Journal of Communication Management最新文献

Purpose

This research aims to explore perceptions of subjective well-being (SWB) in public relations (PR) practitioners, focusing on dimensions of job satisfaction, networking, relationships and work–life balance, while addressing the under-researched area of gender and age – related to stages of life – disparities in SWB within the PR industry.

Design/methodology/approach

Employing a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design, this study utilised a survey, followed by semi-structured interviews to investigate SWB among PR professionals in Portugal, considering gender and stages of life differences.

Findings

Using a gendered and stages of life lens, this study found nuanced perceptions of SWB among Portuguese PR professionals. Older women showed higher emotional well-being but lower work evaluations than men, while young professionals exhibited less gender disparities in SWB. Men reported greater job satisfaction, emphasising passion, while women faced challenges like work overload and valued recognition. Gender differences were seen in networking, with men favouring teamwork and women valuing friendships for career advancement. Work–life balance issues, especially among older women, related to mental health.

Originality/value

This study contributes to filling the research gap regarding SWB in the PR industry, particularly in Portugal, offering insights into gender and stages of life dynamics that influence SWB perceptions, thereby informing strategies for enhancing well-being and productivity in PR workplaces.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of leaders’ use of motivational language on psychological relatedness and its effect on employee well-being in flexible and remote working conditions.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey among 375 full-time working professionals in the US was conducted with varying frequencies of remote work arrangements. For the analysis, we used a series of PROCESS analyses to examine the moderating effect of leaders’ motivational language use on the relationship between participants’ remote work status and relatedness, with employee well-being as the dependent variable.

Findings

The findings revealed a significant moderating effect of leaders’ perlocutionary (direction-giving) language use on the relationship between employees’ remote work status and relatedness. Specifically, the relationship between remote work status and relatedness was stronger when the use of perlocutionary (direction-giving) language gradually increased. Such enhanced relatedness, in turn, generated higher satisfaction and psychological well-being. The study shows the strategic advantage of direction-giving language in enhancing relatedness, thereby contributing to higher levels of employee satisfaction and psychological well-being in remote work environments.

Originality/value

The originality of this article lies in its integration of motivational language theory and self-determination theory to explore the well-being of employees within flexible and remote work status. Furthermore, we conceptualize remote work as a continuous variable with different degrees of flexibility, ranging from occasional telecommuting to fully remote work, allowing for a nuanced understanding of how leaders’ use of motivational language interacts with varying levels of remote work arrangements to influence employee well-being.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyse subjective well-being among public relations (PR) and communication professionals by looking at several factors: employer and employee engagement, work culture and relationships, work–life balance and conflict, job satisfaction, well-being and networking and perceived gender discrimination and sexual harassment. Additionally, we examine and discuss them in the context of perceived organisational support (POS) and management-mediated well-being.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper examines several dimensions of well-being in the PR/comms industry in Romania: employer and employee engagement, work culture and relationships, work–life balance and conflict, job satisfaction, well-being and networking and perceived gender discrimination and sexual harassment. 117 adult respondents (male and female, full-time employed and freelancers, professionals from PR, advertising and corporate communications) filled-in a questionnaire developed within the EUPRERA Women in PR Network, which brings together communication and human resource (HR) perspectives.

Findings

The study revealed a gap between perceived and practical organisational support related to well-being. While emotional support is acknowledged, actionable support is less present. Gender-specific challenges, such as networking stress and sexual harassment, were more prevalent among women. Age and experience influenced job satisfaction, with mature professionals reporting higher satisfaction but more work encroachment into personal time. The characteristics of the industry, including its feminisation at both executive and managerial levels and the predominance of small businesses as market actors, underscore the need for tailored well-being strategies based on gender and age conditioned by organisational capabilities and resources.

Practical implications

The results can be used by PR and communication managers in Romania to better understand the perception of their employees regarding well-being and to develop organisational support systems.

Originality/value

This is the first study addressing well-being and POS in the PR and communication industries in Romania.

Purpose

The current inquiry advances the public relations field and practice in several ways. First, this research addresses a clear gap in research on subjective well-being, specifically among PR professionals across career stages and generations. Second, the findings reveal important generational similarities and differences in how PR practitioners talk about well-being. This provides an empirical basis for developing tailored, multi-generational approaches to supporting well-being in PR workplaces. Lastly, this research provides practical implications for PR professionals to understand generational perspectives and to implement flexible policies to improve well-being.

Design/methodology/approach

The current study explored subjective well-being (SWB) across generations of public relations professionals. Using a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 PR practitioners at various career levels – entry, mid-level and senior.

Findings

Analysis revealed several similarities but a key disparity among cohorts. Senior-level professionals specifically reported struggling with work–life balance and the perceived ability to be autonomous, while entry-level professionals expressed commitment to setting boundaries on their time. These findings highlight a need for the PR industry to establish flexible workplace standards that enable employees at different career stages to collaborate and support one another’s well-being.

Practical implications

Our findings will appeal to your readers who seek to cultivate employee subjective well-being and understand generational issues via qualitative methods. By conducting a qualitative study in an understudied area, PR industry leaders and managers can support employee well-being across generations and career stages.

Originality/value

Our study is the first to examine generational dispositions as it relates to SWB across the public relations industry.

Purpose

This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of how discursive practices shape the promotion of public relations undergraduate programmes in the context of market-driven UK higher education.

Design/methodology/approach

Research combines a descriptive analysis of the UK universities offering public relations undergraduate degrees and a critical discourse analysis of the online prospectus entries of 25 public relations undergraduate programmes (often called “courses” in the UK), focussing on the course/programme overview and career path sections.

