This study explored how organizations' dialogic internal communication about their stance to end police brutality toward African Americans influenced employees' issue-driven collective activism intention to address police brutality toward African Americans. An online survey was conducted to recruit 401 eligible participants. Results found that dialogic internal communication about stance on police brutality toward African American issues positively predicted employees' organizational trust which was positively associated with their self-efficacy and collective efficacy. Moreover, both employees' self-efficacy and collective efficacy mediated the relationship between their organizational trust and issue-driven collective activism intention to anti-police brutality toward African Americans. Several theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

Corporate Social Advocacy (CSA) has increasingly gained popularity in today's workplace, yielding diverse outcomes for employees and organizations. Grounded in Social Learning Theory, this study explores CSA efforts on racial diversity and examines its impact on employees' behaviors in the workplace. By conducting an online survey with 401 full-time U.S. employees, the study found that employees' perceptions of the ethicality of CSA encourage their acceptance of diversity and advocacy for companies' CSA actions. Furthermore, the study revealed that employees' perceptions of ethicality are shaped by their views on both the CSA issue and the organization's image. Specifically, positive emotions toward the CSA issue and perceptions of congruence between the organization and the social causes advocated by the CSA play a significant role. Theoretical and practical implications for public relations and the CSA actions are discussed.

This study examines how internal social media communication strategies influence employees' in-role and extra-role social media engagement. Based on social identity theory and conservation of resources theory, we investigated the effects of two types of internal social media communication strategies-organization-oriented and employee-oriented-on employees' social media engagement. A survey of 429 U.S. employees showed that organization-oriented strategies enhanced employees' organizational identification, which further motivates employees' in-role and extra-role social media behaviors. Employee-oriented strategies also fostered employees' social media engagement by strengthening their organizational identification and evoking positive emotions when using social media. These findings provide significant theoretical and practical implications for strategic internal communication and social media strategies.

This study aims to investigate the impacts of internal environmental sustainability communication and green transformational leadership on employees’ green behaviors. By integrating research on internal communication and transformational leadership with relationship management theory and role theory, this study identifies the mediating roles of communal organization-employee relationships and employees’ role clarity. An online survey of hospitality sector employees in the U.S. was conducted. The findings reveal that internal environmental sustainability communication enhances employees’ clarity of their roles in organizations’ environmental sustainability initiatives, which, in turn, promotes their green behaviors. In addition, green transformational leadership not only improves employees’ role clarity but also fosters their communal relationships with organizations, thereby facilitating green behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Although businesses are increasingly adopting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, the role of employees' proactive and voluntary actions that contribute to organizational diversity and justice remains unexplored. The current study aims to examine how employees' engagement with diversity-their active behaviors in support of a diverse and inclusive work environment-can be encouraged by organizations' strategic internal communication, both at a corporate level and a supervisory level. The results of an online survey with full-time employees in the United States suggested that diversity-oriented leadership and dialogic internal communication cultivate a quality employee-organization relationship and clarify employees' role as workplace diversity contributors, which in turn increases their diversity engagement. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings for public relations and internal communication are discussed.

Social media now plays a vital role in disseminating information about traumatic events, leading to vicarious traumatization that individuals do not directly experience. However, social media platforms also provide individuals opportunities for coping with stressors. To understand how coping strategies extend beyond individual level in the face of widespread vicarious traumatization on social media, this study adopts the communal coping theory and the theoretical model of communal coping (ETMCC) to explore individuals’ perception and coping mechanisms. Specifically, our research focuses on the Itaewon crowd crush as a case study to examine how social media vicarious traumatization can serve as a stressor, eliciting communal coping process. This study surveyed 410 Koreans, with an average age of 28.8, who regularly use social media. The results support the applicability of the ETMCC framework in the context of vicarious traumatization, showing social media’s dual role in both triggering and alleviating trauma. Participants engaged in various social media coping strategies and perceived communal coping through online interactions. The findings highlight how social media behaviors can foster posttraumatic growth, offering valuable insights for community recovery after trauma.

