5. Discussions, limitations, future research and conclusions
Our study significantly contributes to service management literature by investigating the impact of organization's internal communication on the two types of PSBs, incorporating the mediating mechanisms of role stress and organizational commitment in a single parsimonious framework. While previous empirical studies have found direct effects of supervisor communication practices on employees' job performance (see Johlke & Duhan, 2000; Johlke et al., 2000), our findings indicate that organization-related information provided by organization's internal communication system influences their prosocial behaviors indirectly. Moreover, in contrast with previous findings that did not find role ambiguity to mediate the effects of supervisor communication practices on employee job outcomes (Johlke & Duhan, 2000), our findings demonstrate role stress and commitment to fully mediate the link between organizational internal communication and PSBs. As such, our findings provide useful insights on the mediating mechanisms by which organization's internal communication influences PSBs. Reinforcing the contention in literature that the link between management practices and employee performance may be better explained by mediating variables (Batt, 2002; Ellinger et al., 2013), our results highlight the significance of studying role stress and organizational commitment as mediators in the relationship between internal communication and PSBs. This useful finding implies that different levels of internal communication practices can impact employee outcomes differently. While line management communication or the communication between employees and their immediate line manager influences employee outcomes directly, the impact of organization's internal communication on PSBs seems to be rather indirect.
