Search results

Draws attention to the importance of listening skills. Approximately three fourths of the business day is spent engaged in some form of communication. Effective listening is central to enhanced communication but managers do not always listen because active listening is not a natural process. It requires both mental and physical effort on the part of the listener. Intra‐organizational listening can become a powerful competitive tool. Suggestions for improving listening skills on an organizational and an individual level are provided.

Notes that researchers and practitioners recognize that listening is a crucial basic skill on a par with reading, writing, and speaking. Although effective listening is important in almost every profession, it seems particularly significant in business‐to‐business selling. Effective listening skills assist the salesperson in adapting to the prospect and to different sales situations. Successful application of these skills contributes to the added value of the personal selling exchange. Presents an initial attempt to explore the relationship between effective listening, adaptive selling behaviors and salesperson performance. In the past, very little has been done to measure the construct of effective salesperson listening and correlate it with key dimensions (adaptive selling and sales performance). Hopes to contribute to discovering a means of measuring the listening phenomena in a sales environment. The subjects for the study were salespeople representing a Fortune 100 international electronics manufacturer. The subjects were participating in a company‐sponsored training program at the time of the survey. Results of the study indicate support for a positive relationship between effective listening and adaptive selling, performance and job satisfaction.

Discusses listening as a basic principle of leadership. Defines leadership and decision making as much the art of listening as they are the skill of doing. In a world where most knowledge is obtained visually the author identifies behaviors that will facilitate the listening process. Tells why active listening is a physically and psychologically fatiguing process. Provides simple rules to enhance listening skills and to overcome the “listening gap.” Listening to the customer and translating what is heard into an action plan is a mark of a successful organization. Provides a solid foundation and philosophy for practicing or emerging leaders. Includes quotes from contemporary and historical leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically map research on the effect of classroom acoustics and noise on high school students’ listening, learning and well-being, as well as identify knowledge gaps to inform future research.

This scoping review followed the PRISMA-ScR protocol. A comprehensive search of four online databases (ERIC, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science) was conducted. Peer-reviewed papers were included if they conducted a study on the effect of classroom acoustics or noise on students’ listening, learning or well-being; had a clear definition of the noise level measurement; were conducted with high school students; and had the full text in English available.

In total, 14 papers met the criteria to be included in the review. The majority of studies assessed the impact of noise on students’ listening, learning or well-being. Overall, the results showed that higher noise levels have a negative effect on students’ listening, learning and well-being. Effects were even more pronounced for students who were non-native speakers or those with special educational needs such as hearing loss. Therefore, it would be beneficial to limit unnecessary noise in the classroom as much as possible through acoustic insulation, acoustic treatment and classroom management strategies.

This paper is the first review paper to synthesize previous research on the effect of classroom acoustics and noise on high school students’ listening, learning and well-being. It provides an analysis of the limitations of existing literature and proposes future research to help fill in these gaps.

The car is a room stimulating particular senses and emotions.(Urry, 2007, p. 127)

This chapter explores practices associated with musical listening within the car. It embraces DeNora's approach to the social study of music in conjunction with symbolic interactionism. I focus on musical elements partnered with social interaction that commonly occur in automobile commuter situations. Music is deployed as an environmental feature of automobile commuting that transforms the physical space of the car into a symbolic social space where those that occupy this context are afforded experiences of comfort and control. I conclude with a discussion of perceptions of public and private dimensions of car travel.

This chapter attempts to broaden corporate communications and public relations research by introducing a theoretical foundation for the inbound (in contrast to the outbound) perspective of communication. The idea of organisational listening has recently been introduced by a small number of researchers. However, current concepts are mostly based on the relational paradigm of public relations. Listening is positively connoted in those concepts because it might help to foster mutual understanding, advance favourable relationships with stakeholders and support normative ideals of deliberation in democratic societies. This is not convincing from the point of view of communication managers who align their strategies and budgets to overarching organisational goals. The chapter aims to develop a new approach beyond the relational approach by linking corporate listening to corporate value. In a first step, current definitions and concepts of organisational listening are discussed in order to underline the need for a new approach. Secondly, the need for an inbound perspective of communication is explained by referring to Giddens’ structuration theory and its consequences for managing communications. Thirdly, corporate listening is conceptualised as a strategic mode of communication by referring to the overarching concept of strategic communication. Last but not least, the chapter elaborates on the value of listening for corporations and concludes with a broadened understanding of strategic communication.

This paper aims to examine whether information technology (IT) managers’ virtual listening, as rated by their high-tech employees, affected turnover behaviour beyond a new constellation of variables, some of which have never been researched as antecedents of turnover behaviour, particularly during a pandemic or crisis. Namely, the main aim, among others, is to answer the research question: does IT employees’ perception of the quality of their supervisors’ virtual listening in the pandemic and crisis era, when employees and managers work remotely, will negatively affect turnover behaviour? If yes, in which constellation of antecedents the virtual listening effecting on turnover behaviour?

Logistic regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses via SPSS 26 and PROCESS (Model 6). The variance inflation factor was calculated to test multicollinearity. Interaction was tested using the Hayes and Preacher PROCESS macro model. The researchers also used the J-N technique test (Johnson–Neyman via process). The supplemental analysis used also PROCESS MACRO (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA, 2023) Model 4 and Bootstrap test.

