Employee Communication Behaviours for Dialogic Communication: Theoretical Explanations and Field Evidence

Employee communication behaviours are gaining growing attention because of their contribute to company's competitive advantage. Employee communication dialogue with managers to interpret events, with colleagues to cooperate in formal and informal networks, and with the employer as brand ambassadors is a key element of the co-creation of organizational context. Most important antecedents of employee communication behaviours encompass quality of relationships, material and non-material benefits, coercive power and termination costs, equity of exchange, and communication. This study shed light in particular on internal communication strategies adopted in order to enable employees to be strategic communicators. It presents findings from interviews with 32 internal communication managers. According to interviewees, some strategies to enhance employee communication behaviours are communication-based: creation of communication path, development of new languages, adoption of full disclosure style, and effective managerial communication. A relevant part of internal communication strategies aim to affect employee attitudes and behavioural intentions to indirectly stimulate strategic communication behaviours. On the overall, internal communication strategies are enablement-oriented: they rely on integration of communication with other managerial practices, specifically human resource management, in order to create proper organizational conditions to sustain employee communication role for the co-creation of organizational context.