Internal Communication and Employee Activism: Netflix's Dave Chappelle Woes and Perspectives from the Field

Recent years have seen increased instances of employees giving voice to their displeasure over organizational action that they deem to be against their own or the organization's values. As the corporate world grapples with how to navigate this new wave of employee activism, public relations and communication scholarship has sought to provide theoretically grounded explorations of employee activism. Most recently, Krishna (2021) offered a theoretically and practically sound definition of employee activism, defining it as “goal-oriented efforts organized and negotiated by individual and/or groups of employees to internally and/or externally advocate for or against organizational policy and/or decision making to generate social change.” The present book chapter seeks to understand how public relations and communication practitioners use internal communication and employee engagement strategies to address, encourage, and/or manage such employee activism. Using qualitative data from a survey of public relations and communication professionals, this study unpacks the best practices and tensions that public relations professionals experience in how to address employee activism using communication and engagement strategies.