THE BIG IDEA OF EMPLOYEES AS

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATORS IN
PUBLIC RELATION
Vibeke Thøis Madsen and Joost W. M. Verhoeven

ABSTRACT
The chapter develops a typology of eight different expected employee
communication roles based on literature in public relations (PR), corporate
communication and related fields. As PR professionals are increasingly
taking on a coaching and training role, and communication technology has
made employees more visible and approachable, employees more and more
take on active roles in the communication with external publics. While PR
professionals’ roles are conceptualized fairly well, no framework exists that
describes the many communication roles that employees play in
contemporary organizations. In the chapter, it is found that employees
externally (1) embody, (2) promote, and (3) defend the organization. In
addition, employees use communication to (4) scout for information and
insights about environmental changes, and (5) build and maintain
relationships with stakeholders. Internally, employees use communication to
(6) make sense of information, (7) initiate and stimulate innovation, and
(8) criticize organizational behaviour and decisions. The typology highlights
that employees increasingly fulfil the tactic communication roles as producers
and executers of corporate communication as social media have made them
more visible and approachable. The communication roles require
considerable tactical skills and resources on the part of employees, which
they may not always possess sufficiently. PR professionals can play a
coaching role in terms of helping employees frame content and communicate
in a manner appropriate for the organization, the context and the media. The
chapter can help PR professionals and scholars understand the changed role
of PR professionals, as well as the changed relationships between

Big Ideas in Public Relations Research and Practice

Advances in Public Relations and Communication Management, Volume 4, 143 162
Copyright r 2019 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 2398-3914/doi:10.1108/S2398-391420190000004011
143
144 VIBEKE THØIS MADSEN AND JOOST W. M. VERHOEVEN

organizations and their environment, in the context of dissolving

organizational boundaries.
Keywords: Employees; organizational citizen behaviour; communication
roles; employee advocacy; role theory in PR; organizational
communication

INTRODUCTION
Employees are increasingly perceived as active communicators in organizations
(Heide & Simonsson, 2011; Madsen & Verhoeven, 2016; Pekkala & Luoma-
aho, 2017; Snyder & Honig, 2016). As communication serves multiple purposes
in organizations, employees play many different communication roles.
Internally, they are not only passive receivers of organizational messages, but
also share knowledge (Leppälä, 2015; Vuori & Okkonen, 2012), develop ideas
(Gode, 2019), and construct organizational identities and structures through
their communication (Madsen, 2016). Externally, employees, as brand ambassa-
dors, promote the brand in a trustworthy and reliable way (Pekkala & Luoma-aho,
2017; Snyder & Honig, 2016); they may blow the whistle on ethical misconduct in
the organization (Near & Miceli, 2013) or put the reputation of the organization
at risk by sharing damaging or controversial information about the organization
on social media (Ravazzani & Mazzei, 2018). Furthermore, employees’ commu-
nication can bridge gaps between organizations and their environment and
develop lasting relations with external stakeholders (Korschun, 2015). External
stakeholders increasingly consider employees a credible source of information
(Edelman, 2019). For example, consumers and jobseekers trust postings from
employees more than marketing campaigns (Snyder & Honig, 2016). Therefore,
employee utterances on social networks such as Instagram, Facebook and
LinkedIn can benefit organizations. As such, employees serve an important role
in monitoring issue debates, become sensitive to environmental demands, and
help organizations maintain or restore legitimacy. Employees’ active communi-
cation can improve the reputation of the organization, and at the same time,
employees’ participation in communication can potentially increase their
engagement and organizational identification (Johansson, 2015; Ruck, Welch, &
Menara, 2017). However, their communication can also create internal social
media storms (Fägersten, 2015) or initiate a crisis when they reveal compromis-
ing information about the organization on public social media (Ravazzani &
Mazzei, 2018). In this respect, from the organizations’ perspective, employees’
active communication roles can contribute to organizational goals, but they
may also harm organizational interests.
With the rise of social media, employees increasingly have the opportunity to
play active communication roles (Heide & Simonsson, 2011; Madsen &
Verhoeven, 2016; Pekkala & Luoma-aho, 2017; Snyder & Honig, 2016). Due to
these changes in the media landscape and changed expectations, employees have
arguably become more autonomous, proactive and strategic. The new roles of
The Big Idea of Employees as Strategic Communicators 145

