Org Comm Midterm

Transmission perspective

Communication is getting a message from A to B (the "bucket of water" metaphor); something you do in an organization to accomplish goals.

Constitutive perspective

Communication shapes and defines relationships and the organization itself; the org is an evolving entity formed and re-formed by communicating.

Transmission noise / impediments

Communication noise: anything that "jostles the bucket" and distorts a message en route (feedback problems, prior relationships, biases, selective perception, other variables).

Message fidelity

How accurately a message arrives intact as the sender intended; the goal of the transmission perspective.

Message distortion

Changes to a message as it travels so it's received differently than intended (e.g., serial distortion, noise).

Foundational principle 1

Communication in organizations should be examined from both a transmission and a constitutive perspective.

Foundational principle 2 (multifaceted)

Communication in organizations is multifaceted and about more than communication skill competencies.

Foundational principle 3 (responsibilities of all)

All organizational members are involved with important communication activity, not just HR/PR/communication departments.

Foundational principle 4 (intelligence and skill)

Intelligence, knowledge, and creativity do not guarantee communication competence.

Foundational principle 5 (all organizations)

Organizational communication applies to all organizations, not just businesses (clubs, churches, teams, even families).

Foundational principle 6 (centrality)

Communication is a central, not peripheral, factor in organizational study (like the heart is to your health).

Communication

A transmission and constitutive process that occurs when people intentionally or unintentionally send and receive verbal and nonverbal messages.

Communication is nonlinear

It's an ongoing process, not a one-way act; Lasswell's model looks linear; "who" and "whom" swap roles and react to each other.

Communication can be intentional or unintentional

A message need not be meant to be communicated (e.g., lateness may signal disrespect); Sartre: passivity would be an act.

Verbal Communication

uses words (not same as oral/vocal)

Nonverbal Communication

messages mean something only when decoded

Communication is irreversible

Once a message is received it can't be eradicated; "I take that back" only adds to the original message.

Classical theory

the organization is a machine and employees are its parts; goal is efficiency; communication is mainly downward.

Natural soldiering (Taylor)

workers' natural tendency to work at a slow, easy pace.

Systematic soldiering (Taylor)

workers deliberately slow their pace after implied or explicit communication from peers; caused by lack of monetary motivation and fear of "rate busting."

Monetary motivations (classical theory)

Classical theorists assumed employees work primarily for money (carrot-and-stick); pay by work accomplished

Downward communication (classical theory) \

]Nearly all communication in classical orgs flows from superior to subordinate: management tells workers what to do, how to do it, and the incentives.

Hawthorne Studies

tests of classical theory that instead launched human relations theory; four phases: illumination, relay assembly, interviews, bank wiring.

Illumination

productivity rose whether lighting increased or decreased; illumination was not the variable.

Relay assembly

Hours, breaks, pay, food varied; productivity rose regardless; the motivator was observation, change, and implicit recognition

Interviews

employees valued venting, which suggests upward communication.

Bank wiring

Employees developed informal rules and norms enforced by peers; real rules can emerge horizontally, not just from management.

Human relations theory

Employees are motivated by observation and recognition and have human needs; managers must communicate more than tasks; criticized when used superficially (bogus praise to manipulate).

Human resources theory Miles (1965)

employees are resources with untapped contributions; management must create communication channels and a climate that facilitate participation (genuine, not a "lubricant").

Theory X McGregor

people dislike work and avoid it when possible; workers are not ambitious and prefer direction; they don't seek responsibility or care about overall organizational needs; they must be directed and threatened with punishment to be productive.

Theory Y McGregor

under the right conditions people view work as natural as play; workers are ambitious and prefer self-direction; they seek responsibility, are self-motivated, need little supervision, and are creative. Similar to human relations/human resources views.

Jackass fallacy Levinson

notion held by Theory X managers that employees are stubborn fools ('jackasses'). If management views employees this way, human relations/resources overtures will fail because employees see them as manipulative (p. 54).

Systems theory

Organizations are made of interdependent units that should work interdependently, not independently; each unit depends directly or indirectly on others and no unit should act autonomously. Makes interdepartmental communication a prerequisite for survival.

Focal system

The system you are focusing on; it sits within a subsystems and its subsystems are the units within it (hierarchical ordering).

Subsystems

The units within the focal system (e.g., departments of a high school); the focal system depends on the quality of its subsystems.

Permeability Degree

Information must be able to get from one system to another from the relevant environment to the focal system

Input

The information that comes into the system

Output

Information that is exported beyond the system

Throughput

The processing of information within the system

Requisite Variety

diverse and multiple set of inputs cannot be addressed by a very simple approach to dealing with that complexity

Entropy

the disorder that results from not responding to its relevant environment and its related subsystems

Negative Entropy

The desired end for a healthy stems that results from interactions with the environment

Cultural theory

Perspective that there is a phenomenon called organizational culture and that it is a factor affecting organizational life and success; communication is central to its evolution.

Functionalists

Consider organizational culture a function of communicative messages generated typically by management; culture can be engineered by deliberately choosing and disseminating messages.

Interpretivists

Believe culture results from all communicative interaction of members, like a 'web' (the residue of the communication process); culture is something the organization IS, not just something it has.

