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Introduction
Over the last three decades, studies on how to encourage organisational commitment have been of interest to researchers in the area of organisational communication ([13] Buchanan, 1974; [24] DeCotiis and Summers, 1987; [60] Putti et al. , 1990; [61] Reichers, 1985; [49] McGee Wanguri, 1995; [35] Gaertner and Nollen, 1989). Researchers and professionals assume and investigations have confirmed that the way managers convey information to their staff has consequences on the attitudes they develop towards the organisation.
Overwhelmingly, research espouses the positive organisational outcomes that committed employees bring to organisations. Committed employees are believed to be more productive and less likely to quit ([4] Arnold and Mackenzie Davey, 1999; [5] Arthur, 1994; [19] Cohen and Hudecek, 1993; [67] Somers and Bimbaum, 2000; [71] Tett and Meyer, 1993), more dependable ([3] Angle and Lawson, 1994), perform better ([69] Suliman and Iles, 2000), produce more ([73] Tjosvold et al. , 1998) and are more involved ([10] Brett and Stroh, 1997). The evidence overwhelmingly supports the idea that employee commitment is enhanced by general aspects of communication such as satisfaction ([77] Varona, 1996), climate ([39] Guzley, 1992; [76] Van den Hooff and de Ridder, 2004), organisational information provision ([56] Ng et al. , 2006), relationships with upper-level managers ([60] Putti et al. , 1990) and quality of communication ([72] Thornhill et al. , 1996).
In an era of apparent constant change and "erosion of corporate loyalty" interpersonal communication skills in managers are vital to promoting employee attachment to the organisation ([12] Brunetto and Farr-Wharton, 2004) However, researchers have paid little attention to the interpersonal communication skills that managers need to enhance their subordinates' commitment to the organisation. The aim of this paper is to identify the skills human resource (HR) managers consider to be essential in effective interpersonal communication.
Literature
Interpersonal communication
A popular view of communication is that it is the process by which information about policies, procedures, finance and customer feedback ([75] Vandenberg et al. , 1999) is conveyed to others in organisations. Yet, it is the medium of interpersonal communication or the content and quality of the messages we send to "initiate, define, maintain, or further a relationship" that determines the success of this process ([23] Dainton and Zelley, 2005, p. 51). In...