This week lecture involves heavily about technologies, something
that most of us can relate. It started off by describing the timeline of the
technological changes from before 20th century until now. The new
technologies allows faster transmission, allow communication among geographical
dispersed participants, allow asynchronous communication, allows the choice of
being anonymous, big memory storage and easy retrieval features and differ in terms
of cues that are available in the communication process. However, technologies
may have provided much advantages to communication but it does brings some
disadvantages such as the lack of non-verbal cues that may cause confusion due
to the inability of knowing the other person’s emotions and ‘data smog’ where
too much of information are everywhere in your emails, spams, mobiles and etc. When
an organisation inhabits technology that does not requires leaders to be
physically present, it bring less sense of connection with the group and it
changes the way group decision making as people are given time to respond which
causes slower process but the respond produced are higher in quality.
Globalisation brings time and space compression where this change communication
patterns and perceptions. It also enhances sense of global consciousness and
reflexivity that bring awareness of different culture. Globalisation causes disembodied
organisations and people as behaviour and interactions lifted from local
context and restructured across time and space. Globalisation has brought the possibility
of outsourcing and having branches and manufacturing plants worldwide. With
globalization, it is more important now for companies to have an identity as
the company needs to provide certain distinctiveness that allows the
organisation to create and legitimize itself. Due to global economy and
increased technology, it weakened labour unions and competitive organisational
environment thus leads to the age of disposable workforce where there is an
increase of temporary workers or freelances, partiming and self-employment.
However, this will cause lack of organisational identification but a constant
supply of fresh new ideas.
This week tutorial, we are asked to reflect on changes in
communication technology during our lifetime and interview our parents on their
thoughts about technology. We separate the presentation into two parts where
part one are based on our own opinions and experiences in technological changes.
Though we have only been in the world for about 2 decades, we have gone through
some radical changes in technology as we grew up during the years where
technologies are drastically being introduces and evolving almost every day. We remember on the times when floppy disk were
the only way to save files from a computer but now usb drives are even smaller
in size but have a bigger storage space as compared to floppy disk. Smartphones
was once used to be for the rich but now it seemed affordable to anyone even
kids in primary school. For the interview, we shoot a video to show in class.
The video also include a section where we see how parents work with new
technologies. Please watch the video below.
This week lecture covers on diversity in gender, age,
physical or mental ability and race, ethnicity and religion in the workplace.
Due to the rapid demographic changes in the workforce, there are increasing
numbers of women and wide range of different culture groups joining the
organizations. However, these groups of people are considered the minorities
and they have a greater difficulty in getting jobs and in climbing the
corporate ladder to join the ranks of upper management due to the phenomenon of
‘Glass ceiling’. This concept is popularized in 1980s to describe a barrier to
subtle that it is transparent, yet so strong that it prevents women and
minorities from moving up the management position. It is a sign of
discrimination and stereotyping in the workplace which causes bias treatment
towards minorities. Prejudice refers to negative attitudes towards an organisation
member based on their culture group identity and discrimination is an
observable behaviour for same reason as prejudice. There are four issues of
organisational relationships and systems leading to differences of experiences
for minorities, one is the limited access to or exclusion from informal
communication networks, two is the difficulty of establishing mentor-protégé relationships
between white men and women and people of colour. Three, tokenism is where the
minorities who are in the top management are constantly being ask to represent
their people with questions such as ‘what do your type of people thinks of this
idea?’, four are the types of work experiences by minorities hamper their
ability to advance in organisations.
Moving beyond prejudice and discrimination
towards minorities, organizations are required to have a solution to this
issue. The three phases of workplace development will produce a multicultural organisation
where marks the absence of discrimination, low levels of intergroup conflict
and high level of organisational identification for all gender and ethic group.
First-generation affirmative action are to meet legal mandated requirements for
diversity, second is to meet affirmative action goals of numbers and emphasis
shifts to supporting female and minority employees and thirdly is a
multicultural organisation where it moves beyond concept of support for minority
members to institution of policies capitalize on cultural and gender diversity.
Life in diverse organisation involves both attitude and action and challenge
and opportunity must be dealt with. Organizations are to be knowledgeable about
the needs and contributions of diverse members. Five steps to transform a
traditional organisation into multicultural organisation are introduced and it
involves leadership, training, research, analysis and change of culture and
human resources management systems.
For this week tutorial, my group are required to share on
the results of the research activities on diversity communication which was
done for assignment two. Our group decided to present on my research partner’s
and my report on Generational diversity. Our research emphasised on the
communication issues between distinct generations arises in the workplace. The
three generations (Baby boomers, Generation X and Y often colliding as thri
paths cross while working together because of the different values, idea, ways
to get things done and also the different ways of communicating with each other
in the workplace. Thus, these differences might cause misunderstandings and
affect the organisational communication within a company. We focused on the communication
channel, style, content used and information flow among employees in the workplace
of The Star Publication. We conclude that the three generations may have
different historical background and possesses vast difference in values and
work ethics but they do not disagree on everything when it comes to
communication among colleagues in the workplace. We also recommended for the
company to approach the older colleagues on the issue of interns feeling
intimidated on their first week due to the unfriendly vibe portrayed by them.
