Organizational Communication, Control, Culture, and Globalization: Key Theories and Models | Quizlet

Organization (Mumby & Kuhn)

Complex patterns of communication habits that enable coordination and goal-oriented activity among people

Organizational communication

Creating and negotiating coordinated systems of meaning through symbolic practices oriented toward organizational goals

Communication IN organizations

Transmission/conduit view: orgs are containers where communication merely occurs; focus on efficiency and clarity

Organizations AS communication (CCO)

Communication constitutes the organization; without it the organization ceases to exist

Conduit metaphor (Axley 1984)

Treating communication as a pipeline for transferring information; ignores meaning-making

SMCR model

Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver transmission model; fails because message sent does not equal message received

Redding's 4 defining features (1988)

Interdependence, differentiation of tasks/functions, goal orientation, and control

Gareth Morgan's 8 metaphors

Machine, organism, brain, culture, political system, psychic prison, flux/change, instrument of domination

Communication flows (van Riel 2012)

Line (formal, vertical), parallel/supporting (intranet, magazines), and grapevine (informal rumour)

Four Flows model (McPhee & Zaug)

Orgs are constituted by membership negotiation, self-structuring, activity coordination, and institutional positioning

Barnard's core question (1938)

How to get members to behave in ways they would not spontaneously choose, in service of organizational goals

Power as oxygen (Clegg, Courpasson & Phillips 2006)

"Power is to organizations as oxygen is to breathing" - power and resistance are everywhere

Five forms of control

Direct, technological, bureaucratic, ideological, biocratic - each evolved to counter resistance to the previous

Direct control

Close personal supervision with no clear rules; most coercive; resisted via output restriction

Technological control

Machines/systems constrain behaviour (assembly line, algorithmic scheduling, keystroke tracking)

Bureaucratic control

Formal inflexible rules, job descriptions and merit systems; experienced as oppressive by the 1970s

Ideological control

Employees internalize company values and self-regulate without supervision ("we're a family")

Biocratic control

Work/life boundary dissolves; the org captures "life itself" (constant availability, self-branding)

Key control insight

More diffuse does NOT mean less powerful; control is strongest when you can't separate your identity from the company's

Social factory (Fleming 2014)

Everyday social activity (social media, platform use) generates economic value outside the organization

Great Resignation (Klotz)

Post-pandemic wave of voluntary job-leaving

Quiet quitting

Psychological withdrawal at work; doing only the bare minimum

Task time

Organic time shaped by tasks (farming, craft); no work/life split; work equals identity

Clock time

Time as currency sold to an employer; basis of mass production; enables exploitation of labour

Fordism

Mass production + assembly line + welfare capitalism + lifetime employment + work-life separation

Toyotism

Post-Fordist response: just-in-time (no stock/dead time) plus Kaizen (continuous improvement)

Scientific management (Taylor)

First systematic management principles; the "one best way"; replaced rule-of-thumb decision-making

Systematic soldiering

Workers deliberately restricting output to keep employers ignorant of true pace - the problem Taylor attacked

Taylor's 4 principles

Scientific job design, scientific selection/training, cooperation, equal division of work

Criticism of scientific management

Separates conception from execution; deskilling; alienation; neglects the social dimension of work

The Gilbreths

Refined Taylorism using motion studies to eliminate wasted movement

Power vs authority (Weber)

Power = imposing your will despite resistance; authority = legitimate power people accept as rightful

Weber's 3 authority types

Charismatic (gift of grace), traditional (custom), rational-legal (rules; dominant in bureaucracy)

Iron cage of bureaucracy (Weber)

Rational-legal order traps us in calculation and efficiency at the cost of meaning and enchantment

Human relations school

Orgs as community; Hawthorne studies; focus on the mind not the body; discovery of the informal work group

Hawthorne effect

Productivity rises when workers feel observed and valued

Human Resource Management (HRM)

Genuine effort to motivate workers by recognizing their value; response to a management legitimacy crisis

Emergence of the cultural approach

1970s economic/political instability, oil crises, global competition, and rejection of alienating bureaucracy

Cultural turn quote (Pacanowsky & O'Donnell-Trujillo 1982)

"More going on than getting the job done..."

Organizational culture

A system of meaning that guides the construction of reality in a social community

Schein's 3 levels of culture

Artifacts (visible) then espoused values (stated) then underlying assumptions (taken-for-granted, invisible)

What culture does

Demarcate boundaries, foster identification, control (ideologically), and boost organizational performance

Pragmatist / functionalist view

Culture is something an organization HAS (a variable) that management can engineer for performance

Purist / symbolist view

An organization IS a culture (root metaphor); emergent, dynamic, and not easily managed

Alvesson critique

Managing culture 'promises more than it delivers'; culture is too complex for causal claims

Homo narrans

Humans as storytelling beings; stories produce and reproduce social reality

Uniqueness paradox

In trying to be unique, organizations tell the same story script (garage to underdog to success)

Seven symbolic forms of culture

Relevant constructs, facts, practices, vocabulary, metaphors, rites/rituals, and stories

Relevant constructs

Labels members use to organize their experience (grades, exams, assignments, 'partying')

Vocabulary / jargon

Insider language that distinguishes insiders from outsiders (being 'an IBCoMer')

Dark side of culture (Sull)