employees in post-bureaucratic organizations have been acknowledged by

researchers (Heide & Simonsson, 2011; Madsen & Verhoeven, 2016; Pekkala &
Luoma-aho, 2017; van Zoonen, Verhoeven, & Vliegenthart, 2017); yet, they are
still poorly conceptualized. No overview has been developed of what these chan-
ging roles entail specifically for employees. This is unfortunate because aca-
demics as well as professionals are struggling to understand how employees are
taking on roles that were traditionally the public relation (PR’s) responsibilities.
Role expectations are a very appropriate concept to understand the changed PR
practice because expectations and norms are strong predictors of (communica-
tion) behaviour and strongly affect organizational performance (Lapinski &
Rimal, 2005). This chapter aims to map the different communication roles that
are suggested in literature in PR, corporate communication and related fields in
order to conceptualize employees as strategic communicators. The intention is
therefore to answer the following research question:
RQ. Which communication roles are employees expected to enact, accord-
ing to literature on Public Relations, Corporate Communication and
related fields?

LITERATURE REVIEW
The following section reviews literature about the strategic communication roles
of employees in PR, corporate communication and related fields. We will
address literature on corporate branding (including employer branding, CSR
communication and sustainability) social media, crisis communication, knowl-
edge sharing, innovation and participation. In each of the fields, employees are
considered active communicators that contribute to organizational performance.
The review of employees’ communication roles found in PR and corporate com-
munication will move from a focus on external to internal communication, while
also addressing research within branding that takes an inside-out approach
(e.g. Ind, 2003; Morsing, Schultz, & Nielsen, 2008) and considers employee’ con-
tribution to corporate brand value (Hatch & Schultz, 2003). Before we delve
into the many different communication roles held by employees, we will define
and conceptualize communication roles based on role theory and the under-
standing of communication role in corporate communication.

Role Theory
Role theory views organizations as systems of roles (Katz & Kahn, 1978), in
which individual work performance is shaped by others in the system (Kahn,
Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964). Members play their role in organiza-
tions in front of an audience of colleagues, clients and bystanders (Jian &
Dalisay, 2015). Role theory is based on a dramaturgical metaphor (i.e. a theatre
metaphor) and describes how people in their everyday activities enter the stage
and act out different socially defined roles such as, for example, parent, nurse
and teacher (Turner, 2001) in front of an audience. A role describes characteris-
tic behaviour or implicitly or explicitly expected behaviour that is
146 VIBEKE THØIS MADSEN AND JOOST W. M. VERHOEVEN

associated with a social position (Banton, 1996): a ‘part’ to be played by the

employee. Each role is learned and driven by different expectations determined
by societal or organizational norms (Roberts & O’Reilly, 1979). Roles make the
behaviour of employees predictable. Employees play many different roles in
their professionals and private lives, such as supervisor, committee member,
spokesperson, but also romantic partner, team member, friend or neighbour.

Communication Roles
Through roles, organizations describe what is expected of its members (Dozier,
1992; Jian & Dalisay, 2015). Many of those expectations concern the communi-
cation of employees. In this chapter, we will define employee communication
role as: “a set of communication activities that an employee is expected to per-
form” (cf. Jian & Dalisay, 2015; Kahn et al., 1964). While employee communi-
cation roles have barely been conceptualized, quite some typologies have been
developed for the communication roles of communication professionals
(Falkheimer, Heide, Simonsson, Zerfass, & Verhoeven, 2016; Falkheimer et al.,
2017; Heide & Simonsson, 2014; Schmeltz & Kjeldsen, 2018). Broom and Smith
(1979) distinguished the PR roles of expert prescriber, communication facilita-
tor, problem-solver and communication technician. With the first three roles
being closely related, those have later been collapsed into the manager role
(Dozier, 1992; Dozier & Broom, 1995). In crisis communication, Heide and
Simonsson (2014) have distinguished the roles of media expert, messenger, dir-
ector, counsellor, pedagogue and facilitator (p. 141). Falkheimer and colleagues
(2016) based their four-role framework on the European Communication
Monitor. They distinguish between strategic facilitator, business advisor, oper-
ational supporter and isolated expert. Whereas communication professionals
traditionally enact tactic roles as executors and producers of communication,
they increasingly take on strategic roles as consultants and business supporters
(Falkheimer et al., 2016). After this conceptualization of communication role, a
literature review is conducted to first understand why employees enact these
communication roles and then to summarize the communication roles that have
been proposed in different fields of literature within PR, corporate communica-
tion and related fields.

