Defining Communication Theory
Question:
Discuss about the Strategic Communication And Theory.
Perhaps the most important component of working process in any give organization is communication. The term ‘communication’ simply does not mean to converse or communicate, but in an organizational structure it has a wide range of criterion. From the very initial of advertisement of employee recruitment, till the process of marketing and sales, the entire procedure is marked by the application of strategic communication ()Barnlund, 2017). There are also different types and strata of communication that re taken into consideration in the context of an organizational structure. Communication and language holds the most significant position in the entire workflow of a business organization, regardless of small or large scale (Geise & Baden, 2015).
Communication theory is a concept that was designed and founded by S.F.Scudder in the year 1980. He defined communication theory as a way that all beings in the earth communicate, though communication within similar beings is different from the other. In the context of organizational communication, it can be asserted that organizational communication is excessively different from all other communications (Stacks & Salwen, 2014). It is strategy based, formal and much deeper connotations than informal or social language and communication. In an organizational structure, communication can be verbal or oral, written communication like mails, and mass communication like conduction training and development programs. However, in the context of organizational communication theories, it can be asserted that the most important communication theories that are Weber’s Classic Organizational Theory of Fixed Structures, Tompkins and Cheney’s Organizational Control Theory and Deetz’s Managerialism Theory. According to Weber’s Classic Organizational Theory of Fixed Structures, communication in organization must be clear, concise and to the point. This theory focuses on hierarchical communication. Tompkins and Cheney’s Organizational Control Theory states that communication simple, technical, bureaucratic, and concretive are the four different kinds of control that determine the communication process within an organization. Deetz’s Managerialism Theory is perhaps the most unique communication theory that states that communication in an organizational structure cannot be chalked out into any tabular form. It chiefly works according to the democratic aspirations of the employees in the organization and also considers the controlling or the hierarchical powers in the organization (Khalighi & Uysal, 2014).
Communication and the way communication is made to the employees makes a huge impact on the overall performance of the employees. The evaluation of performance of individual employees is based on the manner one is able to carry out individual duties and meet targets within stipulated time. An employee is let known about the organizational goals and objective by the leader or the management and are also provided with a route map according to which employees work (Merckaert et al., 2015). In this context, it is well noticeable that the performance of the employees largely depends on the way the institutional goals are explained to them. The manner in which the management describes the individual roles in the organization and the corresponding employee benefit marks the way in which an employee perform. Again on the other hand, how well the management treats the employees also shows a significant difference in the employee performance. The factors like holding motivational and inspirational speeches, conference and doubt clearance meeting is largely responsible for enhancing the performance of employees. Individual employee performance is largely based on Tompkins and Cheney’s Organizational Control Theory since it can be seen that management and leaders communicate with the employees keeping the four major controlling components in concern (Meulenbroek, Bowers & Turkstra, 2016).
Organizational Communication and its Differences
In the context of organizational performance, it is apt to assert that communication plays a crucial role in the entire work process and a lot depends upon the mode and style of communication that is followed. The activities like sending and receiving of e-mails, holding meeting and conferences are also a type of communication that holds much value in organizational context. It has been noticed in several research works that in order to maintain a swiftness in the workflow, production and sales effective communication has been imperative in all sectors. Regardless of small and large-scale operations, communication strategy has played the most important role in flourishing or collapsing business. While organizational benefit is concerned, the communication strategies focus more on the customers and clients. That is, in order to fetch influential clients for any business it is imperative to impress and convince clients. His can only be done with effective communication strategies (Brink & Costigan, 2015).
Starting from inviting clients’ in business meetings, to the explanation of business deal till the finalizing of deals, all depends upon the excellent communication strategies adopted by the employees of the company. The significant role of communication played in organizational performance is also well portrayed in the finalizing of compare the relative importance of the factors contributing to effective organizational communication deals, which is mostly done through power point presentation, and explanation of organizational profits. Body language, an essential part of communication also matters most in this context. Apart from that it has been seen that effective communication strategies has helped to meet employee satisfaction, manage diversity in workforce, increase productivity of individual departments, ensuring commitment, trust and learning and various other factors. All these factors all together leads an organization towards its desired goal. It enhances the productivity of the employees, which in turn makes a sharp inflation in the productivity of the team. When all the teams in all the departments in an organization work together in the same robust pace, organizational goals and objectives are achieved (Clarkson, 2016). Therefore it is self explanatory that how communication strategies plays an effective role in achieving organizational objectives, thereby marking organizational performance. Organizational performance can thus be linked with Weber’s Classic Organizational Theory of Fixed Structures since the communication is majorly based and related to the hierarchical structure of the company. Employees and workers do not have a significant role to play in this particular section of overall organizational performance.
The factors contributing to effective organizational communication are inter-related. The prime factors that majorly impacts on organizational communication are active listening, simplicity of the language used, straight forward talk, taking feedback, speaking out clearly and articulately, assessing and speaking according to the knowledge of the employees, taking control of the speed of speech and analyzing the relationship between the speaker and the listener. All these factors are co-related with one another and all these factors together impacts the communication in an organization. For a better understanding of the interrelationship between the factors, that impact communication an example can be cited. For instance, in an organization, is the employees are not ‘active listeners’, then speaking out clear and in articulate terms would not help the organization. Since the employees do not take part in the conversation, articulate explanation of the speaker to a particular issue would be of no use (Jackson, 2014). Similarly, on the other hand feedback fro employees can only be taken if the communication to a particular issue has been made keeping in concern the knowledge and capability of the employees over a particular subject. There is again no point taking feedback from employees who do not hold any expertise in the relevant subject. Thus, the factors of effective communication in an organizational structure are interrelated. The low performance of one would definitely impact the other.
Key Theories in Organizational Communication
Change management is the process where the hierarchy changes existing organizational structure and the working process in order to ensure geared up productivity and inflation in production in the company. The main reason for change management is however to implement effective strategies and absorbers to control the reaction of the organization and the employees towards change, taking a control of the change and help the employees to feel comfortable and adapt the change in the organization. Change management is a systematic approach taken by the management of any organization. Communication plays an important role in executing and sustaining change management in an organization. The most important contribution of communication towards change management is that it addresses in a systemic way the ‘human side’ of the organization. Change management that deals with conversion or new roles of employees necessarily creates issues among employees (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). There comes the need of new capabilities, terminating old worn out resources, speeding up morale, imbibing innovation and a lot more. Quite naturally, these operation faces a lot of restrictions from the employees. In this particular phase, communication comes to a rescue. The leaders of an organization mainly handle this situation by the dint of their effective communication strategies. The leaders manage not only the employees but also the stakeholders. Change always brings with it a risk factor. The team leaders about the efficiency convince stakeholders in the productivity that the change would bring. Secondly, the initiation of change itself creates a major fuss among the employees as well as the customers. Hence before actually implementing the change within the organization the concerned authorities needs to use effective communication strategy to communicate well with the employees and the stakeholders of the company.
Owing to the fact that communication is one of the toughest issues worldwide in organizational sector, there is hardly any business organization across globe that offers complete satisfaction to its employees through communication. Communication has multi-fold importance in change management. Effective communication can unfold the vision and the mission of the organization and explicitly describe the dire need of implementing change within the organization (Cameron & Green, 2015).
Not all of the employees can be convinced and conveyed about the need of implementing change within the organization at once. It is imperative that the approach of effective communication that is being made must be detailed, should focus on smaller groups at a time. Since, fuss is majorly created when addressed to a lot of people at a time. Addressing smaller groups would not only help the leader to avoid chaos and fuss but at the same time, it also helps the leader to mould the mindsets of the employee (Hayes, 2014).
Only through effective communication the managers and the leaders at an organization would be able to convey the need of implementing change within the organization. Moreover, the issues of the employees regarding accepting the change I the organizational structure and the questions of the employees can be answered or reverted back by the managers and the leaders only through the path of effective communication strategies.
Impact of Communication on Employee Performance
Another important that communication plays in implementing change within an organizational structure is conveying the stakeholders the message that nothing negative would be occurring within the organizational structure due to the change incorporated without the organization (Doppelt, 2017). It is the duty of the managers and the higher officials of a particular business organization to make belive the suppliers, the customers and the stakeholders that whatever changes would be implemented within the company would be fpr overall good. On the part of te organization, it is imperative to hold on its stakeholders and loyal customers since a huge capital of the company would be invested in implementing change. This investment can only be generated in the form of revenue if the stakeholders and the loyal customers remains intact with the organization. In order to retain the coordinate relationship, effective communication strategy is mandatory.
Therefore, in the concluding portion it can be said that a thorough reading on=f the assignment would enable the reader to understand the concept of communication theory. Apart from the reader being enlightened about communication theory, the reader also at the same time would understand the need of communication, rather effective communication within an organizational structure. The assignment sheds light on the fact that how communication theories are connected to the employee performance within an organization and at the same time it shows the interrelation with organizational performance. The factors that how effective communication benefits an organization, particularly in the context of organizational change management are analyzed in detail in the assignment. There is elaborative discussion regarding the importance of communication in implementation of change in an organization.
References
Barnlund, D. C. (2017). A transactional model of communication. In Communication theory (pp. 47-57). Routledge.
Brink, K. E., & Costigan, R. D. (2015). Oral communication skills: Are the priorities of the workplace and AACSB-accredited business programs aligned?. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 14(2), 205-221.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Clarkson, M. D. (2016, October). Communication training for scientists and engineers: A framework for highlighting principles common to written, oral, and visual communication. In Professional Communication Conference (IPCC), 2016 IEEE International (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Doppelt, B. (2017). Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for business, government and civil society. Routledge.
Geise, S., & Baden, C. (2015). Putting the image back into the frame: Modeling the linkage between visual communication and frame?processing theory. Communication Theory, 25(1), 46-69.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hayes, J. (2014). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Jackson, D. (2014). Business graduate performance in oral communication skills and strategies for improvement. The International Journal of Management Education, 12(1), 22-34.
Khalighi, M. A., & Uysal, M. (2014). Survey on free space optical communication: A communication theory perspective. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 16(4), 2231-2258.
Merckaert, I., Delevallez, F., Gibon, A. S., Liénard, A., Libert, Y., Delvaux, N., … & Slachmuylder, J. L. (2015). Transfer of communication skills to the workplace: impact of a 38-hour communication skills training program designed for radiotherapy teams. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 33(8), 901-909.
Meulenbroek, P., Bowers, B., & Turkstra, L. S. (2016). Characterizing common workplace communication skills for disorders associated with traumatic brain injury: A qualitative study. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 44(1), 15-31.
Stacks, D. W., & Salwen, M. B. (Eds.). (2014). An integrated approach to communication theory and research. Routledge.
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