Internal communication torn between employees' and management's expectations : an empirical study of employee magazines

Purpose: Editors of employee magazines may be torn between diverging expectations among their stakeholders. The management might be interested in strategically supportive communication, whereas employees might expect objective, independent, or critical coverage. Based on quantitative data, the paper aims to analyze how the editors perceive these expectations, how they see their professional role in this field of tension and how critically the magazines report. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a quantitative survey of 197 editors of employee magazines and a quantitative content analysis of 200 articles of employee magazines. Findings: Editors perceive differences regarding the expectations of management and employees. These discrepancies, in turn, contribute to the experience of role conflicts. Our analysis reveals three types of editors: the voice of the management, the critical observer and the consensus-oriented mediator. Originality/value: The study addresses the scarcely investigated area of conflict in which editors of employee magazines work. It is one of the first studies to analyze editors' perceived expectations of stakeholders, their professional self-perception and potential role conflicts with a quantitative survey. For the first time, quantitative methods are used to examine the causes of editors' role conflicts.