Emergency remote teaching (ERT) is a new concept that describes the context in which instructional delivery is switched entirely online due to crisis circumstances. Recent research in such a context has been focused either on exploring the unique learning environment and enabling factors or on instructors’ intended behavior, with few studies exploring the students’ perspective. This study aims to contribute to the literature on technology-mediated teaching and learning by deepening the knowledge of the factors determining students’ behavioral intentions (BI) in ERT settings, using a survey of 487 graduate students attending public and non-public universities in Albania conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was employed to explore the chain relationship between ease of use (EASYUSE), expected efficiency (EE), attitudes (ATT), and BI. We expand the TAM model and increase its explanatory power by introducing new variables, such as co-presence (CP), and emergent variables, such as lack of learning materials and time constraints. Variance-based partial least squares techniques were used to validate our conceptual model. As hypothesized, EE and EASYUSE have a direct, positive effect on BI and an indirect effect via ATT. CP does not influence the BI directly but only indirectly via ATT and EE. Finally, the lack of learning materials is shown to negatively affect EE. While some of the findings have limited generalizability the specific research setting provides a unique opportunity to investigate the critical role of interactive teaching methods and learning barriers on students’ intentions and ATT. The fresh insights gained from the extended TAM model have important implications concerning the effective and systematic use of online modalities in similar settings. Supplementary Information The online version of this article (10.1007/s40692-022-00239-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Despite the importance for the nonprofit organizations to communicate with the donors to receive support from them in the nonprofit sector, there have been surprisingly few researches examining communication and fundraising in the nonprofit sector. To receive more support from the donors, nonprofit organizations should provide information about the needy, the organization itself, and its activities not just to donors, who might be accepted as customers, but to the public in general as well. Nonprofit organizations like profit organizations communicate with the environment mainly in two ways: controlled and uncontrolled communication. Having a strong brand also helps nonprofit organizations to send messages to the donors. The effects of these communication tools on donors' satisfaction, brand attitude, and giving intentions are examined in this paper. Results reveal that controlled communication and brand name play an important role in providing information to donor and affecting their satisfaction, attitudes and behaviors.
Research purpose. This paper aims at identifying and evaluating the means of communication used and the perceived barriers from employees of the banking system in Albania. The following research questions were formulated: (a) What are the means of communication used in vertical and horizontal communications? (b) Which mean is preferred and valued as the most effective? (c) Which are the barriers that hinder the effective communication flow in these organizations? Design/Methodology/Approach. A structured questionnaire was addressed to 120 employees of 3 different commercial banks in Tirana, Albania, out of which 100 fully answered questionnaires were received. The questionnaire is divided into three main parts, each of which has two subcategories, and the valuation used for each question is according to the Likert scale from 1 (very few) to 5 (a lot). Findings. E-mail is the most used communication tool vertically, whereas phone and e-mail are added at the horizontal one. Employee preferences are mostly for e-mail and face-to-face communication vertically and phone and e-mail horizontally. Time pressure and overload of information are perceived as main barriers vertically, whereas distractions are mentioned as biggest hindrance horizontally. Originality/Value/Practical implications. We suggest that the managers of organizations in the banking sector should properly consider these two communication tools and create suitable conditions for their use. The employees themselves use more of those tools as, according to their perception during communication with colleagues, those tools improve their effectiveness. Other similar studies might be conducted in different types of organizations to point out similarities and contrasts with banking sector.
The organization in its simplified sense is a group of individuals who interact and collaborate to achieve common goals. From this point of view, organizations are primarily communication entities [6]. Effective communication is the cornerstone of the existence of any organization regardless of size, ownership or legal form. Trying to meet its objectives, it is essential for the organization to develop effective communication systems. Without effective communication, managers will not be able to perform properly any of the managerial functions (planning, organizing, guiding, motivating or controlling their employees). Put simply, communication is the component that enables the existence of the organization itself. Various research has been carried out about the importance of effective organizational communication, aiming not only on identifying the positive relationship with satisfaction, confidence, engagement [4], motivation of the employees and further to the success of the organization, but also warning and making aware managers in addressing obstacles to the implementation of an effective communication system. Therefore, different scholars suggest that organizations constantly should carry out audits to evaluate the effectiveness of internal communication and to verify whether it is timely, correct, and accurate, as appropriate. Following studies of the importance of effective organizational communication, this paper, through the primary quest for quantitative data, is intended to go further by focusing on perceptions of employees regarding the effectiveness of internal organizational communication. The paper begins with a brief and concentrated review of the literature on the importance of organizational communication effectiveness, to go further with the quantitative data analysis, collected through questionnaires to different employees from the private sector. The main objective of the paper is to assess whether employee demographic factors, such as gender, age, and years of work experience, have an impact on their perceptions of effective communication in the organization, by focusing on effective communication channels used in the organization, as well as the barriers that potentially hinder the realization of effective communication. In this way, the results of this study aim to make managers aware not only of monitoring the effectiveness of communication in the organization, but also to be able to tailor channels and address the obstacles to implement a system of effective communication, regarding the demographic characteristics of their staff.
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