Organizational Communication Exam Ii

Front 1

Sovereign Power

Back 1

Domination of others; Abuse of power; it’s not really having power, it’s having power OVER; and oversimplifies organizational power relationships.

Front 2

Sovereign view of power fails to recognize

Back 2

power exists in relationships and power is not just because someone is in hierarchical/authoritarian position

Front 3

Panopticism

Back 3

The blinds in the tower were there; people didn’t know when they were being watched. People started to modify their behavior. surveillance; self-surveillance; self-control; “automatic functioning of power;” not based on forms of complete enclosure. Through this dynamic; there is an automatic functioning of power (adopting behaviors and thoughts knowing you are being monitored or judged).

Front 4

Power is social (Weber)

Back 4

Ability for one person to carry out her will despite resistance of other person.

Front 5

Notions of Power

Back 5

- Power is the belief by some members of a society that they should obey the requests of other members
- power is a feature of interactions and interpersonal relationships not of individuals or organizational roles.
- Domination: power as something that one person holds over another
- Power is an invisible force: that is ever-present in everyday life (hegemony)
- Abuse stems from: imbalances of power; not the power itself.

Front 6

Power

Back 6

influence another’s potential movement. What you want to happen and what you think others will do; rather than dictating a person’s actions.

Front 7

Surface structure; Open Face and hidden face

Back 7

open: overt displays of power. Threats; promises; negotiations; orders; etc.

hidden face: This face regulates public and private issue. What is appropriate to discuss openly. Knowing when it is appropriate to exert power

Front 8

Deep structure

Back 8

Below employees’ conscious awareness. People act in ways that they have learned are normal and natural without being aware. We make assumptions through people’s positioning in society about who has what kind of power – our own hierarchical ordering.

Front 9

Power and resistance

Back 9

All power relationships involve opportunities and strategies for resistance. Power is not hierarchical; it is dispersed. Some source of power is available to every member of society. Systematic soldiering or going on strike. We have power not to show up to class.

Front 10

Control of key resources

Back 10

people control resources when they are key communicators or gatekeepers in communication networks, occupy formal positions, that allow them to distribute legitimate rewards and punishments, or can obtain access to the symbols of power.

Front 11

Role of communication and power

Back 11

Transforms expertise into perceived power.
- Some employees do not understand why a particular employee's expertise is important to them and to their organization: makes staff personnel to obtain and maintain power than it is for personnel who directly create the products
- upper managers of chemical firms are usually chemists, not human resource specialists

Front 12

Expertise is a potent personal base of power,
A. If it is possessed by a sufficiently large number of people in the organization
B. Especially if the expert can articulate his or her ideas effectively.
C. Only if it is supported by referent power
D. A and C

Back 12

B) Especially if the expert can articulate his or her ideas effectively.

Front 13

Expertise as power - Has to do with

Back 13

Organizational-related knowledge. A person’s ability to articulate and argue effectively. People at the top levels of the organization determine what counts as expertise and how much value is attached to specific kinds of knowledge

Front 14

Interpersonal relationships as power

Back 14

An employee who has many friends in the organization eventually knows a lot about what is going on and can use that information to create an impression of expertise and power.

Front 15

Gaining power through personal characteristics

Back 15

Expertise…Image management…Persuasive skills…Interpersonal relationships

Front 16

Gaining power through control of resources

Back 16

Intangible resources like information and Tangible resources like money and space

Front 17

gaining power through connections in communication networks

Back 17

Gatekeepers/liaisons/bridges tend to have more power than the less connected individuals and isolates

Front 18

Symbols of power: controlling information

Back 18

Possession of knowledge v. controlling access to information. Information is empowering because it allows us to anticipate and respond (proactive/reactive). We gather information through formal and informal networks

Front 19

Formal authority over resources

Back 19

resource control gives people power by enabling them to grant and withhold resources. Most important resource is anything tied to money. Resource control provides a basis for making threats or promises

Front 20

Symbols of power as a resource

Back 20

large office/window view/special parking space. These symbols create the impression that those who have them have more influence and should be given more deference (respect)

Front 21

Personal power can be manifested in having a coveted or large office with a window or a reserved parking space. Such items are
A. Powerful
B. Immaterial
C. Irreplaceable
D. Symbols of power

