Online Communication Behaviors in Covid-19 Pandemic: Exploring the Influence of Internal Public Relations Practices and Employee Organization Relationships

Abstract

Health organizations are increasingly looking for effective strategies for interaction and for  maintaining long-term and mutually beneficial relationships with their employees. The growth  of digital environments in particular, during Covid-19 Pandemic has offered a fresh avenue for  employees to communicate with external publics through social media in crisis. During Covid  19 Pandemic, major healthcare sectors have been deeply impacted, nurses in Jordanian  hospitals are suffering from a great challenge from their top management due to weak  transparent communication and during a crisis, many reports nurses indicate that their  organizations or leaders do not promote communication or the sharing of information and  ideas. This represents the problem in which nurses do not have faith in the tolerance or  benevolence of their managers. Jordanian hospitals reputation is increasingly questioned  during the COVID-19 crisis (World Health Organization, 2020). This crisis involving  Jordanian hospitals has resulted in declining nurses trust in the health care sector and their  nurses more adversaries by sharing negative information about their hospitals on social media.  ultimately turned into emergence of crisis communication in the healthcare sector and the  decline of nurses’ support for their management. If the current trend persists, may likely lead  to an unfavorable reputation for future of health care sector in Jordan. Taking this into  consideration, the current paper expects to further explore and comprehend, employee's online  communication behaviors during Covid-19 Pandemic in Jordanian public hospitals. This  conceptual paper debates the antecedents that contribute across Jordanian nurses' motivation in  online communication behaviors based on a comprehensive literature review. In particular, the  paper elaborates on the proposed relationships between transparent communication,  symmetrical communication employee organization relationships, and online communication  behaviors. Based on the extended discussions of the proposed relationships, the paper also  provides an effective framework for future public relations scholarship of understanding  employees’ communication behaviors in online sitting. Therefore, identifying antecedents of  employee communication behaviors is a very pertinent, timely initiative to restore employees trust and obtain their support during a crisis. This can be done by utilizing a specific mechanism  to decrease threats in the public health sector and create positive results, such as positive  employee communication behaviors.