Week 4 - System Approaches

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It’s week 4 now, folks, today we are going to be aware of a new metaphor that has emerged to explain organisations – Systems Metaphor. The core of this metaphor reveals the notion that an organisation is like an organism.

An organisation should be conceptualised as complex open systems requiring interaction among component parts and interaction with the environment in order to survive. There are three components of a system, hierarchical ordering, interdependence and permeability.

These components function in a system. Two types of systems have been mostly characterised and employed at the most basic level.

l  Input-throughput-output processes

l  Feedback processes

From these processes, properties including holism, equifinality, negative entropy and requisite variety can be generated through the operation of systems.

It is noteworthy that a great many theories relevant to organisational communication have been based upon system concepts. Here, I’ll briefly introduce three of them:

l  Cybernetic (Developed by Norbert Wiener)

l  Organising (Developed by Karl Weick)

l  “New Science” System

Cybernetic systems theory highlights the importance of feedback and regulation in goal-directed systems. Organising theory emphasises how organisational interaction revolves around making sense of equivocal information environments. The “New Science” system accentuates the chaotic and complex nature of “self-organising” systems.

Spinuzzi (2013) in his blog argues that sensemaking theory in organisations is often cited by people working in organisational communication, it is literally the making of sense in an organisation. Sensemaking is grounded in both individual and social activity. And it involves making sense in collective situations, usually sensemaking occurs in ambiguous, changing situations, which have characteristics including:

• Nature of problem is itself in question
• Information (amount and reliability) is problematical
• Multiple, conflicting interpretations
• Different value orientations, political/emotional clashes
• Goals are unclear, or multiple and conflicting
• Time, money, or attention are lacking
• Contradictions and paradoxes appear
• Roles are vague, responsibilities are unclear
• Success measures are lacking
• Poor understanding of cause-effect relationships
• Symbols and metaphors used
• Participation in decision-making fluid

This is what Weick interpreted in his theory of organising.

Reference:

Spinuzzi, C 2013, ‘Reading: Sensemaking in Organizations’, blog post, SPINUZZI, 13 May, viewed 10 November 2013,

< http://spinuzzi.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/reading-sensemaking-in-organizations.html >

Week 3 - Human Relations and Human Resources Approaches

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Good afternoon, guys, welcome to Week 3, communication and organisations. This week, I’ll take you guys to discover two types of contemporary organisational management approaches that have been overwhelmingly employed in organisations.

l  Human relations management

l  Human resources management

The theory of human relations management emphasises the significance of human needs and the consideration of management practice and job design to meet those needs.

Contrary to the theory of human relations management, many scholars propose that the human resources management can play a crucial role in the maximisation of organisational productivity and individual employee satisfaction.

It is obvious that both of these two contemporary organisational management approaches signify the importance of communication processes between management and employees. Factors including communication content, direction, channels, and style are all taken into consideration within these two approaches.

Here, I put these theory into practice, this example is still relevant to my internship work as I discussed in last few weeks.

The principal of my institution announces many times that he want to hear more from employees, because the organisation attempts to improve their organisational productivity and the effectiveness of internal communication. As a result, voice of employees cannot be ignored because the organisation should satisfy both organisational needs and employees’ needs.

Hence, my institution provide an opportunity to every employees in the organisation, holding a competition of essay writing through which employees can have a chance to write about their personal standpoints and views towards the processes of organisational communication and operation. The results of holding this competition play positive roles in promoting employees’ job satisfaction and organisational performance,

1)   Participants of the competition will be given valuable rewards as a consequence of their effort to create a better organisational performance

2)   An award ceremony will come along with the annual banquet of the organisation

3)   All award-winning essays will be printed and bound as journals, handing out to every employees’ desk in order to share the valuable thoughts and ideas.

Apparently, the competition is a stage on which employees can have a chance to realise their efforts and commitment throughout, their innovation, idea and feedback can play a vital role in organisational performance. More precisely, the working needs of the award winners can come true through the stage, the organisation is trying to “put people first.”

