Information Visibility as a Stabilizing Organizational Communication Practice: Uncertainty and Job Satisfaction During Long-Term Disruptive Events

Abstract

Background

During long-term disruptive events, employees face sustained ambiguity that challenges their understanding of organizational conditions.

Purpose

This study examines how perceived organizational information visibility relates to employee uncertainty and job satisfaction. We treat information visibility as an organizational communication practice that structures the perceived informational environment and examine whether perceptions of that environment, rather than information quality or content, shape uncertainty and, in turn, employees’ work evaluations.

Research Design

We tested a mediation model in which uncertainty explains the relationship between organizational information visibility and job satisfaction.

Study Sample

The study used survey data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. employees (N = 609) collected during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data Analysis

Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results

Higher perceived information visibility was associated with lower uncertainty and greater job satisfaction. Uncertainty partially mediated the relationship between visibility and job satisfaction.

Conclusions

These findings suggest organizational information visibility operates by structuring the conditions under which employees encounter information, thereby influencing employees’ evaluations of their work.

Keywords

information visibility uncertainty job satisfaction employee well-being crisis communication

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