Week 13 - Concluding Post

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Hi guys, this online friendly guide to COMM 3004, Communication and Organisations has to be finished here, I hope you guys could enjoy this guide and acquire something useful from this blog as well as your course.

In the past thirteen weeks, we discovered and examined many contemporary approaches and processes of organisational communication. From micro-level communication tactics to macro-level communication strategies. But these principles and approaches are all in theoretical basis, the best way to comprehend them is to observe and analyse from the real workplace situations.

For international students, like I hinted you at the very beginning, you guys need to find jobs in Australia, whatever temporary or full-time, to go deeper and deeper and discover the communication manners your organisation employ. I know some of you might not gonna stay in Australia after graduation, it doesn't matter, because the communication knowledge you’ve got in Australia can help you find differences based on cultural differences.

Again, principles and theories are changing rapidly due to the fast pace of development of our world. But our world is always connected and maintained by ceaseless communication. Organisations must have a set of advanced communication system in order to survive in the trend of globalisation. You will be the person who play a crucial role in maintaining this bridge for your organisation.

Good luck for your study, pals, just remember, practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.  

Here is a compiled presentation Powerpoint document shared by Barreto, Wanda J. via Slideshare, very useful summary of Miller’s core thoughts. Please click and have a read.

URL: http://www.slideshare.net/wandajbarreto/the-challenges-and-changing-landscape-of-organizational-communication-10097696

The world is in your oyster

Week 13 - The Changing Landscape of Organisation

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Welcome to Week 13, guys, it’s time to celebrate because this is the last week of your course, and perhaps this is the last week of your university study. Wooah….

This week, we are going to discover the changing landscape of organisation in terms of globalisation. Organisations in 21^st century become much more complex than before, under the trend of globalisation, organisation has changed profoundly.

People in nowadays world have moved from a landscape in which companies are largely associated with one country to a landscape where there is a mix of domestic organisations, multicultural organisations, multinational organisations, international organisations and global organisations.

It is worthwhile to mention that globalisation influences organisational communication in many ways,

l  Time and space compression

l  Global consciousness

l  Disembedded organisations and people

With the significant trend of globalisation, there are also a number of challenges faced by contemporary organisations,

l  Convergence

l  Divergence

l  Human effects

l  Ethical dilemmas

The increasing importance of organisational identity makes organisations pay attention to their performances of PR, issue management, marketing, advertising etc. Organisations seek to create and maintain positive images in order to achieve long-term goals. The economy is increasingly dominated by organisations that provide services rather than products. The challenges of communication in a service environment can be particularly pronounced in the information economy, which is increasingly dominated by electronic transactions, or e-commerce (Miller 2012).

Workers in today’s economy increasingly hold temporary and contingent positions that make them more “disposable” and that change the basic relationship between workers and organisations. The reason why people need to know about the changes is because these changes highlight areas of increasing importance in the workplace, such as managing diversity in a multicultural organisation or understanding the comings and goings of temporary workers (Miller 2012).

In my organisation, the management is keen to recruit more oversea-experienced employees because they are expected to be able to communicate and work with people from foreign countries. As an English-training organisation, my organisation not only requires employee’s English proficiency, but also their recognition of western cultures. Some of senior workers without English education are required to participate English training sessions. Like our principal said, “our organisation is aimed to become an international-scaled organisation, I want our employees can have the competency to communicate and collaborate with people from other countries.”

Apparently, globalisation is a crucial factor by which many organisations are involved in the changing landscape.

Ahmad (2013) in his media story portrays the nowadays changing landscape of organisation as the “culture club.” He depicts that “without proper understanding of cross-cultural differences, a person will have problems communicating and interacting with another from a different background. We need to be culturally competent to interact globally. ”

References:

Ahmad, A F 2013, ‘We are in a culture club’, New Straits Times, 6 November, viewed 12 November 2013,

<http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=AWNB&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=149ECB7C39F91850&p_docnum=1&p_queryname=2>

Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6^th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston.

Week 12 - Technological Processes and Organisational Change

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Welcome to Week 12, pals, this week we are going to talk about technological revolution and its impacts on organisational communication. Yes, I know you guys are interested in technology, so, let do it!

It is undoubted that technology changes our world dramatically, from organisational communication perspective, the emergence of e-mail and World Wide Web accelerate the pace of working and break down the geographical barrier when communicating with clients, customers and competitors all over the world. Meanwhile, the emergence of portable electronic devices and wireless internet enable remote workers to extract necessary documents from the net-base rather than physical copy.

The emergence of new communication technologies offers organisational participants a wide array of interaction and decision-making options that can differ substantially from traditional ways of working.