Engagement, Empowerment and Organizational Identification

Employee communication is to a large extend voluntary, and the desire to advo-
cate for the organization springs out of the employees’ organizational identifica-
tion (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Ridder, 2004). Social identity theory teaches us
that organizational membership is an important part of an individual’s identity,
and when the organization contributes to a persons’ identity in a positive way,
employees will take on the role as an organizational representative with external
stakeholders (Korschun, 2015). The common thought behind these initiatives is
that the employees due to their organizational identification will “live the
brand” (Maxwell & Knox, 2009) or promote the corporate brand or the organ-
ization to (potential) customers, jobseekers, employees and investors.
The Big Idea of Employees as Strategic Communicators 147

However, employees’ motives for sharing information and developing ideas

do spring not only out of their identification with the organization, but also out
of impression formation motives. Research so far has found that employees
behave strategically when they communicate and share knowledge on internal
social media (Gibbs, Rozaidi, & Eisenberg, 2013; Madsen & Verhoeven, 2016;
Treem & Leonardi, 2013). They carefully craft impressions of themselves as
experts (Treem & Leonardi, 2013), and they manage the tensions they experi-
ence when they communicate, by both preserving openness and ambiguity
(Gibbs et al., 2013).

Employees in Corporate Branding

Within marketing communication and corporate branding, employees have been
considered as brand ambassadors for a while (e.g. Harris & de Chernatony,
2001). By playing active communication roles, they build brands (Balmer, 2002;
Harris & de Chernatony, 2001), “live the brand” (Ind, 2001; Maxwell & Knox,
2009), and they produce corporate brand value (Hatch & Schultz, 2003). In this
context, all employees, as well as former employees such as retirees (Gelb &
Rangarajan, 2014), may play the role of brand ambassador. A more recent
realization is that employees, by publishing various kinds of brand messages in
different media, may even have a greater influence on the image of the organiza-
tion than the organization itself has (Falkheimer & Heide, 2007). This is particu-
larly relevant with the rise of social media where employees openly and/or
anonymously can attack, defend or promote the brand (Krishna & Kim, 2015;
Ravazzani & Mazzei, 2018). Researchers have therefore profoundly encouraged
organizations to educate their employees about their importance in maintaining
the corporate brand (Martin, Parry, & Flowers, 2015) or to develop brand
ambassador programs aimed at employees who are selected to represent the
brand or the organization (Xiong, King, & Piehler, 2013).
Other streams of literature such as employer branding, CSR and sustainabil-
ity highlight the importance of employees as communicators since people trust
people more than organizations (Beattie, 2016; Uusi-Rauva & Nurkka, 2010).
In CSR, Morsing et al. (2008) have recommended an inside-out approach, in
which organizations start with getting employees onboard by making them
understand and appreciate CSR projects and encourage corporate citizenship
among employees. Only after employees know about CSR projects, support
them, and communicate about them should the organization support that with
mass media communication. The same inside-out approach is advocated in
employer branding which starts by developing, presenting or highlighting the
package of functional, economic and psychological benefits of employment
within the organization (Simmons, 2009). This internal brand develops staff into
brand advocates who help attract, retain and motivate future and present
employees (Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004). Finally, in sustainability, a relatively new
and emerging field, employees are encouraged to get involved in sustainability
efforts and to develop sustainable behaviour in their workday (Galpin,
Whitttington, & Bell, 2015) as a way for the organization to become more
148 VIBEKE THØIS MADSEN AND JOOST W. M. VERHOEVEN

sustainable in a trustworthy and reliable way since employees can report

about their own and the organizations’ efforts. While branding efforts are
mainly directed at customers, employer branding focuses on potential employ-
ees and CSR at both customers, potential employees and investors, suppliers
and coalition partners. In this respect, the attention for employees’ active com-
munication roles has increased in various academic fields, and the scope of
employees as communicators has shifted from relatively simple face-to-face
interactions with customers to a much more consequential role (Heide &
Simonsson, 2011) as a driver of corporate communication. Employees are
increasingly seen as the embodiment of the organization in various (online)
arenas such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Employees are
thus perceived as boundary spanners who purposefully or voluntarily interact
with external stakeholders (Levina & Vaast, 2005; Theofilou & Watson, 2014).
They become relevant as an extension of the organization and key drivers of
CSR and other organizational practices when they use WOM (Word of
mouth) (Theofilou & Watson, 2014). This becomes more powerful since exter-
nal stakeholders are losing interest in traditional promotional communication
about CSR (Morsing et al., 2008).

