Promoting a path for organizational competitiveness : the role of internal communication

Abstract

Internal Communication has a unique remit of conceptualization and action when discussing Organizational Communication. Knowing how to manage internal communication represents an important value for competitive organizations by allowing cohesion and internal inclusion. When analyzing the aims of Internal Communication, it is pertinent to question in what way promoting its articulation with Human Resource Management supports an improved organizational performance directed towards the organizations’ internal publics. This study sustains the pertinence of understanding the predictive abilities of Internal Communication regarding some important individual-organizational relations, which are usually studied by Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior analysts. It assumes the empirical interest in clarifying whether Internal Communication predicts the workers’ commitment, as well as to clarify if organizational procedural justice intervenes in this relation. Participants of this study were 153 workers of an organization in the hotel business industry, which voluntarily responded to a questionnaire composed by measures of organizational commitment, internal communication and procedural justice. Main results have evidenced that internal communication predicts the workers’ affective commitment towards the organization. Results have also evidenced that organizational procedural justice mediates this relation. We conclude that internal communication influences the way how the equity of the organizations’ procedures is perceived by the workers, which leads to the building of an affective bound between the workers and the organization. These results and conclusions are discussed and interpreted in what relates to its theoretical, empirical and practical added-value. We also discuss the benefits of the articulation between internal communication and human resource management in order to improve professionals’ practices towards the organizations’ internal publics.