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Managing internal communication: How the choice of channels affects internal communication satisfaction

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Highlights

  • The purpose of the study is to identify how the choice of communication media affects internal communication satisfaction.

  • We conducted an analysis of the most commonly used channels in corporations and linked the results to employees’ satisfaction and media choice.

  • In exploring internal communication satisfaction and satisfaction with media we found a strong positive correlation between the variables.

  • The companies that put a bigger effort into adjusting their media towards their employees’ needs, have more satisfied internal audience.

Abstract

As the environment of internal communication is continually changing for a multitude of reasons, especially new technologies, organizations have to adapt fast in their attempts to reach their employees. When deciding on the type of channel to use, internal communication managers should be aware of their employees’ preferences. The purpose of this study is to identify how the choice of internal communication media affects internal communication satisfaction. In order to explore this relationship further, we conducted an analysis of the most commonly used internal communication channels in ten large corporations and linked the results to employees’ satisfaction and media choice. By expanding the knowledge on preferred communication channels, we are hoping to provide some insight for better management of internal communication.

Introduction

Internal communication has been consistently recognized as a key area of public relations, growing in importance (Zerfass, Tench, Verhoeven, Verčič, & Moreno, 2010), even though there is still a lack of scholarship on the topic within the public relations domain (Tkalac Verčič, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2012). Since public relations is centered around the relationship between an organization and its publics, it is clear why there is a logical focus on one of key organizational publics, employees (Kim, 2007; Lee & Queenie, in press; Men & Stacks, 2014). Internal communication needs specialized knowledge to help various internal publics by making positive strategic contributions and through that gain greater professional respect (Welch, 2013).

Valuable communication depends upon choosing an adequate message and sending it in formats convenient to employees. They have expectations which influence how they evaluate internal communication (Cameron & McCollum, 1993; Welch, 2012). During the last few years, the environment of internal communication has significantly changed, mostly under the influence of new technologies. Modern organizations use a whole range of channels to reach their internal audiences – from traditional, face-to-face communication to printed publications, electronic media and social networks. All internal media; print, electronic and face-to-face, can be effective if used methods are considered acceptable and appropriate by employees (Welch, 2011). Since channels vary in level of complexity, formality, cost and capacity, it is essential that the organization and its management consider the needs and preferences of employees, resources, speed of data transfer, sender goals, and message and receiver characteristics in choosing the best channels to reach internal publics (Tkalac Verčič, 2019).

The concept of communication satisfaction, introduced by Downs and Hazen in 1977, has become a central construct in internal and organizational communication (Pincus, 1986). But as Pincus concluded, more than three decades ago, there still isn’t enough research on the association between communication satisfaction and organizational communication channels (Smith, Patmos, & Pitts, 2018). Internal communication satisfaction is a crucial part of internal communication practices (Sinčić Ćorić, Pološki Vokić, & Tkalac Verčič, 2019). Communication satisfaction can be defined as the socioemotional outcome of communication interactions (Hecht, 1978). It can also be defined as a sum of an individual’s satisfaction with relationships (Downs & Hazen, 1977) or individual’s satisfaction with different aspects of communication in interpersonal, group or organizational settings (Tsai, Chuang, & Hsieh, 2009). Maybe the broadest definition describes communication satisfaction as “an individual’s satisfaction with various aspects of communication in the organization” (Crino & White, 1981, pp. 831–832). If the relationship between internal communication practices and satisfaction is viewed as a relationship between antecedents and consequences, the importance of analyzing internal communication channels becomes clear.

Dimensionality of internal communication satisfaction has been studied for years with abundant proof that it is in fact a multidimensional construct (Sinčić Ćorić et al., 2019; Tkalac Verčič, Pološki Vokić, & Sinčić Ćorić, 2009). Studies that analyzed communication satisfaction as multidimensional, mentioned 2–10 dimensions which included amount of information employees receive, the organization’s communication climate, the receptivity of upward communication and others (e.g. Downs & Hazen, 1977; Hargie, Tourish, & Wilson, 2002; Mohr & Sohi, 1995). In this study, we operationalized internal communication satisfaction as an eight-dimensional construct as defined by Tkalac Verčič et al. (2009).

It is an accepted principle in communication theory that communication happens through communication channels (Sommerfeldt, Yang, & Taylor, 2019). The selection of communication channels is an important part of public relations for both, external and internal communication. However, in spite of clear practical and theoretical value of strategic channel selection, there aren’t enough studies exploring which communication channels offer best results. As new technologies change the landscape in which organizations operate, there is continuous expansion of communication media used for internal communication. Channels vary in richness which depends on the ability to communicate information, handle multiple cues, feedback rate and personal focus (Lengel & Daft, 1988). The richest media, in this context, include various forms of face-to-face communication as they transmit multiple cues and information at once (Smith et al., 2018).

This study aims to explore how various organizational patterns of media choice affect internal communication satisfaction, as well as satisfaction with communication media. We try to further discover how employees perceive the shift in communication channels towards more digitalized environment and if the move to the use of electronically transmitted communication satisfies their requirements. In order to achieve this, we analyze employees’ attitudes toward the quality of communication media and how this is connected to employees’ communication satisfaction in general. We analyze the data from 10 large corporations and examine satisfaction with internal communication media in combination with types of media used.

Section snippets

Literature review

Internal communication is a multidisciplinary area, positioned between public relations, human resource management and marketing – it is simultaneously a part of various organizational functions and not really a part of any (Tkalac Verčič, 2019). In academic research it can be found in managerial and organizational studies (Thompkins, 1987), organizational psychology (Lowenberg & Conrad, 1998) and more and more – public relations (Men & Bowen, 2017; Ruck & Welch, 2012; Tkalac Verčič et al., 2012

Participants

A total of 1524 employees from 10 large companies completed our communication survey, which is a part of a four-year Croatian national scientific project to map out internal communication. The choice of organizations that were approached within the project was based on the typical unit criteria. In selecting the organizations for the sample the project team reached a consensus on what is considered typical and which criteria should be typical. Out of the 10 companies 4 were subsidiaries or

Results

In order to answer the first two research questions, i.e. is there a significant relationship between internal communication satisfaction, satisfaction with communication channels and satisfaction with new communication media, we calculated intercorrelations among the variables. Table 2 presents means, standard deviations, and Pearson correlations between internal communication satisfaction, satisfaction with communication channels and satisfaction with new communication media. Respondents in

Discussion

Within internal communication we should focus more on the interplay between the message content and its mediating format. A key element in this process is to explore how employees perceive internal media (Welch, 2012). In order to do that we analyzed how employees from our sample companies perceive the quality of media in their organizations. The purpose of our study was to analyze a potential connection between patterns of media use in organizations and level of internal communication

Limitations and future studies

Our study relied on self-reports of both, employees (when stating their internal communication satisfaction) and managers (when assessing which communication channels are used and how often). All self-report studies raise concern about bias in reporting their own behavior and concern about common method bias. We tried to reduce this bias with using established scales which reduce measurement error and lessen common method bias (Spector, 1987 according to Agarwal, Anand, Bercovitz, & Croson, 2012

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work has been fully supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project no. 3323.

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    This work has been fully supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project no. 3323.

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