Week 6: Critical approaches

Hello, I'm Karl Marx!

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. 

Week 5: Cultural approaches

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.  

Week 4: why students don't read readings? Glabaliszation, climate change, terrorism, demographic change?

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

References

Britt. D 2007, Impact of Globazation in creating sustainable competitive advantage, Supply Demand Chain Executive, viewed on 26 March 2012, from <http://www.sdcexec.com/article/10289694/impact-of-globalization-in-creating-sustainable-competitive-advantage>

Gillespie. E 2012, Greewash and hamming it up –mazda makes a mess of CX- advert, Guradian UK, viewed on 27 March 2012, from <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/feb/27/mazda-advert-dr-seuss-lorax>

Ken. C 2011, Bring your own bottle (BYOB) to buy all sorts of good quality daily used washing and shower liquids, viewed 26 March 2012, from <http://www.foodbuzz.com/blogs/my/malaysia/4384020-bring-your-own-bottle-byob-to-buy-all-sorts-of-good-quality-daily-used-washing-and-shower-liquids>

Olympic Org 2012, Munich 1972, viewed on 27 March 2012, from <http://www.olympic.org/munich-1972-summer-olympics>.

Soundyawake 2010, 35 Accents in the english language, Youtube, 12 November, viewed on the 26 March 2012, from <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-en-iDeZEE>

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>

Short clips of presentations done for tutorial 3:

Week 4: System approaches

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. 

week 3: 3 readings of Organizational Communication

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

Source:http://ia700802.us.archive.org/zipview.php?zip=/32/items/olcovers57/olcovers57-L.zip&file=576012-L.jpg

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 

      < http://www.instituteforpr.org/topics/employee-organizational- communications/>.  

(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, 2^nd 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"

Week 3: Topic 1: Organisational Communication Challenges

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. 

Source: http://www.learnmanagement2.com/comsmodel.jpg

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:

1. Content: Task, innovation and relationship within each member of organisation.
2. Direction: Communication flows vertically (classical top-down or new bottom-up) or horizontal (pier communication or flat communication with all members)
3. Channel: Face-to-face, written, mediated and etc.
4. 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, 5^th edition, Wadsworth, United States of America.

Shockley-Zalabak. P 2009, Fundamentals of organisational communication: knowledge, sensitivity, skills, values, 7^th edition, Pearson Education, United States of America.

Weick. K. E 1979, The social phychology of organizing, Addison-Wesley Publishing, Reading, Massachusetts. 

Week 3: Human resources approaches and human relations

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.