Organizational Voicing Architecture in the Age of Social Media : a Case Study in Professional Service Organizations

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Organizational Voicing Architecture in the Age of Social Media : a Case Study in Professional Service Organizations © 2024 the Authors Published version Pekkala, Kaisa; Erkkilä, Taina Pekkala, K., & Erkkilä, T. (2024). Organizational Voicing Architecture in the Age of Social Media : a Case Study in Professional Service Organizations. International Journal of Strategic Communication, Early online. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118x.2024.2325690 2024 Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=hstc20 International Journal of Strategic Communication ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/hstc20 Organizational Voicing Architecture in the Age of Social Media – a Case Study in Professional Service Organizations Kaisa Pekkala & Taina Erkkilä To cite this article: Kaisa Pekkala & Taina Erkkilä (11 Apr 2024): Organizational Voicing Architecture in the Age of Social Media – a Case Study in Professional Service Organizations, International Journal of Strategic Communication, DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2024.2325690 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2024.2325690 © 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Published online: 11 Apr 2024. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 99 View related articles View Crossmark data Organizational Voicing Architecture in the Age of Social Media – a Case Study in Professional Service Organizations Kaisa Pekkala a and Taina Erkkilä b a Department of Social Sciences, Communication Sciences, LUT University, Lappeenranta, Finland; b Dept. of Corporate Communications, Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics, Jyväskylä University, Jyväskylä, Finland ABSTRACT Digital communication technologies, particularly social media, enable members of organizations at all levels and across all functions to communicate with external stakeholders. This has required organizations to rethink and restructure their strategic communication management, especially the orchestration of their communicative human resources. Using a qualitative case-study approach, this article examines how professional service organizations create and maintain their stakeholder relations in the contemporary media landscape through the orchestration of employee voice and enactment as organizational spokespersons. The findings show that organizations have created structural architectures that they use as a basis for strategic communication management. Based on these findings, the study introduces a novel concept of organizational voicing architecture, which refers to the conceptual structure and overall logical arrangement of organizational spokespersons who act as organizational representatives in the corporate communication system. Additionally, by integrating the findings related to the voicing architecture with existing knowledge about organizational listening, the study broadens understanding of the mechanism with which organizations strategically orchestrate their stakeholder relationships, and hence contributes to the strategic and corporate communication and public relations literature. During the past decade, digitalization and related changes in the communication environment have transformed strategic communication management by expanding the ways in which organizations and their stakeholders can develop and co-create their relationships (Brockhaus, Buhmann, & Zerfass, 2023; Leonardi & Treem, 2020). As social media platforms enable direct dialogue with an accelerated tempo in multiple forums (O’Connor & Shumate, 2018; Kent & Lane, 2017; Maben & Gearhart, 2018), it has been posited that organizations are increasingly dependent on the many voices of their individual members, who can speak on their behalf (Andersson et al., 2023; Christensen & Cornelissen, 2011; Pekkala, 2020), shaping the role of the organizational spokesperson, “who gives the organization a voice within a community” (Troester, 1991, p. 528). With this voice, individual members of an organization are “initiating, maintaining and improving stakeholder relationships” (Madsen & Verhoeven, 2019, p. 154) and thus becoming increasingly important strategic assets for organizations. In addition to using their voice, organizational members play a critical role in listening to and making sense of events and discussions among diverse organizational stakeholders on social media CONTACT Kaisa Pekkala [email protected] Department of Social Sciences, Communication Sciences, LUT University, Yliopistonkatu 34, Lappeenranta 53850, Finland INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2024.2325690 © 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. (Macnamara, 2016, 2024). In fact, when it comes to developing relationships, listening is claimed to be as important as using one’s voice, and recent research on stakeholder engagement has highlighted the role of organizational listening (e.g., Stewart & Arnold, 2018). Professional management of organizational voice and listening is fundamental to organizational decision-making and strategy alignment and may contribute to increasing trust and engagement (Erkkilä & Luoma-Aho, 2023; Macnamara, 2024; Pekkala, 2020). However, there is currently little research that would shed light on how organizations have organized their communicative human resources to support these aims. This study focuses on strategic communication management, which refers to the management of strategically significant communication by a focal entity or organization (Zerfass et al., 2018). The article explores how professional service firms have organized themselves to build and maintain organizational reputation and stakeholder engagement through employee voice and enactment as spokespersons in an increasingly digitalized media environment. According to Elsbach (2003), whose definition we follow: “Organizational spokespersons convey or explain symbolic actions to organizational audiences. Spokespersons include anyone who is perceived by an audience member as representing the organization.” In addition to creating content and interacting with a variety of stakeholders as organizational representatives