L9 - WOP

This one includes chapters 9 & 10 of the book!

Communication

The process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people.

Emotional Contagion

The non-conscious process of “catching” or sharing another person’s emotions by mimicking that person’s facial expressions and other nonverbal behaviour.

Grapevine

An unstructured and informal communication network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions.

Information Overload

A condition in which the volume of information received exceeds the person’s capacity to process it.

Management By Wandering Around (MBWA)

A communication practice in which executives get out of their offices and learn from others in the organization through face-to-face dialogue.

Media Richness

A communication channel’s data-carrying capacity—that is, the volume and variety of information that can be transmitted during a specific time.

Persuasion

The use of facts, logical arguments, and emotional appeals to change another person’s beliefs and attitudes, usually for the purpose of changing the person’s behaviour.

Social Media

Digital communication channels that enable people to collaborate in the creation and exchange of user-generated content.

Social Presence

The extent to which a communication channel creates psychological closeness to others, awareness of their humanness, and appreciation of the interpersonal relationship.

Synchronicity

The extent to which the channel requires or allows both sender and receiver to be actively involved in the conversation at the same time (synchronous) or at different times (asynchronous).

Centrality

A contingency of power pertaining to the degree and nature of interdependence between the power holder and others.

Charisma

A set of self-presentation characteristics and nonverbal communication behaviours (i.e. signalling) that generate interpersonal attraction and referent power over others as well as deference to the charismatic person.

Coalition

A group that attempts to influence people outside the group by pooling the resources and power of its members.

Countervailing Power

The capacity of a person, team, or organization to keep a more powerful person or group in the exchange relationship.

Dark Triad

A cluster of three socially undesirable (dark) personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.

Impression Management

Actively shaping through self-presentation and other means the perceptions and attitudes that others have of us.

Influence

Any behavior that attempts to alter someone’s attitudes or behaviour.

Inoculation Effect

A persuasive communication strategy of warning listeners that others will try to influence them in the future and that they should be wary of the opponent’s arguments.

Legitimate Power

An agreement among organizational members that people in specific roles can request a set of behaviours from others.

Organizational Politics

The use of influence tactics for personal gain at the perceived expense of others and the organization.

Power

The capacity of a person, team, or organization to influence others.

Referent Power

The capacity to influence others on the basis of an identification with and respect for the power holder.

Social Capital

The knowledge, opportunities, and other resources available to members of a social network, along with the mutual support, trust, reciprocity, and coordination that facilitate sharing of those resources.

Structural Hole

A gap between two or more social networks that lack network ties.

Upward Appeal

A type of influence in which someone with higher authority or expertise is called on in reality or symbolically to support the influencer’s position.

Why is communication important in organizations?

• Coordinating work activities

• Sharing knowledge

• Better decision making

• Changing others’ behaviour

• Employee well-being

What are four influences on effective communication encoding and decoding?

• Similar codebooks

• Shared mental models of topic context

• Sender has experience encoding the message

• Sender/Receiver are motivated to use the channel selected

What are the disadvantages of digital written communication channels and other (non)verbal communication channels?

• Reduces politeness and respectfulness

• Communicates emotions poorly

• Inefficient for complex, novel situations

• Increases information overload

What are the advantages of digital written communication channels and other (non)verbal communication channels?

• Can be written, edited, and transmitted quickly

• Can be sent simultaneously to multiple people

• Often has search engines

• Increases upward communication

• Potentially reduces status differences

What is the relevance of: synchronicity, social presence, social acceptance, and media richness when choose preferred communication channel?

Synchronicity: Channels allow users to send either at the same time or at different time - depends on time urgency, complexity, cost of communication.

Social Presence: The extent that the channel creates a psychological closeness - high social presence is better when there is a need to empathise with/influence others.

Social Acceptance: The extent that others support the communication channel for the purpose. Depends on individual preferences, symbolic meaning of channel, etc.

Media Richness: The data-carrying capacity is the volume and variety of information that can be transmitted during a time. High → allows customised messages, permits complex symbols, conveys multiple cues (face-to-face, video conferencing, etc). Best high when ambiguous situation.

What are various barriers/noise to effective communication, including cross-cultural differences? (And solution for one)

• Imperfect perceptual process

• Language problems (Cross-Cultural)

• Jargon

• Filtering

• Information Overload

• Voice Intonation Differences (Cross-Cultural)

• Nonverbal Differences (Cross-Cultural)
  

Information Overload Solution:

1. Increase information processing capacity.

2. Reduce information load (summarising, omitting, buffering, etc)

How can you get your message across more effectively? Four things!

• Empathise

• Repeat the message

• Use timing effectively

• Be descriptive (focus on the problem)

What are the elements of active listening?

1. Sensing → Avoid interruptions, maintain interest, postpone evaluation.

2. Responding → Show interest, clarify message.

3. Evaluating → Empathise, organise information.

What is the difference between encoding and transmitting a message?

Encoding: Putting a message into words, gestures, voice intonations, and other signs before transmitting it.

Transmitting: Sending the encoded message to the receiver.

What is the dependence model of power?

Involves sources of power and contingencies of power which leads to power over others.

What are the 5 sources of power in organizations (LRCER)?

1. Legitimate → The authority one gains from a position and the rules surrounding what they can do with that. Information control!

• Zone of Indifference → Meaning this power only gives authority for a limited domain of behaviours that are under the role.

1. Reward → Power through control of rewards valued by others and ability to remove negative sanctions.

2. Coercive → Power through the ability to apply punishment.

3. Expert → Power coming from the expertise and skills the individual posses. People here gain power through preventing, forecasting, and absorbing environmental changes.

4. Referent → Associated with charisma, power through people identifying with the individual or respecting them.

What are the 4 contingencies of power?

1. Non-substitutability → “The quality of a good, service, or resource that cannot be replaced/exchanged with another without causing significant change in functionality, value, or utility.”

• Power increases with non-substitutability! Increase it through controlling access to the resource.

1. Centrality → Interdependence with power holder.

2. Visibility → The individual is known as holder of valued resource and a power symbol.

3. Discretion → Power holder has the freedom to exercise judgement and they don’t need to refer to any rules while doing so.

What are the 8 types of influence tactics (SAICUPIE)?

1. Silent Authority → Mere presence is influential.

2. Assertiveness → Vocal authority.

3. Informational Control → Manipulates others’ access to information.

4. Coalition Formation → Pooling members’ resources and power to influence others

5. Upward Appeal → Claiming higher authority support or showing evidence of that.

6. Persuasion → Logical arguments.

7. Impression Management → Actively shaping others’ attitudes/perception of us.

8. Exchange → Exchange of resources for desired behaviour.

What are 3 consequences of influencing others?

1. Commitment (Soft → persuasion, impression management, exchange)

2. Compliance (Between the two)

3. Resistance (Hard → silent authority, upward appeal, coalition formation, assertiveness, information control)

What are 3 contingencies to consider when choosing an influence tactic?

1. Influencer’s power base

2. Organizational position of influence target

3. Personal, organizational, cultural values, and expectations