5.

Organizational communication
Organizational communication is a sub field of the larger discipline of
communication studies. Organizational communication, as a field, is the
consideration, analysis, and criticism of the role of communication in organizational
contexts.

5.1 History of Organizational Communication

The field traces its lineage through business information, business communication,
and early mass communication studies published in the 1930s through the 1950s.
Until then, organizational communication as a discipline consisted of a few
professors within speech departments who had a particular interest in speaking and
writing in business settings. The current field is well established with its own
theories and empirical concerns distinct from other fields.

Several seminal publications stand out as works broadening the scope and
recognizing the importance of communication in the organizing process, and in
using the term "organizational communication". Nobel Laureate Herbert A. Simon
wrote in 1947 about "organization communications systems", saying
communication is "absolutely essential to organizations". W. Charles Redding
played a prominent role in the establishment of organizational communication as a
discipline.

In the 1950s, organizational communication focused largely on the role of

communication in improving organizational life and organizational output. In the
1980s, the field turned away from a business-oriented approach to communication
and became concerned more with the constitutive role of communication in
organizing. In the 1990s, critical theory influence on the field was felt as
organizational communication scholars focused more on communication's
possibilities to oppress and liberate organizational members.

5.2 Assumptions underlying early organizational communication

Some of the main assumptions underlying much of the early organizational

communication research were:

 Humans act rationally. Some people do not behave in rational ways, they
generally have no access to all of the information needed to make rational
decisions they could articulate, and therefore will make unrational decisions,
unless there is some breakdown in the communication process—which is
 common. Unrational people rationalize how they will rationalize their
communication measures whether or not it is rational.

 Formal logic and empirically verifiable data ought to be the foundation upon
which any theory should rest. All we really need to understand
communication in organizations is (a) observable and replicable behaviors
that can be transformed into variables by some form of measurement, and (b)
formally replicable syllogisms that can extend theory from observed data to
other groups and settings

 Communication is primarily a mechanical process, in which a message is

constructed and encoded by a sender, transmitted through some channel, then
received and decoded by a receiver. Distortion, represented as any differences
between the original and the received messages, can and ought to be identified
and reduced or eliminated.

 Organizations are mechanical things, in which the parts (including employees

functioning in defined roles) are interchangeable. What works in one
organization will work in another similar organization. Individual differences
can be minimized or even eliminated with careful management techniques.

 Organizations function as a container within which communication takes

place. Any differences in form or function of communication between that
occurring in an organization and in another setting can be identified and
studied as factors affecting the communicative activity.

Herbert A. Simon introduced the concept of bounded rationality which challenged

assumptions about the perfect rationality of communication participants. He
maintained that people making decisions in organizations seldom had complete
information, and that even if more information was available, they tended to pick
the first acceptable option, rather than exploring further to pick the optimal solution.

In the early 1990s Peter Senge developed new theories on Organizational

Communication. These theories were learning organization and systems thinking.
These have been well received and are now a mainstay in current beliefs toward
organizational communications.

5.3 Communication networks

Networks are another aspect of direction and flow of communication. Bavelas has
shown that communication patterns, or networks, influence groups in several
important ways. Communication networks may affect the group's completion of the
assigned task on time, the position of the de factor leader in the group, or they may
affect the group members' satisfaction from occupying certain positions in the
network. Although these findings are based on laboratory experiments, they have
important implications for the dynamics of communication in formal organizations.

There are several patterns of communication:

 "Chain",
 "Wheel",
 "Star",
 "All-Channel" network,
 "Circle".

The Chain can readily be seen to represent the hierarchical pattern that characterizes
strictly formal information flow, "from the top down," in military and some types of
business organizations. The Wheel can be compared with a typical autocratic
organization, meaning one-man rule and limited employee participation. The Star is
similar to the basic formal structure of many organizations. The All-Channel
network, which is an elaboration of Bavelas's Circle used by Guetzkow, is analogous
to the free-flow of communication in a group that encourages all of its members to
become involved in group decision processes. The All-Channel network may also
be compared to some of the informal communication networks.

If it's assumed that messages may move in both directions between stations in the
networks, it is easy to see that some individuals occupy key positions with regard to
the number of messages they handle and the degree to which they exercise control
over the flow of information. For example, the person represented by the central dot
in the "Star" handles all messages in the group. In contrast, individuals who occupy
stations at the edges of the pattern handle fewer messages and have little or no
control over the flow of information.These "peripheral" individuals can
communicate with only one or two other persons and must depend entirely on others
to relay their messages if they wish to extend their range.

