Understanding Your Internal Publics

Excellence in Internal Communication Management is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by Rita Linjuan Men, Associate Professor of Public Relations at the University of Florida, and Shannon A. Bowen, Professor of Public Relations at the University of Southern California. The authors combine theories, research insights, practices, as well as current issues and cases into a comprehensive guide for internal communication managers and organizational leaders on how to communicate effectively with internal stakeholders, build ethical organizational cultures, and engage employees in a rapidly-changing business environment. In Chapter 2, the authors argue that managers must understand and organize their employees in order to communicate effectively with them. They call employees and the groups they form "internal publics," writing that employee communications should be targeted at subsets of the employee population by segmenting employees based on demographic characteristics and common interests. Segmenting employees based on an organization's hierarchical structure can also be useful in devising targeted communications, as each level has different needs, responsibilities, and methods of communication. The authors also cover Grunig's situational theory of publics and summarize characteristics of today's workforce, which include multigeneration, diversity, globalization, powered by technology, and an emphasis on work-life balance.

• Stakeholder relations
• Internal communication
• Organizational behavior
• Business communication
• Employee engagement
• Communication strategy
• Business ethics