Back 21

Symbols of power

Front 22

Organizational politics

Back 22

Power in communicative action. Image management and influence strategies to pursue one’s own interests. Refer politicking to “Game-playing:” makes managing organizational politics difficult at best

Front 23

Characteristics of ambiguity

Back 23

Strategic in terms of accountability (strategic ambiguity).
Violate expectations without overtly doing so.
Maintains diverse perspectives.
Facilitates necessary – despite forbidden – actions.
Facilitates flexibility: which is sometimes more useful than clarity

Front 24

Voice regulates

Back 24

what people may speak about and how they must speak in order to be heard

Front 25

What did Charles Redding introduce

Back 25

the notion of muted voices. Argued that in most organizations…dissent is forbidden regardless of how principled or correct. Organizations have systems of control that regulate employee behavior (or silence behavior)

Front 26

Whistleblowers

Back 26

people who report unethical or illegal activities within their organizations to the authorities or the press. Often occurs in organizations that systematically and strategically plan to act in illegal or unethical ways. FOX and the investigators

Front 27

Phases of regulating voice/behavior

Back 27

Nullification: persuading employees that they are wrong on mistaken
Isolate dissenters from coworkers: involves revoking access…exclusion from events…transferring to other areas
Direct sanctions, defaming the dissenters (attacking credibility) or firing them

Front 28

Power and control in organizations depends on

Back 28

- processes of perceiving and attributing meaning

- power relationships are managed strategically by creating shared sense-making

Front 29

Rationality

Back 29

Use of data and facts to make a decision
Consider all possible options and compare them with each other

Front 30

Rationality requires the decision maker to have

Back 30

Self-awareness (what criteria are important to me?)
Accurate information about the likelihood of particular scenarios actually happening
Importance of criteria relative to one another

Front 31

Rational Decision assumes

Back 31

• That the purpose of decision making is to solve problems
• It’s a myth
• Decision making is affected by the situation/ factors like
– Limited information
– Limited resources
– Cognitive biases
– Lack of time
– Subjectivity in processing & interpreting information

Front 32

Things that need to be considered when taking a rational approach to decision making

Back 32

- Weight (the attribute’s relative importance)
- Probability (compare the likelihood of each attribute being reached relative to the other alternatives)

Front 33

True or false: when it comes to decision-making, we make rational decisions.

Back 33

FALSE

Front 34

What is a decision?

Back 34

- Involves a series of activities and choices that are a subset of others
- Choices are embedded in hierarchies of choices: do I want to be close to home? Is my SAT score good enough to get in?
- When does the process of making a decision begin and end?

Front 35

Retrospective sense making: When we make decisions, we actually

Back 35

– Make choices
– Act on those choices
– Seek information to rationalize our choices!

Front 36

Heuristic processing:

Back 36

Enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves
• Cognitive shortcut
• Requires little effort
• Buying a new box of cereal

Front 37

Types of heuristics

Back 37

RASA
• Representativeness (compare new experience to a memory)
• Availability (people predict the frequency of an event based on how easily an example can be brought to mind)
• Simulation (people determine the likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to picture the event mentally. Has to do with the bias of hindsight)
• Anchoring (initially given information influences future judgments; we do not adjust judgments based on new experiences)

Front 38

Systematic information processing

Back 38

• Vested interest (we care about the decision)
• Extended, careful, information seeking
• Requires effort; emphasizes details

Front 39

Both heuristic model and ELM: what motivates more systematic decision-making?

Back 39

- Personally relevant problem
- Internal motivation to be “thoughtful”

Front 40

Reflective thinking/ informed by rational assumptions (Dewey, 1910):

Back 40

Top-Down Approach: we know what the problem is
– Clip from Apollo 13
– Brainstorming
– Awareness
– Problem assessment/discuss with all relevant people
– Suggestions- decide on alternate courses of action
– Solutions assessment- choose an optimal solution
– Testing- monitor the impact of the solution

Front 41

Creative models (Non-rational models)

