Search results

Existing research on how professionals manage after-hours connectivity to work has been dominated by studies on the strategies/practices individuals develop. In these studies, mobile technology is perceived as a tool or an enabler that supports otherwise human-centric connectivity decisions. This view sees technology as separate or external to the organisation, missing out on its nuanced role in shaping connectivity decisions. Our study aims to bring technology back into the sociomaterially imbricated context of connectivity and to unpack its parameters.

Drawing on data collected from documents and semi-structured interviews, we adopt the framework of “sociomaterial imbrications” (Leonardi, 2011) to understand the social and material parameters that influence connectivity management practices at two different academic institutions in Saudi Arabia.

The study identifies a set of social and material parameters (organisational, individual, technological and situational) that imbricate to shape, collectively and not individually, professionals’ connectivity management practices. Connectivity decisions to change practice (such as decisions of where, when or why to connect) or technology (how to connect) are not as distinct as they appear but originate from, and are founded on, imbricated sociomaterial parameters. Our study further suggests that connectivity decisions are shaped by individuals’ perceptions of sociomaterial imbrications, but decisions are not solely idiosyncratic. The context within which connectivity decisions are taken influences the type of decisions made.

Connectivity management emerged from sociomaterial imbrications within a context constitutive of four interacting parameters: organisational, technological, situational and individual. Decisions around the “how” and the “what” of connectivity – i.e. the practice of connectivity and its underpinning technology – originate from how people perceive sociomaterial imbrications as enabling or constraining within a context. Individual perceptions account for changes in practice and in technology, but the context they find themselves in is also important. For instance, we show that professionals may perceive a certain technology as affording, but eventually they may use another technology for communications due to social norms.

This study of job advertisements for internal communication practitioners aims to investigate the signals that organisations are sending the profession about what is required of these roles. The concept of corporate voice – the “voice” of the organisation – is problematised to explore tensions in vocality. The aim is to support communication practitioners to navigate multi-vocality in the evolving professional context of digital communication technologies and changes in the workplace.

This qualitative study considers the role of voice in corporate communication practices and offers insights into “digital disruption” and the discursive pressure of employers' priorities on the profession and its practices. Job advertisements for internal communication practitioners were examined during 6-month periods in 2018, 2020 and 2022, which was a significant time of change for the profession with the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Qualitative content analysis of 514 internal communication job advertisements identifies that control and consistency are valorised, and continue to dominate descriptions of internal communication skills and responsibilities. The digital affordances that communication practitioners rely on has not changed significantly and a preference for “broadcasting” is evident.

This study provides insights into how Australian organisations shape and sustain univocal corporate communication practices, and the incompatibility of narrow configurations of voice with emerging organisational challenges such as social connectedness.

This paper aims to propose various theoretical lenses to explore the relationship between internal communication (IC) and its impact on employee loyalty.

A systematic review followed by a synthesis of the literature is adopted after identifying articles from various databases such as Scopus, Google Scholar and EBSCO and found that employee loyalty remains a significant gap in organisational IC research. The review will bring greater attention and focus for scholars to check how IC can help increase employee loyalty using the proposed theories – more so for IC in the Asia-Pacific.

The findings from this paper explicitly highlight that both individual/managerial theories (social cognitive, social identity, social exchange, expectancy and socio-analytic theories) and organisational theories (network, resource-based view and sensemaking theories) are close and relevant to study the IC and employee loyalty.

The value of this review is to move forward the debate on how IC can significantly contribute to developing employee outcomes (loyalty), how it can further enhance employee performance and commitment and what theories better explain this relationship. This review will inspire and inform future scholars to explore IC’s role in employee loyalty in the Asia-Pacific context.

The purpose of this article is to critically analyze the existing literature on internal social media (ISM) within the context of internal communication, aiming to provide a more nuanced understanding of the roles of ISM and its potential implications for communicative practices.

Drawing on a problematizing review methodology, the article conducts a critical analysis of a selected body of literature with the aim of problematizing assumptions that form the foundation of existing theories and constructs in the literature on ISM communication.

The article points out two interrelated critical issues that might constrain our understanding, scholarly conversation and theoretical development of the roles of ISM communication in organizations: (1) Philosophical inexplicitness; (2) Ontological inconsistency.

Assuming a communication perspective, the article contributes suggestions for future research on ISM in the context of internal communication, calling for research to: (1) explicitly consider the epistemological implications of philosophical positions, including the view of technology; and (2) foreground meaning creation processes as the analytical point of interest.

This study problematizes the prevailing normative and managerial-dominated view of self-initiated employee ambassadorship on social media from a power perspective. The aim is to provide a more nuanced and critical understanding of the negative aspects of this phenomenon.

The empirical material encompasses qualitative interviews with employees from 14 organizations and Foucault’s concept of disciplinary discursive power to analyze which and how discourses exert power over employee communication on social media and what role visibility plays in it.

