Organizational Communication

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What does it mean to communicate

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not just telling people what to do; maintain relationships

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What do we mean by organizations

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formal spaces..don’t have to be buildings anymore. Umbrella term that includes profit; nonprofit; corporate; etc.

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What sorts of things “structure” how we communicate

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the things that influence what is appropriate and what is not. Emergent norms.

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Constitutive approach to communication

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we construct what an organization is through communicating. We must be present for an organization to exist

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Rational approach

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we consider all possibilities and objectively evaluate a situation

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Transactional view

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the sender is simultaneously a receiver in a communicative interaction

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Rules and procedures exercise we did in class had the intent to

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reveal the complexities inherent in organizational communication

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Define organizations and organizing

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places (virtual or physical) where large number of members efficiently cooperate with one another to achieve shared objectives

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Examples of tensions in organization

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micro-macro forces: emergent norms, things that are the organization
structures: how is the organization organized? Macro side of org
critical thinking:
goals: buying home of your dreams while bank gives you 5x more money (not a good idea)
rationality: takes time, we often make decisions based on gut/desires. Being innovators in an organization creates tension
plans vs emergence: we plan things out, while executing these plans, we see new possible outcomes or different ways of doing things

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Assumptions about working relationships

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Two dimension: work and personal dimensions. Is it appropriate to have a glass of wine during an interview? Norms, rules, procedures. Email and ICTs

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ICT characteristics

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tend to open up communication and increase Accessibility
Promote the spatial dispersion of organizations
foster inter organizational linkages

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Reification

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communication permanent-izes (makes real) organizations. Institutionalizing "why"

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Hegemony

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control, communication perpetuates myths, power of organizational cultures, actions support assumptions

- tell citizens what their values are, how they should think, and using these values as a form of control

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Dr. Deetz

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deeply political...asymmetry...structures. Maybe we are being shaped by something that is culturally accepted.

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Aspects of strategic organizational communication

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chain of command....informal networks (communication should include both!)

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Organizational communication differs from interpersonal communication because

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there are both professional and personal dimensions in organizational talk

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When we talk about what an organization does and how organizations can act it is called

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reification

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Systems theory

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cause and effect relationships are complex.
Relationships - not individual parts. Interdependence.
Adaptive: orient towards learning and renewal.

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Interdependence

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part of systems theory. there's a range. Some organizations are tightly coupled. One little change can impact the rest of the organization

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Problems and proposed solutions of interdependence

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efficiency and productivity. Making money. Traditional practices based on non-scientific assumptions, idealized solutions

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Traditional organizational design

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developed by an engineer (Taylor). Productivity goes hand in hand with systematic management and supervision. Policy and procedure

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Wendy's training video is a modern day example of taylor's principle of

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scientifically designed work.

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What did Scientific management try to do?

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tried to improve organizations from the bottom up by reforming worker's tasks, efficiency, and rewards.

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Blaming and punishing workers for management’s bad decisions (Taylor)

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reduced organizational efficiency because managers who are not held accountable for their own actions have no incentive to improve.

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Taylor believed that by using techniques of organizing, firms would be able to

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increase their profits and the incomes of all their employees (including managers).

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Time-motion study

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a supervisor or a consultant observes workers completing a task…breaks the process down into elements or motions…and then redesigns it to minimize the number of movements necessary to complete it. Wendy's training video

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Taylor’s tenets

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One best way; train everyone that way. Worker-job fit/ proper selection of workers. Establish training

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Fundamental paradox

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if an organization successfully controls its members…the individual needs for autonomy or creativity are frustrated. But if the society fails to control its members….it loses the ability to coordinate its members’ activities and fails to achieve central objectives.

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Span of control

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how many people a manager manages.

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Taylor's vision

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management-labor relations...goal setting and feedback. We should have a centralized control. Specific challenge goals. Avoid systematic soldiering. Integrate men (sic) with machines (not men as machines).

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What is systematic soldiering?

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social pressure to work only so hard, a way to keep rate-busting to a minimum, a way to keep productivity down and wages up (all of the above)

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Taylor believed his approach addressed issues of

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uneven work..systematic soldiering...was friendly to laborers (not all agree)

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Bureaucracy and max weber emphasized leadership, three types of authority are:

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Traditional authority and power (queen of England)
Charismatic authority (Obama) and power.
Rational/ legal authority and power (CEO of General Electric). Centrality of power.
Hierarchical order

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Webers notion of traditional authority can be seen best in

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the queen of England. (born into her role)

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Professors hold which type of power

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rational/legal authority

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Webers theory of bureaucracy emphasized:

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importance of closed systems - buffer organizations.
Emphasizes the importance of rules.
Function of authority - bureaucracies work with authority, power, and discipline.
OUTSOURCING BAD according to weber (it opens closed systems).

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The projection equipment needs maintenance in our classroom yet none of the professor who use the room are capable of fixing it. This situation best reflects the concept of

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trained incapacity

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What is true about bureaucratic organizations

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communication breakdown is highly likely

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What do Traditional strategies centralize? what do they focus on? and what do they assume about employees?

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centralize power. Focus on policy and procedure. Assume employees need close supervision and direction.

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What do Relational strategies focus on? and what do they take for granted?

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takes organizational design for granted.
Focus on motivation, control, and surveillance.
Focus on superior-subordinate relationships.
Think about leadership.

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Communication as a tool for

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information exchange. Relationship management. Two-way street between boss and employee.

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Human relations approach

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assumes good things about employees. Treat employees well. Offer enriching and challenging jobs. Motivate them with a focus on esteem and self actualization

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Background of human relations principle

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early thinking and recognition of managing people. Examples of motivation through Hawthorne studies.

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Hawthorne studies

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scientific approach to efficiency improvements. Kickoff-illumination studies.

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Mayo et al. Relay studies focused on

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groups and social influence. Focus on people.

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Mayo et al. Interviews

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emotions more relevant than task difficulties

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Mayo et al. Concluded

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groups influence each other. We are swayed by group norms. Decisions can be influenced by emotions

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What became the focal point in the Hawthorne studies

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social and emotional needs of workers

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Hawthorne retrospective analysis

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working conditions. Incentives. Pressures from management. Worker selection. Mayos conclusions no good.

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Maslow's hierarchy of needs

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Physiological, safety, love, esteem, self-actualizing

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Herzbergs theory of motivation

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states that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction (act independently)

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Mcgregors theory x and y:

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theory x: workers find work to be alienating and they must be tightly controlled and motivated by the promise of economic gain

theory y: *FUNDAMENTAL PARADOX* people have important needs for autonomy, creativity, and sociability, needs that are frustrated by organizations' needs for control and coordination

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What types of thinking are involved in Participation and social networks

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moving into relational thinking. Moving out of motivational thinking.

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PDM is associated with

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decentralization.

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Participatory Decision Making (PDM) broadens the scope of leadership

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significantly reduces the number of managers. Managers responsible for more area.

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PDM reduces the levels of hierarchy

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lower-level managers make more everyday decisions. Loose management style. More autonomy among workforce.

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The strength of weak ties

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the person you know that you don't regularly talk to. This idea that it's the people who are having success in jobs are the ones who are reaching out to people they don't have regular contact with.

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Social network approach to organizing

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all about breaking away from hierarchy and thinking about teams comprised of individuals with different specialities who work together to create the next best thing.

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What happens to teams with strong ties and what are some Networking effects?

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teams with strong ties with the rest of the organization are more successful at getting things done. Ties to external organizational contacts help innovate.

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Networked organizations by design

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structures designed for flexibility. Have designs that acknowledge rapidly changing technologies. Designed as an approach to cope with uncertainty. Deal with interorganizational linkages as well as intra organizational ones

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What is not a characteristic of a network organization

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hierarchal organizational design

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Motivation

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evolution of trust networks...meaningful tasks...monitoring and control ICT/IT systems

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True or false: Network forms of organizing are designed to be flexible yet can become quite rigid

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true

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Interlocking networks

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very cohesive. Clear normative behavior.

