Tracing the History of Organizational Representatives’ Communication Competence (2025)

Pekkala, K., Valentini, C., & Luoma-aho, V. (2025).

Employee communication has been examined in public relations research since the 1970s. Since then, public relations research on employee communication has evolved to focus on employee–organization relationships (EORs) as the major outcome generated by internal communication. Through the lens of relationships, research on EORs has emphasized mutual obligations and expectations as well as continuous interactions between an organization and its employees. More importantly, relational attributions, such as control mutuality, have been identified as critical to positive employee outcomes. This chapter has several objectives. First, it summarizes the antecedents of EORs, including symmetrical communication, leadership, and communication styles, and channels. Second, it discusses the consequences of EORs, including turnover intention, organizational citizenship behaviors, and perceived organization–employee dialogic communication. Third, it explains the situations to which EORs have been applied, including issues and crises, corporate social responsibility and organizational change. Lastly, four key concepts on EORs are explained, namely employee engagement, employee voice and dissent, employee communicative behaviors, and allegiant communicative behaviors. Notably, research on EORs has made significant contributions to the conceptualizations and operationalizations of new communicative behaviors that have not been examined in other research contexts, reflecting the importance of facilitating diverse employees’ communicative behaviors in support of organizational outcomes.

In S. Kim, P. M. Buzzanell, A. Mazzei, & J.-N. Kim (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Employee Communication and Organizational Processes (pp. 312-322). Routledge.
Tracing the History of Organizational Representatives’ Communication Competence.