The findings show that perceptions of supervisors’ virtual listening quality as rated by their employees moderated the relationship between organisational deviance as a type of organisational misbehaviour (OMB) and turnover behaviour and had the strongest effect on turnover behaviour beyond other key predictors (organisational deviance as a type of misbehaviour, turnover intention, job satisfaction, embeddedness and alternatives in the labour market). Alternatives to current work moderated the association between the perception of managers’ virtual listening behaviour as rated by their employees and turnover behaviour. Specifically, when alternatives in the labour market were high or medium, the perceived quality of managers’ virtual listening reduced turnover behaviour. Finally, the perception of the IT employees supervisors’ virtual listening moderated the relationship between organisational deviance and turnover intention among high-tech employees.

Evaluating supervisor listening in the high-tech firm may have value in terms of its relationship to outcomes such as retaining employees, turnover intention and especially turnover behaviour. The effect on turnover behaviour and of that new constellation of antecedents on turnover behaviour when people work remotely was not researched yet and important for the post COVID-19 era. Additionally, in contrast to most studies of turnover, this study also focus on the positive aspects of turnover and especially turnover behaviour to organisations in general and especially to high-tech firm and not just the negative aspect as was researched until now. Another contribution is the finding that when employees perceived their managers’ virtual listening quality as high, the effect of deviance as a type of OMB on turnover behaviour was positive. Namely, the listening as a moderator and turnover assisted in making the organisation cleaner from inappropriate behaviour. Additionally, when alternatives in the labour market are high or medium, perceived quality of virtual listening of managers as rated by their employees can reduce turnover behaviour. This virtual listening–turnover relationship and the moderator of alternatives to current work had not previously been found in the turnover literature and this is also significant a contribution to the turnover and withdrawal literature.

The study explores internal listening on internal social media (ISM) during a crisis at a large Danish hospital.

The study employs a netnographic qualitative design to analyze 142 posts shared by employees on the hospital's ISM platform “The Word is Free” and how these posts are listened to by employees, support functions and management.

The study finds seven different types of internal listening. Categories of vertical listening included respectful listening, delegated listening, formal listening and no listening, while horizontal listening included confirmatory listening, responsive listening, challenging listening and no listening.

The study focuses on listening on ISM between January 2019 and March 2022. Interviews with employees and managers are needed to further investigate how internal listening at the hospital influences organizational life both in general and during a crisis.

Especially in crisis situations, organizations are encouraged to approach ISM with a holistic understanding of listening and apply three principles: (1) embrace ISM as an employee communication arena where confirmatory, responsive and challenging listening among employees helps them to cope with strenuous situations; (2) monitor the ISM communication arena and (3) conduct respectful listening.

This study focuses on internal listening on ISM during a crisis and suggests a holistic understanding of internal listening that combines vertical and horizontal listening.

In this study, the authors aim to probe the relationship between listening and lurking and discuss types of lurking that occur on social media sites based on the motivations driving them. Although listening is a significant practice of online attention, intimacy, connection, obligation and participation as much as voice is, it is yet to receive the kind of attention voice is given in the context of social media. In the rather limited studies on online attention, the concept that has gained consideration is “lurking”, and this practice has often been treated as a derogatory non-activity or as passivity. The interest to study lurking is based on the premise that lurking is a significant ground on which listening occurs in social media and through which voice can be given attention.

This study adopted a phenomenological approach to understand motivations for lurking in online spaces. Phenomenological research involves data gathering through inductive, qualitative methods with the aim of explaining specific phenomena from the perspective of research participants. In this research, the lived experience studied was lurking and what drives lurking. A total of 12 members of the Licence to Talk project, a research project based at the School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa, took part in the study. They shared their personal experiences of online lurking through a critical reflective writing. Based on the experiences shared, the authors identified and categorised the various types of lurking based on the varied motivations driving them.

Through the phenomenological approach, the study has theorised a more useful understanding of lurking as a form of online listening by identifying and categorising seven lurking behaviours that are nested within the lurking activity. This study, thus, provides a tentative framework for studying online lurking by bringing to bear listening theory and by reasoning that lurking is a needs-based activity that has purpose imbedded within it.

The authors recognise that this study is limited by its small number of participants. Nevertheless, as researchers with a strong grounding in listening theory, the authors thought it valuable to interrogate their own practices on social media and to develop a more useful understanding of what lurking might entail and, on the lurking-listening relationship. A larger study would provide stronger evidence to test the hypothesis about lurking as a very interesting form of listening with a relationship to complex behaviours and needs.

It is expected that by conceptualising the various forms of lurking based on the motivations that drive online lurking (listening), it will provide an empirical and theoretical/conceptual basis for further investigations into this pervasive mode of online attention.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public sector organisations produced thousands of social media messages weekly answering citizens questions and informing the public on safety related matters. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the pandemic shaped social media listening in Finland's public sector organisations and how these organisations aligned their listening and strategic communication to address emerging questions, news (real and fake) and rumours during the pandemic.

Building on a theoretical background from strategic communication, organisational listening, digital marketing and public sector communication, qualitative interview data included communicators (N = 14) from all central Finnish public sector organisations in charge of COVID-19 communication. Findings were themed and analysed qualitatively to understand the level of alignment of strategic communication on social media.

The findings revealed that the pandemic had strained public sector organisations' communication capabilities, forcing them to align their processes and resources reactively to enable useful content and limit false/misleading content. The results confirmed that organisational listening remained somewhat unaligned. A dual role of public sector communication as speakers but increasingly as listeners was highlighted.

The study’s findings point to organisational listening on social media being a central requisite for public sector organisations overcoming a crisis.