Final self reflection

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Jason S. Wrench

About the Authors

Jason S. Wrench (EdD, West Virginia University) is an

associate professor and chair of the Department of

Communication at the State University of New York at

New Paltz. Dr. Wrench specializes in workplace learning

and performance, or the intersection of instructional

communication and organizational communication. His

varied research interests include communibiology,

computer-mediated communication, empirical research

methods, humor, risk/crisis communication, and supervisor-

subordinate interactions. Dr. Wrench regularly consults with individuals and

organizations on workplace communication and as a professional speech coach

for senior executives.

Dr. Wrench has published eight previous books: Intercultural Communication:

Power in Context, Communication, Affect, and Learning in the

Classroom (2000, Tapestry Press); Principles of Public Speaking (2003, The

College Network); Human Communication in Everyday Life: Explanations and

Applications (2008, Allyn & Bacon); Quantitative Research Methods for

Communication: A Hands-On Approach (3rd ed., 2016, Oxford University

Press); The Directory of Communication Related Mental Measures (Summer

2010, National Communication Association); Stand Up, Speak Out: The

Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking (2011, Flat World

Knowledge); Communication Apprehension, Avoidance, and

Effectiveness (2013, Allyn & Bacon); and Training & Development: The

Intersection of Communication & Talent Development in the Modern Workplace

(2014, Kendall Hunt). Dr. Wrench is also the editor of four books on the subject

of organizational communication: Casing Public Relations, (2014, Kendall

Hunt) Casing Organizational Communication (2011, Kendall Hunt), Workplace

Communication for the 21st Century: Tools and Strategies that Impact the

Bottom Line: Vol. 1. Internal Workplace Communication, and Vol. 2. External

Workplace Communication (2013, both with Praeger). Furthermore, Dr. Wrench

has published more than thirty research articles that have appeared in various

journals, including: Communication Quarterly, Communication Research

Reports, Education, Human Communication, Journal of Homosexuality, Journal

of Intercultural Communication, Southern Communication Journal, The Source:

A Journal of Education, and The NACADA Journal (National Association of

Campus Advising).

Narissra Maria Punyanunt-Carter (PhD, Kent State University, 2002) is an

associate professor in the department of communication studies at Texas Tech

University. Narissra teaches interpersonal communication, gender, nonverbal,

and romantic relationships. Dr. Punyanunt-Carter's research interests include

romantic relationships, computer-mediated communication, father-daughter

Narissra Maria

Punyanunt-Carter

communication, and mass media portrayals of romance.

She is a consultant for several book publishers, such as

Bedford St. Martin’s, Rowan & Littlefield, Oxford,

MCGraw-Hill, and Wadsworth. She has published many

articles, which have been featured in Southern

Communication Journal, Howard Journal of

Communication, Communication Research Reports, and

Communication Quarterly. She has devoted an

extraordinary amount of work towards her discipline,

department, the university, and the community of Lubbock.

She has served as a permanent or ad-hoc reviewer for ten different peer-reviewed

journals. She have been an advisor for more than five different Texas Tech

University student organizations and one national honor society. She was

awarded Advisor of the Year 2013 by the National Society of Collegiate

Scholars (honor society). She is the TTU advisor for Delta Phi Omega and Delta

Epsilon Psi (the first sorority and fraternity for Asian Americans). She has

published nine book chapters, forty-five journal articles, one book review, and

one book. She has been listed as a lead article writer many times. She has also

received a top paper award at a regional conference. She served as a mentor for

Mentor Tech (for ten years) as well as for the teaching, learning, professional,

and developmental center. She was recently elected as Vice-Chair Elect of the

Mass Communication division of the National Communication Association.

Recently, she was awarded by the Honors College as the “Faculty Member of the

Year.”

Mark Ward Sr.