Back 41

Bottom-Up Approach: do we have to determine through communication our problems?
– Preparation: gathering the right people together; laying out the ground rules on the table.
– Incubation: take a break from the interaction, go do your own work, let the interaction fester, and then meet again. Insights and solutions can emerge
– Insight
– Evaluation

Front 42

non-rational decision-making

Back 42

1. It is rare to find the best possible choice in most situations (emotions and subjectivity)
2. Challenges western cultural assumptions
• Hangin’ on Hunches- Suggests that regardless of gender, managers make decision by intuition
3. Act now; apologize later (i.e., finding the best course of action can undermine forward motion)
• Acting encourages us to communicate in ways that correct misconceptions
4. Increased understanding of environmental pressure/ facilitates adaptability for future changes
• Communication is a process for managing confusion and ambiguity instead of privileging permanence of rules

Front 43

Steps for group decision-making (rational model)

Back 43

- Define the task
- Delegate the task

Front 44

Decision making procedures informed by Rationality

Back 44

- Forms of intervention where the ice needs to be broken
- Decision making by aspects
- Nominal group technique: gather a group together then take turns offering suggestions. It’s a group technique in NAME only. Professor’s sister meets once a month in an investment club about making investment decisions
- Satisficing v. maximizing/optimizing: optimal solutions are maximizing refers to making the best possible solution the problem vs. satisficing is where you just find a solution that satisfies the problem (satisfy + sacrifice)
- Brainstorming/ brain-writing: brain-writing is a more silent and written version of brain storming
- Delphi method: the experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’ forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments. during this process the range of the answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the "correct" answer.

Front 45

Creative approaches to decision making and problem solving

Back 45

- Role playing: devil’s advocate
- Synetics: use of metaphors, analogies, and fantasy to see the problem in a new way
- Lateral thinking: adopt an alternative frame of reference than what’s normally used to address a problem
- Both approaches recognize the need to GENERATE IDEAS

Front 46

True or false: Strictly rational decision-making processes can be used successfully only when decisions are simple and nonpolitical:

Back 46

true,

Rational approach: maybe there are some decisions that aren’t so politically hot, so when they’re simple, you can use a rational model.

Front 47

Which of the following statements is correct about decision-making?
A. It is a process that should be carefully outlined by management so all employees process in the same manner
B. We usually make a decision, then seek info to confirm it
C. We gather all relevant info and carefully evaluate all options before deciding
D. None of the above

Back 47

ANSWER IS B

Front 48

Cognitive constraints

Back 48

- Direct and indirect acknowledgements: are you listening to people in your group that reveal their perceptions about cognitive constraints? (I need to go I don’t have enough time to complete this)
- Perceptions about being able to solve a problem
- Sense of urgency: rushing can underlie the process
- Types of proposals

Front 49

Affiliative (tending to promote social cohesion) constraints

Back 49

- Most likely the one to cause Group Think
- Uneven distribution of interaction: dominator of the group and constantly doing all the talking
- Uniformity pressures: pressure to do like everyone else
- Camaraderie maintenance: maintain friendliness
- Diversity accommodation: you might never reach a joint opinion when you’re inviting so many diverse opinions

Front 50

Egocentric constraints

Back 50

- Happen because of a particular individual: dominator
- Being aware of these constraints can help alleviate them
- Win-lose orientation
- Defensiveness
- Can also be a quiet person as well as a loud person: Aren’t I great?!? I don’t need to be here. Quiet person will not put themselves in an uncomfortable place and will bring the group down
- Disagreement with me is offensive: take my idea or forget you

Front 51

Dealing with cognitive constraints

Back 51

- Avoid the danger of analogies and consider what’s unique about situation
- Access deficiencies
- Emphasize the price you’ll pay for bad decisions

Front 52

Dealing with affiliative constraints

Back 52

- Remind members of goals of group
- Separate issues from personalities
- Keep comments on task; not personal
- Appoint “official” devil’s advocate

Front 53

Dealing with Egocentric constraints

Back 53

- Ask ego to elaborate
- When all else fails, confront

Front 54

Traditional view in conflict

Back 54

- Tends to be viewed as negative
- Seen as a weakness in organizations

Front 55

Contemporary view

Back 55

- Conflict shouldn’t be viewed as being good/bad, it should be viewed as having different levels of productivity
- Inevitable and potentially valuable
- Opportunity to put your ideas to the test
- Helps organizations adapt to change and/or can drive change

