Are they listening? Assessing authentic membership of two groups and its influence on employee attention to diverse internal communication channels

Rodgers, Kevin (2020) Are they listening? Assessing authentic membership of two groups and its influence on employee attention to diverse internal communication channels. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the relationship between an individual’s perception of how authentic their group membership is, measured by corporate authenticity (CA) and work role authenticity (WRA) and one’s openness to channels of internal communication namely email, face-to-face, intranet and social media with particular reference to the stakeholder approach to internal communication (Welch and Jackson, 2007). A systematic literature review and structured interviews with 14 internal communication experts were undertaken to develop definitions and questionnaire items for CA and WRA and questionnaire items for IC channels. The final questionnaire was distributed, online, n=72. Respondent completions were restricted by the outbreak of COVID-19. Phase one results indicated multi-faceted definitions for CA and WRA with three topic areas and several themes in each. The most represented themes for the 14 interviewees in phase one were, for CA sense of belonging and care and identifying with the brand and for WRA having pride and passion for the job, wanting to do a good job and wanting to improve. The measure of CA and four measures of openness to IC channels have been validated n=72. Phase two indicated significant positive relationships between CA, WRA and communication channels except for intranet communication. WRA showed trends for a stronger relationship with email and social media, but this was not significant. This study concludes that CA and WRA conceptually locate within the SAFE model of state authenticity (Schmader and Sedikides, 2018). Organisations can use this to develop individuals and manage careers. Authentic membership of a group impacts on openness to internal communication channels. IC Managers can use this information to better direct internal communication by choosing appropriate channels. Increasing the sample size will help to further develop these measures, increase their validity and increase generalisability by exploring their use in other cases.