BACKGROUND: Communication is an essential organizational process for responding to adversity. Managers are often advised to communicate frequently and redundantly during crises. Nonetheless, systematic investigation of how information receivers perceive organizational communication amid crises has remained lacking.
PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to characterize features of effective internal crisis communication by examining how information-sharing processes unfolded during the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
METHODOLOGY: Between June and August 2020, we conducted 55 semistructured interviews with emergency department workers practicing in a variety of roles. We analyzed interview transcripts following constructivist constant comparative methods.
RESULTS: Our findings revealed that at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic response, emergency department workers struggled with immense fear and anxiety amid high uncertainty and equivocality. Frequent and redundant communication, however, resulted in information delivery and uptake problems, worsening anxiety, and interpersonal tension. These problems were ameliorated by the emergence of contextual experts who centralized and democratized communication. Centralization standardized information received across roles, work schedules, and settings while decoupling internal communication from turbulence in the environment. Democratization made information accessible in a way that all could understand. It also ensured information senders' receptiveness to feedback from information receivers. Centralization and democratization together worked to reduce sensed uncertainty and equivocality, which reduced anxiety and interpersonal tension.
CONCLUSION: Establishing frequent and redundant communication strategies does not necessarily address the anxiety and interpersonal tension produced by uncertainty and equivocality in crises.
PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Centralization and democratization of crisis communication can reduce anxiety, improve coordination, and promote a safer workplace and patient care environment.
