theories. In addition, the study further examines how the elements of the proposed model drive ICC while assessing employee-related outcomes and the role of emotion exhaustion.

To assess the validity of the measurement and structural models, 316 employees from both public and private non-profit organisations in Pakistan were interviewed through online survey. The collected data were analysed using co-variance based structural equation modelling (CV-SEM).

The results of this research confirmed that mindfulness and internal listening positively affect employee perceptions towards internal communication during a crisis. Similarly, ICC positively influences employees' perception of loyalty, job insecurity and the organisation's reputation. The results also highlight the moderation roles of emotional exhaustion (EE).

The study suggests that applying ICC strategies will help crisis managers develop collaborative relationships with employees, which will help in identifying and managing a crisis. In addition, implementing effective internal communication in corporate practices and processes makes internal reputation and employee loyalty (EL) a reality and allows organisations to remain productive despite crises.

Through the lens of sensemaking theory, this research demonstrated that mindfulness and listening should be considered stimuli in organisations that can influence employees to be active communicators before and during crises. This study is the first to elucidate the essential outcomes for strategic internal crisis management that are often under-looked, such as emotional responses. The study also shows that sensemaking should not only focus on meaning-making in a crisis but also include emotional feelings that can wear out the meaning-making process.

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.

This study aims, first, to explore and analyze if and how organizational members’ professions or occupations influence perceptions of internal crisis communication. The second, related, aim is to discuss the role of internal communication in creating a strong organizational identity during a prolonged crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study is mainly conceptual but uses quantitative data from a survey conducted in a health-care organization in late 2020 to illustrate the theoretical reasoning.

The results show that the administrative groups perceive factors in the internal crisis communication more favorably than the professional groups. The study suggests that organizational members perceive internal crisis communication differently depending on which intra-organizational group they belong to. This further points to the absence of a “rally-around-the-flag” effect and highlights the importance of working proactively with professionals and in internal crisis communication.

This study highlights the role of professionals in crisis communication, which is an aspect that so far has been ignored. The internal professionalization processes and an intriguing power struggle between professions have obvious consequences for crisis communication. As shown in the overview of earlier research on internal communication, leadership and professional organizations, the prerequisites for creating an increased organizational unity among coworkers are challenging. The idea that a crisis may, as in certain political situations in society, create a “rally-around-the-flag” effect is still relevant, even if the case study is an example of how this did not happen.

The purpose of this paper is to explore employees' perceptions of the quality of internal communication in German organizations during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this context, the paper aims to identify antecedents and outcomes of high-quality internal communication during the pandemic. In doing so, it draws important practical and theoretical implications for pandemic-era communication, particularly surrounding issues such as employees' needs and strategic approaches to communication during the pandemic, as well as the effects of successful internal (crisis) communication.

A representative survey was conducted on employees (n = 934) working at different types of organizations in Germany. After a dimensionality check was conducted through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the proposed hypotheses were tested by conducting a structural equation model (SEM) using the R package lavaan.

This study identifies several antecedents of high-quality internal communication during the Covid-19 crisis, such as the frequency of communication at the beginning and during the pandemic, the dissemination of substantial information, participative communication and a clear rejection of secrecy. Furthermore, the findings show that high-quality internal communication has a positive impact on the employee–organization relationship (EOR).

This study suggests that strategic alignment of internal communications during the Covid-19 pandemic is crucial: by considering a number of factors, organizations can positively influence employees' perceptions of the quality of their internal communication. In terms of theoretical implications, this study discusses how the concept of high-quality internal communication can be operationalized and explores the outcomes that this can generate.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a definition of internal communication based on intangible resources rather than organizational boundaries.

The paper reviews the resource‐based theory of the company, the constructivist theory of communication and the situational theory of publics. It then proposes a resource model (RM) of internal communication based on interactive processes aimed at creating two catalytic resources for organizing: knowledge and allegiance. The field research explores whether this model captures the concept of internal communication prevailing in business, based on interviews with ten internal communication managers in Italian companies.

The companies in this paper display a strong awareness of how intangible resources, such as knowledge and employee attitudes, contribute to the company's success. Consequently, they seek to promote active communication behaviours among employees. The RM depicts many characteristics of the way managers currently perceive internal communication.

Because of the qualitative nature of the research, the results do not have universal validity.

The paper suggests that the main function of internal communication departments is no longer to transmit messages but to promote active communication behaviours at all organizational levels.

The paper suggests a definition of internal communication that would help to generate the intangible resources that fuel organizations: knowledge and allegiance. It supports a new focus on active communication behaviours of employees.

The purpose of this paper is to examine potential determinants of management’s agreement with internal auditor recommendations of an interim assurance engagement.

The experiment involved a 2 × 2 × 2 design with internal auditor gender, mode of communication and root cause variables randomly assigned to 228 experienced managers.

When the internal auditor includes a root cause for an identified deficiency in an internal audit report, management perceptions of the quality of that report improve. The gender of the internal auditor who communicates the audit finding with management does not significantly impact management’s perceptions. Additionally, communicating the internal audit report via e-mail instead of videoconference results in improved managerial perceptions of the quality of the internal auditor. While improvements in perceptions of internal auditor quality lead to greater agreement with internal auditor recommendations, improvements in perceptions of report quality lead to greater implementation of internal-auditor-recommended remediation strategies.

The operationalization of the manipulated variables of interest (communication mode, gender and root cause) may limit the generalizability of the study’s results.

The paper includes managerial implications for internal auditors’ choice of communication mode and inclusion of a root cause in interim internal audit reports.

This study provides evidence on the factors that could improve management’s perceptions of internal auditors’ work. The findings can help organizations, such as the Institute of Internal Auditors, to better understand how to address the needs of those who communicate with internal auditors.