“Employee engagement and best practices of internal public relations to harvest job performance in organizations”

Internal public relations are used to control the relationship between the organization and its employees. The paper explored whether and how internal public relations stimulate employees’ life satisfaction and job performance. The conceptual frame- work was built to link internal social media, perceived organizational transparency (POT), organizational identification, employee engagement, life satisfaction, and job performance. Using the hierarchical component model with employee engagement measured by job engagement and organizational engagement is a nascent point from this study. A mass survey was distributed to employees working in the aviation industry in southern Vietnam. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze primary data from 193 valid respondents. It reveals that POT, internal social media, and organizational identification significantly positively impact employee engagement. It shows that employee engagement has significantly positive impacts on life satisfaction and job performance. It indicates that both organization- al identification and POT are partial mediators intervening in the strong relationship between employee engagement and internal social media. It also indicates that life satisfaction is a partial mediator intervening the positive linkage between employee engagement and job performance. Practical implications and theoretical contribu- tions were suggested for using internal public relations to enhance employees’ life satisfaction, and job performance.


INTRODUCTION
Organizational success comes from the ideal relationship between management and employees. Internal public relations explain how these two different groups can be combined in appropriate and effective ways to achieve organizational goals and objectives (Kennan & Hazleton, 2006). Previous studies explored how internal social media (ISM) can enhance employee engagement in qualitative approaches (Ewing et al., 2019;Parry & Solidoro, 2013). To enhance internal public relations at the workplace, Men et al. (2020) introduced the usage of ISM in two primary forms. First, organization-designed ISM enhances social interactions (i.e., information sharing and collaboration). Second, public social networking is frequently used, such as Facebook and Twitter. Internal public relations recorded internal social media's essential role in driving employee engagement by building organizational transparency and images.
The role of employee engagement in creating a sustainable working environment has become an essential issue in human resource man-agement. Leiter and Bakker (2010) define employee engagement as the connection between employees and their employers and describe it as a driver of job performance at both the individual and corporate levels. Social exchange theory was proposed to explain antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement that task performance and extra-role performance are fruitful benefits (Saks, 2006(Saks, , 2019. The job demands-resource model has been used to describe the triangular relationship among work engagement, life satisfaction, and job performance (Demerouti & Cropanzano, 2010;Mache et al., 2014). Conservation of resources theory also bolsters a simple causal connection between work engagement and job performance (Halbesleben, 2010).
The most important public from the perspective of employees and public relations is management, but the essential public is employees. Finally, developing and then explaining a productive relationship to the external public is critical to achieving objectives such as attracting investors, customers, and new workers (Kennan & Hazleton, 2006). However, empirical results of the relationships between internal public relations and other positive employee perspectives such as life satisfaction and job performance in an emerging market are still limited. Therefore, this study aims at exploring employee engagement with two main dimensions (e.g., job engagement and organizational engagement), and investigating the sequencing relationships among ISM, employee engagement, and job performance alongside other intervening variables (e.g., perceived organizational transparency (POT), organizational identification, and life satisfaction). Indeed, employees can perceive organizational transparency and images through ISM. This process can generate an engaged state from employees toward their jobs and the organization. Going beyond this, the organization can benefit from the job performance and life satisfaction of its employees.
This study contributes to employee engagement research in two substantial ways. It fulfills Saks' (2019) research gap by exploring employee engagement with two abstract dimensions (e.g., job engagement and organization engagement) in a structural framework. This study is the first to build the integrative model reflecting the mechanism of how internal public relations lead to life satisfaction and improve job performance among employees working in the aviation industry in Vietnam.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Since the 1990s, "employee engagement" has gradually appeared in academia and business practice (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2010). Saks (2006) established two types of employee engagement and described their antecedents and consequences using social exchange theory. Kahn (1990) described individual engagement as creating occupational roles among employees and how individuals perform their physical, cognitive, and emotional roles. Rich et al. (2010) mentioned three aspects of job engagement (e.g., "physical engagement", "emotional engagement", and " cognitive engagement") and proved job performance as a consequence of job engagement. Organizational engagement reflects employees' desire to belong to their organization and indicates employees' willingness to work for the general benefit of their organization (Juhdi et al., 2013). Job performance is defined as "the aggregated value to an organization of the set of behaviors that an employee contributes both directly and indirectly to organizational goals" (Rich et al., 2010, p. 619). Christian et al. (2011) summarized two aspects of job performance from previous studies. For the first dimension, task performance/ in-role performance represents how individuals perform their occupational positions (Borman & Motowidlo, 1997). The second dimension, contextual performance/extra-role performance, represents an employee's propensity to behave consistently with their organization's psychological and social context (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993).
