Journal of Public Relations Research

ISSN: 1062-726X (Print) 1532-754X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hprr20

Employee communication, job engagement, and

organizational commitment: A study of members
of the Millennial Generation

Justin Walden, Eun Hwa Jung & Catherine Y. K. Westerman

To cite this article: Justin Walden, Eun Hwa Jung & Catherine Y. K. Westerman (2017):
Employee communication, job engagement, and organizational commitment: A study
of members of the Millennial Generation, Journal of Public Relations Research, DOI:
10.1080/1062726X.2017.1329737

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2017.1329737

Published online: 01 Jun 2017.

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JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH
https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2017.1329737

Employee communication, job engagement, and organizational

commitment: A study of members of the Millennial Generation
Justin Waldena, Eun Hwa Jung b
, and Catherine Y. K. Westerman a

a
Department of Communication, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota, USA; bDepartment of
Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore, Singapore

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between job Received 21 December 2015
engagement and two key components of employee-organization relation- Revised 1 May 2017
ships (EOR). Findings from a survey of members of the Millennial Generation Accepted 9 May 2017
(N = 539) in the United States indicate that job engagement mediates the
KEYWORDS
relationship between employee communication and organizational com- Employee communication;
mitment. It is concluded that when employees are engaged in their work, employee-organization
their commitment to the organization is strengthened and the likelihood of relationships; job
them leaving the organization decreases. Furthermore, an argument is engagement; model testing;
made in light of the study’s findings that engagement and commitment organizational commitment
work in concert to strengthen EORs overall. To foster engagement, organi-
zations should remove obstacles to internal information flow and provide
ongoing feedback to employees about individual and organizational issues.

Employees are a crucial stakeholder group for organizations to develop and maintain positive
relationships with, given their job roles within organizations and their ability to shape how outsiders
view firms (Grunig, 1992; Jo & Shim, 2005; Kim & Rhee, 2011). In recognizing employees’ strategic
importance, many organizations create systematic communication programs involving frontline
managers, executives, and corporate communication teams for the express purpose of keeping
employees apprised of organizationwide issues and individual-level matters (Rhee & Moon, 2009;
Welch & Jackson, 2007). When organizations provide information about individual job roles and the
organization’s broader operations to employees, employees are likely to work hard (Mishra,
Boynton, & Mishra, 2014), advocate for the organization to others (Kim & Rhee, 2011), and
maintain a strong overall relationship with the organization (Welch & Jackson, 2007). Against this
backdrop, employee communication1 is recognized as a subarea of public relations practice that is
important for shaping employee-organization relationships (EOR) and for enhancing workplace
productivity (Grunig, 1992; Men, 2014).
Two crucial outcomes may emerge in response to organizations’ relationship cultivation efforts
with employees: job engagement (Ruck & Welch, 2012; Saks, 2006) and employee commitment to
their employing organization (Mishra et al., 2014; Ni, 2007). A focal point in a significant body of
organizational psychology research (for a review of this literature, please see Schaufeli, 2013), work
engagement (and the related term that this study uses, job engagement) is best understood as a
positive and fulfilling state of mind characterized by dedication, vigor, and absorption at work
(Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004; Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006). This engagement is about becoming
engrossed in work and feeling invigorated by the task at hand (Schaufeli et al., 2006). Although
commitment (along with trust, control mutuality, and satisfaction) is one of the frequently cited

CONTACT Justin Walden justin.walden@ndsu.edu Department of Communication, North Dakota State University, Minard
338-D6, Fargo, ND 58108.
1
This study uses employee communication to discuss organizational communication with employees. Other scholars (cf Broom &
Sha, 2013) have used internal communication to describe this activity.
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
2 J. WALDEN ET AL.

indicators of perceived EOR quality in public relations (see for example Kim, 2007; Kim & Rhee,
2011; and Men, 2014), a review of the literature suggests engagement’s role in EORs is relatively
underexplored. This is an oversight, as research has demonstrated that job engagement is a predictor
of longer-term organizational commitment (Saks, 2006). To understand what may drive organiza-
tional commitment, it is thus crucial to examine job/employee engagement (Schaufeli, 2013).
This study’s contributions are twofold. Notably, we develop and test a model in which job
engagement mediates the relationship between employee communication and organizational com-
mitment (Figure 1). Although multiple scholars (including Gill, 2015; Ruck & Welch, 2012; and
Welch, 2011) have argued that strategic employee communication should promote organizational
commitment and engagement with employees, the literature has yielded little empirical evidence of
how this actually occurs. A second contribution of this study is that it explores these issues through a
survey of members of the Millennial Generation in the United States. Millennials recently surpassed
baby boomers as the largest living generation in the United States, with 75 million members (Fry,
2016). Born between 1982 and 2004 (Hoover, 2009), Millennials are at the early-to-mid points of
their careers. Because of their career stage and the generation’s growing influence, ongoing relation-
ship cultivation with Millennials is a major contemporary business concern (Howe, 2014). From a
theory-building perspective, examining Millennials’ workplace communication needs can advance
the understanding of what shapes EORs and the long-term implications of organizations’ relation-
ship maintenance efforts with employees.