Values become dogmas, assumptions become blinders, processes become routines, relationships become shackles

Neoliberalism

Free markets + individual responsibility; a hegemonic common sense; the worker as human capital

Hegemonic discourse

A worldview that feels like common sense and wins active consent (e.g. neoliberalism)

Third spirit of capitalism (Boltanski & Chiapello)

Neoliberal economy + hegemonic discourse + post-Fordist organizational form

Three spirits of capitalism

1st = robber barons/Gilded Age; 2nd = Fordism/rational manager; 3rd = neoliberal/post-Fordist

Enterprise (entrepreneurial) self

Treating yourself as a brand to be continuously optimized for the market ('The Brand Called You', Peters)

No-collar workers

Creative knowledge workers ('symbol manipulators') who reject suit/boss/9-to-5; blurred work-life boundary

7 work insecurities

Labour-market, employment, job, work, skill-reproduction, income, and representation security

Venture labor (Neff)

Bearing entrepreneurial career risk yourself in insecure creative work

Fissured workplace (Weil)

Core firm outsources work to contractors/franchisees, shedding responsibility for workers

WATT vs YOYO

Fordism 'We're All in This Together' (stable) vs post-Fordism 'You're On Your Own' (flexible/precarious)

Disciplinary power (Foucault)

Power that shapes thought and behaviour through norms and self-regulation, not force; productive and bottom-up

Panopticon

When workers know they might be watched, they self-monitor continuously

Systems of control hierarchy

Simple, technical, bureaucratic, ideological, disciplinary (most to least coercive; least coercive = most effective)

Team (Cohen & Bailey 1997)

Interdependent members who share responsibility for outcomes and are seen as an intact social entity

Psychological safety (Edmondson)

Shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking; no fear of speaking up

Good team factors

Equal conversational turn-taking + high social sensitivity + psychological safety outweigh individual IQ

Concertive control (Barker)

Peers monitor each other in team settings; peer pressure can be more oppressive than a boss

Constructing rationality (Weick)

Enactment then selection then retention - rationality is constructed, not just discovered

Bounded rationality

Imperfect data and imperfect mental models force 'good enough' (satisficing) decisions, not optimal ones

Affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano)

Work events trigger emotions, which in turn shape job attitudes and behaviour

Emotional labor (Hochschild)

Managing feelings to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display

Surface / deep / genuine acting

Fake the emotion / try to actually feel it / already feel it (genuine acting needs the least labour)

Burnout

Emotional exhaustion + depersonalization + reduced personal achievement

Leadership (Stogdill)

The process of influencing a group toward goal-setting and goal achievement (influence + group + goal)

Trait approach

Leaders are born; innate traits; 'great man' theory; failed because findings were inconsistent and context-blind

ThWaMP (Grint 2010)

Tall, Handsome, White, Alpha Male, Privileged - describes who is SEEN as a leader, not who is good

Boldness, disinhibition and meanness

Aid leadership emergence but are mixed for effectiveness

Style approach

Leadership can be trained; focus shifts from traits to leadership behaviour

Lewin's 3 styles

Autocratic (works only when present), democratic (most effective), laissez-faire (ineffective)

Ohio State dimensions

Consideration (people-focus, morale) + initiating structure (task-focus, productivity); both = most effective

Blake & Mouton grid (1964)

People x production grid: impoverished, country club, authority compliance, middle-of-the-road, team

Authority compliance

High concern for production, low concern for people - the (9,1) 'produce or perish' cell

Situational / contingency approach

No universal best style; effective leadership depends on context (Fiedler, LPC scale)

Communication climate

Open (free flow of information) versus closed (organizational silence)

Leadership as symbolic action (Smircich & Morgan 1982)

Leaders as 'managers of meaning' who frame and define the reality of others

Narrative leadership (Parry & Hansen 2007)

Stories themselves perform leadership; an enduring corporate story can outlast any leader

Transactional leadership

Exchange / quid-pro-quo; short-term; resolves problems; maintains the status quo

Transformational leadership (Burns/Bass)

Moral vision; long-term; changes culture; charisma + individualized consideration + intellectual stimulation

Followership (Kelley 1988)

Followers co-construct leadership; 'most of us are more often followers than leaders'

Kelley's 5 follower types

Sheep, yes-people, alienated, pragmatics/survivors, stars/exemplary - products of context, not personality

Romance of leadership (Meindl)

Followers over-attribute success to leaders; leadership reputation spreads by social contagion

Resistance leadership (Zoller & Fairhurst 2007)

Dissent and whistleblowing as leadership that challenges power structures (e.g. Snowden)

Critical communication perspective

Leadership is co-produced, post-heroic, has no fixed essence, is built in communication, and is always about power

Globalization (Robertson)

The compression of the world plus the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole

Homogenization vs heterogeneity (Stohl)

Orgs are simultaneously pushed toward global sameness and pulled toward local identity

Jihad vs McWorld (Barber)

Tribal/traditional resistance versus consumerist, homogenizing global capitalism

McDonaldization (Ritzer)

The worldwide spread of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control

Friedman (1970)

Shareholder view: the only social responsibility of business is to maximize profit within the law

Feminization of migration

Demand for Global-South women as nannies, maids and sex workers as Global-North women professionalize