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This paper aims to investigate how employee–organization relationship (EOR) outcomes – types and qualities – are interrelated and how employees' perceptions of types (exchange and communal EORs) and qualities (trust, satisfaction, commitment, and control mutuality) play a role in their evaluations of symmetrical internal communication (SIC) and employee job engagement (EJE).

This study conducted an online survey of full-time employees (N = 804) from major US industries. This study performed a confirmatory factor analysis to check the validity and reliability of the measurement model using latent variables and then conducted structural equation modeling.

The findings demonstrate that employees' perceptions of both exchange and communal EORs are associated with each of the four EOR qualities. The results also show that only communal EORs have a significant relationship with perceived SIC and that employees' perceptions about one of the EOR quality indicator, satisfaction with an organization, has a significant association with their perceived EJE.

This study contributes to relationship management theory within the internal context by examining the interrelationship between each of the EOR types and qualities that are perceived by employees. This paper also suggests the practical importance of developing not only communal but also exchange EORs to enhance EOR quality. Additionally, the results imply that SIC programs could help to enhance employees' perceptions of communal EORs and employees could be engaged in their workplace when they are satisfied with their organizations.

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 seeks to investigate relationships between apparel return behavior and fashion innovativeness, buying impulsiveness, and consideration of return policies of US consumers.

A convenience sample of 246 undergraduates studying in the USA completed a questionnaire that contained measures of apparel returns, fashion innovativeness, buying impulsiveness, and consideration of return policies. Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data.

It was found that apparel return behavior of participants was positively related to buying impulsiveness and to consideration of return policies. These two variables were also significant predictors of frequency of apparel returns. Fashion innovativeness was not significantly related to participants' apparel return behavior. In addition, participants' consideration of return policies was not related to their innovative or impulsive purchase behaviors.

Findings are useful to retailers to better understand characteristics of frequent returners and to make informed decisions about developing optimal return policies that prohibit excessive product returns yet do not inhibit consumers' purchasing.

There is limited research on potential effects of adopting restrictive return policies. The study begins to examine whether leniency in return policy might potentially influence the behavior of innovative or impulsive consumers.

Volunteers are often crucial components to many nonprofit organizations as their financial resources continue to decline. Volunteer activities in the nonprofit sector provide a broad range of services from administrative support (24%) such as fundraising and office work to providing social service and care (20%) such as preparing and delivering food, teaching or counseling. The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of important factors in creating volunteers’ engagement with nonprofit organizations.

The population of the proposed survey was volunteers of a faith-based nonprofit organization in the Northeast region of United States. The organization is a synod that oversees more than 1,000 Presbyterian churches over eight states in the Northeast region of the United States. The primary focus of its mission is prison ministry that aims to help imprisoned immigrants and their families with legal and other necessary supports. With help from the organization’s management, the researcher sent out an online survey to 1,973 eligible volunteers, with response rate of 29.90 percent (AAPOR RR1). This resulted in a total sample size of 590 volunteers who completed the survey.

This study found that, when the level of identification was higher, the influence of satisfaction on affective commitment became greater. Therefore, for this nonprofit organization that heavily relies on volunteer support, it is important to establish and maintain a mutually agreeable identification with its volunteers to foster volunteer engagement. Volunteer-organization identification seemed particularly crucial for volunteers to be empowered and to become actively involved with the case organization. Also, when individual volunteers identified themselves with the nonprofit organization, there was a greater influence of satisfaction with the organization on their engagement in their voluntary work.

This study findings suggest that for a nonprofit organization that heavily relies on volunteer support, it is important to establish and maintain a mutually agreeable identification with its volunteers to foster volunteer engagement. Volunteer-organization identification seemed particularly crucial for volunteers to be empowered and to become actively involved with the case organization. Due to the exploratory nature of the study with the survey data from a single nonprofit organization, the application of the research findings beyond the scope of this study should be made cautiously. Especially, given various kinds of nonprofit organizations, the specific context of this study’s nonprofit organization (i.e., faith-based charity organization) would limit the general application of research findings.

This study also suggests a sound measure of volunteer engagement. For management of volunteer engagement, the suggested measurement system can be helpful for management of nonprofit organizations and further research in nonprofit public relations.