Making a new member felt welcome will make them feel the belonging in a company
and less likely resultant in high turnover rate.
Let's compare figure out what emotions each superstar are portraying
Did you got it right?
This lecture talks about the many emotions that needs to be
handled by one person his or her workplace. Generation who are in the workforce
these days are no longer just interested in work-related content while working.
There is an increasing interest in emotional side of organisational life
whether it is rationality, logical choice in decision making or emotionality,
emotional rules and intelligence. However, there is a need to understand on the
emotional rules and emotional intelligence as it is important to display a
certain appropriate emotion on different situation to cope with the conditions.
Organisations are attempting to transform emotion into a marketable product
that will enhance organisational profit.
Stress may results from workload, role
conflict, role ambiguity or even stressful life events. Stress usually will
lead to negative outcomes such as physical exhaustion, emotional exhaustion,
lack of personal accomplishment and depersonalisation. For organisation,
employees will experience loss of work satisfaction, lack of commitment and
bring high turnover effects on the company. Coping with stress can be done in
three ways, one is to deal directly with the problem of the stress, two, is to
focus on changing the way one thinks about the stressful situation and three is
to deal with the negative affective outcomes of stress. Organisation can help
employees in coping with stress by providing assistance such as social support,
emotional, information or even instrumental support.
This week’s lecture covers two parts of leadership and
change. For leadership, it is important to understand the organisational context
as leaders play a central role in the management of organisational symbolism.
It is a process for guiding individuals and groups or even the entire
organisations in establishing goals and sustaining action to support goals.
Leadership communication provides vision of organisation that directs and
redirects all organisational activities; it is a process of influence where
leaders attempt to convince followers to attain specific goals or outcomes. Leaders
are required to know how to say the right things and have a strong commitment
to stakeholders. They are also needed to pay attention on the way message is
being delivered as leaders should be able to frame their language during interaction;
it is a way to manage meaning. These are the few things that are required in
order to become an effective leader.
Organisation change is often natural whether it is planned
or unplanned. Individual behaviour, organisational processes and strategic
direction would be the few types of change. Typical problems identified in
organisational change process would be lack of management support, top manages
forcing change, inconsistent action by key managers, unrealistic expectations,
lack of meaningful participation, poor communication, unclear purpose of the
program and responsibility for change was not properly identified. There are
some employees react negatively towards change in organisation such as
resistance where behaviours intended to prevent the implementation or even
ignorance of the change initiative and uncertainty where stress and heightened anxiety
among employees. Some of the strategies to communicate change are spray and
pray, tell and sell, underscore and explore, identify and reply and withhold
and uphold. Unplanned changes usually happen upon crisis such as natural
disasters, ethical violation and etc. It is something unpredictable with major
threat that can have a negative effect on the organisation, industry or
stakeholders if it is not handled properly.
Conflict is the interaction of interdependent people who
perceive opposition of goals, aims and values, and who see the other party as
potentially interfering with the realisation of these goals. There are positive
and negative effects of conflicts, negative would be bringing disruption in
organisation, destruction of relationships, may lead to anger, frustration and
resentment, and also physical illness resulting from stress. While the positive
effects are the increased stimulation amongst workers, better generation of
ideas, recognition of flaws in a system, cohesiveness amongst conflict partners
and adjustment of balance of power. The three ‘I’s of Incompatibility,
interdependence and interaction describe the essential condition for conflict.
Levels of conflict are segregated to interpersonal, inter-group and
inter-organisational. Organisations have to be prepared to manage these
conflicts and one ways is through the management grid approach by Thomas K.W
(1976) where choices such as avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise
and collaboration are ways to resolve conflict. Another way of managing
conflict is through the 5A model by Borisoff and Victor (1989) assessment,
acknowledgement, attitude, action and analysis are the 5A that needed to be
understood. Bargaining is a unique form for negotiating mutually shared rules.
Outsiders often represent parties in conflict and this strategy is used to
settle inter-group and inter-organisational conflict. The main rule of this
method of negotiation is to have mutual concession whether it is distributive
or integrative bargaining.
Decision making is a daily activity for any human being. There is
no exception about that. When it comes to business organizations, decision
making is a habit and a process as well. Effective and successful decisions
make profit to the company and unsuccessful ones make losses. Therefore,
corporate decision making process is the most critical process in any
organization. In the decision making process, we choose one course of action from
a few possible alternatives. In the process of decision making, we may use many
tools, techniques, and perceptions. In addition, we may make our own private
decision or may prefer a collective decision. Usually, decision-making is hard.
