Organizational Communication Practices Research Articles

IN-DEPTH EXAMINATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, COMMUNICATION DYNAMICS, AND OPERATIONAL PRACTICES AT AN ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION COMPANY: A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY

Effective communication is pivotal for success in today's interconnected and complex business environments. This research delves into the communication culture of an engineering and construction company, aiming to comprehend its organizational culture and communication practices. Using a qualitative research design, key informant interviews were conducted with three engineers holding managerial positions within the company. Thematic analysis revealed insights into the organization's values, communication patterns, and dynamics. Results indicate a culture emphasizing honesty, integrity, collaboration, and transparency. Communication channels such as team meetings, open-door policies, and suggestion boxes were identified, highlighting the importance of both formal and informal communication models. Instances impacting communication, such as deadlines and seminars, were also examined. Recommendations include promoting open communication, utilizing various communication channels, implementing training programs, fostering diversity, balancing formal and informal communication, setting clear deadlines, and continuously evaluating communication practices. Despite limitations such as sample size and potential biases, this study offers valuable insights into enhancing communication effectiveness within engineering and construction companies, contributing to organizational success.

Emotions and attentional engagement in the attention-based view of the firm

This essay integrates emotions into the attention-based view of the firm to enhance the theory’s explanatory power and open a generative path for future research. Organizational structures and communicative practices shape organization leaders’ and members’ emotions. These emotions influence their attentional engagement. Structures and communicative practices shape emotions via two main paths: (1) perceived issue or initiative characteristics, which influence organization leaders’ and members’ specific emotions toward the issue and initiative, and (2) the socially constructed context for interaction about the issue or initiative, which influences the emotional energy leaders and members associate with the issue or initiative. The resulting emotions influence attentional engagement over three time horizons: immediately in the triggering situation, recurringly after the triggering situation, and through the creation of additional structures and practices that influence attentional engagement.

DETERMINANTS OF LAWSUITS RELATED TO THE FINANCIAL RIGHTS OF HEALTH PRACTITIONERS A RETROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY IN THE ASEER REGION

Background
 The employee’s sense of entitlement to the allowance despite the absence of a legal document; thinking about obtaining the financial allowance through the judiciary; lack of confidence in the financial and human resources staff at their workplace, low salaries, work pressure, and distinction from others; delay in promotions, courses, and development programs; ignoring the responsible person for responding to employees feeling injustice; and hearing unpleasant news and views from their society. Employees receive additional benefits, bonuses, or gratuities. The study uses data from court records of financial rights-related lawsuits filed by health practitioners in the Aseer Region over one year. The study identifies and analyzes the demographic and professional characteristics of the health practitioners involved in these lawsuits and the factors associated with the lawsuits, such as the type of health facility, the nature of the dispute, and the amount of money involved.
 
 Method
 The Aseer Health Research Ethics Committee approved this one-year retrospective cohort study under REC-19-11-2022. After the official request, the law department provided one year of data for all lawsuits in the Aseer health record. This study focused on litigation numbers, percentages, and types. All variables and data sources were changed to eliminate survey bias. We studied all financial rights lawsuits in the year we grouped. The statistical analysis employed frequency and percentage for all study variables. All correlated variables were subjected to bivariate analyses.
 
 Result
 In one year, there were 2,782 cases, 1,552 of which were infection risk and harm allowance (55.8%), 472 were normal exchange allowance (17%), and 7% were employee complaints. 2018 national issues involve total lawsuits yearly bonus 4%, roughly 2.2% to 3.5% request change or cancellation.
 
 Conclusion
 Overall, the research findings highlight the importance of creating safe and fair work environments, offering appropriate compensation and benefits, and ensuring effective organizational communication and management practices. Failure to do so can result

Importance of organizational volunteer retention and communication with volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT We used the online survey method to explore the relationship between the importance of volunteer retention during the COVID-19 pandemic and organizational volunteer communication practices among nonprofit organizations’ leaders of local communities. The target population for our study was 696 nonprofit organizational leaders. The response rate was 10.6%. Organizational volunteer communication practices explain 63% of the importance of organizational volunteer retention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, organizations placed significant value on effective organizational communication practices, especially in developing trusting relationships with volunteers, encouraging free-flowing communication, and listening to volunteers. Outreach educators and volunteer administrators should educate local nonprofit leaders on effective communication practices during times of uncertainty. Organizations that depend heavily on volunteers must ensure that their leaders understand the importance of communication strategies and implement them effectively. For local community nonprofit leaders, organizational volunteer communication skills are even more crucial during crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Should we teach students how to bullshit?

