Adapting organizational tactics for digital internal listening – Scholar Q&A

December 4, 2023 • Jonathan McVerry

For as long as businesses with employees have been around, there has been some form of internal organizational listening. But over the years, things change, and businesses need to adapt to ensure their employees feel heard and respected. Page Center scholars Yuan Wang, City University of Hong Kong, and Rita Linjuan Men, University of Florida, are leading a project to help organizations adjust to shifting technologies – in this case, technology that allows organizations to digitally listen using tools like artificial intelligence (AI), social media, and more. The scholars discuss their project, which is part of the Page Center’s 2023 call for research proposals on digital analytics, below. Wang is a first-time Page Center scholar and this is Men’s sixth time receiving Page Center funding.

How did this collaboration come together? What is the origin story of this Page Center project?

Wang: We got to know each other in 2014 at an academic conference, and after that we communicated and met with each other during some annual conferences. A few years ago, I talked with Dr. Men about potential collaboration. At that time, the plan was to focus on the role of dialogic communication in employee-organization relationships (EORs). Last year, we saw the call for proposals from the Page Center and thought it was a good fit for our project. We focused our proposal on digital analytics and its impact on EORs.

Men: We share a research interest in employee communication. Dr. Wang has done a lot of research around EORs. I recently did a study about internal listening. We saw the Page Center call, which is related to digital analytics. We combined that with our expertise and interests and thought about developing a proposal that looked at how digital internal listening can help foster EORs and other important outcomes.

That research interest connects well to a past Page Center call on organizational listening. Can you talk about digital internal listening and how it all connects?

Wang: Internally listening is recognizing, acknowledging, understanding, and responding to the needs and concerns of internal stakeholders, such as employees. Regarding digital listening, I have not found a formal definition of the concept. I assume by adding digital elements to internal listening, these concepts may be defined as using digital communication technology – such as social media and AI tools to respond to the needs of internal stakeholders. That’s my definition.

Men: We think digital analytics is a tool to achieve the goal of internal listening. Digital analytics is the process of collecting, measuring, analyzing, and interpreting digital data. It is a very advanced, efficient tool for understanding internal stakeholders, and using those data to better inform decision making, as well as to better communicate with internal stakeholders and to develop relationships with them.

How does internal listening affect EORs? Are happy employees the goal for every EOR initiative?

Wang: I think one possible goal of internal listening may be to make employees feel happier. But, in some organizations, employees may not feel very happy or satisfied, because their voices are not heard by the employer. Some organizations have not achieved transparent communication or two-way communication. So, we want to suggest that more organizations focus on internal listening. If an organization listens to employees carefully and responds to their needs and concerns, their employees will perceive a better relationship with that organization.

Men: EORs are about being satisfied and happy. But they are also about trust and employees’ perceived commitment to the organization and shared control. In the academic literature, we use these four dimensions to measure EORs – trust, satisfaction, commitment, and control mutuality, which is a feeling of shared control.

You have a two-part study lined up to understand how digital listening can affect EOR. Can you walk us through the parts of your study?

Wang: After getting the funding from the Page Center, I spent some time collecting and reading relevant articles and conducting literature review. We plan to finalize the interview protocol and survey questionnaire, and then we'll conduct in-depth interviews with internal communication managers in the United States and China. Then we will analyze the transcript, transcribe the responses, and analyze the results. For the second part of the study, which is a survey in the U.S. and China, we plan to collaborate with a research company to recruit participants from both countries to complete a questionnaire. After that, we'll analyze the data and write up the manuscripts for the second study. Finally, we will present our studies at the Page Center’s Research Roundtable during the AEJMC conference next year and submit the paper to a journal.

Men: For our in-depth interviews, we hope to have a deeper conversation with the experienced internal communication professionals regarding why they think it is important to utilize digital analytics to inform internal listening. We will also try to understand how they actually do it. The reason we want to collect data from both China and the U.S. is because we know these are two of the major markets in the world and obey distinct cultural characteristics. And then we want to understand whether there are some cultural implications.

Once you have the results, what are your expectations or plans for applying them to the practice?

Wang: First of all, we'll share our benchmark reports based on aggregated data that summarize the findings of our project. We will share this research report with some participating organizations, for example, where some internal communication managers are working. Those organizations will be able to use our findings to guide their internal listening practice and establish good relationships with their employees. We will also gather some qualitative insights from interviews with key stakeholders and the findings will provide guidance on the most effective practices for organizations in the U.S. and China on how to foster digital internal listening and optimize relationships with employees.

Men: We are grateful for Page Center support, and we hope to use this opportunity to address some timely issues, such as the new wave of generative AI. When we submitted the proposal, generative AI was not such a huge thing in our field. But now it is transforming the public relations profession and our practice. We want to look at how the new tools and analytics can help inform decision making in internal communication. This is not an AI study, but because it's related, and it's such an important and timely issue, we hope to get some insights from both the American and Chinese thought leaders. We hope to understand how they are using AI-enabled tools like generative AI, chatbots, and ChatGPT. How are they using it to better listen to their internal stakeholders?