Majority of corporate decisions involve some level of dissatisfaction or
conflict with another party.
Who makes the decision? Below is a chart on the participatory rate
of employees in decision making.
Participation in decision making (PDM) brings great
attitudinal effects such as job satisfaction, job involvement and organisational
commitment as well as brings positive effects to enhance the use of info and
greater employee understanding of decision and organisation.
In lecture for this week, we had a fun time playing a game
with marshmallows and spaghetti sticks. The goal was to build the tallest
standing tower with those main material accompanied by few other materials such
as tape, string and a scissors. This activity requires team work and leadership
skills, thus, ultimately to test our decision making and leadership skills. For
my team, I would say that we spent too much time in planning on the stability
of the base and ended up with a strong base but short in tower. Our team leader
lead by starting with an idea, then as the momentum keeps up, the leader
listened to everyone’s ideas on enhancing the tower structure. The final
decision was made by the team leader and agrees by the others.
This week we had a guest, Ms Madeline, a current staff of
Taylor’s University to talks to us about her experience on Socialisation in the
workplace. Socialisation or assimilation refers to the process of becoming part
of a culture. There are 3 stages, one, anticipatory socialisation is
socialisation that occurs before entering into the organisation, two, encounter
is the sensemaking stage that occurs when a new employee enter the
organisation, old values should be let go and adapt into the expectation of the
new company, three, Metamorphosis is the state reached at the completion of the
socialization process where the new employee is now accepted as an
organisational insider. Next, we learnt about the communication processes that
occur during socialisation which involves the employment interview during the
anticipatory socialization phase. Then moving into information seeking during the
encounter phase and the LMX (Leader-Member Exchange Theory) modal of role
development. Finally, it is also important to consider on the organisational
exit and disengagement.
During tutorial, we were ask to come up with a role play on
a mock employment interviewing with the use of assimilation processes such as
recruiting and screening, information-gathering tool and tool for socialization
as well as an experience we had while working with a company that role plays
the three stages of socialization. The company that my group chose to role play
was Edelman where the interviewee is applying a job as a PR consultant.
This week lecture introduced the Karl Marx’s Legacy where he
argues that certain societal structures and processes lead to power imbalances
which may further lead to alienation and oppression for certain social groups.
The ultimate goal for critical theorists is to uncover the imbalances and
create awareness for the oppressed group which then allows the possibility of emancipation,
to liberate the oppressed group either through direct political action, individual
resistance or awareness. To further understand critical approach, we were
taught on ideology and hegemony. Ideology refers to the taken-for-granted
assumptions about reality that influence perception of situations and events.
It is not just a believe but ideology is what shapes our understanding and
controls our interpretation of reality. Ideologies are rarely questioned and it
can influence behaviours, it is related to the ways which are used to justify
and legitimize actions. Ideology is tied to systems of power and domination
which leads to hegemony.
Hegemony concept is developed by Gramsci and it describes
about the way a dominant group rules over another group to accept subordination
as the norm, not just to accept but also to actively participate and adopt in
the process. This lecture also
introduces two theories, concertive control theory and feminist theories. Concertive
control theory explains how power relationships can be transformed in an era of
team-based and alternative form organisations while feminist theories talks
about the different feminist perspectives such as liberal, radical, standpoint,
postmodern and pluralist.
In Tutorials this week, my group were asked to develop innovative
ideas for improving the communication and organisations (CNO) course. The most
popular idea that will be generated by votes in class will be institute as
class policy for the following semester of CNO. After brainstorming ideas
through BB7, Julian, the presenter of the week from our group concluded with 4
reasonable ideas for the new class policy. One was to scrap readings, class
presentation and online discussion to make way for critical analysis of movies
or TV screening with organizational communication theories. Some movies like ‘Devil
Wears Prada’ can explain on the manager-subordinate relationship, ‘The West
Wing’ can help us understand on critical approaches and ‘500 Days of Summer’
gives a better understanding on flat organisation. Idea two was to go on a field
trip that will replace one or two days of our tutorial classes. The field trips
allows us to observe different organisational communication behaviour for
example field trip to chocolate factory can provide a visual aid to the
understanding of machine metaphor, police training centre can explain on how classical
approach works and visit to a multinational cooperation will aid a better
understanding on organisational diversity. The third idea was to have
interactive in-class sessions such as role-playing, games, pop-quiz with
prizes! We love incentives such as extra bonus marks for assignments, a
get-away pass for being late, free meal and etc. The last idea was to incorporate
research paper assignment two with our internship requirement. Students are to
attend internship few weeks earlier for time to conduct CNO research for
assignment two. The research report will only be required to hand in at the end
of internship period. The idea for this is for the convenience of student to
get permission from the company for research. At the end of the day, all
students voted field trip as the preferred choice for implementation into CNO
subject next semester because as a communication degree student in Taylor’s, we
often only required to write, write and write. We rarely organize trips to go
out of classes to see, learn and touch for a better understanding of our
subjects.