Bullshit, as defined by Frankfurt (2005, p. 10), is language that is “disconnected from a concern for the truth.” Much scholarship shows that bullshit is a prominent feature in organizations that is difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of (e.g., McCarthy et al., 2020; Penny, 2010). Bullshit, by definition and by cultural practice, seems antithetical to business writing orthodoxy. As Thill and Bovée (2020) suggest in a representative textbook, communication should be clear and ethical. However, Spicer (2020) codifies bullshit as a social practice whose outcomes are not always dire. Well-crafted bullshit benefits its users, allowing them to “fit into a speech community, get things done in day-to-day interaction and bolster their image and identity” (Spicer, 2020, p. 20). Contrasting with business writing’s abstinence-only bullshit stance, this suggests that successful writers must adapt to their organization’s speech act practices. In this article, we argue that students must be taught about bullshit. After describing bullshit and its role in organizations, we show how business writing could incorporate a critically informed approach to bullshit in undergraduate courses, internship preparation courses, and other curricular instances in which students work directly with organizations. While bullshitting should not be outright encouraged, continued ignorance will do nothing to solve its associated problems. Promoting bullshit literacy, however, could both minimize bullshit’s harms and maximize its benefits. We close by describing how this approach could foster critical thinking skills, promote more seamless adaptation to organizational cultures and communication practices, and perhaps even improve mental health outcomes.

Mutual Constitution of Genre and Knowledge: The case of genre resistance in the French diplomatic occupational community

In this paper, we study the relationship between genre and knowledge in the dynamics of occupational resistance to genre change. Using critical genre analysis, we investigate the response of French diplomats to the introduction of modifications in a key institutionalized communicative practice, the diplomatic telegram. As the organization modified genre rules for knowledge distribution, the perceived loss of control over audience and purpose threatened the elite occupational community values of autonomy and secrecy. In response, diplomats subverted the new organizational communicative practices by invalidating its content through knowledge fragmentation, repetition and depletion. At the same time, they enhanced the content of the hybrid new genre of the ‘political email’, through knowledge integration, differentiation and amplification. Our work contributes to critical genre analysis by revealing the political dimension of organizational genre change for elite occupational communities. Also, in examining the relationship between genre and knowledge, we identified genre resistance mechanisms that (de)authorized communicative practices by (in)validating knowledge. Our work suggests that genre resistance is an essential tool for elite occupational communities, whose power depends on control over esoteric knowledge.

Personality traits and organizational leaders' communication practices in the United States: perspectives of leaders and followers

PurposeThis 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.Design/methodology/approachTwo survey studies in the United States were conducted focusing on leaders' and followers' perspectives on communication practices, respectively.FindingsResults 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.Originality/valueThe 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.

Organizational Communication Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic: Effectiveness of Strategies and Practices used by Organizations in Turkana County

In a crisis situation, employees face challenges and pressures because they have to deal with unexpected disruption in their routine working environments with high level of uncertainty. Organizations in Turkana County are no exception and therefore the management had to come up with strategies to ensure continuity. Organizational communication strategies and practices play important roles in giving employees information, direction and support. This research aimed to explore how the responses of organizational communication strategies and practices are and how effective Organizations in Turkana County employed them to such a specific crisis: Covid-19 Pandemic, using situational crisis communication theoretical framework. This research applied qualitative approach. This research applied qualitative approach. This research involved four organizations, two business organizations and two educational organizations which were selected using maximum variation sampling technique. Four people representing each of the organizations were interviewed using inductive method. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings showed that organizational communication strategies and practices being used by all participants' departments are mostly related to the preparation stage and the response stage of the crisis management. Early crisis management planning, forming crisis management teams and preparing supporting communication system, including providing health care facilities and communication protocols for infected employees are salient practices during the preparation stage. In the response stage, leader and horizontal communication intensively used a variety of social media and web conference applications. Interestingly, informal communication was minimized, while formal communication was conducted intensively and transparently. Furthermore, sensitivity to employees' needs and conditions as well as emphatic communication expressing positive emotion and support was perceived as positive to help employees understand the information well and to feel understood and appreciated.

