Editorial 28.1: Are we truly listening?

Are we truly listening?In the first editorial, I wrote after two years of editing the Corporate Communications: An International Journal (CCIJ), I called for increasing equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) scholarship and emphasised how much has CCIJ contributed towards this field of inquiry during the first two years of my editorship, calling also for further scholarship.In the same editorial, I argued that CCIJ has always been at the forefront of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scholarship and that these works will continue to be published along with mainstream works because CCIJ will remain open to all (Topi c, 2022).This issue, Vol. 28, No.1, continues along the lines of that promise and we offer our readers papers tackling gender equality, and CSR including innovative papers combining gender equality with CSR initiatives and crisis and social media papers.Whilst these papers focus thematically on the topics mentioned above, they also reveal that we do not listen to each other, and organisations are not always listening to their publics.As humans, we often do not listen to what others are saying because we are too busy registering the topic and trying to prepare an answer (Brownlee, 2020).Listening to others and observing them can make an impact at the level of human relationships.For example, if we listen carefully, we can notice covered-up meanings, such that maybe someone is struggling and needs help, and this can save lives.Or, in other words, if we adopt a listenercentred strategy, we can provide more supportive communication (O'Keefa and Delia, 1982).Moreover, good listeners can have more productive interactions, increased academic and work success, relational satisfaction and better healthcare (Bodie and Fitch-Hauser, 2010).Scholars have argued since the 1930s that human communication scholarship should take seriously the importance of listening (Adams, 1938;Borden, 1935).However, the art of listening has never been taken off as seriously as a general human communication discipline, and even encyclopaedias do not always include this important concept (Bodie, 2011).Listening is important in communication scholarship because it shows "how communication creates and helps maintain, transform, and dissolve relationships" (Bodie, 2011, p. 4).King (2008) noted that "many listening texts continue to be more practical than theoretical: oriented toward improved relationships, improved message comprehension, and improved retention of information" (p.2719).What is more, listening to people presents an important part of the democratic process (Dobson, 2014), thus listening emerges as something that should be essential for human existence, but it often is not.What does this mean for organisations?In organisational studies, a lot of research has been done on organisational communication generally, including external and internal communication and there is a myriad of studies showing how organisations do, could or should communicate.CCIJ has over the years published some works on listening in organisations.For example, Macnamara (2001) wrote about organisational listening and sense-making of the information provided.As with human communication, organisational listening is often seen as underdeveloped despite listening showing tangible benefits for organisations (aside from the obvious democratic question).For example, organisational research has argued that giving a voice to employees links with engagement, satisfaction, loyalty, retention and work productivity (Bashshur, 2015;Ruck et al., 2017).In addition, studies have shown that having an employee voice heard links business success and profitability (Harvard Business School, 2013).