In reporting the results of experiments involving the Circle, Wheel, and Star
configurations, Bavelas came to the following tentative conclusions. In patterns with
positions located centrally, such as the Wheel and the Star, an organization quickly
develops around the people occupying these central positions. In such patterns, the
organization is more stable and errors in performance are lower than in patterns
having a lower degree of centrality, such as the Circle. However, he also found that
the morale of members in high centrality patterns is relatively low. Bavelas
speculated that this lower morale could, in the long run, lower the accuracy and
speed of such networks.

In problem solving requiring the pooling of data and judgments, or "insight,"

Bavelas suggested that the ability to evaluate partial results, to look at alternatives,
and to restructure problems fell off rapidly when one person was able to assume a
more central (that is, more controlling) position in the information flow. For
example, insight into a problem requiring change would be less in the Wheel and the
Star than in the Circle or the Chain because of the "bottlenecking" effect of data
control by central members.

It may be concluded from these laboratory results that the structure of

communications within an organization will have a significant influence on the
accuracy of decisions, the speed with which they can be reached, and the satisfaction
of the people involved. Consequently, in networks in which the responsibility for
initiating and passing along messages is shared more evenly among the members,
the better the group's morale in the long run.

5.4 Direction of communication

If it's considered formal communications as they occur in traditional military

organizations, messages have a "one-way" directional characteristic. In the military
organization, the formal communication proceeds from superior to subordinate, and
its content is presumably clear because it originates at a higher level of expertise and
experience. Military communications also carry the additional assumption that the
superior is responsible for making his communication clear and understandable to
his subordinates. This type of organization assumes that there is little need for two-
way exchanges between organizational levels except as they are initiated by a higher
level. Because messages from superiors are considered to be more important than
those from subordinates, the implicit rule is that communication channels, except for
prescribed information flows, should not be cluttered by messages from subordinates
but should remain open and free for messages moving down the chain of command.
"Juniors should be seen and not heard," is still an unwritten, if not explicit, law of
military protocol.

Vestiges of one-way flows of communication still exist in many formal

organizations outside the military, and for many of the same reasons as described
above. Although management recognizes that prescribed information must flow both
downward and upward, managers may not always be convinced that two-ways
should be encouraged. For example, to what extent is a subordinate free to
communicate to his superior that he understands or does not understand a message?
Is it possible for him to question the superior, ask for clarification, suggest
modifications to instructions he has received, or transmit unsolicited messages to his
superior, which are not prescribed by the rules? To what extent does the one-way
rule of direction affect the efficiency of communication in the organization, in
addition to the morale and motivation of subordinates?

These are not merely procedural matters but include questions about the
organizational climate, or psychological atmosphere in which communication takes
place. Harold Leavitt has suggested a simple experiment that helps answer some of
these questions.[3] А group is assigned the task of re-creating on paper a set of
rectangular figures, first as they are described by the leader under one-way
conditions, and second as they are described by the leader under two-way
conditions.(A different configuration of rectangles is used in the second trial.) In the
one-way trial, the leader's back is turned to the group. He describes the rectangles as
he sees them. No one in the group is allowed to ask questions and no one may
indicate by any audible or visible sign his understanding or his frustration as he
attempts to follow the leader's directions. In the two-way trial, the leader faces the
group. In this case, the group may ask for clarifications on his description of the
rectangles and he can not only see but also can feel and respond to the emotional
reactions of group members as they try to re-create his instructions on paper.

On the basis of a number of experimental trials similar to the one described above,
Leavitt formed these conclusions:

1. One-way communication is faster than two-way communication.

2. Two-way communication is more accurate than one-way communication.
3. Receivers are more sure of themselves and make more correct judgments of
how right or wrong they are in the two-way system.
4. The sender feels psychologically under attack in the two-way system, because
his receivers pick up his mistakes and oversights and point them out to him.
5. The two-way method is relatively noisier and looks more disorderly. The one-
way method, on the other hand, appears neat and efficient to an outside
observer.

Thus, if speed is necessary, if a businesslike appearance is important, if a manager

does not want his mistakes recognized, and if he wants to protect his power, then
one-way communication seems preferable. In contrast, if the manager wants to get
his message across, or if he is concerned about his receivers' feeling that they are
participating and are making a contribution, the two-way system is better.

5.5 Interpersonal communication

Another fact of communication in the organization is the process of one-to-one or

interpersonal communication, between individuals. Such communication may
take several forms. Messages may be verbal (that is, expressed in words), or they
may not involve words at all but consist of gestures, facial expressions, and certain
postures ("body language"). Nonverbal messages may even stem from silence.

Managers do not need answers to operate a successful business; they need questions.
Answers can come from anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world thanks to the
benefits of all the electronic communication tools at our disposal. This has turned
the real job of management into determining what it is the business needs to know,
along with the who/what/where/when and how of learning it. To effectively solve
problems, seize opportunities, and achieve objectives, questions need to be asked by
managers—these are the people responsible for the operation of the enterprise as a
whole.

