Determining employees' acceptance of electronic newsletters in an academic environment

Abstract

Internal marketing and internal communication are essential tools to align em-ployees’ mindsets with the necessary tasks which bring about employee satis-faction and organisational prosperity. Electronic newsletters serve as an internal marketing communication medium which can convey the necessary information to employees regarding the organisation’s goals and objectives. They also act as a medium to build relationships with employees and encourage improved service delivery and customer-oriented employee mindsets. Employees’ willingness to make use of electronic newsletters for the purpose of disseminating organisational information is an indication of employees’ acceptance of the organisational information and use thereof in performing organisational tasks successfully as the organisation intends. The purpose of the current study was to determine employees’ acceptance of electronic newsletters, as an internal marketing communication medium, in order to disseminate organisational information which contributes to the attainment of organisational goals, objectives and success. An empirical study was conducted to determine employees’ acceptance of elec-tronic newsletters by means of an adapted technology acceptance model, self-administered, e-mail survey disseminated to employees of a higher education institution. The study followed a quantitative research approach, utilising re-gression in the analysis of the data. Based on the research results, employees do accept the electronic newsletter for the dissemination of organisational information, albeit with suggestions on how it can be better utilised in future.