Social exchange theory is a well-known paradigm for explaining organizational behavior in various disciplines (e.g., management, anthropology, social psychology) (Cropanzano et al., 2017). Social exchange theory explains the reciprocal process according to which employee rewards and incen-tives serve as a critical motivator when eliciting fruitful employee outcomes (e.g., job performance, loyalty, trust, mutual commitment, engagement, rules of exchange). For instance, employees believe it is their responsibility to demonstrate good job performance when receiving economic and socio-emotional resources (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). Social exchange theory was used as underpinning theory to explore employee engagement in terms of antecedents and consequences and mediator roles intervening in different causal relationships (Saks, 2006 Conservation of resources theory has been used to describe individual strategies for investing resources to achieve better pay-offs. In other words, conservation of resources theory can explain causal relationships between employee engagement and its consequences, namely organizational commitment, performance, and turnover intention. Halbesleben (2010) found that work engagement was a significant positive force in generating organizational commitment.
Freberg (2019) emphasized the intimate relationship between social media and public relations with four novel opportunities: engagement, knowledge sharing, usage of strategic storytelling, and lifting the barriers between the organization and its vital public. According to Kennan and Hazleton (2006), internal public relations deal with the mutual interaction between the organization and its employees. Organizational success can be achieved when it remains the ability to link between management and employees. Best management practices lie not in superior knowledge and planning/method. Employees have selected to make cooperation in what they perceived to be a reasonable and justifiable managerial vision. The organization seeks to convince its employees that cooperation is in their best interest. Success at in-ternal public relations lies in the effective management of group relationships to create a favorable environment, in which task accomplishment is encouraged. Men et al. (2020) reviewed various studies to introduce the structural framework explaining internal public relations within the organization. ISM was used to generate employee engagement through POT and organization identification. In the late 2010s, enterprises enormously invested in ISM, which took two basic forms: enterprise social media to boost intra-organizational social interactions and social networking in public settings. For instance, Starbucks has used Twitter to inspire employees and promote work-life balance . Consuming means that employers consume the information available from posts on ISM; for example, they can view and have their thoughts about this information. Conversing refers to employee engagement with organization-specific private groups on social media. Contributing occurs when employees create content by sharing, commenting, and tagging in order to induce more interaction by exchanging ideas and raising other issues related to an initial topic.
Berggren and Bernshteyn (2007) defined organizational transparency as open discussion and employee involvement to understand common goals and objectives. Transparent organizations actively create action plans. Employees can com-prehend the current situation and the organization's possible scenarios, especially concerning the decision-making processes; they can participate in along with leaders. Therefore, individuals can make more contributions to and have a greater effect on the success of an organization. McCorkindale and Distaso (2014) found that transparency was highly relevant to open and honest communication as well as mutual trust in sharing.
ISM enables people to connect and enact transparency in communication (Leonardi et al., 2013). Trust and credibility are generated through the process of transparent organizational communication; organizational transparency then potentially fosters employee engagement (Jiang & Men, 2017;Linhart, 2011;Rawlins, 2008). Organizational identification refers to the set of connections built by an organization and its employees over common values of understanding and attributes (Men et al., 2020). Openness can foster a sharing attitude among employees (Smidts et al., 2001). If they understand the common goals they help achieve, employees will feel more associated with their organization, thus enhancing their pride and ownership (Ashforth et al., 2008;Smidts et al., 2001). In fact, these outcomes are essential components of employee engagement. Employee engagement helps employees feel associated with a company's values and vision and increases their energy to expend extra effort. Hence, organizational identification can enhance employee engagement (Men et  Work engagement significantly influences two types of job performance, including task performance and contextual performance. Engagement helps to generate organizational effectiveness and reinforce competitive advantage. An engaged employee is supposed to have more efficient and ef-fective job performance and a friendly social environment that involves teamwork, a helping spirit, and critical discretionary behaviors. Moreover, another study found employee engagement plays an essential mediating role in connecting working environments and employee performance (Anitha, 2014).
The causal relationship between work engagement and life satisfaction has been explained using the job demands-resources model (Mache et al., 2014). Life satisfaction significantly impacted job performance (Talukder et al., 2018).
Internal public relations were explored through the comprehensive model and the interrelationships among ISM, POT, organizational identification, and employee engagement (Men et al., 2020). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement were summarized in the critical works of Saks (2006) and Saks (2019); job satisfaction was one crucial consequence. This study would create the hybrid model linking the block of internal public relations to life satisfaction and job performance. It can explain how internal public relations generate life satisfaction and job performance among employees.
Previous studies explored employee engagement in different ways. Job engagement/work engagement and organizational engagement were measured in unidimensional constructs separately in the measurement model (Saks, 2006(Saks, , 2019. Some studies blurred the distinction between job/work and organizational engagement and combined these two aspects into one single measure of employee engagement (Men et al., 2020). Thus, to fill the research gap, this study would build the hierarchical component model with employee engagement as multidimensional constructs (e.g., employee engagement is measured by job engagement and organizational engagement).
The study aims to explore how internal public relations enhance life satisfaction and improve job performance among employees working in the aviation industry in Vietnam. Specifically, the study examines the causal relationships among ISM, POT, organizational identification, employee engagement, life satisfaction, and job performance (Fig ure 1).
The study proposes the following hypotheses: H1: ISM has a significantly positive impact on POT.
H2: ISM has a significantly positive impact on employee engagement.
H3: ISM has a significantly positive impact on organizational identification.
H4: POT has a significantly positive impact on employee engagement.
H5: Organizational identification has a significantly positive impact on employee engagement.
H6: Employee engagement has a significantly positive impact on life satisfaction.
H7: Employee engagement has a significantly positive impact on job performance.
H8: Life satisfaction has a significantly positive impact on job performance.