Literature review
This study is guided by relationship management theory (Ledingham, 2003, 2006) and the focus in
the public relations literature on EORs (Jo & Shim, 2005; Kim, 2007; Kim & Rhee, 2011; Men, 2014;
Shen, 2011). Relationships consist of antecedents to relationship formation (such as social and
cultural norms), relationship cultivation strategies and communication, and relationship outcomes
(Broom, Casey, & Ritchey, 1997). In this light, relationships are the dynamic results of exchanges
between an organization and the various internal and external-facing groups that depend on the
organization (Broom et al., 1997; Ledingham, 2003). This applies to internal audiences and EOR
management, where organizations actively cultivate relationships with employees and seek to main-
tain these relationships over time (Jo & Shim, 2005). This relational perspective with employees
relates to the classic view on symmetrical communication within organizations. When organizations
use employee-centered communication strategies and foster an internal climate built upon

Figure 1. Hypothesized model.

 JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH 3

cooperation with employees, they are likely to establish open, trusting, and credible relationships
with employees (Grunig, 1992; Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier, 2002).
Research suggests that organizations’ attempts to cultivate relationships with employees are
related to employee perceptions of EOR quality. For example, symmetrical communication with
employees positively predicts employee views on the quality of the EOR (Kim & Rhee, 2011; Men,
2014; Men & Jiang, 2016). Additionally, transformational leadership style is positively associated
with employee perceptions of the EOR (Jiang, 2012; Men, 2014). This study examines information
flow and interaction supportiveness (which involve employees’ perceptions of the climate of com-
munication within organizations) and information adequacy (which considers employee views of the
content of communication about personal and organizational issues) as elements of employee
communication and predictors of relationship management outcomes.2 One way to advance rela-
tionship management theory with respect to EORs is to investigate job engagement as a potential
relationship outcome. Literature reviews by Ruck and Welch (2012), Welch (2011), and Welch and
Jackson (2007) concluded that when organizations carry out strategic employee communication,
employee engagement should be a logical result. However, despite recent empirical examinations of
the engagement construct by Mishra et al. (2014) and Karanges, Johnston, Beatson, and Lings (2015),
engagement has not been fully integrated into the EOR framework. In an effort to advance theory,
we integrate job engagement as a specific form of employee engagement into this framework.

Employee communication and job engagement

Our review of the literature suggests that the concept of employee engagement began to take root as
a subject of significant scholarly inquiry with an oft-cited study by Kahn (1990), who defined
personal engagement as the expression of one’s self through task-related behaviors that promote
connections to work. However, since Kahn articulated this definition, employee engagement has
been subject to debate about what it truly entails (Macey & Schneider, 2008; Saks, 2006). The
question is whether engagement with one’s job is distinct from other concepts, such as organiza-
tional commitment and satisfaction, and what precisely employees engage with at work. It is
important to keep in mind that “feeling committed to an organization is different from feeling
engaged to the actions performed in it ” (Vecina, Chacón, Marzana, & Marta, 2013, p. 293). Research
has found support for a distinction between job engagement (which is the focus of this study) and
organization engagement, which is a form of organizational commitment (Saks, 2006). In this study,
we use the term job engagement to differentiate the concept from organization engagement/
commitment.
Job engagement involves one’s work role and a task orientation (Saks, 2006; Vecina et al., 2013).
As a psychological state, job engagement is something that employees feel (akin to flow and being
carried away at work) and it captures how individuals devote themselves to the performance of their
job (Saks, 2006). In contrast, organizational commitment is an emotional attachment to the
organization that involves considerations about the cost of leaving the organization and a sense of
obligation to the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Longitudinal research has shown that the more
employees are absorbed in their work and dedicated to their jobs, the more likely they are to
maintain relationships with their employer (and thus demonstrate organizational commitment) over
time (Hakanen, Schaufeli, & Ahola, 2008). Although job engagement and organizational commit-
ment have some similarities, they are distinct from each other.

2
We acknowledge that information adequacy, interaction supportiveness, and information flow have some conceptual overlap
with other employee communication constructs. However, as Ruck and Welch (2012) and Rhee and Moon (2009) pointed out, a
limitation in the EOR literature has been a focus on the process of communication, but the content of communication has been
overlooked. In their entirety, information adequacy, interaction supportiveness, and information flow address the core elements
of employee communication (with their emphasis on communication processes/climate and messages) as means of establishing
open and credible relationships with employees (Rhee & Moon, 2009).
4 J. WALDEN ET AL.