This example tells us that the main purpose of contemporary organisation communication is to put people first, by constructing a stable and sustainable relationship with employees, organisation can get much more than money. By recognising the importance of employee involvement, organisation productivity will be enhanced because the management can hear something more from their subordinates that they haven’t detected before.

Here is a very useful media story which indicates the importance of human resources management. Well worth reading.

Garland, J 2013, ‘How to achieve workplace giving success’, Australasia fundraising and philanthropy, 5 November, viewed 10 November 2013,

URL:

http://www.fpmagazine.com.au/how-to-achieve-workplace-giving-success-336866/

Week 2 - Classical Approaches

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Welcome to week two, pals, this week you’re going to recognise some classical approaches that have been utilised at least a decade ago in organisations. Even if we might see these approaches are quite obsolete, it is undoubted that these classical approaches construct the models of contemporary organisational communication.

It is introduced in the lecture and textbook that there are four classical communication approaches that had been widely employed in traditional organisations:

a)   The Machine Metaphor (Summarised by Katherine Miller)

b)   Classical Management (Developed by Henri Fayol)

c)   Bureaucracy (Developed by Max Weber)

d)   Scientific Management (Developed by Frederick Taylor)

It is also notable that the foundations of the cultural perspective and the emergence of cultural understanding are critical to nowadays organisational communication processes.

The pith of these classical approaches are still adopted in many organisations, communication in these organisations is characterised as predominantly top-down, formal, task-related, and written. But compared with traditional organisations, workers are not as interchangeable as cogs, they are instead an emotional beings exist in an organisation. They expect to be recognised and rewarded rather than to be seen as cogs of machine.

The company in which I did my internship for is pretty much like a type of organisation by which classical approaches have been widely employed. Here, I take Weber’s bureaucracy into consideration. Read carefully, see how I could correlate theories with practice.

When worked as internship in the organisation, I was assigned to deliver marketing contracts, which were in hand-written form, level-to-level for censorship and signature, from the most basic level (marketing manager) to the highest level (director of that enterprise).

The communication flow is shown below:

End in with…  President of the Parent Company

(Her signature is required if total amount of the contract over 100,000 RMB)

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Organisation

Regional Principal of the Organisation

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Organisation

(Authorised and Supervised by the Parent Company)

Manager of Finance Department (Treasurer)

Manager of Legal Affairs

Start with…     Department Manager

It is clear that this route of contract censorship and signature copes with the principles suggested by Weber, that bureaucracies as working through a system of authority, power and discipline. Each of the person in the route are hierarchically distributed and arranged from employee level to management level. Each of those has a specific power in the department and organisation and all of them are responsible for every cent of cost. Hence, Weber’s theory of bureaucracy is somehow in operation in contemporary organisational functioning.

Here is a little tip for you guys, if you try to write an in-depth audit, textbook reading is just a beginning, go find a job, experience it, observe it and summarise what you get.

Wit once bought is worth twice taught.

Week 1 - The Challenge of Organisational Communication

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Hi guys, normally there is no tutorial scheduled on the commencing week, so what you need to do is to attend the lecture and read some chapters with reference to a given topic.

This week we need to be aware of the challenge of organisational communication. In this day and age, everything is changing rapidly, the way we communicate with each other, the way we cope with issues in the workplace, the way we … everything in our life and work is poles apart.

From the textbook, there are several points concerned by G L Pepper (1995) and K Miller (2012) regarding organisational communication are noteworthy:

l  Communication in organisation becomes much more complex than last few decades

l  Communication in organisation is not simply a linear way to send message back and forth among sender and receiver, it is rather a way that organising people to approach a common understanding that maximise the organisational productivity

l  Our world is changing constantly due to globalisation and so do the organisations, people are getting closer and closer in the workplace, communication is becoming an increasingly indispensable skill that organises and coordinates employees with different cultural background.

l  Communication is becoming more and more complex than the past because the language or symbols of group interaction may be more important than the actual physical group experience.

In addition, the concept of “fantasy” might be helpful for understanding the processes of information dissemination. “Fantasy” refers to the symbolic convergence theory, which provides a description of the dynamic tendencies within systems of social interaction that causes communicative practices and forms to evolve. This theory isn't concerned with finding truth, but the reaction from the group when these fantasies are shared. Most of the time, these fantasies trigger a chain reaction within the group where they will contribute more and more to the conversation or fantasy.

I’d also like to share something in practice with you guys. It relates to what I experienced in the workplace.

In my opinion, communication in most Chinese organisations is not organised as a set of concise and consistent processes. I worked for an organisation, which is called the “China’s largest English training institution”. In that organisation I was responsible for providing general assistance to the Dept. of Marketing. I found that the majority of employees and the management were not keen to coordinate and communicate with each other because they are not on the same level. Communication is “simple” because when the management set an order to employees, none of whom are allowed to go against. The distinction between superior level and inferior level plays a counter-productive role in the organisation. But think about what I’ve noted above, communication in organisations is becoming more and more complex and intangible, the management can no longer act as a general commander that systematically hinder the way of communication.

So, folks, what do you reckon? 

References:

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

Pepper, G L 1995, Communicating in organisations: a cultural approach, McGraw-Hill, New York, viewed 18 August 2013, University of South Australia,

< http://newcatalogue.library.unisa.edu.au/vufind/Record/929626 >

Week 1 - Warm Welcome to Communication & Organisations - Introductory Posting

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Hello guys, welcome to COMM 3004, Communication and Organisation, my name is Jack Li, the writer and editor of this blog.

Once you enrol in this course, it means you need to make ready for the study that comprises of a wide range of theories and real-life cases with respect to organisational communication.

As a third year student, you would better to pay 100% of your energy and attention on this subject, because this subject is much likely to play a vital role in your future career, whatever your occupation and job position. YOU WILL DEFINITELY NEED IT! Remember, this is a 9 units course, which condenses double workload into one subject, each assessment requires intensive efforts from you.

According to the course homepage, students are required to collaborate with teaching stuff at an advanced levels to apply both theory and practice to an understanding of communication in organisations, and to consider communication from a professional and practical perspective. It is, to be honest, a quite challenging subject to students coming from countries in which English is not the native language.

But don't try to run away from it, folks, you need to pull your socks up! Next, some handy little tips will be provided for your success.

1.    Read the textbook

Always bring your textbook with you, because the majority of course materials, including weekly readings, lecture slides, tutorial activities, and case studies are primarily derived from the textbook. You will find considerably useful information from the textbook and I can promise that I’ll not pass this course without reading it.

2.    Attend scheduled lectures

Yes, I confess that some of students may feel drowsy during the lecture, and a little few of them did not attend the rest lectures from week one. But my personal advice is: do not bunk off any of your lectures because the kernel of each week’s topic will be summarised and interpreted by your lecturers. You will get treasurable knowledge from these sophisticates.  

3.    Contribute to the tute

Personally speaking, as an international student, I often feel tough to open my mouth and express what I’ve been thinking. And I think most of you guys feel exactly the same like me. Of course, some of you can speak and write perfectly, I confess. But it’s time to be courageous, because you are going to communicate in an organisation! In each week’s tute you’ll be grouped with another three or four mates (depends on the size of your tute), then your group will be given some case studies or issues to be discussed. It is a very good opportunity to discuss with your mates about what you think, because they need something from you, you will be working as a team! This is a process of cross-cultural communication, how cool it is!

4.    Generate well-structured summaries

You’ll be requested to submit a summary document every Monday because you need to present what you’ve got from textbook, lecture, tute and media coverage. It is sometimes irritating because you just spent a nice weekend with your friends. But you have to be in tune with the course requirements, work as a real white-collar, summarise what you’ve been doing and what you’ve got from your study. This is very important because when you look back on these summaries, you’ll find something which might be valuable for your assignments and work. Just do it!

Above all, pals, it’s time to bear up and plan what you gonna do for Communication and Organisation. Ready, Steady, GO!!!