This lecture had presented approaches that view organisation
and communication through the lens of cultural metaphor. Culture is the sum of
values, symbols, rites, rituals and behaviours that represent a society. We
were introduced two books about business practices that popularized the notion
of organisational culture. These books by Deal & Kennedy (1982) and Peter
& Waterman (1982) treat culture as a ‘thing’ that an organisation ‘has’.
There is no single formula as scholars have taken an approach that emphasizes
the description and understanding of culture. These approaches put much
importance of culture being complex, are socially constructed through the
communicative interaction of organisational members, are composed of fragmented
subcultural units and may be fraught with ambiguity. Schein’s approach put
emphasis on the emergent and complex nature of culture. He argues cultures can
be best conceptualized as having three layers, behaviours and artifacts,
espoused organisational values and taken-for-granted assumptions about how the
world works. Finally, some studies on organisational culture such as ethnography
typically use qualitative methods to build a grounded theory that enhances
cultural understanding. Research results are then communicated to the audience
through telling of cultural tales.
There was no lecture for week 4, so I will be focusing on
our tutorial discussions as presentation started this week.
Topic 1: Required
reading for students, a communication or an Organisational Problem?
The question ‘why
students don’t do readings’ was throw to us, some answer lazy, boring, long and
etc. The presenter summarized it and found out that the reason why students
don’t do their readings was because readings are time consuming, they are hard
to understand and boring. If students ever read, they would always opt for the
shortest one just for the sake of reporting it back to the lecturer.
Therefore,
students resolve to reading lecture slides, googling and reading textbook
definitions. To answer the topic question, it is stated that it is neither
communication nor organisational problem; it is purely student’s laziness and
their lack of initiative to do readings. They suggested a few ways for lecturer
communicate this issue better to the students.
Help students to develop
and interest in the certain subject. With interest, it will be easier for
students to learn and it won’t feel as if it’s a drag to learn.
Allow students to set up
their own platforms online. Eg facebook groups, discussions will be more
effective when you gather students in an environment where it is most
familiar to them as well as a place where they access the most.
DO not have a compulsory
formal online group discussion because it creates ‘peer pressure’ and the
outcome discussion that is derived from ‘peer pressure’ are less
desirable.
It is more effective to
have face-to-face group discussions because this way it helps students to
express their knowledge that is at the top of the mind. Lecturers can
roughly have an idea of what students already know or don’t know.
It is also discussed how many references are reasonable when
it comes to assignments. Obviously, opinion piece will provide less while
factual pieces needs more. The ideal choice that is fair for both lecturer and
student would be 5-15 references depending on the assignment and if needed 10
bibliographies.
Another group whom presented on the same issue discuss and
stated extra point where it says that the reason why Malaysian students don’t
do reading is due to our lack of reading culture. They argue that the reason
Malaysians not having a reading habit is because of the cost of book price in
Malaysia. For a book that probably cost about 3 or 4 USD, in Malaysia we might
need to pay about RM 40 or 50 for it. Thus, the price of reading is just too
costly. To a certain extent, I personally do think that they made a point in
this case as I do have a hard time trying to read because many times I will
have to purchase the books that I am interested in reading and the price
demotivates me.
In conclusion for this topic, it is not communication or
organisational problem; it is an attitude/ character problem of the students
themselves. At the end of the day, we are all now at the tertiary level of
education where independent learning is practice. If you don’t read, is your
own loss. You learn less.
Topic 2: Consider the
issue of globalization, terrorism, climate change and changing of demographics.
How different issues have different effects on different people and different
kinds of organizations.
The presenter separated it into four parts.
Globalization means integrating the world and this era, we
are constantly on the go with “computer mediated technologies”. One example is
the iPad. Globalization has heightened the level of competition among
professional workers due to the possibility of a borderless integration. In the
article written by Doug Britt (2007),
it says that globalization made fear and anxiety exist because not only that it
fosters new competition but it demands a higher level of efficiency and
requires true expertise in supply chain optimization. Companies will no longer
competing against companies but it will be supply chains competing against
supply chains. Companies competing on product and services not process.
Terrorism consequence on scars and fears on people and for
an event company, this will tarnish the organisation’s reputation. Take the
case terrorism attack on the Munich Olympics in 1972 (Olympic Org 2012), they will now be forever associated with the
ghastly acts of terror carried out by terrorist group Black September brought
11 to fatality. The organizations that were in-charged of a huge event should
put their PR skills to expect any possible crisis. This had served as a wakeup
call to other organizations, to be on a lookout for the unexpected.