In essence, job engagement consists of involvement with tasks, enthusiasm for tasks, and
motivation to work. More specifically, engagement has three components: vigor, dedication, and
absorption (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004; Schaufeli et al., 2006). Vigor involves high levels of energy and
mental resilience at work, a willingness to invest effort in one’s work, and persistence in the face of
difficulties (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Dedication “is characterized by a sense of significance,
enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge” (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 295). Absorption occurs
when someone is fully concentrated and happily engrossed in their work, which causes time to pass
quickly (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Engagement is a persistent and pervasive psychological state that
is distinct from other constructs, such as organizational commitment (Saks, 2006; Schaufeli et al.,
2006). For this study, job engagement is defined as a state of immersion in work such that employees
demonstrate enthusiasm for completing individual tasks while maintaining a deeply felt connection
to their job role.
When employees receive support and resources from their organization, they feel obliged to repay
the organization by bringing themselves more deeply into their role performances (Kahn, 1990; Saks,
2006). With this support, employees are able to immerse themselves in their day-to-day activities and
feel a sense of belonging to the organization (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Employees experience work
and job-related engagement when they believe their organization and supervisors support them
(Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). To engender the behaviors associated with engagement, organizations
should fulfill six requirements, according to Ruck and Welch (2012): clarifying the employee’s role in
the organization, helping the employee to identify with the organization, ensuring employees feel
they have organizational support, providing information that helps employees to understand corpo-
rate goals and strategy, giving employees voice (i.e., listening to them), and providing performance
feedback.
When communicating with employees, organizations may want to specifically consider informa-
tion flow, information adequacy, and interaction supportiveness (Rhee & Moon, 2009) as commu-
nication factors that are likely to contribute to job engagement. Collectively, these variables address
the common layers of communication within organizations (organization to employee and manger
to employee), and they evaluate how employees perceive the accessibility of task and relevant
information about the organization (Rhee & Moon, 2009). Information flow is defined as the
open exchange of ideas, issues, and opinions via vertical and horizontal channels of an organization
(Robertson, 2005). Information adequacy is defined as the degree to which employees believe they
are receiving the amount of information that is necessary to do their jobs in the short-term, and to
make long-term decisions about their employment (Rawlins, 2009; Smidts, Pruyn, & Van Riel, 2001).
Interaction supportiveness is defined as the level of support that one party believes they have from
another party in a relationship (Rhee & Moon, 2009). Information flow and information adequacy
center on the organizational climate and process of delivering messages to employees (Robertson,
2005), whereas interaction supportiveness addresses the content of communication in organizations
(Rhee & Moon, 2009).
To generate a specific understanding of how generational membership might impact the EOR at
the start to mid-point of one’s career, this study explores how strategic employee communication
shapes Millennial Generation members’ views on the strength of the relationship with their
employer. This is relevant to theory because both age and tenure with an organization may predict
organizational commitment, particularly affective commitment (Beck & Wilson, 2000; Meyer &
Allen, 1997; Ng & Feldman, 2011). It stands to reason that employees’ relationship with their
employer may evolve over time and with age. Yet public relations scholars have not fully investigated
generational demographics and psychographics as factors in EORs (Derville Gallicano, Curtin, &
Matthews, 2012).
Millennials, as a generation, are defined by their expectation that all information should be shared
with them, regardless of their position in the organization (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010). Members of
this generation often desire frequent feedback from peers and mentors (Hartman & McCambridge,
2011; Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010). To these points, it would appear that Millennials may endorse the
 JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH 5

ideas that have been suggested by Rawlins (2009) and Robertson (2005) regarding information flow
in organizations: organizations should facilitate the free exchange of ideas and information at work.
It is expected that Millennials will display signs of engagement when they experience a good quality
of information flow at work. This leads to the study’s first hypothesis:

H1: Information-flow quality will be positively related to job engagement.

Additionally, information adequacy involves providing a suitable amount of communication to

employees on relevant topics so that they can perform well at work (Robertson, 2005). This
perspective extends to Smidts et al. (2001), who held that organizational communication with
employees consists of providing information about the organization and the individual employee.
For Millennials, completing one’s daily work requires frequent updates on personal and individual
issues from supervisors (Hartman & McCambridge, 2011). Thus Millennials’ preference for open
communication suggests a desire to regularly receive information about the organization’s accom-
plishments, the organization’s goals, and how their individual work is being assessed by the
organization. It would appear that Millennials who work for organizations in which information is
abundantly available should be more engaged:

H2: Information adequacy will be positively related to job engagement.

The last element of employee communication—interaction supportiveness—involves the shared

perceptions of how people support each other through openness, displays of empathy, and other
behaviors (Rhee & Moon, 2009). This support should help employees feel affirmed, appreciated, and
valued (Robertson, 2005). Interaction supportiveness may prove relevant to Millennials, given their
preference for participative workplace communication and their need to be recognized and respected
by their peers (Gursoy, Maier, & Chi, 2008). In addition to receiving a regular amount of informa-
tion about the organization, members of this generation strongly value support from their super-
visors (Chou, 2012). It is thus proposed that Millennial employees who feel supported at work will be
engaged at work:

H3: The level of perceived interaction support at work will be positively related to job engagement.

In summary, information adequacy, information flow, and interaction supportiveness address the
commonly discussed tiers of communication within organizations and they represent the content
and organizational context of employee communication. This communication should be highly
relevant to Millennials, as we expect them to be engaged with their work if they perceive that
their organization is supporting them and actively communicating with them.

