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This study aimed to examine how senior leadership influences corporate communication and employees' attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Using two-way symmetrical communication model in public relations and leadership theory, it investigated the effects of CEOs' task- and relationship-oriented leadership on symmetrical internal communication, employees' organizational commitment and communicative behaviors.

An online survey was conducted with 417 full-time employees working in various industries in the United States.

The results showed that CEOs' relationship-oriented leadership significantly influenced symmetrical internal communication, which, in turn, increased affective commitment and employees' scouting behavior. CEOs' task-oriented communication had no significant effect on symmetrical communication.

This study advances theoretical understanding of two-way symmetrical communication in relation to senior leadership and provides practical insights for corporate leaders and public relations practitioners regarding how to improve employee outcomes through CEOs' strategic leadership and internal communication practices.

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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how internal public relations practices (e.g. internal communication and relationship management strategies) enhance employees’ organizational social capital in the Korean context by examining the mediation roles of employee-organization relationships.

The researcher then recruited 23 field research assistants to collect data from 23 organizations in South Korea. For the purpose of this study, the researcher trained each of the research assistants, kept the confidentiality of each research participant, and used common methods of data collection. After this training process, the research assistants distributed an online link and encouraged employees in 23 organizations to participate in this survey. From these 23 organizations, 287 participants completed the survey. However, the authors had to delete 11 invalid responses. Consequently, the authors used a total of 276 responses to analyze the data.

The results of this study showed that two-way and symmetrical internal communication strategies were associated positively with employee-organization relationships and organizational social capital. Additionally, satisfaction and control mutuality had mediating effects on the relations between internal communication strategies and organizational social capital.

These results contribute to expanding the functions of internal public relations practices into organizational social capital.

This study aims to examine the relationship between leaders' personality traits and their internal communication practices from the leaders' and the followers' perspectives. The effectiveness of leader communication on the followers' perceived relational quality with their organization is also tested.

Two survey studies in the United States were conducted focusing on leaders' and followers' perspectives on communication practices, respectively.

Results of Study 1 showed that leaders' self-reported extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability and openness to experience are all significantly and positively associated with their symmetrical and transparent communication practices. From the followers' perspective (Study 2), extraversion and agreeableness positively influenced symmetrical leader communication, while agreeableness and conscientiousness were positively related to transparent leader communication. Both symmetrical and transparent leader communication enhanced the followers' perceived relationship quality with their organization.

The current study is among the first attempts to incorporate the trait theory of leadership in understanding organizational leaders' effective and ethical communication practices with their followers.

This study is concerned with the dynamics of the internal communications at Netflix following the release of The Closer and the public debate that followed, testing Netflix's long-standing reputation for promoting diverse content and supporting a progressive organizational culture.

Using the circuit of culture (CoC) as a theoretical framework, this study applies a case study approach to analyze internal communication and strategic public relations in addressing this crisis.

This study's findings illustrate that by failing to interpret two of the five moments of the CoC, production and identity, Netflix negated the very values that constitute its brand. These findings have implications for how public relations' long-standing focus on two-way symmetrical communication is problematic, especially in the workplace.

The findings situate how the exertion of power within an organization, particularly in moments of identity and production, problematize the role of two-way symmetrical communication within an organization in crisis.

To advance the theoretical understanding of employees' advocacy on social media, this study aims to propose and test an integrative model that incorporates individual and organizational antecedents. Drawing from the relationship management theory in public relations and online behavior literature, the model specifically examines the collective impacts of the social media-related behavioral motivations of individuals and the quality of employee–organization relationship (EOR) on their positive information-sharing intentions about their company on personal social media.

An online survey was conducted with 419 full-time employees in the USA who use social media.

The results of an online survey with full-time employees in the USA showed that the EOR influenced by symmetrical internal communication significantly increases employees' advocacy intentions and social media-related motivations. Considerable and distinct effects of individuals' positive behavioral motivations on social media (i.e. self-enhancement, altruism, enjoyment) on advocacy intentions are also found.

This study is among the first attempts to test the value of strategic internal communication and relationship management approach in enhancing employee advocacy on the digital environment, social media and their motives of using such channel for benefiting their company.

Relative to the increasing focus on organisations’ outward communication consistency and coherency, the internal communication taking place between different organisational functions is under-explored. The study aims to address the following two research questions: What form does cross-functional communication take within organisations? How do features of the communication work climate influence the form of cross-functional communication?

The study draws on qualitative data generated from semi-structured interviews with media and marketing managers from 33 professional football organisations operating in the English Premier League.

Thematic patterns between internal communication practices and different communication climates lead to the development of a new internal organisational communications typology, comprising: Type 1: collaborative symmetrical communication (cohesive climate); Type 2: unstructured informal communication (friendly climate); and Type 3: cross-functional silos (divisive climate).

Internal organisational communication practices are deemed fundamental to organisational success, yet there remains limited empirical evidence of the form such practices take or how they interact with features of an organisation’s communication climate. The study introduces a new internal organisational communications typology to develop and extend the theory and practice of internal marketing communications.

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.

This study aims to examine the impact of COVID-19-related job insecurity on two types of employees’ behaviors: family undermining and withdrawal. This study also proposes emotional exhaustion as a mediator and symmetrical internal communication as a moderator in the relationship between COVID-19-related job insecurity and employees’ behaviors.

Using a time-lagged design, data were gathered from 193 employees working in Pakistan’s hospitality sector. Structural equation modeling in AMOS and PROCESS Macro were used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that COVID-19-related job insecurity is positively related to family undermining and withdrawal behaviors, and these associations are mediated by emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, symmetrical internal communication weakens the positive influence of COVID-19-related job insecurity on emotional exhaustion. Additionally, the indirect impact of COVID-19-related job insecurity on employees’ behavioral outcomes via emotional exhaustion is stronger for employees with low symmetrical internal communication than for those with high levels of symmetrical internal communication.

Hospitality management needs to focus on transparent and horizontal communication patterns to reduce the ensuing negative behaviors from COVID-19-related job insecurity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of COVID-19-related job insecurity on two types of employees’ behaviors: family undermining and withdrawal. This study also offers new insights via mediating mechanisms and moderators associated with the relationship between COVID-19-related job insecurity and employees’ behavioral reactions.