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