Investigating the Communication Apprehension in Employees by use of Empirical Phenomenology

Abstract

The phenomenon of communication apprehension is a behavioral pattern that persuades people to tend to communicate with anxiety and it is along with a constant feeling of fear and tension about an action or perception of a social event which leads to destructive professional and organizational results. The purpose of this study is to identify the incidents and consequences of communication apprehension phenomenon. The research strategy, was empirical phenomenology and its participants are the staff of Imam Khomeini Relief Committee in Fars province who were selected using purposeful sampling method. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions from 21 individuals to theoretical saturation stage and was analyzed by the approach of Diekelmann et al (1989) and NVIVO 12 software. The results indicate the existence of six factors (personal characteristics, managers’ characteristics, job factors, environmental factors, and organizational and family factors) as the incidents for the occurrence of communication apprehension that has individual and organizational behavioral destructive factors

Keywords

• communication apprehension
• organizational communication
• empirical phenomenology
• imam khomeini relief committee