Employees as Communicators on Social Media

Through social media, employees function as brand ambassadors who shape the
corporate reputation with everything they do and say online (Dreher, 2014).
Research on employees’ work-related social media use have found that they are
actually willing to engage in organizational ambassadorship and that they are
aware that they are authentic and credible communicators who have an impact
on corporate communication (van Zoonen, van der Meer, & Verhoeven, 2014;
van Zoonen, Bartels, van Prooijen, & Schouten, 2018). However, organizations
seem more concerned with the risks of employees’ social media use than the
opportunities (Opgenhaffen & Claeys, 2017), and employees have been found to
be “underutilized actors that can improve the organizational-public dialog” (van
Zoonen et al., 2014; p. 852). Social media skills are required as employees enter
public social media as organizational ambassadors. Employees manage the
boundary between the organization and the public and negotiate their
professional and private identities. This requires employees to balance between
disclosure and discretion, and between professional and personal content
(Ollier-Malaterre, Rothbard, & Berg, 2013). There are certainly risks involved
when employees communicate on public social media, after all, they may not
consider possible consequences before posting information, but it is impossible
for organization to stop or control them. Employees can always criticize the
organization and organizational issues anonymously on public social media, a
behaviour that has been termed employee anonymous online dissent (EAOD;
Ravazzani & Mazzei, 2018), which can be either a prosocial attempt to improve
organizational practices or an antisocial act of revenge (Ravazzani & Mazzei,
2018).
The Big Idea of Employees as Strategic Communicators 149

Employees in Crisis Communication

Also in crisis communication, employees are acknowledged as important com-
municators, both internally and externally (Frandsen & Johanson, 2011; 2016).
Internally, employees act as sensemakers and sensegivers (Frandsen & Johansen,
2016; Ravazzani, 2016). Rather than acting as a univocal stakeholder group,
employees have their own interpretations and stakes (Frandsen & Johansen,
2011). When employees interact with each other about a (potential) crisis situ-
ation, meanings take shape, and they become narrators themselves (Frandsen &
Johansen, 2011; Heide & Simonsson, 2016; Strandberg & Vigsø, 2016).
However, during a crisis, employees also play a role externally as ambassadors,
faithholders (defined as “positively engaged stakeholders who trust and like the
organization or brand and support it via their beliefs, emotions and beha-
viours”; Luoma-Aho, 2015, p. 9) and brand defenders online and offline (Fay,
2011; Fearn-Banks, 2007; Johansen, 2015; Luoma-aho, 2015; Mazzei, Kim, &
Dell’Oro, 2012; Strandberg & Vigsø, 2016). Employees are among the most
believable ambassadors in crisis situations (Fearn-Banks, 2007; Johanson, 2015).
They can be activated to protect the organizations reputation (Fay, 2011;
Mazzei et al., 2012) and act as faithholders during online crisis situations
(Luoma-aho, 2015).
However, employees not only communicate in a crisis situation, but also do
so in the stages leading up to the crisis. In a pre-crisis stage, employees partici-
pate in the construction and deconstruction of organizational crises. For
instance, Simonsson and Heide (2018) have described how employees can pre-
vent crises by reporting errors in a timely fashion.

Employees in Knowledge Management, Innovation and Participation

The knowledge-based theory of the firm (Grant, 1996) presents a resource-based
view of the firm (Wernerfelt, 1984) and considers knowledge the most important
resource of the firm. Employees play active roles in information and knowledge
acquisition (i.e. organizational learning) and subsequent dissemination in orga-
nizations (Wang, He, & Mahoney, 2009). The field is less studied from a com-
munication perspective even though media obviously play a crucial role in the
acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and information. For instance,
internal social media have entered the workspace as a convenient communica-
tion arena among coworkers (Madsen, 2016, 2018). Kim and Rhee (2011) have
found three types of voluntary employee communication behaviour that relate
to knowledge management, namely megaphoning, scouting and micro-boundary
spanning. Megaphoning refers to sending and sharing information about organ-
izational weaknesses and strengths. Scouting is when employees voluntarily seek
information through formal and informal contacts, and micro-boundary span-
ning is a combination of the first two kinds of behaviour, and they are all an
outcome/consequence of empowered and proactive employees voluntarily help-
ing other organizational members and the organization. Some employees are
more competent as knowledge sharers than others, and they have been termed
knowledge brokers (Bachrach, Ogilvie, Rapp, & Calamusa, 2016), and they
150 VIBEKE THØIS MADSEN AND JOOST W. M. VERHOEVEN