Front 56

Feminist view

Back 56

conflict (and it’s management) can help disputants improve mutual understanding of themselves and their context. Can also enable development of better future relationships

Front 57

Conrad and Poole’s definition of conflict

Back 57

communication between people who depend on one another and who perceive that the others stand between them and the realization of their goals, aims, values

Front 58

Avoidant strategies of conflict

Back 58

- Procrastination, “putting off” communication
- Manipulating procedures
- Revenge
- Refusing to admit the existence of conflict
- Accommodation: being concerned about other person

Front 59

Confronting strategies

Back 59

- Coercion
- Overt displays of power
- Exercising formal rank
- Compromise: sometimes seen as negative outcome
- Personalization
- Revelation of secrets
- Toughness
- Problem solving

Front 60

Five errors that contribute to poor group decisions:

Back 60

• Improper assessment of the situation
• The establishment of inappropriate goals and objectives
• Improper assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of various alternatives
• The establishment of a flawed information base
• Faulty reasoning based on the group’s information base

Front 61

Different types of conflict

Back 61

LPFM
Latent Conflict: Hidden/not visible, environment exists for conflict to come to the surface
Perceived Conflict: We perceive that the goals are incompatible
felt conflict: planning how to manage conflict
manifest conflict: we "enact" it by communicating our feelings and thoughts

Front 62

Conflict Aftermath

Back 62

Involves short and long-term effects of conflict on individuals, relationships and the overall organization

Front 63

Conflict frames

Back 63

• Frames of reference that we bring with us into the conflict
• Preferences about how conflict should be managed
• Assumptions about what the conflict is really about (opportunity, threat of loss, etc.)
• Expectations about how people should act and what persuasive strategies are used

Research shows that individuals who frame conflict in terms of losses will be much more likely to take risks, reach an impasse, and seek arbitration than those who frame conflict in terms of gains.

Front 64

For African Americans and Latinos, performance is less crucial to their evaluations than is

a. Being visible
b. Demonstrating strong creative and innovative abilities
c. Conforming to the organization’s behavioral norms
d. Meeting the dominant cultural stereotypes

Back 64

Answer is C

Front 65

Once a minority person is recognized as having done an excellent job,

A. It is attributed to luck, special effort, or the help of others.
B. He or she is likely to be promoted.
C. He or she finally gains the respect of colleagues.
D. He or she is thought likely to fail next time

Back 65

Answer is A

Front 66

Dominant perspective

Back 66

- Organizations are homogenous and should be separate
- Organizations separate (types of) people who do different types of work: yet “different” people are working closer together

Front 67

How and what has challenged the dominant perspective?

Back 67

diversification and globalization - by collapsing time and space. Organizations are increasingly heterogeneous and "different" peoples are working in closer and closer proximity with another

Front 68

Hegemony

Back 68

- Society’s hidden power is so covert that it’s not recognized by those who are controlled by it
- Hierarchical relationships that exist in society come to be treated as if they are natural and normal
- Marginalized groups accept domination as the norm

Front 69

Homogeny

Back 69

- Sameness (demographically)
- Differences lie between the “thinkers” and “doers” in traditional organizations: subgroups within organization tend to be homogenous
- Organizations tend to encourage homogeny
- Homogeny encourages in-group-out-group communication patterns
- Homogeny simplifies organizations
- Now diversity and globalization challenge “simple” life

Front 70

How does an organization homogenize "Others"?

Back 70

Discourse of Accommodation: encourage "differences" to be minimized, accommodate different employes to the norms of the organizations, to learns and use the communication strategies of anglo men.

Front 71

Ways to accommodate/fit in

Back 71

- Appear to be rational: justify decisions in terms of the dominant values of the organizational culture
- Create an image of loyalty: show that organization is one's highest priority
- Develop an exceptional performance record: go above and beyond what is expected of the dominant class of people
- Doesn’t mean people should DO this!!!