Ideally, the meanings sent are the meanings received. This is most often the case
when the messages concern something that can be verified objectively. For example,
"This piece of pipe fits the threads on the coupling." In this case, the receiver of the
message can check the sender's words by actual trial, if necessary. However, when
the sender's words describe a feeling or an opinion about something that cannot be
checked objectively, meanings can be very unclear. "This work is too hard" or
"Watergate was politically justified" are examples of opinions or feelings that cannot
be verified. Thus they are subject to interpretation and hence to distorted meanings.
The receiver's background of experience and learning may differ enough from that
of the sender to cause significantly different perceptions and evaluations of the topic
under discussion. As we shall see later, such differences form a basic barrier to
communication.

Nonverbal content always accompanies the verbal content of messages. This is

reasonably clear in the case of face-to-face communication. As Virginia Satir has
pointed out, people cannot help but communicate symbolically (for example,
through their clothing or possessions) or through some form of body language. In
messages that are conveyed by the telephone, a messenger, or a letter, the situation
or context in which the message is sent becomes part of its non-verbal content. For
example, if the company has been losing money, and in a letter to the production
division, the front office orders a reorganization of the shipping and receiving
departments, this could be construed to mean that some people were going to lose
their jobs — unless it were made explicitly clear that this would not occur.

A number of variables influence the effectiveness of communication. Some are

found in the environment in which communication takes place, some in the
personalities of the sender and the receiver, and some in the relationship that exists
between sender and receiver. These different variables suggest some of the
difficulties of communicating with understanding between two people. The sender
wants to formulate an idea and communicate it to the receiver. This desire to
communicate may arise from his thoughts or feelings or it may have been triggered
by something in the environment. The communication may also be influenced by
the relationship between the sender and the receiver, such as status differences, a
staff-line relationship, or a learner-teacher relationship.

Whatever its origin, information travels through a series of filters, both in the sender
and in the receiver, and is affected by different channels, before the idea can be
transmitted and re-created in the receiver's mind. Physical capacities to see, hear,
smell, taste, and touch vary between people, so that the image of reality may be
distorted even before the mind goes to work. In addition to physical or sense filters,
cognitive filters, or the way in which an individual's mind interprets the world around
him, will influence his assumptions and feelings. These filters will determine what
the sender of a message says, how he says it, and with what purpose. Filters are
present also in the receiver, creating a double complexity that once led Robert Louis
Stevenson to say that human communication is "doubly relative". It takes one person
to say something and another to decide what he said.

Physical and cognitive, including semantic filters (which decide the meaning of
words) combine to form a part of our memory system that helps us respond to reality.
In this sense, March and Simon compare a person to a data processing system.
Behavior results from an interaction between a person's internal state and
environmental stimuli. What we have learned through past experience becomes an
inventory, or data bank, consisting of values or goals, sets of expectations and
preconceptions about the consequences of acting one way or another, and a variety
of possible ways of responding to the situation. This memory system determines
what things we will notice and respond to in the environment. At the same time,
stimuli in the environment help to determine what parts of the memory system will
be activated. Hence, the memory and the environment form an interactive system
that causes our behavior. As this interactive system responds to new experiences,
new learnings occur which feed back into memory and gradually change its content.
This process is how people adapt to a changing world.

5.6 Communication Approaches in an Organization

Informal and Formal Communication are used in an organization.

Informal communication, generally associated with interpersonal, horizontal

communication, was primarily seen as a potential hindrance to effective
organizational performance. This is no longer the case. Informal communication has
become more important to ensuring the effective conduct of work in modern
organizations.

Top-down approach: This is also known as downward communication. This

approach is used by the Top Level Management to communicate to the lower levels.
This is used to implement policies, guidelines, etc. In this type of organizational
communication, distortion of the actual information occurs. This could be made
effective by feedbacks.

Additionally, McPhee and Zaug (1995)[8] take a more nuanced view of

communication as constitutive of organizations (also referred to as CCO). They
identify four constitutive flows of communication, formal and informal, which
become interrelated in order to constitute organizing and an organization:

- organizational self-structuring,

- membership negotiation,

- activity coordination,

- institutional positioning.

5.7 Research in organizational communication

5.7.1 Research methodologies

Historically, organizational communication was driven primarily by quantitative

research methodologies. Included in functional organizational communication
research are statistical analyses (such as surveys, text indexing, network mapping
and behavior modeling). In the early 1980s, the interpretive revolution took place in
organizational communication. In Putnam and Pacanowsky's 1983 text
Communication and Organizations: An Interpretive Approach. they argued for
opening up methodological space for qualitative approaches such as narrative
analyses, participant-observation, interviewing, rhetoric and textual approaches
readings) and philosophic inquiries.