METHODOLOGY
The measurement scale was developed from previous studies. Five items of ISM by Muntinga et al. (2011) were used. An example of one item is "Rating, joining, engaging, and commenting products and/or brand-related on social network sites such as blogs, fan pages, YouTube and so forth." POT was measured by seven items adapted from Rawlins (2008), in which the sample item is: "Provides information that is accurate, easy to understand, complete, relevant, reliable, and so forth". Organizational identification was measured by six items adapted from Miller et al. (2000). The sample item is "I talk up this organization to my friends as a great company to work for". Employee engagement, a second-order construct, was measured based on two latent constructs, including job engagement and organizational engagement, by using 16 items adopted from Saks (2006)    Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was conducted by using the SmartPLS software version 3.0 to test the hypotheses shown in Figure 1. PLS-SEM is a form of distribution-free multivariate data analysis used for small sample sizes with high confidence and accuracy. Bootstrapping techniques were used for resampling rather than distribution assumptions.

RESULTS
The survey was distributed to employees working in the aviation industry of Vietnam. 249 answer sheets were collected from respondents. 193 valid responses were selected and 56 were omit-ted due to missing data and low variation. Table 1 summarizes the valid respondents' demographic information.
Construct reliability and convergent validity were assessed by using the thresholds proposed by Hair et al. (2017) (Table A1). To satisfy all thresholds, some items were selected because their outer loadings were greater than 0.7. Table A1 shows that all construct thresholds were in the accepted range according to Cronbach's alpha, rho-A, composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AV E) v a lu e s .
According to Wetzels et al. (2009), R-squared values are classified into three ranges that reflect the quality of a structural model analyzed using the PLS approach, namely small, medium and larger effects (below 0.02, in the range of 0.13 to 0.26, and above 0.26, respectively). It shows that the structural model had a more significant effect with an R-squared value of 0.583 for job performance (Table A1), supporting the model's predictive power.

DISCUSSION
All five hypotheses generated regarding ISM, POT, organizational identification, and employee engagement in the conceptual framework are supported by significant evidence of positive impacts. Two mediating effects among these four constructs were recorded as complimentary mediation. This paper is beneficial for specialists working in internal public relations and organizational effectiveness in the aviation industry in Vietnam. By maximizing the presence of social media inside the company, an organization can improve organizational effectiveness as well as individual employees' personal development and lives. That said, ISM is used to raise organizational transparency and images among employees. To accomplish this, an organization must concern technological investments, interface design, and time resources needed for ISM. After ISM is developed, the organization should ensure that almost all employees can use it properly by encouraging them to share their views, experi-  ences, and expertise. The organization should also engage management to interact with posts and have private chats with employees (i.e., oneon-one mentorship). It can enhance employees' sense of ownership toward their organization and thereby improve day-to-day organizational attachment. Over time, employees will develop an attitude of devotion to their jobs and the organization, increasing job performance in general. They will ultimately achieve self-satisfaction in their professional and personal lives. Companies can use internal public relations to improve their business performance and organizational survival as intangible assets.
The study adds to the existing body of knowledge on employee engagement. The integrated model was created to demonstrate the caus-es and effects of employee engagement in the practice of internal public relations. Adoption of ISM, POT, and organizational identification can be new antecedents of employee engagement. In turn, employee engagement generates life satisfaction and job performance as consequences. This integrative model offers a new explanation of employee engagement as an alternative to the models developed by Saks (2006Saks ( , 2019. The study also provides an exception-al theoretical contribution in observing employee engagement as the second-order construct with two first-order constructs (job engagement and organizational engagement) in the hy-brid model. This offers a significant fulfillment of the research gap from Saks (2019) to distinguish between job engagement and organizational engagement.

CONCLUSION
It was the first study exploring the sequencing mechanisms to generate employee engagement and life satisfaction from ISM. The new point from this study was the use of the hierarchical component model with a multidimensional construct (i.e., employee engagement was measured by job engagement and organizational engagement). The study provided empirical evidence supporting internal public relations to enhance life satisfaction and improve job performance. The current study expands the general model showing antecedents and consequences of employee engagement, significantly block concepts related to internal public relations as new antecedents of employee engagement. The organization may encourage its employees to use ISM to understand organizational transparency and images. Gradually, employees feel engaged with their job and the organization and make valuable devotion in their work. Ultimately, the organization may benefit from its employees' job performance and work-life balance. Research replication and approaching multi-source respondents would expand this study. Applying quasi-experiments to explore internal public relations would be a new direction for further research.