Front 72

Differential Perceptions and Attributions and Dealing with Homogenization

Back 72

- Differential Perceptions: Role encapsulation and societal myths about race, gender, and ethnicity create perceptual sets through which people interpret events and actions: subordinates receive higher ratings from persons of their own race and sex
- Dealing with homogenization: Some say that white women in the U.S. en Europe are beginning to break through the glass ceiling (a limit to how far women can climb the corporate ladder): suggests that the combination of differences in societal attitudes makes it difficult to break through the glass ceiling

Front 73

What men and women learn about communication

Back 73

What men learn: talk is a way to assert self and achieve status

What women learn: nurturance, compassion, and sensitivity to others’ needs

Front 74

Characteristics of gendered communication

Back 74

- Only apply within dominant-culture institutions (white driven)
- Does not translate to: women/men of color or non-middle class white men/women

Front 75

Collins 1998 and gendered communication:

Back 75

- Black and Hispanic men seen as dangerous, not powerful and are often penalized when they exhibit masculine characteristics
- Working class/poor white men do slightly better but also suffer the consequences when using allegedly masculine communication
- Women of color and working class and poor white women are not captured in the gendered communication styles either

Front 76

Responding to increased diversification: Marginalizing and manipulating opportunity structures

Back 76

- accept "different" others' presence, but isolate them in "spaces" that have low levels of power (women workers segregated in homes or "out of the way" places).
- Manipulate opportunity structures: devalue “women’s” work or filter types of people to line vs. staff positions (glass walls are greater barrier to to upward mobility than glass ceiling) pg. 362

Front 77

Dealing with marginalizing

Back 77

- Obtaining information about the organization, its culture, and its practices through mentors (mentor/mentee relationships difficult to form and maintain)
- cultivating informal communication by engaging in radial networks (provide variety of information and offer social/emotional support) Pg. 362

Front 78

Organizational “options” for managing diversity

Back 78

- Homogenize
- Deny
- Marginalize
- Embrace
- Globalization drives the “real” options for organizations

Front 79

Organizational groups that are geographically dispersed

Back 79

- Not being physically collocated
- High level of GD impacts: external communication, support, innovation process/productivity
- Members have: less contextual knowledge and more tacit knowledge

Front 80

organizational groups that are Electronically dependent

Back 80

• Heavy use of computer-mediated communication
• Limits
– Subtle control (e.g., does the developed product fit with corporate ideals/ competitive strategy)
– Improvisation (extent to which teams experiment with and test out ideas, use creative problem solving)

Front 81

organizational groups that have Dynamic structural arrangements

Back 81

- Membership fluidity: people quit/ are added
- Factors that cause DSA: setting goals because they CHANGE!!
- Challenges with knowledge application

Front 82

Safe communication climate

Back 82

- Helps overcome negative effects of geographical disperson, electronic dependence, dynamic organizations
- Therefore, helps foster innovation in virtual teams
- Geographic dispersion, etc. have negative impact innovation

Front 83

Group norms in safe climates

Back 83

- Reveal what is going on inside our own heads
- Active listening
- Support
- Openness
- Trust
- Mutual
- Distribution work
- Embraces risk taking
- Withholding judgment

Front 84

Communication in safe climates

Back 84

- Helped alleviate the problems in the dimensions that described global teams
- Speaking up
- Raising differences for discussion
- Engaging spontaneous communication
- Engage in active listening

Front 85

Culture

Back 85

• A learned system of beliefs and values that guide, usually unconsciously, the ways in which people make sense of their surroundings and choose how to act
• Group of norms governing how people are to behave
• Dictates what is appropriate and unnatural in specific settings
• Cultures are learned by their members – and can be learned by outsiders

Front 86

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions

Back 86

- Power distance: amount of power that supervisors can acceptably exercise over subordinates; high in China low in Australia
- Uncertainty avoidance – (lack of) comfort with ambiguity and risk (high in japan, low in USA)
- Masculinity-feminity: extent to which the culture values the stereotypically masculine traits of assertiveness and competitiveness; high in latin america; low in Scandinavia
- Individualism-collectivism: people in Asian, Latin, Middle Eastern, and African societies learn to place a high value on solidarity, cooperation, and concern for others

Front 87

Other ways cultures vary

Back 87

• Confucian dynamism (later added by Hofstede to his list): differentiates cultures in which people learn to take a short-term time orientation from cultures where long-term is preferred
• High Context: meaning is extracted from the context in which the message is uttered and message is more ambiguous. Low context: people focus their attention on the explicit content of a message when they try to make sense out of it. (Ed Hall)

Front 88

Problems with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions

Back 88

- Tries to compartmentalize countries
- Doesn’t acknowledge changing times
- Doesn’t acknowledge individual differences, regional differences: in a country like the U.S., we have communities that represent other cultures
- So then, why do we still talk about it? It gives us tools to understand how might, people that I work with that don’t have the same cultural as I do, they vary.