have the ability to bring people together, create new relationships and share
ideas than can enables employees to perform their job better (Leppälä, 2015). In
this respect, employees have been found to constitute the most important
resource for innovation (Linke & Zerfass, 2011).
The study of employees as initiators of innovation and idea developers have
been taken a step further by Gode (2019) who found that not only the initial ideas
shared by an employee on internal social media were valuable to the organization
but actually to a larger extend the consequent discussion and development of ideas
when other coworkers interacted with the idea. In the same way, Garner (2013)
concluded that dissent is co-constructed: It is only when other organizational
members interact with a new idea that it is developed further.
All in all, ideas about employee’s participation in organizations have been
fuelled by the ideas about wisdom of the crowds, and with the introduction of
internal social media, the possibilities for participation are taken a step further
(Madsen, 2018).

MAPPING COMMUNICATION ROLES

The literature review found that several disciplines acknowledged the import-
ance of employees as communicators. However, only few articles gave any
details of the expectations of their role as communicators. Table 1 is a list of
concepts and communication roles that was identified to describe the expecta-
tions of employees as communicators.
Some of the roles appear within several fields, such as ambassador and advo-
cate, but they are listed several times to indicate that different labels are used
within different fields. Some of the roles are internal, and others are external; but
mostly, employee communication roles link the organization to its environment.
Based on the mapping of the many different roles, it becomes clear that the expec-
tations of employees as communicators in organizational contexts are growing. It
actually indicates that employees are increasingly drivers of PR and corporate
communication at this point in time. In order to get a clearer understanding of
the communication roles expected of employees, a typology of eight employee
communication roles is developed, based on the literature review above.

A TYPOLOGY OF EIGHT EMPLOYEE

COMMUNICATION ROLES
Table 1 illustrates the many different active communication behaviours that
employees may be expected to perform. According to Halkier (2011), developing
an ideal typology is a process where coded data are condensed into “a relatively
limited number of descriptions which one-sidely underline particular characteris-
tics at the expense of others” (Halkier, 2011, p. 790). Since many of those com-
munication behaviours overlap and to make the many roles more
comprehensive, we have developed a typology of eight employee communication
roles presented in Table 2: the embodier, the promotor, the defender, the scout,
the sensemaker, the innovator, the relationship builder and the critic.
The Big Idea of Employees as Strategic Communicators 151

Table 1. Employee Communication Behaviours Found in Literature.

Field/Concept or Description of Active Illustrative Literature
Role Communication Behaviour

Branding
Brand builders In corporate branding, employees are Balmer and Greyser (2002)
principal producers of corporate brand Hatch and Schultz (2003)
value
Brand ambassadors Employees provide the foundation for Harris and de Chernatony (2001),
the brand Aaker (2004), Garas, Mahran, and
All employees, including retirees, Mohamed (2018), Balmer (2013),
represent the organization as brand Schmidt and Baumgarth (2018),
ambassadors Gelb and Rangarajan (2014)
Martin et al. (2015)

Brand advocates Staff become brand advocates who Simmons (2009)

attract, retain and motivate
Living the brand The attitudes and behaviour of Gotsi & Wilson, 2001; Ind, 2001;
employees play a central role in brand Schultz & de Chernatony, 2002
delivery
CSR Communication
Employee advocacy/ Internal communication about Dawkins and Lewis (2003)
employee advocates corporate social responsibility
programs can have a powerful impact
on employee advocacy of the
company, defined as “speak highly of
the company to outsiders” (p. 191)
CSR communicators The inside-out approach to CSR Morsing et al. (2008)
communication means ensuring
employee commitment to CSR
policies, after which, employee may
contribute to the definition, further
development, implementation, and
support of the corporate CSR policies
and activities
Sustainable Micro-level of sustainability, where Galpin et al. (2015)
behaviour enactors employees support or are involved in Bekmeier-Feuerhahn, Bögel and
sustainability efforts. Koch (2017)
Employees will look at other
trustworthy and informed employees
as models for norms of how to behave
in a given situation…