The People Still Make the (Remote Work-) Place: Lessons from a Pandemic

The Journal of Management editorial team challenged us to consider how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted and altered the employer–employee relationship. In this guest editorial, we take stock of the pandemic-related lessons learned for human resources research and practice. We highlight three insights that many organizations made as the result of pandemic-related changes and describe how these lessons are likely to alter the employee–employer landscape for the foreseeable future. The lessons are (a) understanding that organizational communication practices should be authentic, continuous, and two-way in nature; (b) accepting that the virtual workforce brings unique challenges that do not yet have solutions; and (c) recognizing that success for stakeholders beyond just investors will require continual attention and intention. We also highlight needs and opportunities for future research that will inform theory and practice and lead to the betterment of organizations and society.

Organizational Communication Responses to Covid-19: Strategies and Practices

In a crisis situation, employees are facing pressures and challenges because they have to deal with unexpected disruption in their routine working conditions with a high level of uncertainty. Organizational communication strategies and practices play important roles to give employees information, direction, and support. The research aims to explore how organizational communication strategies and practices responses to such a specific crisis: Pandemic Covid-19, using a situational crisis communication theoretical framework. The research applies a qualitative approach. Four organizations participated, involved two business organizations and two educational organizations, selected using a maximum variation sampling technique. Four people representing each organization were interviewed using the inductive method. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings show that organizational communication strategies and practices being used by all participants’ organizations are mostly related to the preparation stage and the response stage of crisis management. Early crisis management planning, forming crisis management teams, and preparing supporting communication systems, including providing health care facilities and communication protocols for infected employees are salient practices during the preparation stage. On the response stage, leader and horizontal communication intensively used with a variation of media and channels. Interestingly, informal communication was minimized while formal communication conducted intensively and transparently. Furthermore, sensitivity to employees’ needs and conditions as well as emphatic communication expressing positive emotion and support was perceived positive to help employees to understand the information well and to feel being understood and being appreciated.

Unveiling assumptions through interdisciplinary scrutiny: Observations from the German Priority Program on Climate Engineering (SPP 1689)

The interdisciplinary exchange in climate engineering research offers a unique opportunity to make assumptions more explicit for such research projects. While making assumptions explicit is the standard in all disciplinary sciences, some assumptions in the context of societal challenges can only be usefully unveiled, discussed, and verified from the perspective of other research disciplines. Results from successful interdisciplinary collaborations are then more accessible and more generalizable to actors beyond the confines of the academic community. We aim to illustrate how interdisciplinary exchange helps to unveil assumptions in research endeavors and why this is important for successful interdisciplinary collaborations. We therefore follow different stages of the German Priority Program on Climate Engineering (SPP 1689), which we use as an example case of a successful interdisciplinary project. SPP 1689 focused on risks, challenges, and opportunities of Climate Engineering from the perspectives of numerous disciplines. Major results were that the initial assessments of technologies had to be sobered, the consideration of trade-offs is crucial for the potential assessment, and governance issues appeared larger than previously considered. From the reflections of SPP 1689, we conclude with three lessons learned: (1) The project profited from egalitarian organizational structures and communicative practices, preventing the predominance from single disciplines. (2) Within the project continuous efforts were undertaken to foster interdisciplinary understanding. In addition, the flexible project structure allowed for the accommodation of research needs arising as a result of these exchanges. (3) SPP 1689 offered early career researchers a platform for professional exchange on common challenges and best practices of being a part of an interdisciplinary research project.