Findings

This wide-ranging review of UK universities’ communication of their public relations provision demonstrates that although the student as consumer has choice, the presentation of the programmes is sometimes “headline grabbing” and often positions public relations as a tactical subject, emphasising promotion and practical skills. Overall, public relations is taught alongside subjects such as marketing, journalism and advertising, and these subjects are foregrounded in promotional material when discussing teaching and potential career paths. Public relations is a difficult subject to explain within the confines of a university prospectus, with the result that it is frequently presented as a promotional practice with little connection to management, leadership or academic research.

Originality/value

To the best authors' knowledge, this is the first study exploring the discursive practices that shape the promotion of public relations undergraduate programmes in UK universities.

Purpose

In recent years, the acronym VUCA has gained traction in strategic communication (SC) as an umbrella term that summarizes the recurrent challenges (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) of digital communication environments. However, an integrated reflection on how the VUCA dimensions facilitate a deeper understanding of specific digitalization challenges and how to navigate through these challenges is lacking. This article aims to explore and substantiate the descriptive (how) and prescriptive (how to) potential of VUCA for SC under digitalization conditions.

Design/methodology/approach

We first provide a systematic discussion of the four VUCA dimensions based on the general strategy literature. While their descriptive value is undisputed, prescriptive advice on how to respond to these challenges is contradictory. We substantiate this observation in a second empirical step based on problem-centered interviews with strategic communicators at the agency and corporate levels.

Findings

Our findings reveal that VUCA facilitates a systematic mapping of digitalization challenges consistently identified by professionals. The proposed strategic responses, however, remain contradictory at the theoretical and empirical levels. Hence, we propose the VUCA radar as a comprehensive descriptive and prescriptive framework.

Originality/value

The radar provides (a) a systematic overview of recurrent digitalization challenges to SC at the industry and practice levels and (b) prescriptive advice on how to navigate through these challenges by balancing contradictory strategic responses at the levels of vision, understanding, clarity and agility.

Purpose

This research makes an effort to empirically investigate the role of source credibility theory (SCT) in the prevailing modern influencer marketing context by establishing an association between virtual influencers ((VIs) non-human) and the buying behavior of their followers. It further provides insights into the mediating role of virtual engagement on the affiliation between VIs’ credibility and the buying behavior of followers.

Design/methodology/approach

The study used structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) to assess data from a survey conducted online of 538 participants (Instagram followers of virtual influencers).

Findings

The results reveal that source credibility dimensions significantly affect followers’ buying behavior in the context of VIs except the trustworthiness dimension. However, mediation analysis has shown that virtual engagement substantially mediates between source credibility dimensions including trustworthiness.

Practical implications

The study highlights the value of the credibility of VI and its alignment with the followers’ buying behavior. The study provides valuable inputs for the brand managers as the credibility of the VI can be effectively leveraged in implementing strategies to encourage their followers/consumers on social media platforms to purchase the goods/services they endorse.

Originality/value

The study overcomes the shortcomings of recent studies by empirically investigating the affiliation between VIs’ credibility and followers’ buying behavior through Instagram. The study uniquely extends the potential of SCT in the context of non-human VIs.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the well-being initiatives and programs offered to full-time communication employees and identifies antecedents of employee subjective well-being and commitment in the workplace (e.g. organizational attention to mental health in the workplace and perceived organizational support, POS).

Design/methodology/approach

Guided by organizational support theory (OST), we conducted an online survey with 262 full-time communication professionals.

Findings

The data show that a variety of well-being initiatives and programs (e.g. mental health assistance programs and flexible working hours) are offered to communication employees, who receive this information from various sources (e.g. emails and announcements at employee meetings). Additionally, the number of well-being initiatives also positively predicted organizational attitudes and attention to mental health in the workplace. Supporting OST, attitudes and attention to mental health in the workplace positively predicted POS, which subsequently predicted subjective well-being and organizational commitment.

Research limitations/implications

The study offers practical implications around the communication professionals’ experience in employee well-being and culture. Perspectives from internal communication teams will help organizations leverage their efficiency in creating a supportive work culture around mental well-being and contribute to the understanding of well-being in communication industries. Theoretically, we extended the range of OST, by testing the theory in a new context of communication professionals during the pandemic.

Originality/value

Although communication professionals carry a critical internal communication role in actively promoting employee mental health, well-being and healthy organizational cultures, very little research has been dedicated to investigating how they handle these subjects themselves. Therefore, this study provides original value by focusing on the perceptions, knowledge and action taken by communication professionals when responding to organizations’ well-being programs/initiatives offerings during the peak of COVID-19 and the factors that influence communication professionals’ subjective well-being.

Purpose

Although belief in conspiracy theories has been researched since the 1970s, specific research on conspiratorial thinking in the workplace is scarce. Conspiratorial thinking could be fostered among employees in workplaces because of unequal power relations resulting from the organizational hierarchy. This study examines workplace conspiracy attribution (WCA) as employees’ attribution of problematic events in the workplace as being plotted by powerful actors within their organizations and tests its antecedents and consequences.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey dataset collected from employees in South Korea (N = 600) was used. This study tested three variables (i.e. two-way communication, employee–organization relationship quality, and perceived ethical orientation) as antecedent conditions of WCA and two outcome variables (i.e. turnover intention and whistleblowing potential) as consequences.

Findings

Perceived ethical orientation mediates the relationship between two-way communication and WCA. WCA was found to be positively associated with turnover intention and whistleblowing potential.

Originality/value

This study adopts a public relations lens to understand the significant roles of WCA in reducing turnover intention and whistleblowing potential. It expands existing knowledge of the significance of power and power disparities in organizations.