Palgrave Macmillan, the global publisher of humanities, social sciences and business for academics and professionals, today announced a new hardcover and online business and management book, entitled Strategic Employee Communication: Building a Culture of Engagement (ISBN 978-3-319-97893-2), edited by Gail S. Thornton, Viviane Mansi, Bruno Carramenha and Thatiana Cappellano.
According to the authors, the book is a “first-of-its-kind” in the scholarly literature. While dozens of communication textbooks have been translated from their English roots into other languages, part of this book was first published in Portuguese and is now translated into English for use in “mainstream” scholarly research all over the world. The book offers fresh insights about opportunities to improve the quality of employee communications based on employees’ needs, includes multiple points of view from 27 contributing authors throughout the world. The book adds to the growing body of international literature on the topic of employee communication.
“Employee engagement (or a lack thereof) can often be linked to poor communication and a detachment from company goals,” said Mansi, one of the editors of the book and Regional Head of Latin America Communications at Toyota in Brazil. “Companies of all sizes are looking for ways to boost communication, recognizing its impact on key business outcomes, such as productivity and profitability.”
The book highlights the importance of simple, jargon-free communication that focuses on dialogue and content. “High-performing organizations are more likely to think about communication from the audience perspective, rather than purely from the management perspective,” said Carramenha, another of the book’s editors. Carramenha, along with Mansi and Cappellano, have published other textbooks in Brazil. He currently works as a lecturer at leading universities in Brazil and is a consultant in organizational culture and communications issues.
“We believe in the quality of critical thinking and the technical knowledge of what is created everyday by business communicators,” said Cappellano, another of the book’s editors, who works with major companies concerning organizational culture and communication issues. “The case studies presented in our book are success stories. There is a good mix of communications theory and practice, as well as thinking, acting and feeling in companies. We believe one must tell a short every day so that one day we will have a greater story to tell.”
“For decades, scholars and professionals around the world have had access to myriad books and materials about public relations,” said Robert I. Wakefield, Ph.D., APR, Associate Professor of Communications, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, who also wrote the book’s Forward section. “This book represents a landmark effort to transfer theory from non-English speaking nations into the mainstream of public relations theory and expand the range of knowledge and perspectives we should be picking up for the field.”
The case studies offer readers an understanding of ways to implement and measure communication in daily practice. “Effective communication requires planning and this book, with its focus on the United States, Latin America, and emerging markets, will guide readers in using communication in the alignment of corporate and employee needs,” said Thornton, another of the book’s editors, who fostered its translation and a communications consultant in pharmaceuticals/health care and biotechnology. “We encourage colleges and universities around the world to consider having this reference book part of their core curriculum for journalism, public relations and communications students.”
The book is available on Palgrave Macmillan’s SpringerLink, their state-of-the-art content platform, which contains one of the largest collections of scholarly content in the world. SpringerLink attracts more than 50 million users at 15,000 institutions worldwide.