Critical theory

Is the notion that communication can be used as a tool for abuse

Ideology

Beliefs employees consider normal and natural that may not be (e.g., accepting hierarchy as unquestionably valuable); those in power wish employees to see them as standard.

Manufactured consent

Employees adopt (and may enforce) ideologies that may be unhealthy for them because communication patterns in the organization reinforce those ideologies; the buy-in is manufactured.

Concertive control Tompkins and Cheney

employees work flexibly and in concert because they have bought into organizational goals and set their own norms; little direct oversight needed.

Marginalized groups Groups

(e.g., women and racial minorities) given infrequent meaningful opportunities to present perspectives or who are not listened to; critical theorists want to expose this and empower silenced voices.

Symbiotic theory Corman and Poole

organizational communication theories are pieces of an interdependent "mosaic" that should be used together rather than treated as competing

Uncertainty

absence of information

Equivocality

Existence of conflicting or ambiguous information. Both hurt organizational health

Task Messages

refers to those communications that explain employee jobs or responsibilities

Maintenance Messages

explains guidelines, rules, policies, regulations, objectives, and any related procedural information

Human Messages

concerned with the human needs of employees

Five Criteria

Timely, Clear, Accurate, Pertinent, Credible

Timely

Receivers must get messages at a time when the information is meaningful

Clear

Whatever method used must be one that will likely result in the message being received clearly

Accurate

Inaccurate information could have a corrosive effect on the organizational culture but if the reputation is sensitive to the needs of employees it could have a positive effect

Pertinent

The receiver of the message should view the message as relevant otherwise they begin to taint the value of those that are relevant

Credible

Messages received must be believed or they will be disregarded

Media richness

a medium’s capacity to change understanding

First-level effects

the immediate, obvious benefit of a communication technology

Second-level effects

the less obvious consequences that happen because of the technology.

Human Moment

The physical presence of the people communicating and emotional and intellectual attention

Multiple stakeholder theory Deetz

an organization should treat both employees and shareholders as stakeholders and act like a workplace democracy where all members think like owners; the key variable is credibility; its residue is concertive control.

Types of networks

location (external/internal), formality (formal/informal), direction (upward/downward/horizontal).

External

inside-to-outside or outside-to-inside, e.g., ads, contact info

Internal

within the organization, intra- and interdepartmental)

Formal

Prescribed by the organization (org chart)

Informal

not prescribed (the grapevine)

Downward

superior to subordinate

Horizontal

same level

Silo effect

treats departments as independent, which is counterproductive because they are interdependent

Upward networks

subordinate to superior

Earthquake prediction business Von Braun's phrase

managers hear about too many potential "earthquakes" (problems); some overreact, some underestimate, some make noise, so important messages may be ignored.

Feynman's theory

Managers exaggerate their unit's capabilities to keep funding and don't want to hear contradicting info, so employees are discouraged from sending it up and upward networks get "clogged."

Grapevine characteristics

Fast, often accurate, resilient (exists whether we like it or not), used to check formal messages; managers should manage it, not eliminate it.

Grapevine chain types (Davis).

Single strand (one tells one), gossip (one tells all), probability (random), cluster (some tell selected others; most typical).

Organizational penetration Tompkins

consciously creating horizontal networks into an external contractor so it becomes temporarily like a unit of the organization.

Serial transmission

A message passes through intermediary stopping points between source and receiver (S1 to R1/S2 to R2/S3 to R3).

Serial distortion

Distortion that occurs in serial transmission; four types: adding, leveling, sharpening, assimilating

Adding

An intermediary adds to the original message, changing its meaning.

Leveling

An intermediary shortens or abridges the message.

Sharpening

An intermediary makes the message more sensational than needed.

Assimilating

An intermediary alters the message to make it more palatable to the receiver.

Automatic responsibility

The idea that people feel responsible for information or situations simply because they were in a position where others expect them to act

Redding: climate vs. skills

The organizational climate is more crucial than communication skills or techniques (taken by themselves) in creating an effective organization.

Organizational climate

Atmosphere (Taguiri: relatively enduring internal environment experienced by members) that encourages or discourages communication; the "weather."

Organizational culture

The belief and value system of an organization, passed along to employees; the root of the climate.

Ideal supportive climate (SCOPE)

Supportiveness, Credibility/confidence/trust, Openness and candor, Participatory decision making, Emphasis on high-performance goals.

Defensive communication (MICES)

Manipulative, Indifferent to personal needs, Certain (dogmatic), Evaluative (blaming/destructive criticism), Superior (condescending)

Illusory cultures

Manufactured cultures (granfalloons) like "we're a family/team" that managers claim but don't live; employees see through them; you can't force-feed culture.

Organizational socialization

The process by which people learn the values, norms, and behaviors that permit them to participate as members of the organization.

Anticipatory socialization

Learning about work and organizations before joining (school, media, job research)

Encounter socialization

The entering employee's early experience: interviews, orientation, first weeks; learning "how things really get done here."

Metamorphosis (socialization)

Newcomers become "one of them"; transformation from fledgling to full member; often leads to organizational identification.

Normative ethics

The study of how people should behave and what makes an action right or wrong.