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radial networks

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not so cohesive. lines spread out from person to person

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Plain talk on social networks

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who are your friends connected to? How strategically set up is your social network?

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Centrality

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how in the mix you are inside your network. Your role in the function of how connected you are to the network.

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Degree centrality

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counting how many friends you have vs how many friends other people have. No one person is central.

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Betweenness centrality

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the people in the network who are more central because they fall between groups of people. Tend to be liaisons. Not necessarily popular.

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If everyone is central

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no one has power.

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Density

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The extent to which your networks are connected. Also related to how many people are in a network. How many possible connections there can be.

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A lack of density

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no communication at all.

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How to calculate density?

How to calculate density when reciprocity is assumed?

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AL/n(n-1)

AL/{n(n-1)/2}....divide by two when reciprocity is assumed

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stories play which of the following function? they reveal values about organization, taken for granted assumptions become legit, allow people to justify their actions at work

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all of the above

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Strong tied relationship (krackhardt)

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strong, collected relationships between employees revealed loyalty to organization as well as to other employees. Union unsuccessful.

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People who are actively involved in informal communication networks

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have higher job satisfaction, are more committed to their organization, know more about how the organization operates, and can therefore better meet others information needs

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Post bureaucratic qualities

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multi functional teams with specialist expertise contingently distributed.
Teams collectively responsible.
Accountability is collective and lateral.
Lateral and market based.
Dialogue and persuasion.
Assumed shared principles and trust.

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Issues with managers

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have causal responsibility because they are personally responsible for particular outcomes. Individual manager influences collective work. Managers still dependent on others work; so where is their energy and communication directed?

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Organizational culture

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emphasizes content. Facilitates unobtrusive control. Organizations are heterogenous cultures. Metaphors. Story telling are ways to learn about an organization.

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What symbols tell

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power, acceptable behavior, Organizational values (example of google)

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multiplexity and uniplexity

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multi: parties communicate about a wide variety of topics and play a number of different roles with one another. long-term and emotionally intense.

uni: parties always about the same topic (work or sports)

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Underlying assumptions about communication in social network approach to organizing

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communication defined more broadly, to encompass both information exchange and development/maintenance of interpersonal relationships

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Fayol’s “Bridge”

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coordinate and control

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Role of and underlying assumptions about communication in human relations approaches

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communication is clear

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Interactional view of communication

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• Importance of context
• Clarity is relational
• Are clarity & production the goals of all interactions?

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strategic ambiguity

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– Flexibility = survival
– Promotes unified diversity
– Preserves privileged positions
– Used to orient people towards multiple goals?

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Interorganizational Case (Doerfel & Taylor, 2004), analysis enables:

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Social network analysis: identification of critical/most important organizations. Identification of overworked organizations.
Overall communication. Isolates bridges/ liaisons and subgroups/cliques.

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Unobtrusive control

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employees choose to act in ways desired by the organization while perceiving that they are freely choosing to do so.

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Concertive control

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when peers monitor and control one another in some kind of team arrangement; relies on a workers awareness of the rules and regulations

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Underlying assumptions about communication in cultural approaches to organizing

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humans are emotional beings and that feelings of connectedness are important aspects of all social structures…including organizations.

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Transformational leadership

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transform employees’ contributions into advancing the organization’s mission (give credit where it’s due). Charisma.

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Framing

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persuading employees to see their organizational world in a particular way. Lies in the memories of employees.

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Identification and identity

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identification: personal attributes <-> organizational attributes; Perceived sense of belonging.
Identity: constructions of self and properties of social structures. Core beliefs

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Becoming part of a culture (socialization)

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New employee introduction to organization.
Stages of socialization (Anticipatory socialization, Encounter, Metamorphosis);
Types of organizational strategies;
Ways employees figure things out

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Kevin Wheeler’s view and high tech social networks dealt with

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social network approaches to organizing

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google vs sabre

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you can desire to have a particular organizational culture, but if the leaders aren't acting in a certain manner, they seem shallow