Employee communication and organizational commitment

As noted earlier, job engagement is a psychological state of immersion in work tasks and role
performance in the workplace. Organizational commitment differs from engagement as it refers to a
person’s attitude and attachment toward their organization, whereas engagement is focused on
absorption in work (Saks, 2006). Two models of work engagement (Bakker, 2011; Saks, 2006)
have posited that for job engagement to develop among employees, organizations need to support
and provide information resources to employees. In this context, job engagement is an outcome of
organizations’ attempts to cultivate positive relationships with employees. Similarly, research around
EORs suggests that providing specific information to employees about their standing within the
organization and individual task feedback can have favorable relational outcomes (Karanges et al.,
2015; Kim, 2007; Rhee & Moon, 2009). In particular, commitment is an important outcome of
organizations’ relationship cultivation strategies (Ni, 2007). Organizational commitment can be
6 J. WALDEN ET AL.

defined as the extent to which each party believes that the relationship is worth spending energy to
maintain and promote (Hon & Grunig, 1999). From the employee’s perspective, commitment is both
an enduring desire to remain connected to the organization in the long-term and a positive
emotional orientation to their employer (Ni, 2007). Employees who receive support from their
organization feel compelled to bring themselves into their work performance; this, in turn, helps
them feel committed to the organization (Mishra et al., 2014; Saks, 2006). One’s work experiences
contribute to the desire to maintain one’s relationship with an organization (Meyer & Allen, 1991).
That is, commitment develops as a result of experiences that are compatible with employee values
and that satisfy employee needs in the workplace (Meyer & Allen, 1991).
The relationship between workplace communication with Millennials and organizational com-
mitment warrants attention by scholars. Millennials typically seek support from their managers and
prefer open, unobstructed access to information about the organization’s direction (Myers &
Sadaghiani, 2010). Industry research has found that, compared to other generations, Millennials
are less risk-averse and more inclined to seek job stability (Howe, 2014). Open communication
strengthens employees’ commitment to their organization and helps reduce the likelihood that they
will look for new employment opportunities outside of the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1997). This
should be particularly relevant to early career workers such as those in the Millennial Generation. In
meeting the communication needs of Millennials, organizations are likely to improve how members
of this generation view their relationship with their employers. This informs the study’s next three
hypotheses with respect to Millennials:

H4: Information-flow quality will be positively related to employee perceptions of commitment to

their organization.

H5: Information adequacy will be positively related to employee perceptions of commitment to

their organization.

H6: The level of perceived support at work will be positively related to employee perceptions of
commitment to their organization.

Scholars have found evidence that task- and role-focused engagement predicts organizational
commitment among both employees (Brunetto, Teo, Shacklock, & Farr-Wharton, 2012) and volun-
teers (Vecina, Chacón, Sueiro, & Barrón, 2011). Additionally, Bakker’s (2011) model of work
engagement held that communication and support influences employee engagement. These job
engagement issues appear particularly relevant to Millennials, given their workplace communication
preferences. This informs the study’s final hypothesis:

H7: Employees’ level of job engagement will mediate the relationship between perceived quality of
employee communication and organizational commitment.

Based on the hypotheses presented, Figure 1 advances the predicted outcomes. As the figure
indicates, it was expected that employee communication would have a positive effect on perceptions
of organizational commitment via job engagement.

Method
This study tested a model in which job engagement mediated the relationship between three
facets of employee communication and organizational commitment. To evaluate this model, we
collected data from US-based Millennials via an online survey. Participants were recruited
through the research firm Qualtrics in two waves in January and February 2015. Qualtrics was
used because the firm offers access to a large participant pool in a cost-effective manner, allows
 JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH 7

for ease of survey customization, and provides access to a focused and externally valid sample
(Brandon, Long, Loraas, Mueller-Phillips, & Vansant, 2014). A link to the online survey was
e-mailed to a nationally representative subset of Qualtrics’ 4.2 million panel members. As part of
their survey panel program, Qualtrics provided a small amount of compensation to respondents.
Some may view the recruitment techniques via an online survey panel as questionable. However,
we anticipated this concern and included two test questions to ensure that participants were
paying attention during the survey and answering properly. Twenty participants who appeared to
not take the survey seriously (as evidenced by gibberish or inappropriate responses) were
dropped from analysis.

Participants
For inclusion in this study, participants were required to be (a) part of the Millennial
Generation and (b) employed either full- or part-time. Millennials were defined as those
who were born between 1982 and 2004 (Hoover, 2009). At the start of the survey, participants
were asked to indicate the year in which they were born; if they were born before 1982 or after
2004, they were screened out of the study. Forty-four hundred people received a link to the
survey and 539 participated in the study, for a response rate of 12.3% (Table 1). The
participants included 348 women (64.6%), 189 men (35.1%), and two participants (less than
1%) who answered neither to the question about gender identification. The mean age of the
sample was 24.9 years, with a range of 19 to 32 years old. The median age for respondents was
25 years old. A majority of the participants were Caucasian (67.5%, n = 364), followed by
African American (12.1%, n = 65), Hispanic (10.2%, n = 55), Asian (7.1%, n = 38), and other
(3.2%, n = 17). Most of the participants were hourly employees (61.6%, n = 332), followed by
salaried employees (33.2%, n = 179), and those who were primarily compensated via commis-
sion (5.2%, n = 28). Respondents were also asked to report (yes/no) whether they were a
manager, and there were far more nonmanagers (81.4%, n = 439) than managers (18.6%,
n = 100).

Table 1. Summary of demographic information (N = 539).

