Journal of Public Relations Research

Ni, Lan; Shen, Hongmei

2023 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2022.2149533

Integrating the situational and cross-situational approaches to understanding publics, this study examined cultural antecedents (self-construal and political identity salience) to situational perceptions (problem recognition, involvement recognition, constraint recognition), situational motivation, and key information behavior regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from an online survey (N = 556) showed that political identity salience and interdependent self-construal triggered publics’ situational perceptions, which in turn activated their situational motivation and information forwarding behaviors. The study contributed to public research through examining important cultural influences on value-laden and polarized issues and revealing additional nuances in communicative activeness.

Tao, Weiting; Lee, Yeunjae; Li, Jo-Yun; He, Mu

2023 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2022.2150624

Encouraging employees’ vaccine uptake and motivating their vaccine advocacy are crucial steps to secure workplace health and safety during the current pandemic. Yet, how to achieve those steps remains challenging. To address this challenge, this study examines whether and how companies’ vaccine communication efforts with employees, particularly dialogic communication, can motivate employees’ advocacy behaviors for COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Specifically, by drawing insights from public relations, management, psychology, and health communication research, we predict that organizations’ dialogic communication will enhance employees’ perceptions of organizational support for vaccination, which will further increase employees’ positive emotions while decreasing their negative emotions toward the vaccines. These emotional states will ultimately contribute to employees’ vaccine advocacy. An online survey among 505 full-time U.S. employees supported our predictions. Our study advances public relations, organizational communication, and workplace health scholarships and practice by revealing the under-explored role of workplace communication in promoting public health.

Kim, Yeonsoo; Basnyat, Iccha; Meganck, Shana

2023 Journal of Public Relations Research

doi: 10.1080/1062726X.2022.2148673

Informed by crisis communication literature and dialogic communication theory, this study proposed an internal crisis communication model for the COVID-19 pandemic, considering base crisis responses (i.e., instructing information, adjusting information) and dialogic competency (i.e., mutuality, openness) as key variables. Trust in organizational commitment related to the COVID-19 pandemic was presented as a mediator. Through this model, we examined how employees’ sense of belonging to their organization, relational satisfaction, and their support for organizational decisions about COVID-19 were related to the factors presented. An online survey of full-time employees in the U.S. was conducted. The study found that instructing information in the context of COVID-19 was positively associated with employee trust in their organization’s pandemic-related commitment and, in turn, increased employees’ support for organizational decisions, sense of belonging, and relationship satisfaction. Conversely, adjusting information had a negative effect on employee trust in organizational commitment. The dialogic competency of employers in COVID-19-related internal crisis communication, characterized by mutuality and openness, was not only indirectly related to positive employee responses through trust in their organization’s commitment, but was also directly related to greater support of organizational decisions, a sense of belonging, and relationship satisfaction. Based on the findings, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.