Organizational credibility is an important component of organizational survival. The need to build and maintain organizational credibility in the social media context is specifically significant, largely due to the popularity of the medium in the current interactive communication environment. Social media, however, create a challenging environment for accurate information consumption, because it excludes the journalistic gatekeeper, are subject to misinformation and allow for information proliferation by both official and nonofficial users. For organizations to enhance their credibility in the social media context, it is important, firstly, to determine what constitutes social organization credibility. To establish an enhanced understanding of social organizational credibility and to build towards a formal conceptualization, this article quantitatively explored the preliminary identified determinants of social organizational credibility among active social media users. An exploratory factor analysis indicated that social organizational credibility consists of the determinants of trustworthiness, qualified resonance, homophily, personable interaction, informed conversation, and apt social word-of-mouth. Furthermore, the results also highlighted that an organization’s connections (including social media influencers and experts) are also a key determinant of social organizational credibility. This research provides guidance as to how social media users assess an organization’s credibility in the social media context, which could help alleviate the misinformation stigma that is associated with social media as an interactive communication platform. The identified determinants and the conceptualization of social organizational credibility extend existing organizational credibility literature and provide organizations with much needed guidelines to enhance their credibility in the social media context.
This article proposes a new concept, co-change-orientated communication (co-COC), whichencapsulates the daily social and communication processes of organisational members inmaking sense of change from a critical strategic communication perspective. Guided by anevolutionary approach to concept development, this article aims to quantitatively measure thepragmatic relevance of identified attributes and antecedents of co-COC to the development ofa fully-fledged concept at six high-change South African organisations. An exploratory factoranalysis confirmed that co-COC is attributed by meaningful dialogue, employee engagement,collaboration and co-creation, and the encouragement of dissent. It is bottom-up in nature andenabled by the antecedents of organisational agility, leadership agility, a change-able cultureand stakeholder engagement. Co-COC further extends theoretical development on the need forchange in approaches to communication that support ongoing organisational change and hasvepotential to assist communication professionals to recognise the need and pragmatic relevance ofcontemporary developments in strategic communication. The various antecedents and attributesof co-COC could also provide organisations with guidance on the implementation of changeorientatedcommunication approaches in support of ongoing organisational change.
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