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The Internet has affected every aspect of society, and religion is no exception. Nearly 28 million Americans use the Internet to supplement their spiritual life by visiting Web sites to communicate with their churches and other congregation members. Online communication with religious organizations can be enhanced by the incorporation of five dialogic loop principles that foster relationship growth. Through a content analysis of randomly sampled Church Web sites from a national database, this study found that Christian churches were laggards in terms of creating an interactive environment for church-goers.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to use relationship management theory to measure the impact of relationship cultivation on the employer-employee relationship. Specifically, the paper examines how well Kelly's (2001) conceptualization of stewardship can impact internal stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach -Through intercept surveys of 421 adults, the paper used existing scales to measure dimensions of the employer-employee relationship and the participants' perceptions of stewardship in the workplace. Findings -This study found that the four dimensions of stewardship significantly impact feelings of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and balanced power between the employer and the employee. Additionally, increased use of stewardship resulted in increased involvement by employees. Practical implications -The results of the paper offer several specific suggestions employers can do to communicate more effectively with their employees so that they are not only more informed but also feel more positively about the relationship they have with the employer. Originality/value -Original stewardship scales were developed for the paper so that they can be tested in domains outside the nonprofit sector, where they have been routinely tested with donors and volunteers.