Employee-centric discussions and economic context: Evidence from Chairman speeches

Introduction

This paper studies the focus of employee-centric discussions (ECDs) in chairman’s speeches over the period of 2004-2014, in view of economic recession. Specifically, it identifies the underlying themes of ECDs in these speeches. The employee-centric approach considers ‘employees as the crucial core for organizational success’ (Hoogervorst, Koopman, and van de Flier, 2005). Hence, any discussion targeted to employees in chairman speeches can be considered as the reflection of employee-centric approach of the higher echelons. Second, it understands the HR focus considering economic context of 2008-09 and 2009-10 based on the identified themes. The time period before 2009 i.e., 2004-2008 is labelled as pre-recession and the time period after 2010 i.e., 2011-2014 is labelled as post-recession. The rationale for this categorization is provided in succeeding paragraph.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Report 2009¹, the global economy was witnessing a huge financial crisis in 2009 and a consequent severe depression. In 2010, the global economy appeared to be emerging from the recession (IMF, 2010)². This suggests that 2009 and 2010 is the transition period wherein the global economy moved from a crisis to normalcy. Therefore, the year of 2009 and 2010 serves as basis for categorizing the period into two distinct time periods. i.e., pre-recession (2004-2008) and post-recession (2010-2014). This economic downturn led to organizational restructuring, workforce reduction or downsizing. The Workplace Employee Relations Study 2009³ suggests that during recession, the attention is on laying-off of employees, but it is equally important to lay emphasis on the employees who have survived the layoffs. Though they survive, they go through a psychological state termed as ‘Workplace Survivors’ Syndrome’ (Appelbaum and Donia, 2001a, 2001b). Organizational psychologists coined this term to explain the psychological state of employees who continue in the organization after surviving downsizing. Researchers pertaining to organizational psychology scholarship speak of many conditions that may be a characteristic of lay-off survivors. These may include low morale and motivation, absenteeism, lack of organizational commitment and engagement, risk avoidance, loss of decision making, a decline in productivity, and increased level of workplace stress’⁴. Consequently, such a situation demands for emphasis on Human Resource (HR) function which involves activities that concerns maintaining employers-employee relationships contributing to adequate output, motivation and morale. This can only be attained through constant support from the top echelon. The higher echelon does believe that the HR has a significant role to play in firm performance. But, despite these beliefs, sometimes it may not be reflected in the attitudes of the top echelons.

Aforesaid, the aim of the paper is to identify the themes of ECDs in the chairman speeches and eventually understand the HR focus in the economic context of economic recession, based on identified themes. The economic context of 2009 and 2010 provides a unique opportunity to explore the attitudinal approach of the top echelons towards HR and how employment relations practices have been affected. For this study, we consider chairman’s speech as the reflection of the higher echelons’ attitudes towards HR. The chairman’s speech (also known as the chairman’s address or the chairman’s statement) has wide readership in order to assess the company and its prospects. It provides an unquantified and unaudited terms on the performance of the company during the past years and on future developments. There is no customary or suggested format and content. It also provides remark on efforts of employees and other management teams (Pendleburry and Groves, 2004). Hence, it can provide insightful results and interpretation concerning the objective of the paper.

This paper makes use of qualitative content analysis as the research technique. Whereas there is an extensive literature on the use of content analysis in analysing organizational narratives, little work has been done on the content of the chairman’s speech. Content analysis is a methodology of social science which helps in making inferences by systematic identification of the indicated characteristics of large amounts of textual information in narratives; and detecting patterns and structures of the content (Krippendorff, 2012). Overall, there are two general approaches to content analysis: meaning-oriented analysis, which concentrates on analysing the underlying themes in the texts under inquiry, and form-oriented analysis, which regularly counts words or concrete allusions. In this study, approaches of analysis that are both form-oriented (based on word occurrences) and meaning-oriented (based on theme content) are employed. The initial coding is done using the first method, while theme generation is done using the second.

The paper discusses the prior scholarship on importance of HR focus followed by works on content analysis of chairman speeches and other organizational narratives. It further outlines the methodology before putting forth the findings. In presenting the findings, the paper offers an interpretation of patterns of ECD in chairman speeches, in the view of the economic contexts of pre- and post-recession.

This study builds upon the communication scholarship and speaks of generation of motivation through language. Steele (1977) found that listening to speeches by Winston Churchill and others bring about higher power motivation and general activation. The stimulus occurrence of the speeches exhibits two functions; it both arouses and provides signals for arousal. The individuals listening to the speeches are influenced by the signals in the speeches eventually becoming more receptive towards the speech. The linguistic choices in the speeches signals the listener or reader. The primary means by which a source can convey message strength, commonly referred to as assertion intensity is by linguistic choice (Hamilton, Hunter, and Burgoon, 1990).