Employee Volunteer activity undertaken by Paull and Whitsed (2018, p. 194),

volunteering employees either organized through, or Rodell, Breitsohl, Schröder, and
with their employer, or undertaken Keating(2016)
during work time and supported by the
employer or company
Public Relations
Employee advocacy The voluntary promotion or defence of Men (2014)
a company, its products or its brands
by an employee externally
152 VIBEKE THØIS MADSEN AND JOOST W. M. VERHOEVEN

Table 1. (Continued )
Field/Concept or Description of Active Illustrative Literature
Role Communication Behaviour

Employee Three types of behaviour Grunig (1997), Kim and Rhee (2011)
communicative megaphoning (share knowledge),
behaviour/knowledge scouting (search for information and
sharing spread) and micro-boundary spanning
(combination) which is related to the
employees relationship with the
organization
Social Media
Corporate advocates Employees are credible and authentic Dreher (2014)
and brand communicators. Through social media,
ambassadors employees function as powerful brand
ambassadors who shape reputation
with everything they do and say online
(p. 345)
Employees as Encourage employees to retweet/share Opgenhaffen and Claeys (2017)
ambassadors corporate content rather than that they
develop own messages
Anonymous online Employees can reveal issues about the Ravazzani and Mazzei (2018)
dissenters organization as either an act of
prosocial behaviour or an act of
revenge. Can be framed honestly or
fabricated
Strategic Employees strategically manage Gibbs et al. (2013), Madsen and
communicators tensions on internal social media to Verhoeven (2016)
preserve both openness and ambiguity
Sensemakers Employees make sense of their work Madsen (2016)
and the organization when they follow
communication on internal social
media
Crisis communication
Narrators and Employees are narrators and Strandberg and Vigsø (2016),
sensemakers sensemakers. Meaning arise when Frandsen and Johansen (2011),
employees interacts with each other Heide and Simonsson (2016)
about the crisis
Active sensegivers Managers consider employees as active Ravazzani (2016), Frandsen and
and crisis sensemakers and sensegivers Johansen (2016)
communicators
Ambassadors Employees are perceived as most Fearn-Banks (2007), Johanson
believable ambassadors in crisis (2015)
situations
Faithholders and Employees can be activated as Luoma-aho (2015)
hateholders faithholders in online crisis situations
Brand defenders Employees can in crisis situations be Fay (2011), Mazzei et al. (2012)
activated to protect the organizations
reputation
The Big Idea of Employees as Strategic Communicators 153

Table 1. (Continued )
Field/Concept or Description of Active Illustrative Literature
Role Communication Behaviour

Strategic When employees report mistakes and Simonsson and Heide (2018)
communicators managers listen it can prevent crisis
situations
Knowledge Management and Innovation
Boundary spanners Employees interact with external Levina and Vaast (2005)
stakeholders purposeful or voluntary Theofilou and Watson (2014)
The employees become relevant as an Korschun (2015)
extension of the organization using
WOM
It can require employees to take the
role of an organizational representative
with external stakeholders (p. 613)
These ‘ambassadors’ are expected to
speak and act in ways that are
consistent with the organizational
identity.
However, employees have different
relationships with external
stakeholders a continuum from hostile
to cooperative

Knowledge broker Knowledge brokering involves Leppälä (2015)

bringing people together, creating new
relationships and sharing ideas that
can enable employees to perform their
job better
Innovators/idea Employees share ideas and valuable Gode (2019)
developers insights into ISM. Employee’s
reactions to ideas as well as
accumulation of insights and ideas
contribute to innovation
Employee Empowered employees will use Park, Kim, and Krishna (2014)
entrepreneur scouting behaviour (rather than voice/
dissent) to improve the organization in
terms of routines, services and
products
Change agent In change processes, some employees Pedersen (2016)
are assigned the role as change agents
as they are particularly skilful at
making the change understandable for
other employees
Participation
Decision-maker Heterogeneous groups, as well as Redding (1985)
groups characterized by dissenting
views, produce high-quality decisions
(p. 205)
154 VIBEKE THØIS MADSEN AND JOOST W. M. VERHOEVEN

Table 1. (Continued )
Field/Concept or Description of Active Illustrative Literature
Role Communication Behaviour

Co-creators Wisdom of crowds/flat hierarchy in Friedman (2005); Martin et al.

organizations has the ability to (2015); Holland, Cooper, and
combine communications of employees Hecker (2016)
on workplace issue(s)
Whistleblower Employees are encouraged to act as Dozier and Miceli (1985); Near and
whistleblowers if they become aware of Miceli (2013)
irregularities

Table 2. A Typology of Eight Strategic Employee Communication Roles.

