Introduction

Communication is the glue that holds a society together. The ability to communicate enables
people to form and maintain both personal and professional relationships. We all know
communication is the process of sharing ideas, information, and messages with others in a
particular time and place. Communication is a vital part of personal life and is also important in
business, education, and any other situations where people encounter each other. Communication
is vital to its employees as well as to the customers with whom the organization serve. The way
an organization maintain its communication process with its employees is known as internal
communication. And if there is an internal communication gap within an organization there is
usually a breakdown in the way information is been sent from the sender to the receiver. This is
precedent in organizations that have a top down hierarchy. In this type of hierarchy it can be
difficult for bottom level employees to obtain information regarding changes within the
organization.

We live in a world filled with other people. We live together, work together, and play together.
In our working environment, we need each other in order to achieve our goals and objectives.
None of these goals can be achieved without communication. Communication is the basic thread
that ties us together. Through communication we make known our needs, our wants, our ideas,
and our feelings. The better we are at communication, the more effective we are at achieving our
hopes and dreams. When there is an internal communication gap it becomes difficult for anyone
to effectively achieve goals.

Great internal communication enables performance, increases engagement, and delivers value to
organizations. Internal communication is an enabling function makes an organization work. It
can see as the oil that helps smooth the running of an organization or a bridge that creates links
between people and functions. Either way, good internal communication creates understanding
and helps knowledge sharing - and that can only be a great thing.
Without excellent internal communication, organizations grind along inefficiently or stop
altogether. There is now a proven link between highly effective organizations and good internal
communication. There is also an increasingly well-understood link between internal
communication, engagement and organizational success. Ultimately, internal communication is
about people. It‟s about how we interact and how we react to the information we're given.
Literature Review

The word communication is based on the Latin words “communis” and “communicare” (Wiio,
1977). “Communis” means sharing in common and “communicare” means to make common,
hence communication is something that is being done together (Wiio,1977). Wiio (1970) defines
communication simply as the exchange of information between the sender and the receiver. One
of the earliest ways to describe communication is the Shannon-Weaver model of communication,
which includes more elements than just the sender and the receiver (Shannon & Weaver, 1949).
According their model the sender encodes a message, transmits it via a channel to the receiver
who decodes the message. Along the way there is noise, which refers to any disturbance that
could affect the reception of the message (Shannon & Weaver, 1949). It is important to note that
communication can be both internal and external (Cornelissen, 2011). Traditionally it was easy
to distinguish between the internal communication between the employees in a company and the
external communication to, for instance, customers. Nowadays, however, with the arrival of
technology and new communication tools (e-mail, intranet, videos, online newsletters) the
borders between internal and external communication have become fuzzy (Cornelissen, 2011).

Internal communication is important because it helps to share information and knowledge with
everyone at the company (D. Tourish & Hargie, 2004a). It informs (Smith, 2008), satisfies and
commits the employees (D. Tourish & Hargie, 2000), as well as, engages them and gives them a
voice to speak up (Morrison & Milliken, 2000). Especially in today‟s rapidly changing business
world, with all the downsizing, outsourcing and restructuring, internal communication is
important (Vercic et al., 2012). It has emerged as a critical function, because organisational
leaders need better management skills in regards to employees (Vercic et al., 2012).
Internal communication affects the bottom line of a company, by decreasing employee turnover
and increasing market premiums, shareholder returns and employee engagement (Yates, 2006),
therefore, leading to success (Argenti & Forman, 2002; D. Tourish & Hargie, 2004d). The
growing importance of internal communication is visible in many initiatives, for instance, the
setting up of the Institute of internal communication in the UK, with the aim of understanding
and studying the field (Vercic et al., 2012).
The internal communication matrix created by Welch and Jackson (2007) consists of four formal
internal communication dimensions, which are internal corporate communication (ICC),
internal line manager communication, internal team peer communication and internal project
peer communication. The internal communication matrix helps to separate the ICC dimension
from the other internal communication dimensions.
The many kinds of internal communication channels (Friedl & Vercic, 2011) could be
categorised in different ways: for example into oral, written and electronic (S. Klein, 1996), or
into traditional and technology related (Al-Ghamdi et al., 2007) or into traditional and social
media channels (Friedl & Vercic, 2011). According to Al-Ghamdi et al. (2007), technology has
brought with it an explosion of communication channels these include channels such as
“teleconferencing, videoconferencing, internet, fax, mobile phones etc
Friedl and Vercic (2011,) identify traditional internal communication media as “employee
magazines, intranet news, corporate television, e-mail and the „board-of-directors‟ newsletter‟ as
well as face-to-face communication and employee meetings”. Also, they claim that the new
channels today are related to social media and include channels such as “blogs, micro blogging,
wikis, social networking, podcasting, video and photo sharing and instant messenger as well as
discussion forums” (Friedl & Vercic, 2011, p. 85). The five categories with the channels are
presented in the following list as an example of typical company channels.