Front 89

Dr. Stan Deetz and organizational ethics

Back 89

- How do we make decisions together with everyone’s differences
- Natural way of being that is ours

Front 90

Pressure to conform is the result of all of the following except
a) Appointing a devil’s advocate in discussions
b) Treating diversity with a homogenization orientation
c) Hiring people with whom you naturally click
d) Having a strong organizational culture

Back 90

A

Front 91

Traditional management and subordinates

Back 91

- Echo values of higher-ups
- Anticipate boss’ needs
- Make boss look good

Front 92

Traditional management and “leadership”

Back 92

- Loyalty
- Reticence as boss
- Rule follower
- Fitting in is highly valued

Front 93

Paradoxes of participation and relational strategies

Back 93

- Democracy v. swift decision-making: we value democracy but it takes longer. We want decision making to happen quickly
- Equifinality so long is its in line with company expectation: there’s more than one way to reach a goal
- Self manage but stick with the goals of the organization: you have limited autonomy
- Teams-control despite autonomy (emergence of authoritarianism in teams)

Front 94

Strategic ambiguity (Eisenberg, 1984)

Back 94

- “Jersey Roots, Global Reach”: multiple messages
- IS DENIABLE: can become ethically corrupt. Boss can use strategic ambiguity to encourage you to make a certain decision, but then deny it later
- Flexibility = survival
- Promotes unified diversity
- Preserves privileged positions
- Used to orient people towards multiple goals?

Front 95

Organizational ethics & CSR (Deetz, 2003)

Back 95

• Corporate governance (Deetz, 2003)
• Corporate social responsibility (CSR)= embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the public sphere.
• Does the organization foster open, candid, engaging, and participative communicative practices in everyday work
• Challenges happen when communication practices are vague, misleading, inconsistent

Front 96

Modern Social Responsibility and questions asked

Back 96

• How do you make business kinder
• How are you embedded in the community
• How do you make community a social purpose for business

Front 97

What does Roddick say about CSR

Back 97

• CSR became a huge money maker
• Businesses have bastardized the intents to having the goal of how do you measure CSR behavior?
• But if CSR gets in the way of profit, businesses won’t pursue it
• We must have CSR that considers
– Human rights
– Social justice
– Workers’ justice
– Listen to environmental movements; social justice movements
• She gives A strong critique of what CSR looks like today
• The Body Shop communicates its values

Front 98

Proactive image management

Back 98

• Reproduces and supports underlying values: setting up before danger happens
• Strategic (developed carefully over time; favors strategic) or haphazard (in response to crises)
• Organizations are valued in almost completely economic terms
• More challenging when organizations face multiple stakeholders (rhetoric developed for one stakeholder group is very different from rhetoric developed for other stakeholders)
• McDonald’s

Front 99

Impression Management Strategies: Bolstering, Diffusion of responsibility, Denouncements, Justifications, Counter-claims

Back 99

• Denial
• Bolstering
– Accept charges but reframe to match audience’s values or point to previous actions
– “…we went too far…[but]…before you condemn us, take a moment to look at the things we have accomplished up to now…”
• Diffusion of responsibility
– Statement indicates shared responsibility- organization is not wholly responsible
– “we’re all to blame… each and every one of us has a personal responsibility to protect the environment”
• Denouncements
– Blame another person or organization
– “The government required that we broaden the types of people we give loans to”
• Justifications; make excuses
– Accept responsibility but explain why the action was justified
– “We apologize for what we’ve done but we meant to call attention to the problem, not create a new one”
• Counter-claims
– Deny and suggest actions are being distorted