Abstract/Summary

This thesis investigates how stakeholder perspectives (described here as the first-hand experiences of the individuals or groups affected by an issue) are utilised in organisational narrative communication to influence people’s responses towards such issues. This practice is widely used by NPOs to communicate about complex social issues, but is under-researched, particularly concerning its influence on implicit attitudes – individuals’ automatic responses towards issues. Pooling the literature on organisational communication, narrative communication, stakeholder theory, and the multiple-sources effect, this thesis conceptualises three of such communication practices, by utilising (1) single stakeholder perspective (SSP), (2) multiple related stakeholder perspective (MRSP), and (3) multiple unrelated stakeholder perspective (MUSP). The effect of these different stakeholder perspectives is investigated on individuals’ implicit (automatic) attitudes, explicit (controlled) attitudes, intentions, and behaviours towards a communicated issue. These research objectives are examined using a randomised pretest-posttest experiment design in the context of NPO narrative communication about crime and punishment. Data was collected from a sample of 510 UK residents (18+). The findings indicate that organisational narrative communication leads to an increase in positive implicit attitudes, specific explicit attitudes, and intentions, and leads to positive behaviours towards the communicated issue. The findings also demonstrate, for the first time that, organisational narrative communication utilising multiple stakeholder perspectives (i.e., MRSP, or MUSP) is more effective on these outcomes than those utilising single stakeholder perspectives (i.e., SSP). Importantly, the findings suggest that narrating the first-hand experience of multiple stakeholder groups of a (single) related event (MRSP), is associated with different outcomes from those narrating the first-hand experience of multiple stakeholder groups of (multiple) unrelated events (MUSP). These novel findings have important theoretical and practical implications. This thesis is subject to some limitations, such as the study has been conducted in a particular context, which may challenge the generalisability of the findings to other contexts. Finally, potential research avenues for future research are addressed.