• Face-to-face
– One-on-one consultations (formal)
– One-on-one chats (informal)

• Group
– Group meetings (formal)
– Group gatherings (informal)

• Written
– Handwritten notes
– Typed or printed memos or letters
– printed documents or reports
– Charts and graphs
– Computer reports

• Traditional communication technologies

– Phone
– Voice conferencing
– Facsimile

• Computer-mediated communication technologies

– Electronic mail
– voice messaging

Communication channels are important because without them, the message wouldn‟t
get from the sender to the receiver, the message couldn‟t be negotiated, and managers
wouldn‟t be able to interpret work situations and influence or direct employees (Lengel
& Daft, 1988). However, even more important is choosing the right channel for the right
message (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Zmud et al., 1990), because channels have different
strengths and weaknesses (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Zmud et al., 1990). The type and
essence of the media can enhance or distort the message (Lengel & Daft, 1988), as well
as influence the receiver‟s interpretation of the message (Daft, Lengel & Trevino, 1987;
Randolph, 1978). McLuhan (1960) even points out that the medium is the message,
hence emphasising the significance of the medium.

To conclude, Reviewed past literature is highly relevant to our research. Covered issues are
internal communication, internal communication- matrix, channels, strategies ,goals etc. All of
the reviewed literature has created a coherent and new theoretical framework to be used in this
research.

3. Methodology of the study

3.1. Type of the Research

In general, there are two types of Research Methods that mostly being used; Quantitative
Research Method and Qualitative Research Method.
Our research contains qualitative research. Qualitative research explores attitudes, behavior and
experiences through methods such as interviews or focus groups. It attempts to get an in-depth
opinion from participants. As it is attitudes, behavior and experiences which are important, fewer
people take part in the research, but the contact with these people tends to last a lot longer.
The main objective of qualitative research was to find out the problems and views to reach
proper insights and understanding. The qualitative research was mainly conducted to get
comprehensive knowledge about people‟s feelings about the current communication system in
their organization.

3.2. In depth interviews:

As a part of qualitative research we used in depth interviews because this is a totally personal
and controversial topic. We would need to get into the participant to get the proper information
out. In depth interviews will be the perfect option to conduct in this situation. And in order to
not miss any part of the conversation the recording helped us continue the research properly and
of course with the permission with the participant.

3.3. Problem definition

The main problem the research deal with in the report is the analysis of the employee‟s
satisfaction level on which the questionnaire is prepared. To achieve information about
employee‟s perception, satisfaction level and problem they face in case of internal
communication- the survey played a major role. By asking question and doing survey based on
questionnaire was the main process of the research. Some of our knowledge and perception are
also used to prepare the questionnaire.
3.4. Measurement Procedure:

Comparative technique was mainly used in this procedure. There were two set of questions-one
for managers and another for employees works under those managers. Each set of questions
contains 11 open-ended questions in the questionnaire. The open ended questions helped us to
get additional feelings of respondents about their understanding level for internal communication
in their organization.

3.5. Questionnaire:
Data obtained from the survey were analyzed in a unified manner. A questionnaire with a set of
formal set of questions is prepared for obtaining information from the Gemcon companies
employees. The questions are in English because we mainly prepared the questionnaire for mid-
level employees and for their manager and they are all well educated. The questionnaire was
prepared in such manner so that respondents feel motivated and encouraged to participate and
attend the interview with good cooperation.
In the beginning of the questionnaire there is an introduction part where the interviewers give
his/her introduction, introduce the research topic and go through the purpose of the survey. In the
later part, questions are asked aiming to know the information for which this research conducted
for. The questionnaire is added in the appendix part of the report.

3.6. Research Design:

As already mentioned earlier our research focused on one phase: Qualitative.

Research Design Face to face interview

Target group Both male and female
Designation Managers and mid level employees
Centers Dhanmondi, Dhaka
Number of interviewees 7

References:
 1. Beverly Mallett-Hamer (August 2005); COMMUNICATION WITHIN THE
WORKPLACE( Research Paper);Retrieved from
http://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/5066737.pdf

2. Melcrum Smarter Internal Communication; An introduction to internal communication;

Retrieved from
https://www.melcrum.com/training-courses/introduction-internal-communication

3. Institute of internal communication; Why is IC important; Retrieved from

http://www.ioic.org.uk/about/why-is-ic-important.html

4. Michele Fenech (2013); Internal corporate communication on strategy and employee

commitment (Master's thesis). Retrieved from
http://epub.lib.aalto.fi/en/ethesis/pdf/13144/hse_ethesis_13144.pd

4. Overall Findings from Qualitative Research

From the qualitative research, there are some findings regarding employees thinking, attitude,
knowledge level and relationships status. According to respondents, they follow both formal and
informal communication process for their internal communication and the way this
communication take place in their organization, they are satisfied with that. Beside this