Build community before the storm: The National Weather Service's social media engagement

AbstractThe current study examines crisis communication on social media by observing how twelve National Weather Service (NWS) offices use Twitter to facilitate engagement with stakeholders during threat and nonthreat periods. Using content analytic methods, we examine message features related to content and structure during a 3‐month period in spring 2016. We conduct chi‐square analyses to determine how the prevalence of these features varies by time. Results indicate that NWS offices use Twitter for ongoing engagement communication through both the content and structure of their messages, where community building and action‐orientated messages are primarily used during nonthreat periods. When fair weather changes and storms approach, the offices shift to the communication of risk. Our findings underscore the need to examine organizational communication practices in a manner that recognizes the distinctions between long‐term engagement goals and short‐term goals related to the mission of the organization.

Work Disability Management Communication Bottlenecks Within Large and Complex Public Service Organizations: A Sociotechnical Systems Study.

Purpose Within large and complex organizations work disability (WD) communication bottlenecks emerge and contribute to avoidable disability days. Our study utilized soft systems methods to better understand communication problems in WD management. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with disability case managers (n = 10), frontline supervisors (n = 15) and human resource/labor relations specialists (n = 5) within three public service organizations. Interview questions asked about organizational WD system structure and communication practices. Thematic analysis was conducted to examine system structure and emergent communication bottlenecks. Results WD communication took place across a number of internal and external stakeholders. Communication bottlenecks tended to concentrate within WD case manager and frontline supervisor activities. Inconsistent communication across organizations, challenges interacting with external stakeholders, mental health disability information exchange, lack of WD communication experience and previous worker performance represented communication bottlenecks that contributed to avoidable disability days. Conclusions To strengthen communication practices, systems-focused responses towards organizational WD management are required.

Tackling the Turnover Challenge Among IT Workers: Examining the Role of Internal Communication Adequacy, Employee Work Participation, and Organizational Identification

This study examines the relationships between two empowering organizational communication practices, employee work participation (EWP) and internal communication adequacy (ICA), and the mediating role of workers’ organizational identification (OI) on information technology (IT) workers’ turnover intentions. Using a sample of 111 IT workers from a Midwest-based IT company, results from multiple regression and mediation analyses show that EWP is both directly and indirectly negatively associated with workers’ turnover intentions. Additionally, the results show that OI, and both ICA and OI, mediated the relationship between EWP and turnover intention. Implications of the results are discussed.

Using the CAUSE Model to Understand Public Communication about Water Risks: Perspectives from Texas Groundwater District Officials on Drought and Availability.

Public communication about drought and water availability risks poses challenges to a potentially disinterested public. Water management professionals, though, have a responsibility to work with the public to engage in communication about water and environmental risks. Because limited research in water management examines organizational communication practices and perceptions, insights into research and practice can be gained through investigation of current applications of these risk communication efforts. Guided by the CAUSE model, which explains common goals in communicating risk information to the public (e.g., creating Confidence, generating Awareness, enhancing Understanding, gaining Satisfaction, and motivating Enactment), semistructured interviews of professionals (N = 25) employed by Texas groundwater conservation districts were conducted. The interviews examined how CAUSE model considerations factor in to communication about drought and water availability risks. These data suggest that many work to build constituents' confidence in their districts. Although audiences and constituents living in drought-prone areas were reported as being engaged with water availability risks and solutions, many district officials noted constituents' lack of perceived risk and engagement. Some managers also indicated that public understanding was a secondary concern of their primary responsibilities and that the public often seemed apathetic about technical details related to water conservation risks. Overall, results suggest complicated dynamics between officials and the public regarding information access and motivation. The article also outlines extensions of the CAUSE model and implications for improving public communication about drought and water availability risks.

New Lamps for Old

Our study aims to examine ways to counteract the arbitrary mix of organizational communication practices that has evolved in the Gulf Region as a result of the large numbers of different cultures that make up the workforce there. To this end, we attempt to develop a conceptual model of leadership communication, the Gulf Leadership Communication Framework. We see this as a crucial element in organizational communication practices that is of particular relevance for the process of localization in the Gulf Region. In this analysis, we refer to two sets of empirical data on discursive leadership and interpersonal communication that were collected from around 600 Emirati nationals. Our findings show that a leadership model for social contexts like the Gulf Cooperation Council may look very different from the models that obtain elsewhere; this is the case because in the region organizational communication may be most successful when people use strategies that privilege uniformity, rather than selecting strategies that celebrate diversity.