This study indicates that employee ambassadors’ social media communication is governed by two discourses that create complex tensions, where ambassadors constantly must negotiate between self-branding requirements and an authenticity paradox. These tensions intensify through visibility on social media, where employees strategize and situationally silence their communication through self-monitoring and self-surveillance practices. Conclusively, the findings also outline the need for further critical research to offer a deeper understanding of power relations that influence the communication practices of organizational members.

The paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of self-initiated employee ambassadorship on social media and highlights disciplinary power relations that go beyond organizational borders.

The findings underscore that organizations need to address the critical aspects of self-initiated employee ambassadorship and act as facilitators to support employees in their navigation process.

This paper contributes a new critical power perspective on employee ambassadorship on social media.

This study aims to quantitatively consolidate the research conducted over the past four decades on how internal branding activities drive employee commitment. It summarizes several operationalizations of internal branding and tests the moderating effect of employee’s personal characteristics and job characteristics on the relationship between internal branding and employee commitment.

This paper uses meta-analysis as the research methodology. The analysis includes a sample of 65 studies (from 62 published works), yielding 226 effect sizes (coded into 82 composite effect sizes) over an aggregated sample of 21,706 respondents.

This study finds that brand communication, brand-centered human resource management (HRM), training and development, organizational support and culture, brand-centered leadership and an excellent reward system are the key operationalizations of internal branding. Furthermore, employee’s personal (education, age and gender) and job (tenure, work status and level of customer orientation) characteristics significantly moderate the internal branding–employee commitment relationship.

Limited empirical literature on some of the internal branding operationalizations such as brand-centered HRM and rewards has curbed the scope of moderator analysis.

This paper proposes some effective ways of implementing internal branding strategies and provides support for boundary conditions that brand managers should consider to strengthen the impact of internal branding activities on employee commitment.

As per the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the few quantitative consolidations of four decades of research on the internal branding–employee commitment relationship.

This study aims to explore the holistic context of organisational staff retention in small, medium and large organisations. It also aims to identify the factors affecting the retention of organisations of different sizes.

The study implements an empirical test of a model created during previous research with the participation of 511 employees. The responses to the online questionnaire and the modelling were analysed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling method. The models were tested for internal consistency reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, multicollinearity and model fit.

Two models were tested by organisation size, which revealed a total of 62 significant correlations between the latent variables tested. Identical correlations were present in both models in 22 cases. After testing the hypotheses, critical variables (nature of work, normative commitment, benefits, co-workers and organisational commitment) were identified that determine employees’ organisational commitment and intention to leave, regardless of the size of the organisation.

As a result of this research, the models developed are suitable for identifying differences in organisational staffing levels, but there is as yet no empirical evidence on the use of the scales for homogeneous groups of employees.

The results show that employees’ normative commitment and organisational commitment are critical factors for retention. Of the satisfaction factors examined, the nature of work, benefits and co-workers have a significant impact on retention in organisations, so organisational retention measures should focus on improving satisfaction regarding these factors.

The readers of the journal would appreciate the work, which highlights the significance of employee psychology and retention for organisational success.

The study is based on primary data and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is one of the few studies that take a holistic approach to organisational staff retention in the context of the moderating effect of organisational size. This study contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of employee retention and in contrast to previous research, examines the combined effect of several factors.

This research seeks to understand whether employer branding (EB) and internal marketing (IM) are fundamental to the challenge of attracting and retaining talent and how these strategies can help companies to overcome the difficulties related to the talent shortage, from the perspective of a SME Portuguese metallurgical industry.

The research resorts to a case study of a qualitative nature, through a semi-structured interview with the head of the human resources (HR) training and development area of the Navarra Group, and quantitative, through surveys to its employees. Based on the literature, a conceptual model was constructed, whose application allowed us to perceive the relationships between the practices of EB and IM; satisfaction, motivation and commitment; attraction and retention.

The exploratory interview concluded that organizations consider EB and IM essential for an effective talent management strategy. The quantitative results demonstrate that IM and EB practices implemented in the organization contribute to the satisfaction, motivation and involvement of employees, which results in a decrease in the intention to leave. It is also noted that these practices promote an increase in the perception of organizational attractiveness, which represents a positive impact on its ability to attract.

From a theoretical perspective, the research contributes to the development of knowledge about IM, EB and talent management, providing relevant data that can help define the best strategies for attraction and retention, from the point of view of IM and EB.

The research presents preliminary insights that can be an auxiliary tool for HR managers and professionals in the context of industrial SMEs.

This research sought to determine if there existed a common set of courses amongst undergraduate leadership degree programs, provide guidance for new program development and program revision, promote discussion about future leadership curriculum development and provide a starting point for developing common leadership curriculum expectations nationally.

Content analysis was performed.

Program course similarities appear to represent the organic development of unofficial common core requirements within undergraduate leadership programs. Further, there appeared to be no significant trend as to which academic department leadership programs were placed.

This study identifies commonly occurring classes in traditional leadership degrees, offering insights for the development of new programs and assessment of current leadership degrees.