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Concept
Internal communications
Summary
Internal communications (IC) is the function responsible for effective communications among participants within an organization. The scope of the function varies by organization and practitioner, from producing and delivering messages and campaigns on behalf of management, to facilitating two-way dialogue and developing the communication skills of the organization's participants.
Internal communication is meant by a group of processes that are responsible for effective
information circulation and collaboration between the participants in an organization.
Modern understanding of internal communications is a field of its own and draws on the theory and practice of related professions, not least journalism, knowledge management, public relations (e.g., media relations), marketing and human resources, as well as wider organizational studies, communication theory, social psychology, sociology and political science.
Large organizations have a long history of promoting pride and a sense of unity among the employees of the company, evidenced in the cultural productions of Victorian-era soap manufacturers as far apart as the UK's Lever Brothers and the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, New York.
Internal communications is fundamentally a management discipline, but as a discrete discipline of organizational theory it is relatively young. Stanford associate professor Alex Heron's Sharing Information with Employees (1943) is an outlier among texts which focus solely on the factors involved. During the 1970s the subject attracted more attention in academic circles but it is only since around 2000 that employee communications has really attracted attention to a significant degree among scholars.
Writing in 2013, Ruck and Yaxley explore how the discipline evolved from the days of employee publications in the late 19th century. As organizations became more complex, the impetus to communicate with employees grew and led to the emergence of an increasingly specialised discipline.
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