Communication

Foundations of Organizations and how they influence communications (JL, all)
Katherine Miller, Organizational Communication, 4th edition. 2006.
 * Classical (concern for production)
 * Machine Metaphor of Organizing -- organizations are highly standardized, specialized and predictable (p. 4)
 * Henri Fayol's Theory of Classical Management (pp. 5-9)
 * Elements of management (what) -- planning (future), commanding (setting tasks), coordinating (harmony of activity), controlling (comparing goals and activities), and organizing (arranging, evaluating)
 * Principles of Management (how) -- scalar chain (vertical structure), unity of command (orders from a single boss), unity of direction (activities under one supervisor), division of labor (specialized, few tasks), order (everything in its place), and span of control.
 * Summary of the Theory -- a prescriptive, highly organized, efficient, and task oriented theory. Does not explain or describe actual outcomes.
 * Max Weber's Theory of Bureaucracy -- an ideal type theory, defined by clear hierarchy, division of labor, centralization of power, a closed (to external influence) system, importance of rules for all contingencies, and above all, authority (pp. 9-11).
 * Frederick Taylor's Theory of Scientific Management -- "a microscopic theory that considers relationships between management and workers and the manner in which jobs should be designed. (p. 22)" Strict division between management (mental planning) and laborers (physical work).
 * Communication principles in classical theory (p. 22)
 * Content -- task related
 * Direction -- top down
 * Channel -- written
 * Style -- formal
 * Human relations (concern for people)
 * The Hawthorne (Plant) Studies (10 years) (pp. 25-28)
 * The Illumination Studies -- effects of light level on two groups of workers. No significant difference between the groups, surprisingly, but productivity rose in both groups. Triggered further study.
 * The Relay Assembly Test Room Studies -- workers were given incentive plans, rest pauses, temperature, humidity, work hours and refreshments improvements. Productivity rose, no matter the variations. Conclusions were that the extra attention itself was a possible cause.
 * The Interview Program -- thousands were interviewed, and researchers found that workers enjoyed talking about their feelings and attitudes more than the research's intent (impact of working conditions). Determined many issues were due to emotional attitudes of workers rather than difficulty of an environmental situation.
 * The Bank Wiring Room Studies -- observation study that showed that productivity normed, and that workers socialized the normalized level of productivity. Determined that peer and social pressure outweighed that of formal organizational structure.
 * Theories of Human Relations
 * Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs -- physiological needs, safety, affiliation, esteem, self-actualization.
 * Herzberg's Two factor theory -- worker satisfaction due to the presence or absence of motivation (responsibility, achievement, recognition, advancement, determines happiness) and hygiene (environment, compensation, policy, determines unhappiness) factors.
 * McGregor's Theory X (belief that workers generally avoid work and are not interested in doing any more than is necessary) and Theory Y (belief that effort is natural, workers seek out responsibility, workers yearn to be mentally challenged)
 * Communication in Human Relations approaches
 * Content -- task communication as well as (relational) maintenance communication
 * Direction -- vertical communication continues, but horizontal communication is encouraged
 * Channel -- face to face is preferred.
 * Style -- relatively informal.
 * human resources (concern for both people and production)
 * What's wrong with Human relations? While we want to believe in the theories (Maslow, Herzberg, McGregor) of Human Relations, they often don't stand up empirically. There is a lack of support especially for a link between worker job satisfaction and productivity. Also, theories can be manipulated, such as a theory X believer using Theory Y approaches superficially to manipulate workers. Negative beliefs of managers can disrupt superficially positive actions towards workers (pp. 48-50) Human resources theorists use human capital to gather innovations and benefits of the many, rather than implementing programs in an effort to simply raise job satisfaction (p. 50).
 * Founding Theories of Human Resources --
 * Blake and Moulton's Managerial Grid (now Leadership Grid) allows for the plotting of concern for people and concern for production, allowing for the two dimensions of classical and human resources management to be combined. Country Club (1,9) Team management (9,9) Middle of the Road Management (5,5) Impoverished management (1,1) Authority/Compliance (9,1) (p. 52)
 * Likert's System IV - four types of management, worst to best -- I Exploitative Authoritative II Benevolent Authoritative III Consultative Organization, IV Participative Organization (p. 53)
 * Ouchi's Theory Z -- proposes that certain aspects of the Japanese work culture (type J) can be adapted by American Work Cultures (type A) including the importance of developing and nurturing human capital, long term employment, and investment in training and development of emplyees (p. 54).
 * Communication in Human Resources approaches
 * Content -- task, social and innovation
 * Direction -- all directions, team based
 * Channel -- All channels
 * Style -- formal and (especially) informal (p. 57)

