Loose lips sink relationships: applying communication privacy management theory in military family support organizations

The purpose of this study was to understand the phenomenon of how military spouses who are part of Military Family Support Organizations (MFSO) reveal and conceal Operational Security (OPSEC) between other MFSO members. MFSOs have been used as a social support system for military spouses who carry an abundant amount of stress in their daily lives. Organizational communication focuses largely on peer coworker relationships in the workforce and their impacts on peer coworkers and on the organization itself. MSFO members develop relationships among one another that are similar to peer coworkers. An online survey was distributed through private Facebook groups, a total of 157 military spouses from various military branches partook in the online survey. With the use of communication privacy management (CPM) theory, the results of this thesis revealed that MFSO members’ trust was affected by explicit privacy rules, implicit privacy rules, and boundary turbulence. MFSO members’ relational satisfaction was affected by implicit privacy rules and boundary turbulence. This quantitative thesis helps communication scholars further understand how OPSEC information affects MSFO members’ relationships. These results provide deeper understanding in the dynamic aspect of revealing and concealing of private information between MFSO members, of which little is known. Communication scholars could use the results to further understand the complexity of privacy between organizational members.