Extra-role behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors have been identified as manifest characteristics of both employee and customer engagement and this link has yet to be explored in the nonprofit sector for volunteering and cause advocating behaviors. The current study adopts engagement as an important motivational variable to understand volunteer motivations and suggests satisfaction with nonprofit organization management and volunteer-organization identification as important antecedents to volunteer engagement.

A monopolistic relationship between utilities and their customers creates a unique relational context in which the basic assumption of one's ability to terminate a relationship with an unsatisfactory relationship partner is violated. The purpose of this paper is to examine how attitudinal and behavioral outcomes are influenced by relational gap as the discrepancy between the expected relationships under deregulation and the experienced public relationships under monopolistic completion.

With this purpose, an online survey was conducted with customers of a monopolistic utility provider; a sample of 1,145 adults living in the region was provided from an academic online panel database project for research participants, yielding a response rate of 32 percent.

The key findings are that, among the four relational outcomes, control mutuality and satisfaction showed the biggest and significant shift to higher levels of performance expectations under competition than under a monopoly. Further, a shift in control mutuality and satisfaction led to more negative attitudes toward the company and a stronger intention to switch.

This study can contribute to the practice and study of communication management by suggesting a sound empirical framework in managing public relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether brand community characteristics (perceived personalization and familiarity among members) affect brand community engagement through customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction.

A survey questionnaire was distributed to members of online brand communities to test the research hypotheses.

The findings showed that the relationships among the brand community constructs are significant. C2C interaction mediates the relations between the characteristic variables and brand community engagement. Furthermore, the findings revealed that brand community trust moderates the effects of perceived personalization on the quality of C2C interaction and on brand community engagement. It also moderates the relations between perceived familiarity among community members and each of brand community engagement and the quality of C2C interaction.

Marketers should utilize a brand community’s C2C interaction for its marketing strategies. Moreover, managing brand communities by focussing on perceived personalized service and the familiarity of members can also ultimately increase community engagement by enhancing the quality of C2C communication.

This study argues that firms need to manage online brand communities intuitively in order to increase members’ community engagement. To do so, they need to allocate spaces in which C2C communication can actively occur within brand communities, for example, in a discussion forum.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate young professional men's perceptions and use of dress in relationship to their work identities.

Data were collected from 49 young men using a snowball sampling technique. Responses were analyzed using techniques outlined by Van Manen.

Salience of work identity was not connected to participants’ perceptions and use of dress. However, feeling complete in one's work identity was connected. Participants who perceived themselves as incomplete in their work identities used and planned to purchase items symbolic of their professions. Participants also expected to achieve specific outcomes as a result of their dress.

Research findings support tenets of symbolic self‐completion theory.

Men's apparel retailers could promote their apparel as a symbol of qualities young men are interested in expressing and as a means to achieve desired work‐related outcomes.

The majority of research on relationships between dress and identity have focused on women. The paper illustrates that, as men are demonstrating renewed interest in their appearance, research that examines how men relate to and use dress in a workplace context has potential to contribute to extant literature and provide practical implications for merchandising apparel.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) use on the educational performance of new millennium learners (NMLs). Even though many factors might influence individual performance besides ICT use itself, the research focus was on the relationship between the behavioral patterns of ICT use and educational performance.

A nation‐wide survey with 1,071 tenth graders considered as NMLs was conducted in Korea. The behavioral patterns of the learners' ICT use were identified in three dimensions of place, purpose and context, and the educational performance was measured in cognitive, affective and socio‐cultural domains.

Based on correlation and regression analyses, the better use of ICT for NMLs and the directions for the future study related to ICT use and educational performance were suggested.

Major contribution of this study is to divide ICT use into place, purpose and context of using ICT and to investigate their relationships with educational performance refined with cognitive, affective and socio‐cultural domains. Limitations of the study are coined with the samples and self‐report survey tools. Continuing effort to validate the tools and various samples is needed.

Policy makers could use the results of the study to implement the ICT diffusion and adaption process.

There is no such questionnaires related to ICT use and educational performance in Korea, as well as in other nations. More cross‐cultural studies would be a great help in the field of education.