There are some theories regarding communication media usage

l  The media richness model

l  The social information processing model

l  Channel expansion models

l  Dual capacity model (Miller 2012).

It is worthwhile to mention that all these models and principles are central to the likelihood that organisational media choices are determined by a complex combination of the richness of the medium, the ambiguity of the task, the symbolic value of the medium, the extent to which coordination with others is required, and the social information received in the organisational setting.

Communication patterns and outcomes are also changed or affected considerably by new communication technology, it is a double-edged sword. For example, the prevalent use of social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) provide important ways to make contact with others about a wide range of work-related issues. But individuals looking for a job should be very careful of the information they’ve posted or shared.  More importantly, technology can change the very way we structure work and design organisations. According to Miller (2012), technologies allow communication at great distances and at asynchronous times, it is often not necessary for people working together to be in the same place.

Here I want to give an example, showing that technology alters the structure of organisation and the way people communicate with each other. My father runs his business in Beijing, the capital of China. His company specialises in telecom, Internet and Intranet. One day I came to his company, there were only few stuff working in the office and I was so surprised, where are the other people? My father told me in brief that in nowadays company, employees becoming more and more flexible and floating. They do not need to work “together” in a fixed place, they need to go exploring markets and clients in other provinces, cities or even towns. Now I can understand what he meant to be flexible and floating. As Miller acknowledges, employees can work flexibly, they don’t need to work in the same building like they did in the last decade, and employees have to be prepared to work in different locations in different times. The way they communicate with each other is reliant upon mobile networks and the Internet. For example, if a working team of three or four employees who negotiating a contract with their clients in Hunan Province, China, they need to report their progress regularly and promptly back to their manager in Beijing via email or (if urgently) phone. Once their report been approved by manger in Beijing, they can move on to the next step of negotiation processes. Once they accomplish the current project, they might be reorganised and assigned to other places.

Hence, it is apparent that technology has changed organisational communication processes dramatically. The communication between employees and the management are becoming increasing distant but tangible, thanks to the advanced technologies.

Hinchcliffe (2013) in his media story provides a thorough evaluation towards technology and its influences on employee’s engagement. This is a highly recommended article regarding technology and organisational communication.

References:

Hinchcliffe, D 2013, ‘Does technology improve employee engagement?’, ZDNet, 5 November, viewed 12 November 2013,

< http://www.zdnet.com/does-technology-improve-employee-engagement-7000021695/>

Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6^th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston. 

Week 11 - Emotion Processes

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Hi guys, welcome to Week 11. This week we are going to discuss something about processes of emotion in the workplace. Emotion? Yes, because communication and operation in organisations are not purely logical and rational. Decision-making processes, for instance, could not be perfectly rational because of cognitive and situational limits on rationality.

Emotion is part of the job. In many cases, communication between employee and client involves some degree of emotional or affective content, such as nurses and physicians. Hochschild (1983, cited in Miller 2012, p.200) uses the term “emotional labour” to refer to jobs in which workers are expected to display certain feelings in order to satisfy organisational role expectations.

Miller et al. (2007, cited in Miller 2012, p.201) use the term emotional work to describe people who are not in frontline service jobs but instead hold professional positions in industries where emotion management are rarely recognised by workers.

Individuals in all organisational roles feel emotion in the workplace. A number of aspects of work relationships are largely emotional.

l  Psychological abuse (bullying)

l  Feelings and emotional display

l  The tension between the public and private in work relationships

l  Relational networks and emotional buzz

l  Conflicting allegiances

l  Emotional rights and obligations at work

Understanding the emotion rules for emotional display in the workplace and understanding the role that emotional intelligence might play in a wide variety of workplace interaction are very critical.

Negative emotions are likely to jeopardise organisational performance, the investigation of stress in the workplace plays a crucial role in coping with negative emotions in organisations.

There are some key concepts must take into consideration:

Burnout – refers to a “wearing out” from pressures of work.

Stressors – workload, role conflict and role ambiguity

There are many ways an individual might react to burnout:

l  Problem-centred coping

l  Appraisal-centred coping

l  Emotion-centred coping

Organisation can also play a role in reducing burnout:

l  Participation in decision making

l  Social support

It is quite obvious that emotions, including anger, fear, frustration, hurt, give us clues about what needs to change in our workplace, in our approach to jobs, or in our relationship with co-workers.

