/italic>, Forbes, and LinkedIn best employer lists for 2021 and 2022 revealed four key tensions: organizational identity (people and planet versus profit), dialogic (one voice versus many voices), diversity (exclusion versus inclusion), and boundary (work versus home). Our interviews also revealed corporate internal crisis communication (ICC) strategies to navigate these tensions, such as empathetic leadership communication and purpose communication. Participants foregrounded transcendent (more-than) strategies alongside selection (either-or) and balance (both-and) strategies. Implications for theory and practice across employee relationship management, ICC, and tensions in a post pandemic world where change, uncertainty, and remote work persists are discussed.

28:T44a,

Public sector employees often embody care ethics in their external communication roles; however, the influence of care ethics on internal organizational dynamics remains underexplored. Grounded in the ethic of care theory, this study examines how perceptions of care at the individual level (through caregiver role identity) and the organizational level (via a caring climate) shape employee work stress and quiet quitting intentions. Survey data from 308 self-identified U.S. government employees involved in communication tasks show that personal caregiver identity increases stress and indirectly raises quiet quitting intentions, while a caring organizational climate reduces both. These findings highlight how care perceptions influence employee outcomes differently and question the assumption that care is always positive by revealing the psychological costs associated with unsupported caregiving roles. This research offers a nuanced understanding of care ethics and practical strategies to create workplace environments that support, rather than exploit, care in the public sector.

29:T532,

Contemporary organizations navigate complex environments where plural institutional logics compete to shape organizational fields. These logics often prescribe contradictory actions, exposing organizations to scrutiny from multifaceted stakeholders with competing agendas and disparate expectations. Thus, hybrid organizing is essential for engaging diverse stakeholders – but poses significant challenges for achieving legitimacy. Using data from 209 certified benefit corporations integrating dual social-market orientations, this research examined three dimensions of hybridity—logic centrality, integration, and scope—in their institutional messages via mission statements. Results suggested that organizations with greater legitimacy (1) prioritized communicating their social mission, (2) exhibited higher levels of integration in benefit and employment models, and (3) targeted broader stakeholder groups. However, the legitimacy implications of each hybridity dimension varied based on the evaluating stakeholder group: the accreditation organization or social media users. This research sheds light on when and how organizational hybridity fosters legitimacy, highlighting an institutional and communicative model of stakeholder engagement.

2a:T1077,