Voice of the management or employee advocate? How editors of employee magazines see their professional role
Corporate Communications: An International Journal
ISSN: 1356-3289
Article publication date: 5 February 2018
Abstract
Purpose
Editors of employee magazines work in a grey area between public relations and journalism. On the one hand, they need to accommodate the company management’s interest in a positive presentation; on the other, they must meet the employees’ need for objective and independent information. Although employee magazines reach millions of recipients every day, its editors have rarely been the focus of academic work. The purpose of this paper is to change this and scrutinise the way the editors view their professional role and the role conflicts to which they are subjected.
Design/methodology/approach
We conduct 15 qualitative semi-structured interviews with editors of employee magazines to analyse their professional role and possible conflicts in their work.
Findings
The editors’ self-concept varies significantly along two dimensions, which the authors use as the basis for distinguishing four types: the management ambassador, the employee representative, the mediator and the service provider.
Originality/value
The study sheds light on employee magazines, a medium between public relations and journalism that has not been analysed before. It helps to specify the role of these magazines and its editors’ between the expectations of the management and the employees.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The findings reported in the manuscript are original, contribute to the broad body of knowledge in public relations and have not been published previously. The authors complied with the American Psychological Association ethical standards in the treatment of our sample.
Citation
Koch, T., Vogel, J., Denner, N. and Encarnacao, S. (2018), "Voice of the management or employee advocate? How editors of employee magazines see their professional role", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 51-65. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-03-2017-0020
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited