Work environment in contemporary organisations: The cultural structuring of internal communication

Abstract

This study examines how cooperative and competitive organisational cultures differ in their use of internal communication channels, addressing a research gap in understanding communication tools as culturally shaped rather than technologically neutral. Integrating organisational culture theory with contemporary internal communication scholarship, the study analyses survey data on employees’ evaluations of physical and digital communication channels to strengthen two different organizational cultures – cooperative and competitive. The channels include chat applications, collaboration platforms, email, and remote meeting tools. Findings show that cooperative cultures favour dialogic, collaborative, and synchronous channels that support participation and relational cohesion. In contrast, competitive cultures prefer structured, efficiency-driven, and top-down communication that reinforces clarity, accountability, and rapid coordination. Some tools, such as remote meetings, exhibit flexible functions across cultures. The findings reveal clear cultural distinctions. Cooperative cultures strongly prefer dialogic, collaborative, and synchronous communication channels that support participation and relational cohesion. Competitive cultures rely more heavily on structured, efficiency-driven, and top-down channels that emphasise clarity, performance alignment, and rapid coordination. Some tools, such as remote meetings, exhibit flexible affordances, functioning as relational spaces in cooperative cultures and as performance-oriented briefings in competitive ones. These results demonstrate that internal communication acts as a mediating mechanism through which cultural values are enacted and organisational outcomes – such as engagement, identification, psychological safety, and coordination – are produced. The study advances theory by positioning internal communication as a mediating mechanism through which cultural values are enacted, and organisational outcomes emerge. Practical implications highlight the need to align communication systems with artistic orientation and to adapt digital tools during cultural change initiatives.