Employee Communicative Actions and Companies' Internal Communication Strategies to Mitigate the Negative Effects of Crises

This chapter deals with the issue of employee communicative actions and internal crisis communication strategies in the context of a crisis. Cognition, understanding and co-operation during crises are affected by employee commitment and expectations, which internal communication can enhance and support before and during a crisis. In addition, employee communication can play a strategic role in protecting other non-material re- sources in such critical situations and especially in the acute phase of a crisis, namely reputation. This chapter questions if and how employee communication can mitigate the negative effects of a crisis. To do so, in the theoretical section it analyses two mitigating variables: employee communication for quality relationship building before a crisis occurs; and company’s communication strategies during the crisis to protect its reputation and internal trust relationships. Both these variables can enhance employee communicative actions, such as advocacy, that help to minimize the negative effects of the crisis from its first stages to its acute and final phases. In the second section, this chapter presents main findings from two previous studies. One based on a case study showing how an effective pre-crisis employee communication strategy can lead to positive employee communicative actions when the crisis occurs. The other one based on a survey of Italian companies carried out at the beginning of the global economic crisis in 2009 investigating communication strategies more or less consistent with the need for reputation and trust relationships protection. Finally the chapter discusses some conclusions and implications for prac- tice and research.