This summary is provided by the IPR Organizational Communication Research Center Technological advancements continue to bring about remarkable transformations to our economy and the workforce. An important question many organizations face is: How can organizations effectively engage with the workforce in this drastically transformed world? We conducted an online survey of employees in the U.S. … Continue reading How to Cultivate and Retain Altruistic and Dedicated Employees?
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All posts by Hongmei Shen, Ph.D.

This abstract is summarized by IPR from the original journal article published in Public Relations Journal. The authors of this study surveyed a random sample of public relations professionals to provide a comprehensive theoretical model that explains the persistent pay inequity between men and women in public relations. Key Findings · Women earn less than … Continue reading Why Women Earn Less Than Men: The Cost of Gender Discrimination in U.S. Public Relations →

This blog post is provided by the IPR Organizational Communication Research Center. When faced with a major social-mediated crisis that impacts both internal and external audiences, what should an organization do to best navigate the situation? United Airlines in 2017 showed us the “worst practices.” On April 9, 2017, a viral smartphone video that showed … Continue reading Authenticity and Ethics: Implications for Internal Crisis Management →

Author(s), Title and Publication Shen, H., & Jiang, H. (2019). Engaged at work? An employee engagement model in public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research, 1-18. Summary This study focused on employee engagement in the public relations scholarship and proposed a strategy-engagement-behavior three-step employee engagement model. Drawing upon prior research, the authors first defined employee … Continue reading Engaged at Work? An Employee Engagement Model in Public Relations →

The concept of engagement has attracted a great amount of attention from both scholars and practitioners in PR. Various forms of engagement have been examined, including digital engagement, public engagement, and employee engagement. Nevertheless, engagement is still not clearly defined in our field and industry (Jelen-Sanchez, 2017). Both researchers and practitioners have called for more … Continue reading Five Ways to Rethink Employee Engagement in the PR Industry →

Public relations is frequently listed as one of the most stressful jobs in the United States (CareerCast.com, 2017). The industry has an annual turnover rate in all specialties of 20.5 percent (Coffee, 2014). Meanwhile, research during the past decade has documented a disheartening fact of high work-life conflict among PRSA members. It appears necessary to … Continue reading Preventing Turnover: Enriching the Interface between Work, Life and Trust →

Job search site CareerCast ranked public relations as the sixth most stressful job in 2016 (Suleman, 2016). When we, professional communicators, are at the other side of the table, how are we dealing with our own work-life conflict? In this blog post, I discuss the ways in which work environment and professional identification impact public … Continue reading When Public Relations Professionals are the Employees: Their Own Work vs. Life →

Scholars in public relations have contended that organization-public relationship (OPR) quality has multiple dimensions, including the oft-cited list of trust, satisfaction, control mutuality, and commitment. The concept of OPR quality is assumed to be positive (Heath, 2013), which nevertheless does not describe relational problems in reality. In this blog post, I introduce an additional side … Continue reading I Trust You, I Trust You Not: Different Sides of Organization-Public Relationships →

It goes without saying that effective employee communication is important to an excellent organization. Without an engaged, trusting, and caring workforce, organizations’ external goals could suffer (e.g., Guaspari, 2002; Berger, 2016). Then the question that follows is: How to build this trusting and caring workforce? In this blog post, I share preliminary results from one … Continue reading The Making of Caring Employees: Internal Relationship Building →

Shen, Hongmei & Fussell Sisco,Hilary (2015). PR professionals’ technology use: Emotional, financial, and professional ramifications. Public Relations Journal, 9(2), 1-17. https://www.prsa.org/intelligence/prjournal/documents/2015v09n02shensisco.pdf Summary This study examined Information and communication technologies (ICT) use by public relations practitioners and its influence on work-life conflict, income, and professional outlook through a random national survey (n = 820) of … Continue reading PR Professionals’ Technology Use: Emotional, Financial, and Professional Ramifications →