in social media, employees have an opportunity to gain new knowledge and industry insights, which duly enhances organizational learning (Nguyen et al., 2015). As a consequence, employees also have an important role in “gathering environmental information about organizational, societal, and technological development” (Madsen & Verhoeven, 2019, p. 154). Although the research focusing on drivers of excellence related to strategic communication management has gained traction (e.g., Zerfass & Viertmann, 2017; Zerfass et al., 2018), surprisingly little empirical research has focused on managerial strategy work related to employees’ role in organizational representation and enabling organizational listening. In this article, we draw on previous literature on strategic communication management, management of communicative organization, organizational spokespersons, and organizational listening. We begin with a literature review to illustrate how the social media environment has shaped the conceptualization of an organizational spokesperson and employee voice. After that, we demonstrate through a qualitative case study of two professional service organizations how organizations strategically orchestrate their communicative human resources. We contribute to the previous literature by introducing the concept of organizational voicing architecture, by which we mean the strategically organized structure of organizational spokespersons that guides their communicative roles and capabilities in the corporate communication system, thereby broadening understanding of employees’ roles in strategic communication. Theoretical framework Strategic communication management, voicing and listening in organizations According to Zerfass et al. (2018, p. 497), “strategic communication management is the attempt to manage the communication of strategic significance with regard to a focal entity.” Following this definition, strategic communication management in an organizational context pertains to the orchestration of communicative resources and activities that are regarded as critical success factors for the organization. In the digital communication environment, characterized by the increased significance of user-generated content, the strategic role of employees’ communicative activity and competence has increased its importance (Verhoeven & Madsen, 2022). This is not only important in building relationships and trust with stakeholders but also in strategizing, which takes account of the views of stakeholders and happens through actively listening to them (Macnamara, 2024, 104–105). Strategic communication management is a sub-area of general strategic management, which in turn has been defined as “a continuous process of thinking through the current mission of the organization, thinking through the current environmental conditions, and then combining these 2K. PEKKALA AND T. ERKKILA elements by setting forth a guide for tomorrow’s decisions and results” (Greene et al., 1985, p. 536). Strategic communication management is largely about the alignment between organizational strategy and abilities, the external environment, and stakeholder expectations (Volk & Zerfass, 2018), as well as communication activities and resources that are particularly relevant for an organization (Zerfass et al., 2018). This study focuses on the strategic orchestration of communicative human resources, that is, organizational members that represent organizations to external stakeholders through communicative action in which they acquire, transfer and create knowledge (Pekkala, 2020). The approach leans towards (social) agency theory (Eisenhardt, 1989), which becomes helpful in explaining how communicative work (Pekkala, 2021) is delegated by the principal party to an agent, who then performs that work in a unique contextual setting. In this case, the principal party is an organization, represented communicatively by an agent – an individual employee – who acts as a spokesperson by giving a voice and listening capacity to the principal party, in this case their employer organization. In this paper, we adopt the term orchestration, which refers to the coordination of independent and interconnected members of a knowledge network by a hub actor (Ritala & Gailly, 2023), in this case the organization, which is represented by its members. Organizational voicing According to the constitutive view, organizations emerge from multiple voices (Taylor & Cooren, 1997). In this study, we pay particular attention to the managerial approach towards organizational voicing, which refers to the strategic orchestration of communicative human resources affecting “how employees do voice and the way they make themselves heard” (Cassinger & Thelander, 2020 p. 198), so that those multiple voices are aligned to become a unified whole (Volk & Zerfass, 2018). Distribution of agency in relation to organizational voice has been discussed under the term polyphony (Christensen & Cornelissen, 2011), referring to “the integration of a multiplicity of internal and external voices into communication processes that are performed on behalf of the organization” (Schneider & Zerfass, 2018, p. 19). Polyphony is being understood as an emergent mode of strategic communication (Zerfass & Viertmann, 2016). In these settings, it has become critical to be able to integrate “different voices (plurality) into perceptible values of communication (unity) as well as in the alignment to strategic goals of the organization” (Schneider & Zerfass, 2018, p.19). As organizations have become more dependent on their employees’ voice (i.e., their communication activity and competence), much of “communication management is transforming into the management of people who communicate” (Pekkala, 2020 p. 563). It should also be noted that in the communication literature, agency has been approached from the relational perspective (Cooren, 2017, p. 142), which means that the agent is seen not only to “act for principals” but also “with and through” principals – and other actors. By adopting this view of organizational members as active agents functioning in relation to other actors, including their organizations, it becomes evident that individuals as organizational spokespersons may not only gain visibility and social capital for their organizations, but may also