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.

Week 7 - Socialisation Approaches

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Welcome to Week 7, pals, this week, we are going to discover socialisation processes in organisation. Socialisation is a process by which an individual adapt him/herself to a collective organisation, it is a dual process for an individual. The organisation is trying to influence the adaptation of individuals through formal and informal socialisation processes.

Models of socialisation phases and content will be analysed at first. Normally, there are three stages in the socialisation processes:

1)   Anticipatory socialisation – it refers to socialisation processes that occur before an individual actually enters an organisation

2)   Encounter – it occurs at the organisational “point of entry,” when a new employee first encounters life on the job

3)   Metamorphosis – this stage occurs when the new employee has made the transition from outsider to insider.

The content of socialisation is relevant to organisational context. Two processes have been grasped during the socialisation process:

1)   Role-related information

2)   Cultural information

Miller (2012, p.128) in the textbook also examines three aspects of socialisation in which communication plays a crucial role.

l  Communication during the employment interview

l  Information-seeking tactics during the encounter phase

l  Ongoing communication in the role-development process

From the organisation’s perspective, the main function of the employment interview is the recruiting and screening of potential employees. From the interviewee’s perspective, the interview provides a glimpse of a possible future employer. But more importantly, the employment interview can serve to ease a newcomer’s adaptation to the organisation should she or he be offered a job.

It is evident that newcomers actively seek information that will help them adapt to their new roles and the norm and values of the organisational culture. Newcomers can seek information in both obvious ways or in a more covert manner.

Role-development is concerned with how individuals interact to define and develop their organisational roles. This process begins when a newcomer enters an organisation and continues through ongoing interactions with the supervisor and other organisational members.

Phases including: role-taking phase, role-making phase and role-routinisation phase.

Rubin (2013) in his media article emphasises that socialisation is a very important process of organisation, because employers can benefit from helping their employees is by recognising the fact that social connection is an integral part of all of our lives now. In today’s social world, a role is developed by an organisational member through a social exchange process with his or her leader, if an individual employee can adapt him/herself to their new role very well, then his/her working performance can be maximised and his/her relationship with supervisors can be consolidated.

References:

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

Rubin, T 2013, ‘Top-Down Employee Branding’, Business to Community, 18 October, viewed 11 November 2013,

< http://www.business2community.com/branding/top-employee-branding-0652249>

Week 6 - Critical Approaches

Welcome to Week 6, this week you need to be careful about some abstract principles which will be introduced in lecture and textbook, because those theories and principles are considerably relevant to another discipline of academy – philosophy. But don’t worry, I’ll try to provide you a concise and comprehensible guide here to help you out.

In theory, critical approaches adopt a radical frame of reference by considering organisations as site of domination (Miller 2012, p.101). Individuals from these dominating organisational forces are likely to be emancipated from critical approaches.

As suggested by critical thinkers, some important concepts of critical approaches have to be considered thoroughly:

l  Power

l  Control

l  Ideology and Hegemony

l  Emancipation

l  Resistance

The theory of concretive control and the feminist theories of organisational communication are employed to demonstrate how a critical lens can be placed on organisational communication processes (Miller 2012, p.119).

The theory of concretive control argues that power is embedded in a system of identification and discipline, even in a workplace designed with democratic and participatory ideals, the ideology of management is upheld through the everyday practices of organisational members.

The role of sociology is not simply one of accumulating knowledge, but ‘one of emancipation and change’. Critical thinking is a way of deciding whether a claim is always true, sometimes true, partly true, or false. By taking feminism into consideration, traditional views of organisation - in their traditional and bureaucratic forms – are inherently patriarchal – highlight the importance of individualism, cause-and-effect thinking, and autonomy.

But according to critical theorists, things can be changed in contemporary organisational communication, the civil rights and feminist movements not only created opportunities for previously disenfranchised groups but also helped shape a worldview in which issues of identity and difference became central. Thus, with the emergence of challenges to a single (white, male) vision of society, various groups began to voice their own visions of the social order that fundamentally rewrote previously accepted premises about what is good, right, and possible. For example, gay rights organizations have challenged dominant definitions of “family,” and the feminist movement has helped change long-held beliefs about women’s roles in society.

