Structural Model for the Antecedents and Consequences of Internal Crisis Communication (ICC) in Malaysia Oil and Gas High Risk Industry

A considerable amount of literature has concluded that employee relations has always been overlooked in the area of crisis communication. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the antecedents of internal crisis communication (ICC) that include safety culture, supportive environment, social media usage, management commitment and the consequences on the other hand comprising affective commitment, perceived organizational support, and employee crisis perception in the context of high risk industry in Malaysia. Past literature are used to develop a self-administered questionnaire and in-depth interview, was conducted for 277 employees of oil and gas industry while structural equation model (SEM) was employed as the tool of the analysis technique. The results show that safety culture, supportive environment, and management commitment have positive effects on internal crisis communication but with no effect on social media usage. Also, ICC is reported to correlate positively with affective commitment, perceived organizational support, and employee crisis perception. The model is developed on the basis of Situational Crisis Communication Theory and Sense-making Theory as the underpinning theories.