Communication Definition Example of Roles and Concepts from
Role the Literature in Table 1

The embodier Employees displaying organizational Brand ambassadors, brand builders,

characteristics by embodying them
through communication and behaviour
while doing their job
The promotor Employees strengthening corporate
reputation by communicating positive
messages about the organization
The defender Employees defending the organization
against bad news or criticism from
external stakeholders
The scout Employees gathering environmental
information about organizational,
societal and technological developments
The sensemaker Employees organizing organizational
and environmental information into
comprehensible meanings/frames
The innovator Employees proactively coming up with
new ideas and initiating organizational
change
The relationship Employees initiating, maintaining and
builder improving stakeholder relations
The critic Employees addressing shortcomings in
the organization (either internally or
externally) by raising their voice to
upper management or colleagues
sustainable behaviour enactors,
organizational citizen behaviour, living
the brand
Brand ambassadors, brand builder,
employee advocates, sensegiver
Faithholder, brand defender, crisis
communicator
Scouting, knowledge sharer, knowledge
broker, organizational listening
Sensemaker, narrator, change agent,
storyteller
Co-creator, idea developer, innovator,
decision-maker, entrepreneur
Boundary spanner, employer branding,
CSR communicators, employee
volunteering
Whistleblower, hateholder dissenter,
employee voice

DISCUSSION AND AVENUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Based on the mapping of the communication roles derived from literature in
PR, corporate communication and related fields, a typology of eight communi-
cation roles was developed to illustrate that employees are expected to fulfil
more and more communication roles that were previously the communication
The Big Idea of Employees as Strategic Communicators 155

professional’s responsibilities. In particular, tactical PR roles such as the

“communication technician” (Broom & Smith, 1979), “messenger” (Heide &
Simonsson, 2014), are reflected in employee communication roles, such as embo-
dier, promotor and defender. However, the employee’s role does not stop at the
tactical: the PR roles of the “big ear” (i.e. “identifying risks and gathering weak
signals”: Heide & Simonsson, 2014, p. 139), and the director (i.e. the one who
“facilitates and stages the communication between various groups of employees”:
Heide & Simonsson, 2014, p. 140) is reflected in the scout role. Through the critic,
innovator and sensemaker roles, the employee, like the communication profes-
sional, is expected to participate in the development of business strategies
(Falkheimer et al., 2016). Although we do not suggest that communication profes-
sionals are now relieved of these duties altogether, the eight-role framework does
illustrate how employees have come to play more active roles in communication
management. In particular, employees contribute by bridging gaps between the
organization and its environment, by making sense of environmental information
and by developing innovative business strategies to accommodate these environ-
mental developments. While traditionally PR professionals served much of these
roles, now, all employees can play these parts and may often be expected to do so.
In this respect, employee’s communication roles that were previously perceived as
out-of-role behaviour are more and more turning into in-role behaviour. In the
remainder of this chapter, we will explain what this framework may mean for PR
and communication management. In doing so, we will address three questions:
First, we will address the audiences in front of which employees perform their
roles, and second, we will address the changed role of communication profes-
sionals in the context of these extended role definitions of employees. Finally, we
will address the question how these extended roles have changed jobs.

