Employee Advocacy

Employee Advocacy: Practice where employees communicate positively or defend their organization, especially externally (Kim & Rhee, 2011).
Value: Stakeholders view employee voices as more trustworthy than formal corporate messages. Potential benefits include reaching more people, boosting sales, attracting talent, managing crises, and enhancing employee engagement and productivity.
Personal Benefits: Employees develop networks and strengthen personal and professional brands (Christensen & Christensen, 2022; Smith et al., 2017).
Multivocal Nature: Organizations are represented through employees, making them integral to shaping external perceptions (Cooren, 2006; Taylor & Cooren, 1997).
Social Media Connection: The rise of social media has amplified employee advocacy (Smith et al., 2017).

Research Focus: Explores both non-nominated (voluntary) and nominated (management-invited) employee advocacy.

Definition: Employees voluntarily sharing organization-supportive messages, often without formal job descriptions (Walden, 2018).

Influencing Factors: Quality of employee-organization relationships (EORs) impacts organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and employee communicative behavior (ECB).
Key Studies:
- Kim and Rhee (2011): High-quality EOR encourages problem ownership and advocacy.
- Walden & Westerman (2018): Open communication fosters commitment and advocacy.
- Thelen (2021): Servant leadership enhances communication satisfaction and advocacy likelihood.

Management Control: Need for balancing employee authenticity and management control in advocacy practices.
Policies: Social media policies frame employee representations, creating a conflict between control and authenticity (Dreher, 2014; Banghart et al., 2018; Weber, 2013).
Self-Censorship: Employees adapt messages to fit perceived expectations of stakeholders, ensuring coherence between online and offline personas.

Definition: Employees appointed by management to represent the organization through formal channels (e.g., social media, websites).
Focus Areas: Organizational culture and social media norms discipline employee representatives.

Agerdal-Hjermind (2014): Conflict and self-censorship in employee blogging practices within a public organization.
Cassinger and Thelander (2020): Instagram representation influenced by organizational culture and visuals.
Shortt and Warren (2020): Student photographers tended to avoid negative portrayals of university buildings.

Promises of Employee Advocacy: Increase in reach and credibility of corporate messages amid communication challenges.
Research Challenges: Need for deeper exploration into the credibility and authenticity of employee advocacy, particularly regarding its impact on corporate trustworthiness.
Tensions of Control and Authenticity: Organizational control and social norms may lead to generic outputs, potentially undermining the value of advocacy.
Further Research Directions: Examination of both voluntary and controlled aspects of employee advocacy, focusing on agency and discipline in representation.