Directives and Dialogue: Examining the Relationship Between Participative Organizational Communication Practices and Organizational Identification Among IT Workers

This study explores how the dialogue—or lack thereof—between employees’ opinions and organization-wide communications relates to employees’ identification with the organization. Using survey data from a sample of 111 IT workers, we performed cross-level tests to explore how employee voice, the perceived adequacy of organization-wide downward communication, and job satisfaction related to employees’ organizational identification. The results of the hierarchical regression and mediation analyses revealed that higher levels of employee voice were associated with higher levels of organizational identification and fully mediated by job satisfaction. Similarly, higher levels of organization-wide communication adequacy were associated with higher levels of organizational identification and partially mediated by job satisfaction. The findings suggest that inclusive and participative organizational communication practices are most likely to foster organizational identification when they are viewed favorably by employees and positively impact their job experiences.

The professionals speak: Practitioners’ perspectives on professional election campaigning

Faced with some fundamental changes in the socio-cultural, political and media environment, political parties in post-industrialized democracies have started to initiate substantial transformations of both their organizational structures and communicative practices. Those innovations, described as professionalization, become most obvious during election campaigns. In recent times, the number of empirical studies measuring the degree of political parties’ campaign professionalism has grown. They have relied on a broad spectrum of indicators derived from theory which have not been tested for their validity. For the first time, we put these indicators to a ‘reality check’ by asking top-ranked party secretaries and campaign managers in 12 European countries to offer their perceptions of professional election campaigning. Furthermore, we investigate whether any differences in understanding professionalism among party campaign practitioners can be explained by macro (country) and meso (party) factors. By and large, our results confirm the validity of most indicators applied in empirical studies on campaign professionalism so far. There are some party- and country-related differences in assessing campaign professionalism too, but the influence of most factors on practitioners’ evaluations is weak. Therefore, we conclude that largely there is a far-reaching European Union-wide common understanding of professional election campaigning.

Feelings of Pride and Respect as Drivers of Ongoing Member Activity on Crowdsourcing Platforms

ABSTRACTCrowdsourcing platforms are online organizations that organize work by sourcing tasks to their members. As participation on crowdsourcing platforms is completely voluntary, getting members to actively participate in tasks on an ongoing basis is essential for the survival of these online platforms. Why members would be active on an ongoing basis, however, is currently not well understood. To understand ongoing member activity on crowdsourcing platforms, we build on the group engagement model, which postulates that feelings of pride and respect influence engagement because they foster identification with the group. We argue that, although in general the nature of crowdsourcing platforms limits the effects of identification processes on member behaviour, feelings of pride and respect will still play central roles in such online organizations, because feelings of pride and respect can directly drive members’ cooperative behaviors towards the platform organization. Moreover, we posit that the way in which platform organizations communicate with their members affects these feelings of pride and respect. We test these ideas in a longitudinal, multisource field study and find that feelings of pride drive ongoing member activity on an online crowdsourcing platform directly and that platform management can increase members’ feelings of pride and respect by engaging in specific organizational communication practices.

Social Media Policies: Implications for Contemporary Notions of Corporate Social Responsibility

Three global developments situate the context of this investigation: the increasing use of social media by organizations and their employees, the burgeoning presence of social media policies, and the heightened focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this study the intersection of these trends is examined through a content analysis of 112 publicly available social media policies from the largest corporations in the world. The extent to which social media policies facilitate and/or constrain the communicative sensibilities and values associated with contemporary notions of CSR is considered. Overall, findings indicate that a large majority of policies, regardless of sector or national headquarters, increasingly inhibit communicative tenets of contemporary CSR (i.e., free speech, collective information sharing, and stakeholder engagement/dialogue) and thereby diminish employee negotiation and participation in the social responsibilities of corporations. Moreover, policies generally enact organizational communication practices that are contrary to international CSR guidelines (e.g., the UN Global Compact and other international agreements). Findings suggest that social media policies represent a relatively unrecognized development in the institutionalization of CSR communicative norms and practices that call into question the promising affordances of social media for the inclusion of various voices in the public negotiation of what constitutes corporate social responsibility.