Models of organization-stakeholder communication
That communicating with the most important stakeholders (key players, definitive and dominant
stakeholders) require all strategy levels with an emphasis on dialogue strategy. Where the
communicative objective is to affect attitudes and behavior, the persuasive and dialogue strategy is
required. The difference between these strategies is that in persuasive strategy, the two-way element is
symmetrical, thus the organization is e.g. gathering feedback from stakeholders whereas in the dialogue
strategy, the two-way communication element is asymmetrical, thus the goal is to exchange views and
find mutual understanding, not simply change attitude and behavior (Cornelissen 2011, 49-51).
Asymmetrical communication is needed since, only collecting feedback from employees is inadequate
and cannot be regarded as true dialogue when the emphasis is more on mutual decision-making. If
employees feel that the dialogue is false and they are not genuinely beinglistened to, they might lose
the confidence and willingness to commit (Lewis & Russ,2012).
Cornelissen (2011, 165) differentiates manager-employee communication and corporate information
and communication systems as two central areas of internal communication. Manager communication
refers to communication between a supervisor and his or her subordinates, and it is usually related to
specific tasks, activities and the well-being of individual employees (Cornelissen 2011, 164). By corporate
information and communication systems, Cornelissen refers to a broader focus and broadcasting
corporate messages to all employees across the organization. When putting the above-mentioned
communication strategies (informational, persuasive and dialogue) into the context of corporate level
communication, due to the nature of corporate information and communication systems, the strategy in
corporate level communication is usually more informational and persuasive (pointed out also by Welch
and Jackson in internal communication matrix described in subsection 2.3.1).
These strategies are then supported with manager-employee communication, which puts more
emphasis on dialogue strategy. Thus, these strategies are not mutually exclusive and one is not better
that the other. Instead, the strategies should more be seen as supporting each other. When we think
about effective stakeholder communication and communication strategies, we need to at least think
what is effective from the organization’s point of view and from its stakeholders’ point of view. It is
expected that these viewpoints will vary. Management theory has long studied basic tensions of
opposite goals, values and needs between the organization and its members (see e.g. Mumby, 2013, 5)
and the question is, how can the organization engage with its members (stakeholders) that have
the opposite individual goals, values and needs to those of the organization. To be able to engage with
stakeholders, organizations need to obviously recognize the viewpoints of their stakeholders too.
In this section I look into internal communication as part of the corporate communication function. First,
I discuss the definitions of internal communication and how corporate communication scholars see its
position within the field of corporate communication. After that, I introduce the internal communication
matrix by Welch and Jackson (2007) and internal corporate communication concept derived from it as I
use it as a lens through which I look at communication practices in this research paper.
Finally, I set out to consider internal communication channels before returning to workplace safety by
defining workplace safety communication and reflect what makes it effective based on the literature
reviewed. Internal communication, also referred to as employee communication, staff communication,
internal relations, employee relations, internal public relations and internal communications (see e.g.
Welch & Jackson, 2007, 178) can be basically defined as communication with employees internally
within the organization (Cornelissen, 2011, 164). It includes informal chat on the “grapevine” as well as
managed communication (Welch & Jackson, 2007, 178). The most important objective of internal
communication is to commit people to the organization and its goals, usually by strategy communication
and participatory actions (Cornelissen, 2011). According to Smith (2008, 15), internal communication is
usually managed within corporate communication, even though she points out that it can also come
under human resources or even, unexpectedly, under administration or finance. Smith justifies the
management of internal communication within corporate communication by the importance of aligning
messages with external communication (Smith, 2008, 15).
Message alignment between internal and external stakeholders is important in integrated or strategic
communication as already mentioned with reference to previous research (Hallahan & al., 2007, Argenti
& al., 2005), but also the different stakes or interests, power, urgency and legitimacy of the stakeholders
need to be taken into account. Welch and Jackson (2007, 178) conclude that internal communication is
regarded as part of an organization’s strategic communication function (thus corporate communication
as described earlier), but argue that the nature, scope, focus and goals of internal communication still
need to be discussed and defined. For this, Welch and Jackson suggest the internal communication
matrix (which they call the stakeholder approach to internal communication) and internal corporate
communication concept derived from this way of thinking. They argue specifically that the stakeholders
of internal communication should not be regarded as a single public, but they differ in their level of
information of and interest in the organization’s messages. In their concept, they also recognize
different goals for internal corporate communication that I found very useful when thinking about my
own research topic, workplace safety communication.
Based on their analysis of previous research on internal communication, Welch and Jackson (2007) saw
a need to define and segment internal stakeholders more specifically and look at internal
communication at different levels of the organization. What they ended up suggesting is called an
internal communication matrix which, according to them, can be used to supplement other forms of
internal situational analysis and as a tool to analyze, plan and evaluate internal communication.
They also refer to this matrix as a stakeholder approach, as the primary setting is to differentiate
between different internal stakeholders within an organization. These dimensions are defined by
communication level, direction, participants and content. When looked at in this way, internal
communication is not about communicating internally with employees as a single public, but actually
also includes communication between line managers and employees, peer communication between
team and project members and communication between strategic managers and all employees. The
internal communication matrix as such offers hardly anything surprising. Manager communication
between supervisors and subordinates and team communication had been recognized and separated
before, and even studied extensively, as Welch and Jackson noted themselves (2007, 185). However, the
matrix offers a good framework and tool for communication analysis within an organization as it has
several dimensions from where to look at it. Apart from participant perspective described above, the
matrix is interesting also from the aspect of direction. When thinking about two-way or one-way
communication, two-way communication is usually required when the goal is to impact employee
attitudes, behavior and commit.
