Week 2 - Defining Organizational Communication

Reading Assignment: Chapter 2

Watching Assignment: none, though many episodes of Scandal may be interesting to think about

Writing Assignment: 1 Medium Post, due 09:00 am Monday 1/25

Chapter Notes

Four definitions of “organizational communication” are central to this week’s readings:

• communication as information transfer
• communication as transactional process
• communication as strategic control
• a balance of creativity and constraint

One look at the title of our book tells us which the authors prefer. Table 2.1 on p. 40 provides a reasonable summary of the four perspectives. It’s important to remember that these perspectives or approaches may co-exist simultaneously within organizations. For instance, a software development firm may use an information-transfer approach when dealing with clients while using a balance of creativity and constraint within the development team.

Information Transfer

Definition

“the exchange of information and the transmission of meaning” (Dessler, 1982, p. 94)

In this model, information is a commodity that gets transfer from speaker to receiver/listener through words.

Assumptions (Axley, 1984)

• Language can transfer thoughts and feelings from one person to another.
• Speakers and writers insert thoughts and feelings into words.
• Words contain the thoughts and feelings.
• Listeners or readers extract the thoughts and feelings from the words.

Benefits

The pipeline metaphor is very accessible and helps us think of communication as a tool with features like flow. This metaphor enables terms such as “information overload” to make sense and to be useful phrases for thinking about communication challenges. Much like pipes overflow with too much water or break with too much pressure, information overload occurs when the receiver is overwhelmed by information.

Critiques

• communication is characterized as a one-way linear, sequential process
• receiver is passive
• does not account for nonverbal communication

Transactional Process

Definition

Another process model, this one treats people in a communication situation as simultaneously senders and receivers.

“All persons are engaged in sending and encoding as well as receiving and decoding messages simultaneously. Each person is constantly sharing in the processes, and each person is affecting the other” (Wenberg & Wilmot, 1973, p. 5).

Assumptions

• meaning lies in people, not words
• focus on how the receiver constructs the message

Benefits

• provides mechanism for feedback (e.g., clarification) between sender and receiver
• reduces power disparity between sender and receiver

Critiques

The main critique is the model’s emphasis on the development of shared meaning when ambiguity and conflict are more common in organizational communication.

Strategic Control

Definition

“regards communication as a tool for in uencing and shaping the environment (Parks, 1982)”

Assumptions

• clarity is not the only goal of interaction — “effective” communication is about goal attainment, where that goal may not be clarity
• people don’t always communicate objectively or rationally
• we can’t measure “shared meaning”
• communication’s main goal should be organized action

Benefits

A role for ambiguity in goal attainment is central here. Strategic ambiguity is a tool for promoting unified diversity, privileging those in power, and providing deniability.

Critiques

• Minimizes ethics
• Emphasis on control minimizes importance of cooperation, coordination, and interdependence

Balancing Creativity and Constraint

Definition

“the moment-to-moment work- ing out of the tension between individual creativity and organizational constraint.” (p. 38)

The “tension” here refers to the conflict that arises between an individual’s innovation and novelty and the limits created by an organization’s practices (e.g. deadlines, financial limits). The theory relies heavily on Giddens’ theory of structuration. Structuration argues that society and the individual react to and reconstruct one another; either cannot exist without the other (Giddens, 1984). The interaction between individual and society described by structuration requires that “individual” and “society” be unique and separate entities that engage one another. The balancing creativity and constraint approach uses a similar argument where organizations and individuals react to and reconstruct one another through their communicative actions.

Assumptions

• communication includes signs and symbols besides words
• signs, symbols, and words all have multiple meanings
• communication involves strategic action, though not necessarily control

Benefits

This approach recognizes tensions between individuals and organizations that are ignored or dismissed by other approaches. It also recognizes that both individuals and organizations have agency and goals and that they are sometimes in conflict.

Critiques

• says little about communication between the organization and outside actors
• intractable number of feedback loops and inputs
• too much emphasis on individuals
• requires that individuals and organizations be separate entities — e.g., Latour rejects this idea; he argues instead that there is no separate object, “society,” but rather a constellation of individuals (and other entities) constantly re-assembling into associations that look like what others might call societies (Latour, 2005).

Writing Ideas

• Under what conditions are these approaches to organizational communication most useful?
• Explain strategic ambiguity and discuss some examples of when it is used. Think broadly about where these examples could come from. For instance, 1984 provides lots of examples.
• I deliberately left off a watching assignment this week to give you an opportunity to recommend your own. Where in video do you recognize these approaches to communication?