Demographics n (%)
Gender Male 189 (35.1%)
Female 348 (64.6%)
Neither 2 (0.4%)
Ethnicity Caucasian 364 (67.5%)
African American 65 (12.1%)
Hispanic 55 (10.2%)
Asian 38 (7.1%)
Pacific Islander 3 (0.6%)
Other 14 (2.6)
Education High school 87 (16.1%)
Some college 165 (30.6%)
Undergraduate 173 (32.1%)
Graduate 54 (10.0%)
Master’s or comparable 50 (9.3%)
Doctorate or comparable 10 (1.9%)
Compensation at work Salary 179 (33.2%)
Hourly wage 332 (61.6%)
Commission 28 (5.2%)
Manager/nonmanager Manager 100 (18.6%)
Nonmanager 439 (81.4)
8 J. WALDEN ET AL.

Table 2. Survey measures.

Concept Measures
Information flow1 Information in our organization flows openly from the top of the organization downwards.
Information in our organization flows openly to the top of the organization.
Information in our organization flows openly between workgroups/departments.
Information in our organization flows openly throughout the overall organization.
Information adequacy1 Employees like me receive adequate information how we are being judged from the organization.
Employees like me receive adequate job performance information from the organization.
Employees like me receive adequate information about employee welfare from our organization.
Employees like me receive adequate information about our progress in our job from the
organization.
Employees like me receive adequate information about the goals of the organization.
Employees like me receive adequate information about changes within our organization.
Employees like me receive adequate information about policy within the organization.
Employees like me receive adequate information about accomplishments of the organization.
Employees like me receive adequate information how organization profits and standing.
Interaction supportiveness1 My manager clarifies meaning.
My manager checks my work for accuracy.
My manager manages employees’ conflict.
My manager gives employees like me clear instructions.
My manager actively listens to employees like me.
My manager empathetically listens to employees like me.
Employees like me feel familiar to my manager.
My manager listens carefully opinions of employees like me.
Job engagement2 At my work, I feel bursting with energy.
At my job, I feel strong and vigorous.
I am enthusiastic about my job.
My job inspires me.
When I get up in the morning, I feel like going to work.
I feel happy when I am working intensely.
I am proud of the work that I do.
I am immersed in my work.
I get carried away when I am working.
Organizational I have a long-lasting bond with the organization I work for.
commitment3 Compared to other potential employers, I value my relationship with the organization I work for
more.
I would rather work together with this organization than not.
I feel that the organization I work for is trying to maintain a long-term commitment to me.
I can see that the organization I work for wants to maintain a relationship with me.
Note. 1Adapted from Rhee and Moon (2009).
2
Adapted from Schaufeli et al. (2006).
3
Adapted from Derville Gallicano et al. (2012); Hon and Grunig (1999).

Measures
The participants began the study by responding to two screening questions (age and employment
status). Following those questions, participants responded to measures of employee communication
(information flow, information adequacy, interaction supportiveness), employee engagement, and
organizational commitment (Table 2). All reliabilities are reported in Table 3.3

Employee communication
Employee communication was measured using 21 items that assessed three subdimensions (information
flow, information adequacy, and interaction supportiveness) on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from
strongly disagree to strongly agree (see Rhee & Moon, 2009). The scale ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to
5 (strongly agree). The items were slightly modified to fit the context of this study.
Information flow was measured with four items, such as “Information in our organization flows
openly throughout the overall organization” (α = .87). Information adequacy was measured with nine
items, such as “Employees like me receive adequate information about employee welfare from our
3
The alpha values reported are the Cronbach’s reliability coefficients for each construct.
 JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH 9

Table 3. Zero-order correlation among all variables and reliability.

IF IA IS JE OC
Information flow (IF) 1
Information adequacy (IA) .76** 1
Interaction support (IS) .68** .74** 1
Job engagement (JE) .53** .57** .54** 1
Organizational commitment (OC) .69** .74** .66** .64** 1
Reliability .87 .93 .93 .93 .91
(Cronbach’s α)
Note. *p < .05; **p < .01.

organization” (α = .93). Interaction support was measured with eight items, such as “My manager
empathetically listens to employees like me” (α = .93). Higher scores on these subscales indicate
higher perceived quality of communication from the organization and one’s supervisor.

Job engagement
A nine-item work engagement scale from Schaufeli et al. (2006) was used (α = .93). The scale
included measures such as “When I get up in the morning, I feel like going to work” and “At my
work, I feel bursting with energy.” These items were evaluated on a seven-point frequency rating
scale that ranged from 0 (never) to 6 (always).4 Higher scores on this scale indicate higher degrees of
employee engagement.

Organizational commitment
To measure organizational commitment, respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement
with five statements on a five-point Likert-type scale (α = .91) from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree) (see Derville Gallicano et al., 2012; Hon & Grunig, 1999). The instrument included
statements such as “I would rather work together with this organization than not” and “I have a
long-lasting bond with the organization I work for.” Higher scores on this scale indicate higher levels
of organizational commitment.

