Read the summary and the most important questions on Organizational Communication Perspectives and Trends | 9781412916844 | Michael J. Papa; Tom D. Daniels; Barry K. Spiker

• 1 Orientation to, OC

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• How does the traditional perspective view organisations?

  As objects that can be objectively observed and is concerned with communication processes and organisational effectiveness

• How does the early version of the traditional perspective define organisations?

  • Treats organisations as machines, an engineered set of interconnected parts that operate by managerial control
  • Depends on well-maintained communication in order to function efficiently and effectively
  • Managers control the machine by gaining compliance & cooperation from employees= control & coordination
  • Control & coordination depend on effective communication
  • Organisations as political entities; power resides with those who have access to resources -> management is in control

• How does the later view of the traditional perspective view organisations?

  • Organisations as organisms or living systems
  • More complex entity than machine, with many subsystems of control and self-regulation
  • Adaptable to change, responsive to the environment, flexible
  • Broader objectives, not just productivity but also employee welfare, quality of life and sense of belonging

• How does the interpretive perspective define organisations?

  • Organisations as cultures
  • Organisational reality is socially constructed through communication= network of shared meanings
  • Investigates negotiated order = how members understand their experiences through communication and enact the organisation based on shared meanings

• How does the critical view perceive organisations?

  • Organisations as instruments of privilege and or oppression
  • Dominant elite, political interest. With acces to resources
  • Structural, communicative barriers for the disadvantaged
  • Oppression created and reinforced through language and discourse and through inherent power differences in the organisational systems

• 2 Communication and its funtions

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• With what does strategic ambiguity help?

  • to promote cohesion by highlighting members' agreement on abstract, general ideas and by obscuring their disagreements over specific details
  • to adapt more readily to change
  • means for supporting status distinctions and maintaining interpersonal relationships in organisations

• What is nonverbal behaviour (three forms)?

  • paralanguage: nonverbal speech sounds, intonation. regulates spoken expressions
  • body movement: emblems, illustrators, regulators, affect displays, adaptors.
  • space: boundaries of space 

• Which three functions does communication display according to Dance & Larson?

  • linking: communication used to establish relationships between the individual and the environment (symbols)
  • mentation: communication stimulates the development on hgiher order mental processes and leads to mental growth, culture is shaped and reflected by the language its members speak
  • regulatory: the basis for the refinement and extension to humans of the host of methods of behaviour regulation that operate upon all living organisms

• Three functions of social capital (features of social organisation, e.g. trust, norms, and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions)

  1. source of control
  2. source of group support
  3. source of benefits through interlinked group networks

• What does symbolic interactionism entail?

  • reality is created by people
  • knowledge of the world is based on what has been shown to be useful
  • define physical and social objects according to their use
  • understanding of actors is based on what they do in the world
  • social world is an ongoing creation that changes and evolves as people act toward one another
  • the self is reflexive, seen as both the actor and subject
  • the generalised other= the collective attitudes of an entire group, community or society