Organizational Communication

1
OrganizationalCommunication
2
What are we talking about?

• Communication that takes place within the context
  of an organization

3
Organizational Communication is

• the ways in which groups of people maintain
  structure and order through their symbolic
  interactions and allow individual actors the
  freedom to accomplish their goals

4
What is Structuration?

• The process of forming and maintaining structures
  through verbal and nonverbal communication, which
  establishes norms and rules governing members
  behaviors

5
Why Should You Learn About Organizational
Communication?

• So you can ask informed questions about everyday
  business practices
• To develop communication skills that improve your
  ability to succeed in the workplace
• To improve the quality of your work life

6
Types of Organizations

• Economic Orientation products/services
• Political Orientation generate and distribute
  power and control
• Integration Orientation mediate and resolve
  discord
• Pattern Maintenance Orientation promote
  cultural and educational regularity

7
Central Features of Organizations

• Types of Organizational Structures
• Traditional bureaucratic structures
• Division of labor how work is divided
• Chain of command lines of authority
• Downward communication superiors initiate
  messages to subordinates

8
Central Features of Organizations

• Types of Organizational Structures
• Participatory structures
• Value individuals goals needs and feelings while
  pursuing organizational objectives
• Encourage participation of members
• Quality circles
• Autonomous work groups
• Alternative work groups

9
Central Features of Organizations

• Communication Networks
• Formal communication networks follow prescribed
  channels of communication
• Informal communication networks emerges from
  the natural social interaction among organization
  members

10
Formal Communication Flow
11
Central Features of Organizations

• Organizational Assimilation
• Organizational culture
• Formal sources of information
• Informal sources of information

12
Communication Competence in the Workplace

• Behavioral Characteristics of Competent
  Communicators
• Immediacy psychological closeness
• Supportiveness empathy, sense of personal
  control
• Strategic ambiguity purposeful use of symbols
  to allow multiple interpretations
• Interaction management
• patterns of interaction to
• move among topics

13
Communication Competence in the Workplace

• Conflict Management Skills
• Avoidance deny the existence of conflict
• Competition conflict is seen as a battle with a
  winner and a loser
• Compromise willingness to negotiate and lose
  some of your position if the other party is
  willing to do the same
• Accommodation set aside your views in favor of
  the others
• Collaboration thoughtful negotiation and
  reasoned compromise

14
Communication Competence in the Workplace

• Customer Service Encounter moment of
  interaction between the customer and the firm
• Customer Service Skills
• Compliance gaining strategies promise, threat,
  pre-giving, moral appeal, liking
• Emotional labor jobs in which employees are
  expected to display certain feelings in order to
  satisfy organizational role expectations

15
The Dark Side of Workplace Communication

• Aggressive Communication
• Verbal aggressiveness
• Workplace aggression
• Workplace violence
• Sexual Harassment
• Unwelcome, unsolicited, repeated behavior of a
  sexual nature
• Quid-pro-quo this for that
• Hostile work environment workplace conditions
  that are sexually offensive, initimidating, or
  hostile