Results
For this study, a model was developed to explore the relationships between employee communica-
tion, job engagement, and organizational commitment.5 Specifically, it was hypothesized that as
elements of employee communication, information-flow quality (H1), information adequacy (H2),
and interaction supportiveness (H3) would all be positively associated with engagement; that these
three elements of employee communication would be positively associated with organizational
commitment (H4 through H6 respectively); and that engagement would mediate the relationship
between employee communication and organizational commitment (H7). As shown by Figure 2, all
hypotheses were supported.
4
We used the measurement items for the variables following the previously established scales, although they had different ratings.
However, we did not observe any critical effects of the different rating scales in data analysis. We reported standardized
coefficients that are supposed to be a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 1 and, therefore, variables are directly
comparable to one another despite the different rating scales. Additionally, if the Likert scale used to measure the variables in
the model is appropriate to the normal distribution of the data, then it should not be a problem to use different scales (i.e., 5-
point scale and 7-point scale). According to Kline (2005), normal distribution of the data can be confirmed with the skewness
ranged from −3 to +3 and kurtosis ranged from −10 to +10. Given that, our data show that all variables in SEM analysis are
normally distributed: information flow (skewness = –.45, kurtosis = –.08); information adequacy (skewness = –.66, kurtosis = .81);
interaction support (skewness: –.82, kurtosis = .67); employee engagement (skewness = –.48, kurtosis = –.05); organizational
commitment (skewness = –.7, kurtosis = .19).
5
Please see the Appendix and Table 5 for information about control variables in our CFA and SEM models.
10 J. WALDEN ET AL.

Figure 2. Standardized path coefficients for the final model.

Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Measurement model
To test the measurement portion of the model, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed
using AMOS 18 with a maximum likelihood estimation method on all items. Specifically,
information flow, information adequacy, interaction support, job engagement, and organizational
commitment were entered into AMOS as latent variables and all latent variables were co-varied
with each other. The initial model fit was poor based on the following indices: χ2 = 1654.91,
df = 550, p < .001; RMSEA = .061 (CI = .058–.064); CFI = .93; GFI = .85. Modification indices
(MI) suggested three pairs of error terms from information adequacy (MI = 73.07), job engage-
ment (MI = 151.87), and organizational commitment (MI = 88.21) were strongly correlated. That
is because each pair of two items from three variables has similar wording or content in line with
method-related effects (Eccles & Wigfield, 1995). The following sets of items were covaried:
information adequacy—“Employees like me receive adequate information how we are being
judged from the organization” with “Employees like me receive adequate job performance
information from the organization;” job engagement—“At my work, I feel bursting with energy”
with “At my job, I feel strong and vigorous;; and organizational commitment—“I feel that the
organization I work for is trying to maintain a long-term commitment to me” with “I can see
that the organization I work for wants to maintain a relationship with me.” After covarying three
pairs of error terms, the revised model had an acceptable fit: χ2 = 1308.26, df = 547, p < .001;
RMSEA = .05 (CI = .047–.054); CFI = .95; GFI = .88.

Correlations for all measured variables

According to the result of CFA, each construct’s reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was evaluated. In
addition, we assessed the interrelationships among the constructs in the hypothesized model by
running zero-order correlations. Table 3 shows that all constructs are significantly correlated with
each other.

Hypothesized model testing

Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to test the hypothesized model. The initially
hypothesized SEM model produced a good fit to the data: χ2 = 555.98, df = 216, p < .001;
RMSEA = .05 (CI = .049–.06); CFI = .97; GFI = .92.
 JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH 11

The final model (see Figure 2) shows that all hypotheses are supported. Specifically, informa-
tion-flow quality (H1; β = .23, p < .05), information adequacy (H2; β = .46, p < .001) and
interaction support at work (H3; β = .26, p < .01) were positively associated with job engagement.
Subsequently, job engagement has a significant positive association with organizational commit-
ment (β = .2, p < .001), which indicates that engagement mediates the relationship between
perceived quality of employee communication (i.e., information flow, information adequacy, and
interaction support) and organizational commitment (H7). Furthermore, as posited in hypotheses
4, 5, and 6, there are also significant direct paths from information flow (H4: β = .17, p < .01),
information adequacy (H5: β = .41, p < .001), and interaction support (H6: β = .13, p < .01) to
organizational commitment.
As additional analysis, the indirect effects of the three perceived qualities of employee commu-
nication on overall relationship quality were examined by using 5,000 bootstrap samples and a bias-
corrected confidence interval of 95%. The findings revealed significant mediated effects of informa-
tion flow, information adequacy, and interaction support on organizational commitment via job
engagement (see Table 4).

Discussion and implications

The goal of this study was to advance theory in the area of EORs by examining job engagement’s role in
EORs and by developing a more thorough understanding of how organizations cultivate committed
relationships with employees by communicating with employees. To accomplish this, we developed and
found support for a model in which job engagement mediated the relationship between employee
communication (information flow, information adequacy, and interaction support) and organizational
commitment (Figure 2) among Millennial Generation workers in the United States. Specifically, this
study’s three employee communication elements were all predictors of engagement, which, in turn,
related to organizational commitment. Information adequacy appeared to have the strongest relation-
ship with engagement, followed by interaction supportiveness and information flow. Information
adequacy was also a stronger direct predictor of commitment than information flow or support. The
measures of information adequacy included assessments of how employees perceive updates about their
work and progress from supervisors, information about the organization’s financial standing, and
information about the organization’s goals. This suggests that adequate and ongoing communication
from an organization to its employees about both individual issues (e.g., job performance) and
organizational issues (e.g., the organization’s accomplishments) is strongly related to job engagement
and organizational commitment.

