Employee-centric discussions and economic context: Evidence from Chairman speeches

Abstract

Background: This paper offers a thematic interpretation of patterns of employee-centric discussions (ECD) in chairman speeches during the period of 2004-2008 and 2010-2014 wherein the former is considered the pre-recession period and the latter the post-recession period. A situation like recession calls for focus on employee relations and development. In the economic context of recession, the paper suggests that the attitudinal approach of top echelons towards employees can in part be explained by the themes of ECDs through the comparative analysis of pre- and post-recession periods. Methods: This paper adopts a qualitative content analysis approach to study the themes of ECDs present in the chairman’s speech, in the view of two economic contexts i.e., pre- and post-recession. Companies were identified from the CNX 2016 Nifty 50-stock index, then chairman’s statements were downloaded using each company’s official website which met the inclusion criteria. Data collection was from November 2020-March 2021. Thematic analysis was conducted using Atlas.ti, all ECD excerpts were extracted from the speeches based on the referring terms used for employees. Keywords were identified using Atlas.ti software. Preliminary coding of the ECD excerpts was carried out at the sentence level adopting the summative approach. Tagged codes were then used as keywords to extract excerpts concerning employees which did not have referring terms in it. Results: The finding suggests that the ECDS have four dominant themes - acknowledgment and appreciation, confidence, employee relations, and employee value. It also indicates an increase in ECDs in the post-recession period.