Cultural Approaches to organization and how they influence communication (JL)
Katherine Miller, Organizational Communication, 4th edition. 2006.
 * Both Corporate Cultures (Deal and Kennedy) and In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman) conceptualize culture as a thing that belongs to an organization. Within this point of view, having the right organizational culture is a prescription for success, but it is challenged academically.(p. 114)
 * Scholars instead take a descriptive and understanding approach to culture. This point of view says that cultures are thoroughly complex, socially constructed, and composed of fragmented subcultural units. (p. 114)
 * Schein theorizes that cultures have three levels: behaviors and artifacts, espoused organizational values, and taken for granted assumptions about how the world works. (p. 114)
 * Research approaches look at culture ethnographically, using qualitative methods to develop grounded theory to come to cultural understanding. (p. 115)

Assimilation (SW, all)

 * Socialization
 * role-development processes

Organizational communication technology (JL)
Types of Organizational Communication technology include email, IM, voicemail, fax, audio/video conferencing, computer conferencing, MIS, Group Decision Support System, WWW, Networked computing, wireless networks (p. 287) "Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over. In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine." from The End of the Email Era - WSJ.com at Mon Oct 12 2009 22:31:00 GMT-0400 (EST) on @http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203803904574431151489408372.html Theories of Communication Media Usage (p. 289) Effects of Organizational Communication Technology (p. 296) Pearlson and Saunder's 3 paradoxes of Telework and virtual organizations: Katherine Miller, Organizational Communication, 4th edition. 2006.
 * Daft and Lengel's Media Richness Model (p. 290) says that effective use of technology matches rich media (instant feedback, multiple cues, natural language, personal focus e.g. face to face) with ambiguous tasks (such as a shift in responsibilities) and lean media (an email or a flier) with unambiguous tasks (reminder of an upcoming meeting). The alternatives can cause confusion and miscommunication.
 * Fulk's Social Information Processing Model (p. 292) says that various social interactions (a peer saying they like certain software, a boss saying they don't like emaill) will have effects of organizational communication choices.
 * Dual-Capacity Model (p. 294) says that a given medium will have both a data carrying capacity (the ability to effectively convey a message in a given situation, or richness) and a sybol carrying capacity (the ability to convey values of an organization, like the value of a face to face interaction, or the perceived prestige of using a medium, like an expensive or homegrown system) which will both affect organizational members' adoption and use of the system.
 * Effects on Content (p. 297) electronic media may inhibit the communication of socioemotional content and context, many lament the entry of abbreviation and shorthand into formal writing, and the often anonymous state of technology users may cause them to enter a less inhibited (careful, respectful, honorable) communication style.
 * Effects on Patterns (p. 298) the addition of new channels of communication generally increase communication, rather than replace existing methods. Spam, overwhelming media content, popups about email and messages, and general information overload can all have a negative effect on productivity. Electronic messaging has been found to diversify contacts.
 * Effects on Structure (p. 300) electronic communication increasingly allows for distributed organizations, often working asynchronously as teleworkers. There are now virtual organizations with no physical central presence.
 * 1) Increased flexibility and increased structure.
 * 2) Greater individuality and more teamwork.
 * 3) More responsibility and greater control.