In this week's tutorial, we discussed quite a lot about emotion and its workplace and even social influences. We used an example regarding the NSW bushfire media briefing, the emotional response by RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons is noteworthy because his break-down can not only stimulate frontline firefighters who fighting severe bushfires in NSW but also stimulate firefighters in other states. We found that  

His emotion is a kind of positive energy motivating firefighters to protect our homes. 

This week, I’d recommend you guys to watch Rachel Green’s interview with Steve Wells. A very interesting and concise conversation with respect to emotional processes in organisational communication.  

References:

Green, R 2011, What values are emotions in the workplace? with Emotional Intelligence coach Rachel Green, video, YouTube, 6 October, viewed 12 November 2013,

< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_LSCn8PPYw>

Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6^th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston.

Seven News 2013, RFS Commissioner breaks down, video, YouTube, 17 October, viewed 20 October 2013,

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-5brBb-gqQ>

Week 10 - Leadership Processes

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Welcome to Week 10, pals, as we’ve discussed last couple of weeks, contemporary organisations are changing constantly, hence organisational communication processes are therefore designed to fit in with this changing society. This week, we are going to discover a very static component in the organisation – leadership – which has not been changed as dramatic as other components such as human resources management processes and decision-making processes.

Some theorists propose that there are particular qualities that will tend to be associated with leaders and that will result in success in leadership activities (Miller 2012, p.188). Intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability are the determinant traits that could identify a person’s leadership. But in recent year, many scholars rejected that trait approach to leadership, they turned to ideals that emphasised the “match” of the style of the leader to the characteristics of the situation.

Scholars suggest that models of leadership have moved from relatively simplistic ideas about the traits and styles of effective leaders, through models that suggest that different styles and skills are appropriate in different situations, to models that see leadership as a process of building relationships through interaction with followers and modelling desired values.

Likewise, Fairhurst (2007, cited in Miller 2012, p.193) believes that leadership is accomplished through interaction with others, is a process of meaning management, and is grounded in the accomplishment of tasks. His view replaces simplified concepts of leaders using the tool of communication to influence followers with a consideration of the ways in which leading is constructed through the discourse of a dispersed group of actors in an organisational context.

Schachter (2013) in his media article discusses some essential skills for leaders in organisations. As he points out, there are seven interaction sins need to be steered away:

l  Going straight to the problem

l  Figuring one size fits all

l  Avoiding tough issues

l  Influencing through facts only

l  Forgetting to engage others

l  Neglecting to coach in the moment

Schachter said there are many things happening in every day’s conversation, but leaders need to focus on two priorities during conversation:

l  Dealing with practical needs

l  Recognising personal needs

Please read Schachter’s article carefully, see how he portrayed the processes of leadership in organisational communication.

References:

Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6^th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston.

Schachter, H 2013, ‘Essential conversation skills for leaders’, The Global and Mail, 10 November, viewed 12 November 2013,

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/essential-conversation-skills-for-leaders/article15295536/>

Week 9 - Conflict Management Processes

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Welcome to Week 9, guys, the topic of this week revolves around conflict management processes in organisation. Conflict occurs every day and everywhere around the world, for organisations, conflict can be both destructive and productive (Miller 2012, p.161). Through communication, organisational members create and work through conflicts in ways that can be either functional or dysfunctional.

Conflict is the interaction of interdependent people who perceive opposition of goals, aims, and values, and who see the other party as potentially interfering with the realisation of these goals (Putman & Poole 1987, cited in Miller 2012, p.162).

There are three basic level of organisational conflict:

1)   Interpersonal level

2)   Intergroup conflict

3)   Interorganisational conflict.

Likewise, people move through phases as conflicts develop subside. Pondy (1967, cited in Miller 2012, p.163) proposes five phases that characterise organisational conflict:

1)   Latent conflict

2)   Perceived conflict

3)   Felt conflict

4)   Manifest conflict

5)   Conflict aftermath

Some theorists used the Managerial Grid as a way of exploring the styles and strategies when people involved in interpersonal conflict. Thomas (1976, cited in Miller 2012, p.165) conceptualise the two dimensions of the Managerial Grid, 1) concern for self, 2) concern for others. He then identified five conflict styles:

l  Competition

l  Collaboration

l  Compromise

l  Avoidance

l  Accommodation

Bargaining and negotiation is seen as a more formal way of settling organisational dispute. Third-party intervention is a very effective way to buffer conflicts.

There are a number of approaches can be used to resolve conflict, approaches ranged from classical approach to critical approach. Please see Table 9.4 in your text book, page 176.

As far as I am concerned, resolving conflicts in an organisation is very complicated and thorny, therefore problem solvers require sophisticated skills regarding conflict management and organisational communication.