The issue of climate change are causing organisation to go
green however, many are trying to take it to their advantage by selling
themselves as a ‘green company’ to raise awareness and gain in CSR (Corporate
Social Responsibility) or even as a business opportunity and profit making. One
example would be the latest Mazda CX-5 (Gillespie.
E 2012) advert with the environmental advocate cartoon Lorax.
The message
was misleading and the association between an environmentally destructive
product with The Lorax is plain obvious greenwashing. However, not all green
advertising are faulty, some are genuine. Bring your own bottle (BYOB) is one
of those that encourages recycling. Instead of throwing the hard to
disintegrate plastic bottles, BYOB encourages people to use for buying all
sorts of good quality daily washing and shower liquids at a refill centre (Ken. C 2011).
When it comes to changing in demographics, it refers to a
rapidly aging population that one day might outnumber the young. This will
definitely impact the political economics. According to an article by The
Economist (2011), it states that
officials say the elderly resist higher taxes or benefit cuts, and the young,
who are in a minority, do not have the political power to push for what is in
their long-term interest. When elderly becomes a majority, government will
receive less tax from the society which may lead to a higher tax forced from
the minority younger generations.
Another group also discussed on the same issue in topic 2,
however approach was different. They started off by stating that Globalization
+ Changing Demographic = Diversity and the problem of having diversity in the
future is the misunderstanding that may occur. People might not be able to
adapt or understand a certain culture. Though, because of globalization, there
is a possibility of the growth is more varieties of culture. One example given
was a video of describing one person speaking English of 35 accents (Soundyawake 2010).
English back then
were only divided into American and British accent, due to globalization,
different parts of the world are speaking English but in different accent due
to their culture. The second given was when Terrorism + Climate Change =
Insecurity. It depicts that in the
future, we need to ensure that the company will provide safe air, water, food
and safe workplace. However, if the organisation thinks that it is too costly,
they will give the allowance to work from home and communication will be done
through mediated devices, this is when the problem occurs. Trust issue will
rise; we can lie as compare to face-to-face communication getting from the
office. Besides that, this will also reduce our communication skills in person.
Another issue would be Machine interactions as these days,
more and more humans are moving towards interacting heavily with machines. For
example, we have the Apple Siri available within our life. The funny part
pointed out by the presenter was that in the future, we might have ‘a walking
siri’! (It humoured me when he cracked the silent joke, which I assumed most of
my classmates may not be paying attention.)
The problem occurs when robots are
created by imperfect human, thus apparently labelling robots as the
‘imimperfect’, the point here is that how will the imperfect species of humans
can interact with the ‘imimperfect’ species of robots can interact when humans
that known each other for a very long time also can have communication
problems. Besides that, if robot works, we human need to compete with robots
for jobs. If this happens, human need to work extra harder to survive and this
might lead to pressure overload.
The Economist 2011, Whose
lost decade? Japan’s economy works better than pessimists think- at least for
the elderly, viewed on 26 March 2012, from <http://www.economist.com/node/21538745>
In this lecture, we covered on the system approach to the
study of organisational communication. The system approach works from the
metaphoric concept that an organisation is like an organism. The system concept
includes the nature of system components, system processes and the properties
that emerge from the conceptualization of organizations as interdependent and
open sets of interacting components. Then we were told about three typical but
very different system theories. First was cybernetic system theory, it highlighted
the significance of feedback and regulation in goal-directed system. Second was
Weick’s theory of organizing where emphasis is placed on how organisational
interaction revolves around making sense of equivocal information environments.
Third is the system theory from the ‘new sciences’, it emphasizes on the
chaotic and complex nature of ‘self-organizing’ system. Methods such as network
analysis, modelling techniques and case studies are some of the methodological
approaches that are useful to organizational communication scholars in system
tradition. It all provides avenues for understanding the complex nature of
organisational communication systems.
In week 3 tutorial, we were divided into three group to
discuss the 3 readings given to compare and to give a bigger picture on the
research of organisational communication that had been done in the past. The
three readings are (1) Organizational Communication: Prelude and Prospects by Thompkins
and Thibault, (2) Employee/Organisational Communications by Berger and (3)
Research on Organiszational Communication: the Case of Sweden by Johansson.
(1)Organizational
Communication: Prelude and Prospects by Thompkins and Thibault
This journal is reviewing on ‘The
New Handbook of Organisational Communication: Advances in theory, research and
methods’ book that assessed on the researches that had been done in US. It
provided a brief history of the rubrics, categories and ideologies that have
shaped the identity of the field. It also note on some trends in the study of
organizational communication that is believed to demonstrate a certain
maturation of the field in the each moves the field in ways that question and
deconstruct categories of the past while integrating domains and methods
thought to be permanently at adds with each other. Old terministic screens give
way to more inclusive ones and division yields to merger and mergers are
subdivided allowing the field of organisational communication to be enriched.