Job engagement and EORs

This study builds on research about EORs (Broom et al., 1997; Jo & Shim, 2005; Kim, 2007) and
Bakker’s (2011) model of work engagement. Generally speaking, both perspectives suggest that
organizations realize relationship benefits when they communicate support and provide job
resources to employees. In this study, we isolated the specific outcome of organizational

Table 4. Significant indirect effects of predictors via intervening variables.

Organizational commitment
Information flow via job engagement .05 (.03)*
Information adequacy via job engagement .08 (.03)**
Interaction support via job engagement .05 (.02)**
Note. Path coefficients are standardized regression weights and the numbers in the parentheses are their
standard errors.
*p < .05; **p < .01.
12 J. WALDEN ET AL.

Table 5. Predictors of employee engagement.

Predictor variables Regression 1 Regression 2
Age .004 −.009
Gender (1, male; 2, female) −.06 −.025
Education −.025 −.039
Information adequacy .273***
Information flow .183**
Interaction supportiveness .212***
R2 .004 .369
R2 change .004 .364
Note. **p < .01; ***p < .001.

commitment and explored its relationship with job engagement. Communication about relevant
developments within the organization and individual tasks contributes to immediate feelings of
connection to one’s work (job engagement), which manifests as feelings of presence, immersion
in tasks, and interest in going to work. Drawing upon past work in this area (i.e., Rhee & Moon,
2009; Ruck & Welch, 2012), our model emphasizes the importance of the organizational com-
munication climate and individual-level messages as predictors of outcomes in employee-orga-
nization relationships. Ensuring that the overall system of communication within an organization
leads to an adequate flow of information and focusing on employees’ individual communication
needs strengthens employees’ commitment to the organization and sets the stage for longer-term
behavioral intentions. As Ni (2007) described, commitment can be understood as both a positive
affective attachment to the organization and an enduring bond with the organization. Based on
this study’s findings, we assert that the enduring bond of organizational commitment requires
adequate information and quality information from one’s employer and the development of job-
related engagement as a psychological state. To engender feelings of commitment to the organi-
zation, it is first necessary for firms to engender feelings of engagement with the tasks at hand
with individual employees.
We acknowledge that it is possible that the reverse could be true: Engagement could predict
commitment. Yet if we consider employee relationship management as an ongoing activity that occurs
over time, it becomes important to begin to think closely about the steps in this process. Commitment is
not a static state, but one that is shaped, as Meyer and Allen (1991, 1997) argued, by one’s day-to-day
experiences in the workplace. If employees believe they are adequately receiving the tools to do their job
and if they believe that the organization is not hiding crucial information from them, they are able to
throw themselves into their work. Engagement, thus, is an individual contextual variable in EORs that
develops in direct response to employee communication. It is an immediate feeling that was found to
predict organizational commitment in this study and is likely to predict other relationship outcomes
such as satisfaction, control mutuality, and trust in subsequent studies. Relationship maintenance with
employees can be viewed as a process that is embedded in time and prone to change as employees
continue to work for an organization and as they bring themselves to continuous role performance in
the office. Although others have offered some initial claims about the relationship between job
engagement and employee-organization relationships (e.g., Ruck & Welch, 2012), this study provides
an empirical basis from which to draw these conclusions. Scholars may wish to revisit and replicate this
model in other employee communication contexts and if they do so, they can use experimental design
to strengthen the confidence that engagement acts as an antecedent to commitment. From a public
relations practice perspective, this study highlights the need for strategic employee communication
programs that are sustainable over time. Organizations should continuously provide communication
that employees perceive as open, thorough, and germane to their daily work needs. This is particularly
important for early to mid-career workers, as this study found.
 JOURNAL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH 13

Building the bond with Millennials

A second aim of this study was to learn how to engage and support members of the Millennial
Generation, who represent a large portion of the working population. Fostering engagement with
this group of employees will be critical for organizations, as this group begins to move into
management positions and as companies work to minimize turnover with early- to mid-career
employees (Chou, 2012). Findings from this study indicate that specific facets of communication in
the workplace drive both job engagement and commitment with members of this generation. This
study builds on prior literature regarding Millennials’ preference for openness in work-related
communication (see Derville Gallicano et al., 2012; Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010). In light of these
findings, companies should account for Millennials’ communication expectations by providing
ample feedback on job performance, giving support for employees in multiple areas, and conveying
a sense that employees’ work is appreciated. Employers should also rely on a range of communica-
tion tools (from in-person and virtual meetings to social networking sites) to convey clear expecta-
tions for work and to ensure that employees are staying on task, which is important for job
engagement. Because most Millennials are in the first third of their career, organizations can solidify
their relationships with this group and enhance organizational commitment in the long term by
paying close attention to this group’s workplace information needs. Engagement is a key element of
work life for a generation that Derville Gallicano et al. (2012) and others have noted for its size and
diversity.