Mark Ward Sr. (PhD, Clemson University) is an assistant

professor of communication at the University of Houston-

Victoria in Victoria, Texas, where he teaches organizational

and business communication, public relations, leadership,

conflict management, intercultural communication, and

communication theory. His recent book, Deadly Documents

(2014, Baywood Publishing), examines the organizational

culture of the Holocaust through analyses of everyday Nazi

bureaucratic documents, and his work on the subject has

appeared in the Journal of Business and Technical

Communication, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, and

Holocaust Studies. Dr. Ward’s research interests include ethnography of religious

organizations and intersections of religion and media. He serves on the Editorial

Board of the Journal of Communication and Religion and Executive Council of

the Religious Communication Association, which named his ethnography of

religious media its 2014 Article of the Year. His work on religious organizations

and media has been published in Intercultural Communication Studies, Journal

of Communication and Religion, International Journal of Nonprofit and

Voluntary Organizations, Journal of Media and Religion, Journal of Radio and

Audio Media, and other venues. Author of two books on the history of religious

broadcasting, he is editor of the multivolume series, The Electronic Church in

the Digital Age: Cultural Impacts of Evangelical Mass Media (in press,

Praeger). Before entering academe, Dr. Ward was communications director and

journal editor for several national and international nonprofits and industry trade

associations. He continues to write regularly as an independent business

journalist.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank their friends, family, and colleagues along with all of

those at Flat World Knowledge who have shepherded this book along the way.

The authors would also like to thank the following colleagues who have

reviewed the text and provided comprehensive feedback and suggestions for

improving the material:

Janice W. Anderson, SUNY – New Paltz

Michael Bannon, University of Pittsburgh

Jaime Bochantin, Western Illinois University/DePaul University

Susan Easton, Rollins College

Francine Edwards, Delaware State University

Cerise Glenn, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Sandy Hanson, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Stephanie Klatzke, Northern Kentucky University

Amber Messersmith, University of Nebraska-Kearney

Diane Monahan, Saint Leo University

Tracy Nichols, Austin Peay State University

Chad O’Connor, Northeastern University

Jennifer Ohs, Saint Louis University

James Parker, Austin Peay State University

Brian Richardson, University of North Texas

Sergei Samoilenko, George Mason University

Suchitra Shenoy, DePaul University

Preface

The face of business as we know it is rapidly changing, so to keep up with these

changes, organizations are forced to look for new strategies that are often

completely “outside the box.” As a necessity, many organizations are now forced

to compete in a global market. For example, one small business in Berlin, Ohio,

Memory Lane Magnets, the retail/wholesale division of the Catalpa Trading

Company, began by making and selling magnets out of an old-fashioned malt

shop. However, when the business decided to put itself on the Internet, the

business quickly found that many of their orders were international. In essence, a

small business went from being a very local establishment to an international

retailer very quickly because of the Internet. However, it’s not just small

businesses that have global presences.

Dr. John S. Pemberton of Atlanta, Georgia, created a formula for a new drink in

1886, which was a household staple starting in 1895. He created a sugary syrup

that when combined with carbonated water became what is widely known today

as Coca-Cola. Today, Coca-Cola has more than 400 beverage brands in more

than 200 countries. According to Shenkar and Lou, Coca-Cola “relied on

international markets for 73 percent of its gallon volume in 2005. At 29.4

percent of the total, net operating revenue was highest for the European Union in

the same year, followed by North America with 28.4 percent, and 19.5 percent

for North Asia, Eurasia, and the Middle East (combined).” [1] This process of

taking a corporation from one small community and making it a global

phenomenon is called globalization, or “the acceleration and extension of

interdependence of economic and business activities across national

boundaries.” [2] In fact, Kearney demonstrated that 62 countries accounted for 96

percent of the accumulated gross domestic product (GDP). [3] All 62 countries

have very active globalization among their corporate sectors. As a result of

globalization, the need for people skilled in international business has become a

necessity. According to Shenkar and Lou, international business refers to

“business activities that involve the transfer of resources, goods, services,

knowledge, skills, or information across national boundaries.” [4] According to

the IBM Global CEO study in 2008, one of the skills necessary for international

business is recognizing “the importance of social connections within and across

organizations.” [5] Specifically, “Social networking and real-time collaboration

tools improve communication and close the distance between people in different

locations. Good ideas develop and spread quicker, and problems are solved

faster.” [6] In essence, IBM’s study of more than 1,000 chief executive officers

(CEOs) in international businesses found that effective communication is one of

the most important parts of globalization.

