Organizational structure and internal communication as antecedents of employee-organization relationships in the context of organizational justice : a multilevel analysis

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

One research direction that is needed but has not been fully exploited in studies of organization-public relationships is research on the antecedents of relationships. The antecedents of relationships are the first stage of the relationship framework, for they are what cause specific relationships between an organization and its publics to develop.
The purpose of this study was to explore possible antecedents of internal relationships in organizations. I examined the direct and indirect influences of organizational structure and internal communication on employee-organization relationships using organizational justice as a mediating factor. Organizational justice is a relatively recently developed but widely used concept in organizational studies that refers to the extent to which people perceive organizational events as being fair.
This study was a typical example of multilevel research in that it gathered and summarized individual-level data to operationalize organizational-level constructs such as organizational structure and internal communication. The multilevel nature of the main constructs of this study was addressed by using the multilevel analysis method.
Data were collected by conducting a survey of about 1,200 employees in 31 Korean organizations. I used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), which is a type of random coefficient model and is specifically designed to accommodate nested or multilevel data structure, to test the cross-level hypotheses of this study.
The findings suggested that organizational structure and the system of internal communication were associated with employee-organization relationships, playing the role of antecedents of internal relationships. More specifically, asymmetrical communication was negatively related to employees’ commitment, trust, and satisfaction. Also it was shown that symmetrical communication was associated positively with communal relationships. Lastly, organic structure was negatively related to exchange relationships and positively related to trust and control mutuality.
On the other hand, organizational justice was associated with organizational structure and internal communication as well as with employee-organization relationships. Organizational justice also mediated the effects of symmetrical communication and organizational structure on communal relationships and four relationship outcomes (control mutuality, trust, commitment, and satisfaction), implying that symmetrical communication and organic structure can contribute to building quality relationships when they are combined with fair behavior by management

목차 (Table of Contents)