Language characteristically is the medium through which subjects’ responses are educed and in which they respond by playing a role in the human cognitive and perceptual process (Krauss and Chiu, 1998). It is a tool for rebuilding of perception and beliefs. Framing or wording a narrative in a manner influences human cognition (Conger, 1991). Effective framing will ensure emotional impact particularly in terms of building a sense of confidence and excitement among the targets. The activity of reading a narrative is essentially an individual cognitive process (Yekini, Wisniewski, and Millo, 2016). After that, we apply cognitive psychology theories that claim that the tone of a chairman’s remarks affects the development of attitudes (Ajzen and Fishbein, 2000; Crano and Prislin, 2006; Perloff, 2010). Psychology typically views the persuasive power of texts as informational influence, which is cognitive reactions to persuasive messages (Petty, Cacioppo and Schumann, 1983). According to Petty et al. (1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), when actors are exposed to potentially persuasive information and when they pay attention to this message, their cognitive structures alter. This process ensures the development of new cognitions that may later be adopted and retained in memory, making various reactions more pertinent than they were before (Wagner and Petty, 2011; Sussman and Siegal, 2003). Influence is conceptualized as a “cumulative series of signals in the text that, when read by the actor, gradually brings about cognitive structure change in attitude” (Yekini, Wisniewski, and Millo, 2016). According to ELM, this study’s hypothesis is that readers of the narratives who are considering whether to invest in or withdraw their holdings in the questioned companies are engaging in the process of changing their cognitive structures. the ELM’s emphasis on the link between repetition and attitude change encourages us to think carefully about frequency as we assess the influence of the narratives. In other words, the more frequently lexicons with strong motivating power are used in the text, the more likely it is that they will have an impact.

Methods

This paper is concerned with the information content of the chairman’s statement; the task domain employed is that of employee-centric discussion. This paper adopts a qualitative content analysis approach to study the themes of ECDs present in chairman’s speeches, in the view of two economic contexts i.e., pre- and post-recession. Qualitative content analysis is different from quantitative content analysis in that the latter is concerned with the word occurrences unlike the former which is concerned with the thematic interpretation of textual data. The study is done with the help of Atlas.ti 8 software. Atlas.ti 8 is a qualitative data analysis (QDA) software package that can code number of different media types including text, images, videos, and audio. The software enables the researcher to identify, code, and interpret findings, and also to explore the relation between them. The same analysis can also be done by various freely accessible softwares such as RQDA (https://rqda.r-forge.r-project.org/).

Results

This study compared the themes of ECDs by top echelons during two distinct time periods. i.e., pre-recession (2004-2008) and post-recession (2010-2014). It was done by conducting the thematic analysis of 304 chairman speeches from 38 companies (from CNX 2016 Nifty 50-stock index). For each company, we analysed 8 chairman speeches during the period of 2004-2008 (pre-recession) and 2010-2014 (post-recession), forming two sets of 152 speeches. The unit of comparison in the study is the time period (pre-recession and post-recession), and not the company itself.

The analysis was based on the referring terms used for employees in the speech (Vagisha, 2023). These keywords were identified using word cruncher tool in Atlas.ti 8 software. The preliminary tagging of the ECD excerpts yielded 26 codes – co-operation, commitment, contribution, dedication, determination, enthusiasm, effort, hard work, passion, performance, perseverance, reliability, service, support, confidence, awards and recognitions, talent management, well-being, HR initiative, employee engagement, employee diversity, occupational health safety, work environment, asset, strength, and pride.

The codes were themed based on coherence of intentions as listed below:

Theme 1: Acknowledgment and appreciation: This theme is generated based on the explanation that codes under ‘acknowledgement and appreciation’ implies employees’ amenity and commitment towards organization.

This theme comprises of 14 codes namely, co-operation, commitment, contribution, dedication, determination, effort, enthusiasm, hard work, passion, performance, perseverance, reliability, service, and support.

Theme 2 – Confidence: This theme implies the higher echelons confidence and faith in their employees. This theme comprises of one code of the same name.

Theme 3 – Employee relations: This theme is generated based on the explanation that codes under ‘employee relations’ implies higher echelons’ focus on human resources. This theme comprises of eight codes namely, awards and recognitions, employee diversity, employee engagement, HR initiative, occupational health and safety, talent management, well-being, and work environment.

Theme 4 – Employee value: The codes under this theme imply the value that employees hold for their organizations. This theme comprises of three codes namely, asset, strength, and pride.

A few example excerpts from the Chairman Speeches for each theme is provided in Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4.

The comparative analysis between the two economic contexts with respect to the frequency of ECDs, suggested an increased frequency of ECDs in the post-recession period. ECDs under the themes of acknowledgement and appreciation, employee relations activities, expectation, and employee value were more prevalent in the post-recession period.

The findings imply that throughout the post-recession period, Chairman Speeches featured employee-centric discussions more frequently. The study’s findings are consistent with the study’s premise, which emphasises the importance of raising staff morale and motivation during a recession. The rise in the frequency of all the derived themes—acknowledgment and appreciation, employee relations activities, expectation, and employee value—from pre- to post-recession indicates a targeted approach on the part of top management towards their staff, implying an attitude change as a result of the global economic downturn.

Discussion

The top echelons have adhered to the idea that the HR function plays an essential role in organizational performance. Contrarily, it may not be reflected in their attitudes. In order to study the attitudinal approach of the top echelons, this paper offers an interpretation of patterns of employee centric discussions in chairman speeches, in light of economic context – pre- and post-recession. The economic context of 2009 and 2010 provides a unique opportunity to explore the attitudinal approach of the top echelons towards the human resource and how employment relation practices have been affected consequent to the prevailing economic context. The analysis suggests an increased frequency of Employee-Centric Discussions in the Chairman Speeches during the post-recession period. The result of the study is in synchronization with the rationale of the study which point towards emphasizing on employees’ motivation and morale in a situation like recession. The increase in the prevalence of all the derived themes i.e., acknowledgment and appreciation, employee relation activities, expectation, and employee value from pre- to post-recession signifies a focussed approach of top echelons towards their employees implying an attitudinal change owing to the global economic recession.

In terms of the choice of sample (narratives), this study can be extended to other organisational disclosures. Additional insights regarding the communicative patterns and themes of ECDs might be gained by conducting an industry-wise comparative analysis of chairman speeches.