Effective communication is not only important for international business, but

highly bankable as well. IBM’s 2008 study on global human capital related the

case of the Maybank Group, a leader in the banking industry in Malaysia. In

2007, Maybank instituted a corporate training program for mid-level managers

that emphasized skills in communication, coaching, and leadership. While the

initial group of trainees consisted of seventy-five midlevel managers, those

managers have subsequently trained more than three thousand individuals in

communication, coaching, and leadership. The Maybank Group estimates that as

a result of this skills training “an estimated US$20 million in business impact

has already been achieved.” [7]

Ultimately, understanding organizational communication is necessary for all

organizations. This book is titled Organizational Communication: Theory,

Research, and Practice. The subtitle of this book really explains the approach we

took when writing this book. Our goal was really examine the intersection

among organizational communication as an actual practice, the theoretical basis

within the field of organizational communication, and the wealth of research

related to organizational communication both within the field of communication

studies but also within closely related fields like industrial psychology, talent

development, organizational behavior, etc.

This book will explore the best in organizational communication theory,

research, and practice. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 will introduce a wide range of

both historic and modern theories related to organizational communication.

Theories help organizational communication scholars understand how

communication within, between, and among organizational stakeholders occurs.

A theory is a well-substantiated system of scientific facts that explains a natural

phenomenon. In essence, theories stem from previous scientific research in an

effort to help scientists explain, predict, and control a natural phenomenon. We

will discuss more of the concept of the word theory and what it implies in

Chapter 3. While Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 will introduce you to the core theories

in organizational communication, a variety of other theories will be introduced

throughout the text when appropriate. Obviously, this book cannot introduce you

to every communication theory or even every organizational communication

theory, so please understand that the theories discussed in this book are just the

highlights of an ongoing body of research.

In addition to making sure that the book is full of theories to help organizations

explain, predict, and control organizational communication phenomena, this

book will examine the best of historical and modern research in organizational

communication. Obviously, the whole book is based on organizational

communication research, but we will periodically highlight individual

researchers who have made important contributions to the field and new avenues

of research being undertaken by organizational communication scholars. Our

goal with this text is to introduce you to both the classic research and the current

research that is shaping the field of organizational communication.

Lastly, this book will introduce you to a series of “best practices” in

organizational communication. According to Webster’s New Millennium

Dictionary of English, a best practice is “a practice which is most appropriate

under the circumstances, esp. as considered acceptable or regulated in business;

a technique or methodology that, through experience and research, has reliably

led to a desired or optimum result.” [8] In essence, when we use the term “best

practice,” we are talking about how to implement the concepts discussed in this

book in a realistic manner in your organization. Some of the best practices

discussed in this book are from a subordinate’s perspective, and others are from

a supervisor’s perspective. Whether one is a low-level employee or a CEO, there

are practices that research has shown will increase both the quality and quantity

of communication within an organization.

Students Read This

According to the Microsoft Office Personal Productivity Challenge, which

surveyed 38,000 employees in 200 countries, the biggest challenges

organizations face are unclear objectives, lack of team communication, and

ineffective meetings. Furthermore, the study found that workers average only

three productive days out of a typical five-day work week. Whether reading

the numerous e-mails one gets every day (42 e-mails per day internationally;

56 e-mails per day in the United States) or spending an average of 5.6 hours

per week sitting in meetings that 69 percent of those surveyed say are useless,

people are bombarded by communication opportunities in modern

organizations. As a student taking your first or second course in

organizational communication, you will no doubt spend a huge portion of the

rest of your life working within, volunteering for, or utilizing organizations.

As such, understanding organizational communication is ultimately in your

best interest.

Even corporate America has come to the realization that organizational

communication is very important. Type the phrase “communication skills”

into any job-search database on the Internet, and you will find thousands of

potential employers realizing the necessity of good communication skills. For

example, we typed “communication skills” into Monster.com and found over

five thousand jobs that used the phrase. When we typed “organizational

communication” into Monster.com, we received over one thousand job

advertisements. We even found more than three hundred job advertisements

for the phrase “business communication.” This process could be done in any

online job search tool (e.g., monster.com, indeed.com).

Furthermore, in the business-book industry, communication is a frequently

addressed topic. Type the phrase “business communication” into a library or

book distributor’s search engine, and you are likely to find thousands of titles.

We typed “business communication” into Barnes & Noble’s website and

found more than fifteen thousand titles that address the subject. While some

of these books are textbooks, most are not. For example, Morrison and

Conaway’s book Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: The Bestselling Guide to Doing

Business in More than 60 Countries helps individuals navigate the world of

nonverbal communication in international business. [9] Crowley and Elster’s

book Working with You Is Killing Me: Freeing Yourself from Emotional Traps

at Work is all about how to communicate and interact with coworkers who are

driving you crazy. [10] There’s even a book that attempts to explain how to

understand all the double-talk and nonsense that one hears in modern

business: Why Business People Speak like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide, by

Fugere, Hardaway, and Warshawsky. [11] In essence, there are a lot of people

out there saying they know a thing or two about effective communication in

organizations.

So, how is this book different from other books on the market? First, this book

is based in scientific evidence and not the authors’ experiences and opinions.

Although we do offer our experiences to help illustrate various concepts, we

do not recommend behaving in a specific way within an organization because

it has worked for us. Instead, the concepts and information within this book

have been researched by qualified social scientists in a variety of fields.

When there is conflicting information about a specific topic, we will let you

know that not everyone has found the same thing, which does happen.

Second, this book is designed to tell it like it is and not how we wish it was.

The fact is, organizations are often messy and do not follow “the guidelines.”

Organizations can be downright cruel and unethical places, and it is highly

likely that at some point you’ll find yourself in a less-than-perfect

organization. For this reason, we will discuss topics like bullying,

harassment, and discrimination. Lastly, we try to make this book as relevant

to your life as humanly possible. We realize that the information within this

book can have a real impact on your future. We often have students who are

able to take the information taught in organizational communication and

immediately start applying it to their own lives. However, there are also some

foundational concepts that may not be as clearly applicable. Often,

foundational concepts exist within textbooks as a way to prepare you for

more complicated material later in the book. For example, we take a

historical approach to various concepts in this book. We strongly believe that

understanding where something came from will help you understand how and

why it is used in modern business today. The simple fact is that concepts

often build on one another, so to understand a current concept you need to

understand where that concept came from in the first place. For example, in

Chapter 2 we will examine a number of theories of organizational

communication. Each new generation of theory came about to some extent

because of problems with the previous one, so to understand the most recent

organizational theories, you must understand the historic organizational

theories as well.

Overall, we hope that you find this book enriching both in your academic life

and in your professional life. The book contains various features that will

help you learn the content. Each chapter starts with a set of objectives and

ends with a series of brief case studies and discussion/review questions. The

objectives can help you see the major concepts in the chapter right up front.

You can also use the objectives after you’ve completed reading the chapter to

make sure you understand its major components. The case studies are

designed to help you see how content within the chapter is actually practiced

in the modern business world. Each case study is followed by a series of

questions designed to help you critically use the chapter’s content. Lastly,

each chapter has a set of discussion/review questions, which are also

designed to help you think more critically about the chapter’s content.

As for your professional life, we hope that the information contained within

this book will help you manage the organizational world. While one book

cannot save your life or guarantee you career success, money, or eternal

happiness, we can guarantee that this book will prove practical and useful.

Whatever kind of organization you become involved with in life, the

information within this book will help you navigate and understand

organizational communication.

Instructors Read This

We know that choosing the appropriate textbook for your classroom is always

a time-consuming process. If you’re considering adopting this book, thank

you for taking the time to look at this textbook and compare it to other books

on the market. If you’ve already adopted this book, thank you very much, and

we hope you find this book very useful in your own classroom.

Organizational Communication: Theory, Research, and Practice has a lot of

content that is available in other books while including content not available

in other organizational communication books on the market. We’ve also

included a number of pedagogical features in the book to make the reading

experience more meaningful.