Limitations and directions for future research

Although this study was designed to learn about Millennials, in future studies it would be helpful to
compare multiple generations. Employees of multiple age groups often work together on projects
and on teams, and they supervise each other (both older generations supervising younger and
younger generations supervising older generations). Employees from other generations could have
different views on the importance of information flow, adequacy, and support, so their job engage-
ment and commitment might be affected differently than that of Millennials. Additionally, this study
saw a large gender imbalance among respondents, with nearly twice as many women as men who
participated. Although gender was not positively associated with the study’s main variables, it does
reduce the representativeness of the sample. Scholars who examine these workplace communication
issues (as well as those who rely on online survey panels) can build on this study by having a more
balanced gender representation.
In addition to these demographic considerations, there are likely other contextual variables in
EORs that mediate the relationship between employee communication and relationship outcomes
that were not explored in this study. For example, it might be beneficial to look at transformational
leadership style (Men, 2014) and the selection of internal channels for employee communication
(Lee & Park, 2013) as antecedents to engagement. Also, although this study considered information
flow, information adequacy, and interaction supportiveness, we encourage scholars to specifically
examine elements of symmetrical internal communication (such as reciprocity, openness, and feed-
back) as predictors of engagement. As this study has shown, job engagement is important for
organizational commitment. Taking a look at additional relevant employee communication strate-
gies and other relational outcomes that are potentially associated with engagement should lead to an
even greater understanding of task and job involvement as forms of job engagement.

Conclusions
When organizations provide suitable amounts of information to employees, there are two critical
outcomes: employees will focus on the task at hand and they will be committed to the relationship
with their employer. Experiencing job engagement on an ongoing basis may lead employees to feel
14 J. WALDEN ET AL.

more committed to their organizations; engagement and commitment are likely to be inspired by the
proper level of internal communication about individual and organizational issues. In this study, we
provide further evidence that engagement and commitment are distinct constructs, and we explicate
job engagement’s role in EORs. Although commitment and job engagement are both psychological
states, job engagement refers to immediate job performance while organizational commitment
pertains to the employee’s belief that the organization is actively seeking to maintain a long-term
relationship with them. Scholars and practitioners are encouraged to use precise language when
discussing employee engagement (we have used job engagement to connote direct immersion in
tasks) and they are likewise encouraged to look at the specific elements of employee communication
that foster engagement. Engagement-driving employee communication programs require open
information flow throughout the organization and demonstrations that employees’ voices are valued.
When this occurs, organizations are likely to see employees immerse themselves in their work and
are also likely to maintain lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with employees.

Funding
We thank the State University of New York College at Brockport for supporting this research with an internal grant to
the first author while he was on the faculty there.

ORCID
Eun Hwa Jung http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0698-9887
Catherine Y. K. Westerman http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4225-7755

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Appendix
Control variables
Before the SEM analysis, we conducted preliminary tests with hierarchical linear regressions and ANOVAs. First,
results from hierarchical linear regressions showed that demographic factors (i.e., age, gender, education level) did not
have significant associations with employee engagement while key independent variables (i.e., information adequacy,
information flow, and interaction support) were significantly associated with employee engagement as shown in
Table 5. Therefore, we did not include such demographic factors in the SEM analysis.
In addition, we attempted to compare three groups of participants with hourly employment versus salaried
employment versus commissioned employment. However, we only had 28 employees who reported they earned
most of their salary through commission. Because this sample size was too small, it was hard for us to use this data to
compare with other two groups (i.e., hourly employment and salaried employment), so we decided to compare two
groups (i.e., hourly employment vs. salaried employment) except commissioned employment. However, ANOVA tests
with information flow, information adequacy, interaction support, employee engagement, and organizational commit-
ment (dependent variables were separately tested through ANOVA) showed a nonsignificant difference between two
groups in employee engagement (for information flow, F(1, 509) = 3.57, p = .06; for information adequacy F(1,
509) = 2.02, p = .16; for interaction support, F(1, 509) = .77, p = .38; for employee engagement, F(1, 509) = 1.62, p = .2;
for organizational commitment, F(1, 509) = 1.45, p = .23).
Last, we tested difference between managers and nonmanagers with information flow, information adequacy,
interaction support, employee engagement, and organizational commitment through separate ANOVA test. The
results showed that there were significant differences in the variables between managers and nonmanagers (for
information flow, F(1, 509) = 15.28, p < .001; for information adequacy, F(1, 509) = 15.43, p < .001; for interaction
support, F(1, 509) = 7.18, p < .01; for employee engagement, F(1, 509) = 13.55, p < .001; for organizational
commitment, F(1, 509) = 28.49, p < .001). Therefore, we conducted a multiple-group analysis to check the invariance
of the SEM model between managers and nonmanagers. However, a multiple-group analysis showed that constraining
six regression weights to be equal did not significantly increase in χ2 from an unconstrained model. In other words, the
result indicated that the model is invariant between managers and non-managers, Δ χ2 (6) = 3.56, p = .74.
Based on the results from preliminary tests, we did not find any significant control variables and moderators that
could be included in SEM analysis.