The review suggested that our
future research will continue to extend past research by developing new
perspectives on old issues and problems associated with communication and
organisation. The traditional focus was on leader-follower communication,
communication networks and structures, the creation, sensing and routing of
information, information flow and participation in making decision, filtering
and distortion of messages, communication channels, feedback processing. These
will remain as significant areas of study. The research question may vary; much
of the research will be expanding on topics that have a long history of study
in organisational communication. Besides that, they have also stated of the
rising of research traditions founded on the metaphors of “voice”, “discourse”
and “performance” as part of maturation of the field. Finally, the analysis
suggest that the field is now focusing more on communicational theorizing about
organizing than in the recent past. Taylor’s (1993) argues that conversations
are the stuff of organizations, conversations lead to narratives or text
meaningful to the conversationalists and organization is a communication
system. Redding (1972) on the other hand facilitate a view of organizations as
communicational in nature, a perspective that we expect will be central to
understanding the more fluid, fragmented and chaotic forms of organizations and
organizing that are expected in the future.
In conclusion, communication and
organization are equivalent, addressing organizing: it is the paint and the
canvas, the figure and ground.
Referencing
Redding. W. C 1972, Communication within the organization: an
interpretive review of theory and research, Industrial Communication
Council, New York.
Taylor. J 1993, Rethinking the theory of organizational
communication: how to read an organization, Ablex, Norwood, New Jersey.
Tompkins. P and Thibault. M 2001,
Organizational communication: prelude and
prospects, Sage Publication, USA.
(2)Employee/Organisational
Communications by Berger
Berger article describes the
importance of organizational communication and basic internal communication
processes, network and channels. It states the important issues in current
practices and is concluded with 15 principles of effective communication.
Internal communication matters
because the functioning and survival of organizations is based on effective
relationships (it grown out of communication) among individuals and groups.
Communication helps to achieve goals, solve problems, motivate, build trust and
creates a shared identity within a company. S-M-C-R model is a classic example
by Shannon-Weaver (1949) for internal communication in being introduce where
[S] information source encodes message [M] and send through a selected channel
[C] to a receiver [R] who decodes them. As time passes it becomes more complex
due to new media and high speed multi directional communication.
Communication level: Face-to-face
& Group
Communication network: flow in an
organisation that can be formal/informal, vertical/horizontal, diagonal or
omnidirectional.
Communication channels: medium
use to send and receive the message. Print (Memo, report), electronic (email,
blog, voice mail, IMs) or F-T-F (interpersonal meetings, lunch, events)
Internal communication has much
evolved from the classical approaches to human relation approaches to human
resources approaches to system approaches, and cultural approaches. All 5 live
on in organizations-work rule, hierarchies, policies, training programs, work
teams, job descriptions, socialization rituals, human resource department, job
descriptions, customer focus and etc.
There are 4 contemporary issues
in organizational communication and they are organizational identity, employee
engagement, measurement and social media. The 15 principles of successful
internal communications revolves around timeliness and content, channels,
leadership roles, professional communicator roles, Participation and
recognition, measurement, and culture.
Referencing
Shannon. C. E & Weaver. W 1949, A mathematical theory of communication, University of Illinois
Press, Urbana.
Berger. B. K 2008,
Employee/organizational communications, institute for Public Relations,
(3)Research
on Organizational Communication: the Case of Sweden by Johansson
Johansson article talks about the
Swedish research on organization communication and it states that they are dominantly
done through empirical, qualitative research. A wide definition of
organizational communication is employed including research focusing on both
internal and external communication. Majority of the studies are about public
information that is spilt to health communication and crisis communication.
Research on internal communication focused on leader-employee communication,
organizational learning, sensemaking, communication strategies and
communication efficiency.
Mullern and Stein (1999) explain
that the leader-employee communication is found still to be very
leader-centered and one-way communication rather than dialogue. The authors
wish to see communication between both is not fulfilled. Heide (2002) considers
intranet have advantages as learning tools because it can enhance availability of
information and acquire more active role of information seeking. Though,
disadvantages would be that managers wouldn’t know if the co-workers understood
the message the way they originally wanted and might cause problems in this
sense. Alyesson (2002) resulting interpretations on meeting in private company
disclose how communication both function as manifestation and source of common
meaning and understandings of reality, power relations and communicative
disorders.
There’s a drastic increase in the
PR industry where they focused on publicity and advertising. ICT have brought
radical changes that affect working conditions for most public relations
practitioners. There are four
types ofagenda-setting work: Type 1 consists of open activities like press
releases, press conferencesand lobbying.Type 2 consists of creating events, research
and basic data for”facts and figures”-reports as
well as recurrent news production.Type 3 consists
of morecovert methods, like bill writing
for political parties, which suits a particular campaignor agenda.Type 4 is the special area of consultants, with issues management,
opinionpolls, alliance creation,
engagement of debate writers and different types of intelligenceactivities. PR also covers on risk communication and
crisis communication.
A conclusion was drawn by Johansson stating
that more Swedish research in Organizational Communication is needed that will encompass
both quantitative and qualitative methods. Though, the strength in Swedish
research is that it has a close link between research and practice which can
help strengthen individual’s communication competence in organizations.
However, the weakness is lies in the difficulty of generalizing results as
conditions differ widely in different organizations.
Referencing
Heide.
M 2002, Intranet: a new arena for
communication and learning, Lund University.
Mullern.
T & Stein. J 1999, Persuasive
Leadership on rhetoric in strategic change, Student litteratur, Lund
University.
Alyesson.
M 2002, Communication, power and organization,
critical interpretations of a business meeting, Norsted Juridik, 2nd
ed, Stockholm.
Johansson.
C 2007, Research on organizational communication:
the case of Sweden, Nordicom Review. Vol 28, no 1, pg 93-110.
Watch a video on an interview done with an CEO.
Rob Friedman, director of executive communication at Eli Lilly, discusses the role his CEO plays in communication at their company. www.ragan.com
The organisational communication seems to be perfect.
In this week lecture, I have learned on the definition of
communication and organisation as well as the challenges that comes along with
it. Communication itself is simply sending messages to one or more receivers.
While organisation is a company or a social collectivity that is brought
together by a goal or a specific interest. Thus, organisational communication
is a complex interaction of process, people, messages, meaning and purposes (Shockley-Zalabak, 2009). Weick (1979) explains that communication is a
core process of organizing within an organisation. Miller (2009) looks into four aspects of communication:
Content: Task, innovation
and relationship within each member of organisation.
Direction: Communication
flows vertically (classical top-down or new bottom-up) or horizontal (pier
communication or flat communication with all members)
Channel: Face-to-face,
written, mediated and etc.
Style: Formal or informal.
Contemporary communication in organisation becomes complex
when issues such as globalisation, media, cultural diversity, changing in
demographics and economic liberalism exist. This became a challenge due to how
complicated this world have become. The three main issues that we are facing
this era are globalization, climate change and change in demographics. The
stakeholders involved are separated into internal which includes staff,
employees, or members, and external Source: includes customer, suppliers or
media. The stakeholders are the people that are either affected directly or
indirectly on the way an organisational behave.
Side note, lecturer talks about how so much information can
be found on the internet that literally allows us to ‘goggle it’ in time of
uncertainties as well as for research purposes. It is said that babies born in
the year 2010 and above are called Generation Alpha or Google Kids.
Source: google images
For week one and two, there was classes were mainly
introducing the course and discussion on the assignments work throughout the
course.
If you hate reading or just scrolled down my prior written summary without reading a single word, watch this video for more information on Communication challenges facing these days.
Reference:
Miller. K 2009,
Organisational communication: approaches and process, 5th
edition, Wadsworth, United States of America.
Shockley-Zalabak. P 2009, Fundamentals of organisational communication: knowledge, sensitivity,
skills, values, 7th edition, Pearson Education, United States of
America.
Weick. K. E 1979, The
social phychology of organizing, Addison-Wesley Publishing, Reading,
Massachusetts.
Due to the criticism on the machine metaphor, human relation
and human resources approaches introduce the importance of human needs in the workplace.
In human relation, the three approached are The Hawthorne Studies, Maslow
Hierarchy of needs study and McGregor’s Theory X & Y. The Hawthorne studies
was conducted in late 1920s and early 1930s, it was widely interpreted as
indicating that management attention to workers and social communication was
highly influential in increasing worker productivity. Next, Maslow Hierarchy of
needs study is a basic theory of motivation applied to the organisational
setting where it said that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy of prepotency,
ranging from physiological needs to the need for self-actualize. Finally, McGregor’s
Theory X & Y considers the assumptions that managers hold about employees,
positing that Theory Y managers would behave in such a way as to maximize the
productivity of employees. Human relations approaches are different from
classical approach as we can have horizontal, face-to-face and informal communication
about both task and social topics.
Human resources approach existed due to the dissatisfaction
with the human relation approach because human relation approach failed to
accumulate widespread empirical support and because some ideas could be
instituted in half-hearted and manipulative ways. Human Resources approach
tries to maximize both organisational productivity and individual employee
satisfaction and it is accomplished through the intelligent use of human
resources. We look at theories such as Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid where
an example was provided on the dual focus on organisational effectiveness and
individual needs, and Rensis Likert’s System demonstrates how human resources
principles such as participation and innovation can be instituted in an
organisational setting. This approach is different from classical and human
relation because it has a broad communication content including task-related,
social and innovation topics. The information flows in a wide variety of
directions and emphasis on team-based interaction. It also uses a wide variety
of channels matched to task needs and is relatively informal.
For tutorial in human resources, we are required to discuss on the case study on Teamwork at the Marshall's processing plant as well as to create a communication strategy. For the outcome of our discussion please watch video below.
This topic, I’ve learned in depth on the 3 classical theories
that is being introduced includes Fayol’s Classical Management, Weber’s Theory
of Bureaucracy and Taylor’s Scientific Management. We were also taught on the
classical approaches of communication content, direction of communication flow,
channel of communication and the communication style.
In classical theories, they describe organisations as
machine when the impact of Industrial Revolution has changed the way people
work. Employees are trained for a specific task for the division of labor,
standardization and replace-ability where employees can be easily replaced and
predictable outcome as machines is programmed to a specific amount of results.
Classical theory 1: Henri Fayol’s Classical Management
Foyal first described 5 job scope of management/manager
(what is management)
Planning: to determine
goals for the company.
Organising: to delegate
jobs
Command: to give proper
instructions to employees
Coordination: to make sure
each department understands each other, creating a harmonized environment.
Control: to be able to
take charged to achieve goals and organising activities.
Foyal also came up with 4 principles of management (how
management should be)
Six Principles of
Organisational Structure
·Scalar chain: mainly on vertically top-down
communication.
·Unity of command: to take orders only from one
leader.
·Unity of direction: under the supervision of
only one leader.
·Division of labour: to be assigned on a
specific/limited task.
·Order: every employee has an appointed
department and task.
·Span of control: control the leader-staff ratio;
limit the number of staff under a manager.
Three Principles of
Organisational Power
·Centralization: to have one main central
management that has control.
·Authority & Responsibility: managers have
the power to order/do something to certain extend.
·Discipline: to ensure subordinates is obedient
to the rules of organisation and managers.
Three Principles of
Organisational Reward
·Remuneration of personnel: Bonus or financial
motivation.
·Equity: fairly treated
·Tenure stability: ensure that all jobs are given
enough time to complete.
Three Principles of
Organisational Attitude
·Subordination of individual interest to general
interest: eg if you need to miss work for the day, think about the rest of the
co-workers and your manager position, you should at least call in to inform in
order manager could re-arrange the work task for other staff for the day.
·Initiative: anything we do should think and work
for the best interest of the organisation.
·Esprit de corps: promoting unity and team spirit
for a more harmonious organisation.
Classical theory 2: Max Weber’s Theory of Bureaucracy
Weber came up with six aspects to explain his theory; some
are pretty similar to Foyal’s theory.
Similar to Foyal:
Hierarchical
system of authority.
Division of labour (task
specialisation)
Centralization of power
New aspects:
Closed system: nothing is
disclosed to the external party or being influenced by it.
Written rules: there is a
specific printed regulation to be followed eg, handbook provided.
Authority system: should
be a rational legal authority team who delineate lines of authority in a
fixed area of activity, action taken on the basis of and recorded in
written rules.
Weber listed his forms of legitimate authority
Traditional authority :
born to be in that position
Charismatic authority:
they are given the authority because they have to the power to influence
eg, politicians, celebrity and etc.
Rational-legal authority:
they have the authority because they worked hard for it. This is the kind
of leaders that most organisations are looking for.
Classical theory 3: Frederick Taylor’s Scientific
Management.
Taylor focused on 4 elements of scientific management.
Some people have the
natural human instinct of taking it easy. They are called ‘natural
soldiering
Rewarding system through
piecework where people are paid through the number of units achieved.
There are workers who work
faster in order to earn more and unscrupulous managers would rate fast
workers normally and pay slower workers half the usual rate. They are ‘rate
busting’
On the other hand, slower
workers hated the idea of ‘rate buster’. Thus they would team up and force
fast workers to slow down so that they could get the usual rate as well.
This is called ‘ systematic soldiering’
There is one best way to perform every job which is to just
plainly follow the given direction of the work or following the recipe of it.
It is important to have the proper selection of workers where each staff is
rightly placed at the right time. Besides that, it is also important to provide
trainings for the workers and to compensate them with some incentive plan. A
company should also state clearly on the difference between management and
workers.
Classical approach on communication process that is
machine-like organisation could be viewed in terms of:
Communication content
where everything is work-related. There are no personal matters involved.
Direction of
communication flow is mainly focusing on vertical, top-down system.
Channel of communication
is through written or these days email for black & white purposes.
Communication style is
very formal eg punch cards, presentations, a certain language is imposed
on verbal or non-verbal expression and etc.
Question: Are classical theories of management relevant for
newly industrialized factories or applicable in today’s world?
It is believed that classical theories is still important
especially in the bigger companies such as fast-food restaurant, military
organisations, manufacturing and service organisations and etc, in order to keep
every part of the organisation to run smoothly. However, many contemporary
organisations value the free-flow of communication within the company for more
feedback, input or ideas to be discussed within for a better improvement of the
organisation.
