To listen, or to hear, that is the question. Internal listening at a Danish hospital during times of crisis

TY - ABST

T1 - To listen, or to hear, that is the question. Internal listening at a Danish hospital during times of crisis

AU - Andersen, Mona Agerholm

AU - Thøis Madsen, Vibeke

AU - Gode, Helle Eskesen

N1 - Conference code: 23

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - EUPRERA 23rd ANNUAL CONGRESS 2022AbstractTo listen, or to hear, that is the question. Internal listening at a Danish hospital during times of crisis This study focuses on internal listening at a large Danish university hospital in the aftermath of the Danish nurse strike in 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic. When organizations find themselves in a challenging and critical situation, internal listening may be a way for management and employees to maintain trust and improve engagement, and overcome worries and resistance (Sahay, 2021, Lewis, 2020). For several years, scholars have acknowledged the importance of employee voice as a driver of employee engagement (e.g. Ruck et al., 2017) but in recent years, the center of attention has moved to internal listening. Having a voice does not make sense if employees’ proposals and concerns are not listened to (Ruck, 2021).According to Lewis (2020), internal listening refers to “a set of methodologies and structures designed and utilized to ensure that an organization’s attention is directed toward vital information and input to enable learning, questioning of key assumptions, interrogating decisions, and ensuring self-critical analysis” (p. xvi). In the light of her definition, Lewis (2020) emphasizes that organizations should focus on sincere listening leadership to learn and obtain new knowledge. However, attempts to listen to employees are often perceived as symbolic or inauthentic (Lewis, 2019). Employees are asked to solicit input but often the organization lack the competencies and resources to use and react to employee suggestions and concerns. Macnamara (2016) therefore argues that an “architecture of listening” is needed in terms of an organizational culture open to listening, deliberate policies and procedures supporting this as well as technologies that can support internal listening. In this context, internal social (ISM) could be a useful communication arena (Heide and Simonsson, 2011). In the field of organizational communication studies, ISM is defined as an interactive and dynamic communication arena in which organizational members can interact, discuss, negotiate and make sense of their work and organizational lives (Madsen, 2017), and it can provide an arena where managers can listen to the organization (Madsen and Johansen, 2019)Scholars argue that internal listening is still in its infancy, and that it is still undertheorized (Macnamara, 2018). Therefore, researchers should direct their attention to more empirical research on how organizations may build and maintain a strategic listening focus in different contexts (Neil and Bowen, 2021a; Neil and Bowen, 2021b). Consequently, the purpose of this study is to investigate how managers and employees practice internal listening and with what consequences for the employees’ experience of psychological safety and feeling of influence in times of turbulence. Therefore, one part of this study concentrates on analyzing how managers and employees practice internal listening on the hospital’s internal social media platform “The word is free”. More precisely, a number of posts by managers and employees have been analyzed to explore employee voice and internal listening.Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with key managers and nurses have been conducted to explore their perceptions on how internal listening functions not only in times of turbulence, or crisis, but also under normal circumstances. The findings provide insights regarding internal listening at a Danish university hospital where the employees find themselves caught up in a specific crisis caused by the nurse strike and the COVID-19 pandemic. ReferencesHeide, M. and Simonsson, C. (2011). Putting co-workers in the limelight: New challenges for communication professionals. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 5(4), 201–220.Lewis, L. (2019). Organizational Change: Creating Change through Strategic Communication, 2nd Edition, Wiley-Blackwell.Lewis, L. (2020). The power of strategic listening. London, United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield.Macnamara, J. (2016). Organizational listening: Addressing a major gap in public relations theory and practice. Journal of Public Relations Research, 28(3-4), 146-169.Macnamara, J. (2018). Towards a theory and practice of organizational listening. International Journal of Listening, 32 (1), 1–23.Madsen, V. T. (2017). The challenges of introducing internal social media—the coordinators’ roles and perceptions. Journal of Communication Management, 21(1), 2–16.Madsen, V. T., and Johansen, W. (2019). A spiral of voice? When employees speak up on internal social media. Journal of Communication Management.Neil, M. S. and Bowen, S. A. (2021a). Employee perceptions of ethical listening in U.S. organizations. Public Relations Review, 47 (5), 102123Neil, M. S. and Bowen, S. A. (2021b). Ethical listening to employees during a pandemic: new approaches, barriers and lessons. Journal of Communication Management, 25 (3), 276-297Ruck, K. (2021). Employee voice and internal listening: towards dialogue in the workplace. In Current Trends and Issues in Internal Communication (pp. 93-111). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.Ruck, K., Welch, M., and Menara, B. (2017). Employee voice: an antecedent to organisational engagement? Public Relations Review, 43(5), 904-914.Sahay, S. (2021). Organizational listening during organizational change: perspectives of employees and executives. International journal of listening, 2021-06-23, 1-14