Five Different Contexts or Audiences

Social media have made employees more visible and more approachable
(Treem & Leonardi, 2013). As a consequence, organizational boundaries are
more permeable and employees play their roles in the public eye. Therefore,
many different audiences perceive the employee’s role enactment. In particular,
employees interact with customers, share knowledge with coworkers, voice opi-
nions and proposals to their managers, represent the organization in society as
volunteers, and promote or defend the organization when they communicate
with family, friends or social media contacts. This is illustrated in Fig. 1, dis-
playing how employees act out their communication roles in front of (at least)
five different audiences. The five audiences constitute different ‘stages’ where
employees perform their communication parts. In order to perform these roles
well and in a natural and authentic way, employees arguably need a strong
organizational identification. Sometimes, two or more audiences may collapse
when the stage for example is social media (Marwick & Boyd, 2011), and it
could be difficult to act in front of several audiences at once or it might require
that the employee not only take on the communication roles on behalf of the
organization but actually be the role, which could raise some ethical questions
156 VIBEKE THØIS MADSEN AND JOOST W. M. VERHOEVEN

Family, friends
Customers/ Coworkers Management Society and social
citizens
media

Past

In-role Out-of-role
Present
In-role Out-of-role
Future
In-role

Fig. 1. Five Different Contexts/Audiences Where Employees Play out Their

Different Communication Roles.
about what an employer can demand of an employee. The three sets of arrows
below the five different audiences suggest that more and more employee commu-
nication roles are becoming in-role behaviour. The literature review seems to
indicate this shift but empirical studies need to explore whether it is the case. We
will instead concentrate on discussing what it means to PR professionals that
employees are expected to play more active communication roles.

Communication Professionals as Coaches

According to the literature review, employees are expected to fulfil the organiza-
tions’ tactic communication roles as executors and producers of communications
that was previously the job of communication professionals (Falkheimer et al.,
2016), and this is in line with research finding that communication professionals
are increasingly performing strategic roles as consultants and business suppor-
ters (Falkheimer et al., 2016). However, it is likely that not all employees will
feel comfortable or skilled to perform these extended communication roles, and
therefore, communication professionals have to take on the role as coaches to
train employee to perform their new roles and facilitate smooth communication
with key audiences of the organization. They can improve employees’ insights
into the workings and effectiveness of the media. As experts in agenda setting
and framing (Sallot & Johnson, 2006), communication professionals can train
employees in strategic thinking about the importance of issues on the public
agenda and frame development. Communication professionals can add value by
advising employees on the framing of issues, as well as help them acquire the
necessary writing skills. However, coaching employees in the development of
frames can be a delicate matter: While social media allow employees to commu-
nicate in a personal, intimate and genuine manner (Men & Hung-Baesecke,
2015), when their communication becomes too ‘polished’ or appears too
The Big Idea of Employees as Strategic Communicators 157

promotional, then credibility is hurt (Coombs & Holladay, 2011). So, the coach-
ing role has to depart from the employees’ own ideas and impulses but at the
same time ensure that the employees’ communication is constructive and not
counterproductive for the organization. Future research has to explore how this
coaching role of PR professionals can be executed.

Employee Communication Roles as In-role Behaviour

Many of the employee communication roles found in the literature review are
traditionally considered extra-role behaviour springing out of employee identifi-
cation with the organization (Korschun, 2015; Maxwell & Knox, 2009). In that
sense, the enactment of such roles was always truly voluntary. However, as the
corporate media landscape changes, new norms and expectations are formed.
This raises questions about the voluntary nature of these communication roles:
To what extent is it a right or a duty for employees to communicate? Have role
expectations changed in organizations, so that it is no longer just voluntary to
display these active communication behaviours, but actually the norm? And if,
active communication behaviour is considered in-role behaviour, how will it
affect the employees’ communication? When organizations might feel a need to
encourage employee advocacy, the question is whether the organization’s push
for positive publicity from their employees can backfire? Employees might come
across a less authentic in their praise of their organizations if they have been
pushed to communicate, and this may evoke scepticism from customers and
hurt trust in organizations. Through this chapter, we hope to inspire scholars to
set up empirical studies to explore these questions further.

CONCLUSION
Eight different communication roles emerged from our review of literature on
active employee communication behaviours in PR, corporate communication
and related fields. It raises the question to what extent employees are increas-
ingly expected to participate in PR, and how organizations can encourage and
enable employees to successfully execute these roles. While, employee advocacy
is often perceived as extra-role behaviour (Men, 2014) and linked to employee
organizational identification (Ashforth & Mael, 1989), so consciously using
employees as strategic communicators could obvious prove to be a challenge for
the organization. We propose that communication professionals take on the role
as coaches to support employees in performing these roles. Empirical studies still
needs to explore whether employees are in fact driving PR, and how organiza-
tions can tackle the paradox of maintaining authenticity and making employee
advocacy a part of in-role behaviour.

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