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,
viewed on 20 March 2012, from
(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 of agenda-setting work: Type 1 consists of open activities like press
releases, press conferences and 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 more covert methods, like bill writing
for political parties, which suits a particular campaign or agenda. Type 4 is the special area of consultants, with issues management,
opinion polls, alliance creation,
engagement of debate writers and different types of intelligence activities. 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.
"We don't want to UNDER Communicate,
we want to OVER Communicate"
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