During the 1980s and 1990s critical organizational scholarship began to gain
prominence with a focus on issues of gender, race, class, and power/knowledge. In
its current state, the study of organizational communication is open
methodologically, with research from post-positive, interpretive, critical,
postmodern, and discursive paradigms being published regularly.

Organizational communication scholarship appears in a number of communication

journals including but not limited to Management Communication Quarterly,
Journal of Applied Communication Research, Communication Monographs,
Academy of Management Journal, Communication Studies, and Southern
Communication Journal.

Organizations seek to influence their reputation through a variety of selfpresentation

activities, which collectively express the organization’s identity and promote a
particular image[9]

5.7.2 Current Research Topics in Organizational Communication

In some circles, the field of organizational communication has moved from

acceptance of mechanistic models (e.g., information moving from a sender to a
receiver) to a study of the persistent, hegemonic and taken-for-granted ways in
which we not only use communication to accomplish certain tasks within
organizational settings (e.g., public speaking) but also how the organizations in
which we participate affect us.

These approaches include "postmodern", "critical", "participatory", "feminist",

"power/political", "organic", etc. and adds to disciplines as wide-ranging as
sociology, philosophy, theology, psychology, business, business administration,
institutional management, medicine (health communication), neurology (neural
nets), semiotics, anthropology, international relations, and music.

Currently, some topics of research and theory in the field are:

Constitution, e.g.,

 how communicative behaviors construct or modify organizing processes or

products
 how communication itself plays a constitutive role in organizations
 how the organizations within which we interact affect our communicative
behaviors, and through these, our own identities
 structures other than organizations which might be constituted through our
communicative activity (e.g., markets, cooperatives, tribes, political parties,
social movements)
 when does something "become" an organization? When does an organization
become (an)other thing(s)? Can one organization "house" another? Is the
organization still a useful entity/thing/concept, or has the social/political
environment changed so much that what we now call "organization" is so
different from the organization of even a few decades ago that it cannot be
usefully tagged with the same word – "organization"?

Narrative, e.g.,

 how do group members employ narrative to acculturate/initiate/indoctrinate

new members?
 do organizational stories act on different levels? Are different narratives
purposively invoked to achieve specific outcomes, or are there specific roles
of "organizational storyteller"? If so, are stories told by the storyteller received
differently than those told by others in the organization?
 in what ways does the organization attempt to influence storytelling about the
organization? under what conditions does the organization appear to be more
or less effective in obtaining a desired outcome?
 when these stories conflict with one another or with official rules/policies,
how are the conflicts worked out? in situations in which alternative accounts
are available, who or how or why are some accepted and others rejected?

Identity, e.g.,

 who do we see ourselves to be, in terms of our organizational affiliations?

 do communicative behaviors or occurrences in one or more of the
organizations in which we participate effect changes in us? To what extent do
we consist of the organizations to which we belong?
 is it possible for individuals to successfully resist organizational identity?
what would that look like?
  do people who define themselves by their work-organizational membership
communicate differently within the organizational setting than people who
define themselves more by an avocational (non-vocational) set of
relationships?
 for example, researchers have studied how human service workers and
firefighters use humor at their jobs as a way to affirm their identity in the face
of various challenges Tracy, S.J.; K. K. Myers; C. W. Scott (2006). "Cracking
Jokes and Crafting Selves: Sensemaking and Identity Management Among
Human Service Workers". Communication Monographs 73 (3): 283–308.
doi:10.1080/03637750600889500. . Others have examined the identities of
police organizations, prison guards, and professional women workers.

Interrelatedness of organizational experiences, e.g.,

 how do our communicative interactions in one organizational setting affect

our communicative actions in other organizational settings?
 how do the phenomenological experiences of participants in a particular
organizational setting effect changes in other areas of their lives?
 when the organizational status of a member is significantly changed (e.g., by
promotion or expulsion) how are their other organizational memberships
affected?
 what kind of future relationship between business and society does
organizational communication seem to predict?

Power e.g.,

 How does the use of particular communicative practices within an

organizational setting reinforce or alter the various interrelated power
relationships within the setting? Are the potential responses of those within or
around these organizational settings constrained by factors or processes either
within or outside of the organization – (assuming there is an "outside")?
 Do taken-for-granted organizational practices work to fortify the dominant
hegemonic narrative? Do individuals resist/confront these practices, through
what actions/agencies, and to what effects?
 Do status changes in an organization (e.g., promotions, demotions,
restructuring, financial/social strata changes) change communicative
behavior? Are there criteria employed by organizational members to
differentiate between "legitimate" (i.e., endorsed by the formal organizational
structure) and "illegitimate" (i.e., opposed by or unknown to the formal power
structure) behaviors? When are they successful, and what do we mean by
"successful" when there are "pretenders" or "usurpers" who employ these
communicative means?.