• ABSTRACT
• TABLE OF CONTENTS = iv
• LIST OF TABLES = viii
• LIST OF FIGURES = x
• CHAPTER I PURPOSE AND INTRODUCTION = 1
• Overview = 1
• Theoretical and Methodological Problems in Public Relations Research = 2
• Theoretical Framework of the Study = 5
• Relationship Management Theory = 6
• Organizational Structure and Internal Communication = 7
• Organizational Justice = 8
• Delimitations = 10
• Methodology and Ethical Considerations = 11
• Significance of the Study = 11
• CHAPTER II CONCEPTUALIZATION = 13
• The Relationship Management Perspective in Public Relations = 15
• The Definition of Organizational-Public Relationships (OPR) = 17
• Types of Relationships = 20
• Relationship Constructs = 26
• Antecedents of Relationships = 27
• Relationship Cultivation Strategies = 30
• Relationship Outcomes = 34
• Organizational Structure and Internal Communication = 35
• Organizational Structure = 36
• Dimensions of Organizational Structure = 37
• Public Relations Perspective on Structure = 42
• Internal Communication = 45
• History and definitions of internal communication = 46
• Dimensions of Internal Communication = 49
• Public Relations Perspective on Internal Communication = 55
• Organizational Structure and Internal Communication = 57
• Organizational Justice = 60
• Types of Organizational Justice = 60
• Distributive Justice = 60
• Procedural Justice = 62
• Interactional Justice = 64
• Interactional Justice vs. Procedural Justice = 65
• Three Major Issues in Organizational Justice Research = 66
• Organizational Justice as a Relationship Mediator = 67
• Justice and Relationship Types = 67
• Justice in the Organizational Context = 68
• Organizational structure and organizational justice = 68
• Internal communication and organizational justice = 70
• Justice and Relationship Outcomes = 72
• Organizational Structure/Internal Communication and Relationship Dimensions: A Direct Influence? = 74
• Summary = 78
• Initial Conceptual Model = 81
• CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY = 82
• Survey Research = 82
• What Is a Survey? = 82
• Strengths of Survey Research = 83
• Weaknesses of Survey Research = 84
• Multilevel Analysis = 85
• Why Is a Multilevel Analysis Necessary? = 85
• Issues in Multilevel Research = 86
• The Level of Theory = 87
• The Level of Measurement = 90
• The Level of Statistical Analysis = 94
• Research Design = 97
• Sampling = 97
• Measures = 99
• Organizational Structure and Internal Communication = 99
• Organizational structure items = 100
• Internal communication items = 101
• Organizational Justice = 102
• Organizational vs. supervisory justice = 102
• Measurement items of multifoci justice = 104
• Supervisory-focused justice items = 105
• Organizational-focused justice items = 105
• Relationship Types and Outcomes = 106
• Relationship type items = 107
• Relationship outcome items = 107
• Survey Wording = 109
• Translation = 110
• Pretest = 110
• Data Collection Procedure = 110
• Data Analysis = 111
• Justifying Data Aggregation = 112
• Multicollinearity Test = 113
• Tests of Hypotheses = 113
• Correlation and regression tests = 113
• HLM test = 113
• Mediation test = 114
• Ethical Considerations = 114
• CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSION = 117
• Descriptions of Samples = 117
• Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis and Reliability Test = 125
• Internal Communication = 126
• Structure = 130
• Justice = 134
• Relationship Types = 138
• Relationship Outcomes = 138
• Justifying Aggregation of Organizational-Level Variables = 145
• Within-Group Interrater Agreement (rwg) = 145
• Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICCs) = 147
• Descriptive Statistics = 150
• Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations among Independent Variables = 150
• Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Among Dependent Variables = 154
• Multicollinearity Test = 158
• Testing Hypotheses = 161
• Test of Hypothesis 1 = 161
• Summary = 164
• The Logic and Procedures of HLM Data Analysis = 164
• Null Model = 167
• Random-Coefficient Regression Model = 169
• Intercepts-as-Outcomes Model = 171
• Slopes-as-Outcomes Model = 172
• Centering = 173
• Control Variables = 176
• Test of Hypotheses 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7s = 177
• Null Model Tests to Calculate ICCs = 181
• Test of Hypotheses 3 and 4 = 183
• Random-coefficient regression models = 183
• Intercepts-as-outcomes models = 185
• Summary = 189
• Test of Hypotheses 2 and 5 and subhypotheses 7s = 190
• Random-coefficient regression models = 190
• Summary = 196
• Intercepts-as-outcomes models = 197
• Summary = 205
• Test of Subhypotheses 6s = 206
• Summary = 216
• CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS = 218
• Summary of Results = 218
• Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis and Reliability Test = 218
• Justifying Data Aggregation = 220
• Multicollinearity = 220
• Descriptive Statistics = 221
• Organizational Structure and Internal Communication = 221
• Justice and Relationships = 222
• Testing Hypotheses = 223
• To What Extent is Organizational Structure Related to Internal Communication? = 224
• To What Extent are Organizational Structure and Internal Communication Related to Organizational Justice?.224To What Extent is Organizational Justice Related to Employee-Organization Relationships? = 226
• To What Extent are Organizational Structure and Internal Communication Associated with Employee-Organization Relationships? = 229
• Does Organizational Justice Mediate the Associations between Structure/Communication and Employee-Organization Relationships? = 230
• Implications for Public Relations Theory = 232
• Employee Relations = 232
• Antecedents of Relationships = 233
• The Associations between Structure/Internal Communication = 234
• Integration of Organizational Justice Theory into Public Relations Research = 236
• The Impact of Korean Context = 237
• Implications for Public Relations Practice = 239
• Conditions for Positive Employee Relationships = 239
• Strategies to Build Positive Employee Relationships = 241
• Implications for Justice Theory = 241
• Sources of Fairness = 243
• Justice and Relationship Research = 243
• Antecedents and Outcomes of Justice = 244
• Implications for Public Relations Research Methodology = 245
• Limitations of This Study = 246
• Directions for Future Research = 247
• APPENDIX A Questionnaire A = 250
• APPENDIX B Questionnaire B = 254
• APPENDIX C 설문지 A = 260
• APPENDIX D 설문지 B = 264
• References = 270