When I worked for that English-training organisation, I was involved in a conflict that that was long been stuck in my mind. One day our department manager requested me and my colleague to discuss a teaching activity regarding Christmas Day with colleagues of the Department of Academy. But the conflict between us occurred instantly,

1.    Our department expect to do more entertainment-oriented and marketing-oriented activity so that students are able to have a chance to be involved in further services and products out of traditional studying and teaching activity.

2.    The colleagues of the Department of Academy insist in their notion that students would not be interested in any commercial and creative events, they focus only on study and score.

But our managers tried not to be involved in our conflict because they did not want to be in trouble with their own relationships. As a result, the Christmas Day event was become naught. So a set of concise and consistent conflict management is crucial for organisational communication.

It is therefore obvious that conflict management techniques are substantially indispensable for organisations.

Don Capener wrote a very detailed and comprehensive media coverage regarding workplace conflict management and resolution. He provides a six-step conflict resolution model that can be employed effective in resolving organisational conflict. Please click the link below and find something useful from his article.

References:

Capener, D 2013, ‘Conflict resolution – a proven model for success’, Advantage Business Magazine, 5 November, viewed 11 November 2013,
< http://advantagebizmag.com/archives/17568>

Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6^th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston.

Week 8 - Decision-making Processes

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Welcome to Week 8, this week’s topic is very interesting because it relates to the processes by which decisions are made in an organisation. I also employed some theories in my second assignment.

Let’s have a brief look at the textbook …

Decisions might involve the strategic direction of the organisation or might simply deal with the daily activities of employees. The processes of decision-making are often farmed into models, some scholars believe that decision making is an entirely rational and logical process. This process includes five stages: formulation, concept development, detailing, evaluation, and implementation.

But this rational and logical model of decision making has been rejected by many other experts, March and Simon (1958, cited in Miller 2012, p.144-145) propose that it is more realistic to look at organisational decision making as a satisficing process in which decision makers attempt to make “fair enough” decisions. This model is proposed as “bounded rationality,” that decision makers often make decision basing on their past experience in similar context.

Miller (2012) in her literature also mentions a large number of models that related with small-group decision making.

l  Phase model of decision making – groups go through a series of phases as they systematically attempt to reach decisions: orientation, conflict, emergence, and reinforcement

l  Multiple sequence model – groups are more likely to engage in complicated sequences of cycles or to focus on the solution with little regard to problem definition or discussion.

It is arguable that in a group characterised by groupthink, there more concern with appearing cohesive and maintaining group relations than there is with making a high-quality decision (Miller 2012, p.148-149).

Participation in decision making is worthwhile to be analysed, there are two models of participation in decision making:

l  The affective model – participation is an organisational practice that should satisfy employees’ higher-order needs. When these needs are met, job satisfaction should result.

l  The cognitive model –participation in decision making improves the upward and downward flow of information in the organisation. Thus decision is made with higher-quality information.

Personally speaking, though I agree with these advanced theories, I still reckon that the participative model of decision-making is, say, an ideal concept for organisational communication. It is undoubted that some large companies have already implemented this model in order to improve the quality of decision, but the ordinary employees have limited right to say when decision is in proceed. This is what happening in the majority of companies in China, the authority can decide all, nonetheless they give you an opportunity to say, but it is finally time-wasting.

But in my experience, the “bounded rationality” theory is used prevalently, it seems very irrational and illogical that without any marketing research and evaluation, a marketing manager decide to make a contract with an advertising that my organisation (as I introduced couple of weeks ago) would like to spend 100,000 RMB on three month newspaper advert. When an employee of marketing group queried the manager’s “unthinking” decision, he got the answer like “I make this decision with my reason, I don’t need to do that much necessary job, and it’s good enough!” Interestingly, the same thing took place when the contract submitted to the treasurer, the treasurer rejected the contract because she thought the total amount of contract was out of budget. When the manager queried the treasurer’s decision, he got the similar answer to what he just said, “in my opinion, the total amount is too high to achieve the goal, you need to cut fifty percent of it otherwise I would not be able to process it. 50% is good enough to achieve your goal!”

Markey (2013) in his news story articulate the importance of employee’s voice in decision making. He emphasises that employee participation in decision-making in the workplace, or employee voice, is commonly associated with high-performance workplaces. Please read the link below, this is a very good source of organisational decision-making.

References:

Markey, R (2013), ‘Employee voice can be heard to lift wellbeing and productivity’, Australian, 9 November, viewed 11 November 2013,

< http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/employee-voice-can-be-heard-to-lift-wellbeing-and-productivity/story-fn717l4s-1226756000173>

Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6^th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston.