Manager‐employee communication during a crisis: the missing link

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of internal communication during a crisis by comparing how Italian companies communicated to employees during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and how employees interpreted these efforts. Design/methodology/approach -The study used interviews with internal communication managers and employees. It also drew data from two focus groups and a survey involving internal communicators. Findings -The results indicate a misalignment between what companies meant to communicate and what employees perceived. Companies planned excellent communication, made extensive use of official instruments and depicted the crisis as an opportunity, while employees complained about the lack of listening and about the clarity of messages, disliked hierarchical communication and accused their companies of opportunism. Research limitations/implications -Further research is needed to explore the antecedents of the effective manager-employee sensemaking process during a crisis. Practical implications -To reduce misalignment, companies should strengthen trust relationships before a crisis occurs and should focus on open and continuous listening during a crisis. Originality/value -The two perspectives of managers and employees used simultaneously offer a more comprehensive understanding of the complexity of internal communication during crises.

Internal Crisis Communication and Corporate Culture: Forging the Links

“…Level 1 "Artefacts and Behavior" is reflected by the used channels of communication (face-to-face, e-mail, intranet), its dispersion (to all, only those concerned, only management), its direction and coordination (cascade top down, at once to all employee), responsibilities (centralized and coordinated by a specific unit, top management task) or feedback loops. Third, for effective internal crisis communication the practices, which fall into level 1 "Artefacts and Behavior", are largely in line with level 2 "Espoused Values" confirming previous studies [14]. New is the finding, that effective internal crisis communication is also strongly correlated to the congruence between level 2 "Espoused Values", on the one hand, and level 3 "Basic Assumptions" within the company on the other hand.…”

Exploring internal crisis communication in multicultural environments

“…Line communication, at both local and global levels, is therefore depicted as essential to overcoming linguistic, cultural and educational barriers, collecting employee feedback during a crisis, managing rumours and transmitting the learning outcomes after the crisis. Manageremployee communication is in fact critical to explaining crisis messages and building shared understanding (Mounter, 2003;Mazzei and Ravazzani, 2011;Johansen et al, 2012).…”

“…However, this research study also has a number of limitations that should be addressed in future research. First, it has only considered the perspective of internal communications managers, which might differ considerably from that of employees who, especially during crises, may misinterpret and refuse the official narrative (Mazzei and Ravazzani, 2011). Thus, future research could explore employees' perceptions, adopting an audience-orientation (Falkheimer and Heide, 2006) and a multivocality perspective (Frandsen and Johansen, 2010b) to understand, for example, how they define culture and what their communication needs and expectations are.…”

“…Managers' perspectives were chosen since they contribute to building the predominant organisational narrative that embodies the organisation to its members (Willihnganz et al, 2004). In addition, in critical situations, communication and actions influence crisis perception and contribute to creating reality (Eisenberg and Riley, 2000;Stohl, 2000;Mazzei and Ravazzani, 2011).…”

“…Since "organizations comprise individuals who would respond differently, even with the best of intentions, to crises, resulting in individual actions that could compromise the overall effectiveness of crisis management" (Gonzáles-Herrero and Pratt, 1996, p. 102), not recognizing employees as important stakeholders during a crisis can lead to a communication failure (Xu and Li, 2013). Manager-employee communication in particular can play a critical role in explaining crisis messages and creating a shared understanding (Mazzei and Ravazzani, 2011;Johansen et al, 2012). In crisis situations, employees are not passive receivers; they are active information seekers (Saunders, 1988) and sensemakers who can be mobilised communicatively by the organisation and contribute to protecting the company's reputation (Frandsen and Johansen, 2011;.…”