AB - EUPRERA 23rd ANNUAL CONGRESS 2022AbstractTo listen, or to hear, that is the question. Internal listening at a Danish hospital during times of crisis This study focuses on internal listening at a large Danish university hospital in the aftermath of the Danish nurse strike in 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic. When organizations find themselves in a challenging and critical situation, internal listening may be a way for management and employees to maintain trust and improve engagement, and overcome worries and resistance (Sahay, 2021, Lewis, 2020). For several years, scholars have acknowledged the importance of employee voice as a driver of employee engagement (e.g. Ruck et al., 2017) but in recent years, the center of attention has moved to internal listening. Having a voice does not make sense if employees’ proposals and concerns are not listened to (Ruck, 2021).According to Lewis (2020), internal listening refers to “a set of methodologies and structures designed and utilized to ensure that an organization’s attention is directed toward vital information and input to enable learning, questioning of key assumptions, interrogating decisions, and ensuring self-critical analysis” (p. xvi). In the light of her definition, Lewis (2020) emphasizes that organizations should focus on sincere listening leadership to learn and obtain new knowledge. However, attempts to listen to employees are often perceived as symbolic or inauthentic (Lewis, 2019). Employees are asked to solicit input but often the organization lack the competencies and resources to use and react to employee suggestions and concerns. Macnamara (2016) therefore argues that an “architecture of listening” is needed in terms of an organizational culture open to listening, deliberate policies and procedures supporting this as well as technologies that can support internal listening. In this context, internal social (ISM) could be a useful communication arena (Heide and Simonsson, 2011). In the field of organizational communication studies, ISM is defined as an interactive and dynamic communication arena in which organizational members can interact, discuss, negotiate and make sense of their work and organizational lives (Madsen, 2017), and it can provide an arena where managers can listen to the organization (Madsen and Johansen, 2019)Scholars argue that internal listening is still in its infancy, and that it is still undertheorized (Macnamara, 2018). Therefore, researchers should direct their attention to more empirical research on how organizations may build and maintain a strategic listening focus in different contexts (Neil and Bowen, 2021a; Neil and Bowen, 2021b). Consequently, the purpose of this study is to investigate how managers and employees practice internal listening and with what consequences for the employees’ experience of psychological safety and feeling of influence in times of turbulence. Therefore, one part of this study concentrates on analyzing how managers and employees practice internal listening on the hospital’s internal social media platform “The word is free”. More precisely, a number of posts by managers and employees have been analyzed to explore employee voice and internal listening.Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with key managers and nurses have been conducted to explore their perceptions on how internal listening functions not only in times of turbulence, or crisis, but also under normal circumstances. The findings provide insights regarding internal listening at a Danish university hospital where the employees find themselves caught up in a specific crisis caused by the nurse strike and the COVID-19 pandemic. ReferencesHeide, M. and Simonsson, C. (2011). Putting co-workers in the limelight: New challenges for communication professionals. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 5(4), 201–220.Lewis, L. (2019). Organizational Change: Creating Change through Strategic Communication, 2nd Edition, Wiley-Blackwell.Lewis, L. (2020). The power of strategic listening. London, United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield.Macnamara, J. (2016). Organizational listening: Addressing a major gap in public relations theory and practice. Journal of Public Relations Research, 28(3-4), 146-169.Macnamara, J. (2018). Towards a theory and practice of organizational listening. International Journal of Listening, 32 (1), 1–23.Madsen, V. T. (2017). The challenges of introducing internal social media—the coordinators’ roles and perceptions. Journal of Communication Management, 21(1), 2–16.Madsen, V. T., and Johansen, W. (2019). A spiral of voice? When employees speak up on internal social media. Journal of Communication Management.Neil, M. S. and Bowen, S. A. (2021a). Employee perceptions of ethical listening in U.S. organizations. Public Relations Review, 47 (5), 102123Neil, M. S. and Bowen, S. A. (2021b). Ethical listening to employees during a pandemic: new approaches, barriers and lessons. Journal of Communication Management, 25 (3), 276-297Ruck, K. (2021). Employee voice and internal listening: towards dialogue in the workplace. In Current Trends and Issues in Internal Communication (pp. 93-111). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.Ruck, K., Welch, M., and Menara, B. (2017). Employee voice: an antecedent to organisational engagement? Public Relations Review, 43(5), 904-914.Sahay, S. (2021). Organizational listening during organizational change: perspectives of employees and executives. International journal of listening, 2021-06-23, 1-14

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - EUPRERA 23rd Annual Congress

Y2 - 21 September 2022 through 24 September 2022

ER -