enhance their personal brand or role as a thought leader in the industry (Barry & Gironda, 2019). A thought leader is typically understood as a well-known industry expert who has an ability to exert significant influence over the decisions of others with their knowledge and communicative action (Barry & Gironda, 2019; Harvey et al., 2021). Thought leadership is based on a two-way process of communication that inspires thinking and learning (Young, 2013), and hence developing and disseminating knowledge are fundamental processes in generating thought leadership (Harvey et al., 2021). Prior empirical research in the field of communication management has identified practices and processes that relate to the management of communicative human resources and has demonstrated that these practices derive from the behavioral management tradition (Pekkala, 2020). In this research, we aim instead to shed light on the strategic orchestration of these communicative human resources by exploring how organizations are structured to enable spokesperson agency, particularly in the social media environment. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 3 Organizational listening Strategic communication scholars have recently emphasized that in addition to gaining visibility and using their voice, organizations should think much more about how they listen, namely pay attention to, interpret, and understand their stakeholders (Macnamara, 2013, 2016, 2018). This is particularly important for strategic alignment with the operating environment along with the multifaceted and constantly changing expectations, beliefs, and demands of different stakeholder groups (Vercic & Zerfass, 2016; Volk & Zerfass, 2018). Digitalization has further accelerated the pace of change in the operating environment and increased the role of employees in continuous listening and monitoring, making them active agents who contribute to the strategic alignment of the organization and influence its success (Macnamara, 2024). This type of organizational listening is considered an important organizational capability for enhancing operations and offerings (Macnamara, 2016, 2024), for creating stakeholder trust and engagement (Bannister & Connelly, 2014), especially in the social media environment (Gearhart & Maben, 2023; Stewart & Arnold, 2018), and also for combating misinformation (Clemente-Suarez et al., 2022). Organizational listening consists of “a combination of an employee’s listening skills and the environment in which the listening occurs” (Burnside Lawry, 2011, p.1). Particularly the skill of social listening, referring to “an active process of attending to, observing, interpreting, and responding to a variety of stimuli through mediated, electronic, and social channels” (Stewart and Arnold, 2018, p. 86), has become a prerequisite for a spokesperson to be able to interact in these arenas. “Without listening carefully to stakeholder needs, satisfying these needs and establishing a real conversation, organizations will not be able to attain the sought-after engagement that leads to a stable and lasting relationship with the public” (Navarro et al., 2018, p. 28). In his seminal work, Macnamara (2016), introduced the ‘organizational listening architecture’, describing key elements for managing listening professionally, including organizational culture, policies, systems and structure, as well as the resources, skills, technologies, and practices used by an organization to listen to its stakeholders and use this knowledge strategically to enhance its performance. Lewis (2020) defined strategic organizational listening broadly as “a set of methodologies and structures designed and utilized to ensure that an organization’s attention is directed toward vital information and input to enable learning, questioning of key assumptions, interrogating decisions, and ensuring self-critical analysis.” In general, earlier research focuses on defining the key elements, expectations and benefits of listening as well as definitions of organizational listening, but what is missing are practical case examples of how organizations manage their listening (Gearhart & Maben, 2023, Macnamara, 2016, 2024; Volk, 2023). One of the challenges involved in listening on social network sites relates to the sheer number of stakeholders and relevant networks, and hence the large amount of information available: “organizations are commonly expected to listen to thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people” (Macnamara, 2024, p. 79), which in practice means that organizations need to scale up their listening methods. To overcome this challenge, organizational listening can be delegated to a range of departments and teams (Macnamara, 2024, p. 48), highlighting the role of employees operating within organizational boundaries, such as acting as an organizational spokesperson on social media. The role of the spokespersons in strategic communication Organizational members are regarded as one of the most important strategic constituencies for corporate reputation because they interact with the company’s stakeholders daily (Kim & Rhee, 2011, p. 243). On the other hand, they can be a company’s strongest supporters – or most vocal critics if they are not engaged or are treated unfairly (Miles & Mangold, 2014). Through social media sites, CEOs, managers or employees in any position or function can communicate their workplace experiences to hundreds or even thousands of people outside the organization (Miles & Mangold, 2014). Traditionally, organizational spokespersons were visible leaders or public relations practitioners (Elsbach, 2003; Järventie-Thesleff et al., 2011; Pressgrove & Kim, 2022). Several researchers have particularly emphasized the CEO’s role as an organizational spokesperson, who personifies the 4K. PEKKALA AND T. ERKKILA organization, acts as the highest-level corporate spokesperson, and sets the tone for internal communication practice, thereby influencing employee attitudes, trust in leadership, and performance (Park & Berger, 2004; Zerfass & Viertmann, 2016). Digital communication technologies, particularly social media, have affected the way that individuals and organizations communicate. From an organizational point of view, the digitalization of the communication environment has allowed corporate