COMM 254: Organizational Communication

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Organizational Communication as a Field of Study

• COMM 254 Organizational Communication

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Communication

• Is NOT Actional

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Communication

• Is NOT Interactional

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Communication

• IS Transactional

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Organization??

• Organization as a context The study of
  communication in organizations.
• Organization as a process The study of
  communication as a vehicle for the process of
  human organizing.

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Organization??

• Its BOTH context AND process!!
• This book is about the communication processes
  that characterize human organizations, processes
  referred to collectively as organizational
  communication.
• (Papa, Daniels, Spiker, p. 3)

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What Does This Imply?

• A clear emphasis on communication as the primary
  subject, not organizations.
• A focus on being descriptive as well as being
  prescriptive.
• ...communication processes that characterize
  human organizations...
• Descriptive Communication as an ongoing,
  everyday, natural, but usually taken-for-granted
  phenomenon to be understood.
• Prescriptive Communication as a strategic tool
  for achieving specific goals to be predicted and
  controlled.

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Why Study Organizational Communication?

• What do Papa, Daniels, and Spiker suggest?

• You can improve your understanding of
  organizations and of your own experiences as an
  organizational member.

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Why Study Organizational Communication?

• What do Papa, Daniels, and Spiker suggest?

• You can develop awareness of the kinds of
  communication skills that are important in
  organizations.

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Why Study Organizational Communication?

• What do Papa, Daniels, and Spiker suggest?

• You can start down the path to a career as a
  communication professional in an organization or
  as an academic scholar in the field.

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Why Study Organizational Communication?

• An addition...
• You can critically examine, question, assess,
  challenge, and perhaps change the existing ways
  of doing things organizationally.
• Eisenberg Goodall (1993), Organizational
  Communication Balancing Creativity and
  Constraint
• The best reason to study organizational
  communication is to produce knowledge of the
  field that will permit everyone to play an active
  role in inventing the future. . . to retake
  control over the time we spend in organizations,
  which is, after all, most of our lives.

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This Really Isnt Anything New
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This Really Isnt Anything New

• Precepts of Ptah-hotep
• Ptah-hotep, Vizier to an Old Kingdom Egyptian
  Pharaoh
• (2700 B.C. ???)

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This Really Isnt Anything New

• Precepts of Ptah-hotep
• Ptah-hotep, Vizier to an Old Kingdom Egyptian
  Pharaoh
• (2700 B.C. ???)

If you are the guest of a superior, speak only
when he addresses you, for you do not know what
will offend him.
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This Really Isnt Anything New

• Precepts of Ptah-hotep
• Ptah-hotep, Vizier to an Old Kingdom Egyptian
  Pharaoh
• (2700 B.C. ???)

If you carry a message from one noble to another,
be exact in the repetition.
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This Really Isnt Anything New

• Precepts of Ptah-hotep
• Ptah-hotep, Vizier to an Old Kingdom Egyptian
  Pharaoh
• (2700 B.C. ???)

If you speak in the presence of an expert, you
may be deeply embarrassed. But if you know what
you are talking about, speak with authority, and
avoid false modesty.
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This Really Isnt Anything New

• Precepts of Ptah-hotep
• Ptah-hotep, Vizier to an Old Kingdom Egyptian
  Pharaoh
• (2700 B.C. ???)

Id like to register for COMM 254 this semester,
please!
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This Really Isnt Anything New

• The Prince
• Niccolo Machiavelli, Florentine Statesman
  (1469-1527)

Never-a talk politics with a mouthful of-a
spaghetti!!
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This Really Isnt Anything New

• How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)
• Dale Carnegie, American industrialist (1888-1955)

You can make more friends in two months by
becoming more interested in other people than you
can in two years by trying to get people
interested in you
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This Really Isnt Anything New

• Aristotles Rhetoric
• (4th century B.C.)

• A formal, systematic investigation and theory
  development.
• A notable exception to the others which were all
  general rules-of-thumb derived from everyday
  experience.

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Some Major Influences in the Development of the
Field

• Influential Universities

• Northwestern, Ohio State, Ohio, Southern
  California.
• Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) and the
  work of Dr. Charles Redding.
• Industrial Communication Research Center
  established in the Speech Department in 1952.
• Cross-disciplinary annual conferences.
• Reddings advisees went on to establish programs
  at other institutions.

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Some Major Influences in the Development of the
Field

• Interest groups in national and international
  communication associations

• NCA (National Communication Association)
• History traces back to 1914.
• Interest groups such as Organizational
  Communication, Applied Communication, Public
  Relations, International Intercultural
  Communication, Health Communication, etc.

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Some Major Influences in the Development of the
Field

• Interest groups in national and international
  communication associations

• ICA (International Communication Association)
• History traces back to 1950.
• Interest groups such as Organizational
  Communication, Information Systems, International
  Communication, Health Communication, etc.

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A Field Defined by the Centrality of
Communication

• An organization is a great and useful place to
  learn more about communication.
• or
• Communication is a great and useful thing to
  examine to learn more about organizations.