Here, I’ll put a media story that can help us understand the contemporary femininity in organisational communication. South China Morning Post (2013) published a news article that portrayed the relationship between sexual harassment and male-dominated workplace. In this article, a survey generated by SCMP indicates that forty three per cent of companies in China did not have a policy covering sexual harassment. It is misleading that sexual harassment is only an issue among the staff that does not warrant management intervention, instead, it is emphasised that the hegemonic aspect of relationships between male and female in the workplace is not as equal as it ought to be.

This is what exactly feminist scholars struggling with, the gender equality in workplace. 

References:

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

South China Morning Post 2013, ‘Too many turning a blind eye towards sexual harassment’, South China Morning Post, 5 September, viewed 11 November 2013,

< http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1303528/too-many-turning-blind-eye-towards-sexual-harassment>

Week 5 - Cultural Approaches

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Hi guys, welcome to week 5, this week we are going to talk about cultural approaches in organisational communication.

First, we need to examine the prescriptive view of culture which contains two perspectives of “culture” in organisations.

l  Deal & Kennedy’s “Strong Cultures”

l  Peters & Waterman’s “Excellent Cultures”

These two perspectives conceptualise culture as a “thing” that belongs to an organisation. Having the “right” kind of culture of culture can make or break an organisation.

But a number of scholars reject the prescriptive view of culture, they see culture as the emerging and something fragmented values, practices, narratives, and artefacts that make a particular organisation “what it is.” An alternative approach have been taken into account - the description and  understanding of culture – and it elucidates that cultures are very complex, are socially constructed through the communicative interaction of organisational members, are composed of fragmented subcultural unites, and may be fraught with ambiguity.

Edgar Schein, a management scholar and consultant, proposed a very interesting theory with respect to organisational culture, Schein argues that cultures can be best conceptualised as having three levels: behaviours and artifacts, espoused organisational values, and taken-for-granted assumptions about how the world works. Schein’s theory is a very essential tool to understand organisational culture (Miller 2012, p.89-94).

Even if many scholars rejected the perspective of “Strong Culture” proposed by Deal and Kennedy, in my opinion, their strong culture is worthwhile to be interrogated.

According to Deal and Kennedy (1982, cited in Miller 2012, p.83), there are four key components of a strong culture:

1)   Values

2)   Heroes

3)   Rites and rituals

4)   Cultural network

In my experience, business success can be enhanced through the development of a ‘strong culture’. Rites and rituals are key components of a strong culture. Deal and Kennedy suggest that rites and rituals are the ceremonies through which an organisation celebrates its values. Awarding outstanding employees in a corporate-wide banquet is a good example of what Deal and Kennedy suggest of ‘Strong Cultures’. As I discussed in last week, I did my internship in a very large English-training organisation in China. I was very luck to become one of the comperes of the annual end-year convention (usually hold as a large corporate-wide banquet with many interesting components). Awarding outstanding employees is the most exciting component of the banquet, when employees got awarded, the first sentence they uttered is ‘much appreciate for the company in which my diligence and sacrifice can be recognised.’ They became heroes in that organisation and the organisation periodical newsletters would then advocate the spirits and beliefs held by award-winners (cultural network).

Thus, I think this is quite obvious that the employees who get awarded are very happy to be part of the company because their performance in the past year are acceptable and validated. So, their productivity could be improved because the culture of the company provides a ‘rewarding’ atmosphere to its members.

I also recommend you guys to browse a blog article that provides an in-depth analysis concerning organisational culture. Very interesting one.

“On organisational culture change”, by Chris Mowles.

References:

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

Mowles, C 2013, ‘On organisational culture change’, blog post, Complexity and Management Centre, 7 October, viewed 10 November 2013,

< http://complexityandmanagement.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/on-organisational-culture-change/>