communications to become a shared responsibility with many different actors, allowing organizations to communicate with many different voices simultaneously (Christensen & Cornelissen, 2011). Verhoeven and Madsen (2022) suggest that the strategic communication of organizational members toward external stakeholders could be characterized by eight functional roles. The first four roles – the embodier, promotor, defender, and relationship builder – describe ambassador, that is, spokesperson roles referring to employees using their voice on behalf of their organizations. The last four roles – scout, sensemaker, innovator, and critic – can be interpreted as describing employees’ roles in organizational listening and organizational development. Given these multiple roles, conventional structures designed to support the communication of only a single actor, such as the official spokesperson, do not work in today’s dynamic and complex operational environment, in which polyphony and dialogue are expected. Thus, the ongoing change in organizational representation requires new ways of organizing communicative roles and, as we argue in this article, new organizational voicing architectures that help organizations to orchestrate their communicative human resources. The role of spokespersons on social media Among the many definitions of social media, we follow Vaast (2020), who has defined social media as “web-based applications that enable their users to connect, communicate and exchange with multiple others beyond geographical or temporal distance and organizational boundaries” (Vaast, 2020, p. 1675). In line with this definition, we aim to highlight that social media is founded on the idea of user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) and provides multiple arenas for information sharing and interaction between organizations and their stakeholders (Watkins, 2017). Social media has become a valuable platform for organizations to share information and interact with stakeholders and the public (Rautiainen & Jokinen, 2022). Stakeholder engagement is important for organizations (e.g., de Oliveira Santini, 2020), and developing relationships through communication and interaction with stakeholders is a key objective of strategic communication (Zerfass et al., 2018). Traditionally, the communications department is responsible for managing social media presence and engagement (Valentini et al., 2012), posting content and eventually listening, which involves asking and answering questions online (Maben & Gearhart, 2018). But due to the multiple channels and discussion forums online, the ability of employees to communicate and interact independently on social media has become a critical area for strategic communication management. Therefore, it has been posited that the adoption of social media as a strategic communication platform has changed organizational voice mechanisms (Riemer, Stieglitz & Meske, 2015) and required organizations to adopt new processes and practices to enable and motivate employees to communicate on their behalf (Pekkala, 2020). It has been found that employees are increasingly aware of the opportunity to use their voice to share their views about their organization on social media (Cassinger & Thelander, 2020), and that some employees consider work-related social media communication as part of their work role (Pekkala & van Zoonen, 2023). Recent empirical studies have shown that individuals can cultivate relationships to build social capital on social media (Chen & Lee, 2022), and duly become corporate influencers who are able to shape their readers’ perceptions through parasocial interactions (Egbert & Rudeloff, 2023). On the other hand, empirical studies show that organizations differ in their maturity when it comes to including social media in their operations (Pekkala, 2020), and that employees may lack confidence in their competence to use social media professionally (Pekkala & van Zoonen, 2022). In the current media environment, organizations need INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 5 spokespersons with diverse skills and competences, ranging from digital content creation to the skill of listening (Macnamara, 2018; Pekkala, 2020). Method To explore how organizations orchestrate their communicative human resources in the age of social media, we conducted a case study (Yin, 2018) in two professional service firms operating in the financial sector in Finland. Our research approach is qualitative, and our aim is to generate first-hand insights into this novel phenomenon by conducting semi-structured interviews with managers responsible for spokesperson strategy, and by observing organizational spokespersons in the respective organizations. Through the case-study design, we were able to conduct an in-depth and contextsensitive interpretive analysis (Welch et al., 2011; Yin, 2018) of the spokesperson strategies and organizational voicing architectures in use. Both case organizations operate in the financial sector in Finland and provide financial services to both private and corporate customers. It is widely acknowledged that trust plays an important role in the financial sector. Prior literature suggests that consumers’ need for trust arises in the financial services sector as they seldom have full knowledge about the products and services available to them. Hence, “for a customer to accept vulnerability, they must be confident that the product provider has the expertise to deliver what is promised” (Ennew et al., 2011, p. 68). Relatedly, the financial sector is typically a relatively regulated field, and operations in this field (including corporate communication and public relations activities) are regulated in Finland, for example, by national and EU-level institutions such the Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA). Selecting case organizations that operate in a regulated field was considered particularly interesting because social media as a communicative context is found to challenge strategic communication by increasing polyphony and decreasing the opportunities to control the communicative acts of individual members of an organization. Both case organizations are relatively large in size and employ thousands of employees that are dispersed in local offices in many locations in Finland. They have both been present in social media environments for more than a decade and have used social media as a platform to communicate with their stakeholders, building their brands, managing their reputation, and listening to online discussions concerning the company, field of industry, or public service. Data and analytical process Since our objective was to shed light on media spokesperson strategies in use and to explore how organizations have strategically organized stakeholder engagement with their communicative human resources, the primary empirical data consists of recorded semi-structured interviews with communications and human resource managers (N = 10). In both case companies, we interviewed communications and HR executives and managers involved in the strategic orchestration of employees’ social media communication. In addition to the interview data, we familiarized ourselves with further data such as the companies’ social media policies and publicly available information on their websites (e.g., corporate blogs and press releases) and in social media (e.g., social media posts and shared content). A common characteristic of all interviewees was their managerial position related to spokesperson strategy and employee communication programs in the case organizations. In this respect, we applied purposeful sampling (Patton, 2002). The interviews lasted between 45 and 120 minutes and were conducted face-to-face by the first author between April 2019 and June 2020. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The analysis started by reading the interview transcripts and identifying the parts that were linked to organizing spokespersons and their communicative activities. Following the first reading, open coding using Atlas.ti software was conducted. In the second phase, we examined similarities and interrelations between the open codes with the aim of identifying patterns, insights and conceptual 6K. PEKKALA AND T. ERKKILA categories within the data. After identifying the conceptual categories in the interview data, we realized that we were dealing with organized structures that reveal how spokespersons in the case organizations are orchestrated. Hence, we went back to the communication management literature and iteratively compared our findings with the extant literature on structures and architectures (Macnamara, 2013, 2016). Descriptions of the case organizations and the findings of our analysis are provided in the following sections. Case organizations The first organization, referred to here as Alpha, operates in the financial sector in Finland and employs approximately 3,000 people. The company’s operations are spread across regional areas in Finland and serve both private and corporate customers. One of the organization’s strategic priorities is to establish a culture where every member of the organization feels that they are authorized and able to represent their organization in the digital media environment, and to interact with customers and other stakeholders. To this end, Alpha had recently defined a new spokesperson strategy, which it had invested in implementing by training its employees, for example. The second case organization, Beta, also operates in the financial sector in Finland and employs approximately 12,000 employees. Beta’s operations are likewise distributed across regional areas in Finland, serving both private and corporate customers. Beta has also systemically developed its employees’ capabilities to act as organizational spokespersons and has continuously developed its strategic communication management model to respond to the changing needs of the increasingly digital and social communication environment. Findings This section introduces the findings of the study. It begins by explaining how the case organizations had involved employees as spokespersons in their strategy work and how the interviewees described the process. It then outlines the different voicing architecture designs and describes in more detail how case organizations Alpha and Beta designed their voicing architecture. Objectives and strategy in defining a voicing architecture Both case organizations had organized their communicative human resources to orchestrate the support, activities, and competence development for different spokesperson groups. Hence, they had created an organizational structure specifically for strategic communication management purposes, for example by providing guidance related to different roles and the development of related capabilities. Accordingly, this organizational voicing architecture, as we call it in this article, defined the strategic organization of how the different individual members of staff were encouraged and equipped to represent the organization to external stakeholders. The case organizations used to have traditional, dedicated media spokespersons (e.g., the CEO and specific industry professionals such as economists) who served the news media and gave the organization a voice in different situations related to organizational achievements, changes, and crises. However, the interviews in both case organizations showed that social media and its affordances had required the organizations to rethink their spokesperson architecture and to formulate a strategy and design a structure that included the whole personnel instead of just the dominant coalition and specific experts. Furthermore, the spokesperson role was no longer seen as being a transmitter of the organizational voice in situations of change, achievement, or crisis. Instead, spokespersons and their individual experiences and expertise were seen to create a competitive advantage through thought leadership, a positive employer brand, and the creation and maintenance of stakeholder relationships. In the following sections, we report on how these organizational voicing architectures, and their emergence, was described by the interviewees from the case organizations. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 7 Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). ORCID Kaisa Pekkala http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8431-8985 References Andersson, R. (2019). Employee communication responsibility: Its antecedents and implications for strategic communication management. 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