Internal communicators’ understanding of the definition and importance of employee advocacy

•The findings suggested that employee advocacy could be expressed verbally or nonverbally. Hence, a new definition of advocacy was proposed.•The interviewees emphasized that employee advocacy can positively impact growth and sales.•Employee advocacy positively impacts human capital in several ways, including talent acquisition, employee retention, engagement, and productivity.•Participants stipulated that employee advocacy helps to shape an organization’s reputation and plays an important role in issues management. In recent years, employee advocacy has evolved as a hot topic that has generated a lot of buzz in todayös public relations, marketing, and business circles. In spite of the growing relevance of employee advocacy, there is limited empirical and theoretical research on this topic and a universal definition and clear understanding of its exact meaning is lacking. Hence, the purpose of this study was to fill a gap in public relations research on employee advocacy by examining how internal communicators understand this behavior and their perceptions of its value. Through interviews with 25 public relations and communications practitioners, the studyös results indicated that participants perceived that advocacy could be expressed verbally or nonverbally. Given these findings, the study proposed a new definition of employee advocacy. Overall, participants agreed that employee advocacy plays a critical role in an organizationös future performance and can impact its success in several ways.