Purpose As the use of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) grows in the workplace, organizations prioritize employee training due to ethical concerns. Employing the social-cognitive perspective of moral action, this project examined how organizations’ communication strategies and employees’ ethical orientations collectively impact the Gen AI training outcomes. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was conducted in February 2024 with 500 full-time employees in the United States whose organizations had implemented any form of Gen AI training. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and Hayes’s PROCESS Model 1 were employed for the data analysis. Findings The results revealed that change leadership and transparent communication during the training fostered ethical Gen AI adoption. Such enhanced ethical adoption of Gen AI subsequently enhanced employees’ proficient use of this technology. Employees’ ethical orientations (deontology and consequentialism) moderated this effect: those with lower procedural ethics (higher scores in consequentialism and lower scores in deontology) were more likely to be influenced by their leaders’ change-related actions. Originality/value The study provides theoretical insights and practical advice for utilizing organizations’ efforts to navigate employees’ Gen AI usage at work. Theoretically, the study presents an organizational communication framework connecting leadership, internal communication, ethical readiness, and work empowerment outcomes to guide employees’ ethical decision-making during new implementations and training. Practically, it provides organizations with data-proven Gen AI ethical training suggestions, such as enhancing leaders’ change-specific guidance and building transparent training environments.

This study investigates factors that motivate consumers’ communicative actions, responding to corporate responsibility to race campaigns. As the controversial practice of addressing racial issues, corporate responsibility to race campaigns may evoke consumers’ moral emotions and problem solving actions for racial justice. This study employs the broaden-and-build theory and situational theory of problem solving to understand consumer responses to corporate racial justice messages, particularly for the minority group of Hispanics/Latinos. The conceptual model is tested through an online survey among 618 consumers of different race/ethnicity groups in the U.S. Results show that responding to corporate racial justice messages, consumers’ positive moral emotions influence their perceived involvement in, recognition of, and perceived barriers of the racial justice issue. Those issue-related perceptions, in turn, can increase consumers’ motivation and active communicative actions to promote racial justice.

Using the case of the crowd crush tragedy in South Korea, this study examined how publics' communicative actions on social media helps them to achieve community resilience after experiencing a collective tragedy. Results of a survey with 420 citizens residing in Seoul, South Korea, revealed that active information seeking and forwarding on social media enhanced individuals' resilience processes-continuity and change-thereby increasing community resilience. Implications for publics' social media usage and community resilience are suggested.

Guided by literature in corporate social advocacy and the theory of corporate responsibility to race, this study investigates the effect of corporate social advocacy for racial injustice (i.e. Anti-Asian hate in this study) on public engagement in activism against the issue, focusing on the impact of perceived authenticity toward the action. Specifically, by integrating an issue-based factor (i.e. issue importance) into the anger activism model (AAM), this study examines how authentic CRR practices addressing anti-Asian hate can encourage publics to participate in online activism for racial justice by enhancing individuals' perceived issue importance, feelings of anger, and efficacy beliefs toward the issue. The findings from a survey of 611 participants suggested that the publics' perceived importance of the social justice issue, shaped by their perceived authenticity of organizations' efforts to support the issue, intensifies their feelings of anger and perception of group efficacy, thereby leading to their participation in online activism activities. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore how CEOs’ interpersonal communication styles on social media can effectively enhance the relationship with employees and increase their engagement on social media platforms. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was conducted with 404 full-time employees working in corporations across various industries in the US. Only employees who “follow” their company’s CEO on social media were included in the study. Findings CEOs’ use of a conversational tone on social media helps employees perceive them as approachable and interactive leaders, thereby improving the quality of the CEO-employee relationship and increasing employees’ engagement on social media. CEOs’ personal disclosures on social media were found to promote employees’ perceptions of CEO approachability only when paired with a conversational communication style. Research limitations/implications Our study offers theoretical implications for communication and media literature by highlighting the potential of CEOs as chief “engagement” officers, capable of leveraging online platforms (i.e. social media) to foster employee interactions and support. Practical implications This study provides CEOs and communication practitioners with practical guidelines for using social media for both professional and social purposes as a crucial tool for internal relationship management. Originality/value This study is one of the first empirical attempts to examine the value of CEO social media communication as a key tool for building and maintaining quality employee–CEO relationship and engagement.