The field of organizational communication has undergone an interesting

history over the past century. Starting out as simple how-to manuals for

business speaking and developing into the full-fledged discipline that it is

today, organizational communication is a unique area of study with its own

history, trends, and research methodologies. When selecting an organizational

communication textbook, many professors struggle with finding a book that

is theoretically strong, current, and relevant to their students. First, this book

examines both the historical and modern theories of organizational

communication. While there are clear theory chapters (Chapter 2 and Chapter

3), the book also incorporates other theories throughout the book when

examining various issues. To make this book theoretically strong, we have

included one chapter that examines the historic theories of organizational

communication and one that examines modern theories of organizational

communication. We believe a strong theoretical foundation is important for

any student studying organizational communication.

Second, this book contains information about the history of the field, while

demonstrating the new ideas and avenues of research currently being

undertaken. We believe students should have a firm grasp of this history of

the field, but they also need to know the current state of the field. Throughout

the book, we examine the history behind concepts and then show how those

concepts are currently being used in research.

Lastly, we wanted our book to be relevant to your students. One of the

greatest challenges current professors have is teaching a generation of

students more concerned with how knowledge will impact their lives than

with the process of learning. For this reason, we incorporated our own

personal anecdotes from working in various professions and used a variety of

case studies from real organizations to help students see how the information

contained within the book is actually exhibited within the real working

environment. Furthermore, each chapter ends with a set of discussion/review

questions that ask students to relate and apply the content of the chapter.

In addition to being theoretically strong, current, and relevant to students, we

incorporated three clear directions within this book: an international focus,

communication ethics, and the interdisciplinary tradition of organizational

communication. In a world where multinational corporations and

globalization are commonplace, preparing individuals for interacting with

others in organizations around the world is increasingly important. All three

of the authors of this book have extensive international experience that

includes living abroad and studying international business. Many of the

anecdotes and case studies included in this book use a very specific

international focus to demonstrate how the book’s concepts can be applied to

international organizational communication.

Second, we strongly believe that ethics is an extremely important part of the

modern landscape of organizations. While some books include specific

chapters examining ethics, we’ve decided to include issues of ethics at every

turn in this book. Understanding how to be an ethical communicator in a

modern organization is an extremely important reality in today’s business.

Lastly, our book embraces the interdisciplinary tradition of organizational

communication. While we strongly believe that communication scholars add

a unique perspective to the discussion of organizational communication, we

also realize that there are many scholars in industrial/organizational

psychology, organizational behavior, and organizational sociology who have

strongly impacted our view of organizational communication and continue to

add to the discussion of organizational communication. While this is a book

that first and foremost examines organizational communication, we believe it

is necessary to include numerous variables that appear in modern

organizational communication research but have not made their way into

other organizational communication textbooks (e.g., organizational justice,

organizational citizenship, organizational charlatanism).

In addition to being theoretically strong, current, and relevant to students, we

incorporated three clear directions within this book: an international focus,

communication ethics, and the interdisciplinary tradition of organizational

communication. In a world where multinational corporations and

globalization are commonplace, preparing individuals for interacting with

others in organizations around the world is increasingly important. All three

of the authors of this book have extensive international experience that

includes living abroad and studying international business. Many of the

anecdotes and case studies included in this book use a very specific

international focus to demonstrate how the book’s concepts can be applied to

international organizational communication.

Second, we strongly believe that ethics is an extremely important part of the

modern landscape of organizations. While some books include specific

chapters examining ethics, we’ve decided to include issues of ethics at every

turn in this book. Understanding how to be an ethical communicator in a

modern organization is an extremely important reality in today’s business.

Structure of the Book

Chapter 1 is designed to introduce the world of organizational

communication. Specifically, this chapter provides definitions for both

“organization” and “communication,” followed by a history of the field and

an explanation of the three research traditions used in organizational

communication.

Chapter 1 introduces you to some of the major terms necessary for

understanding organizational communication. The chapter also explores the

history of organizational communication and the major methodological tools

organizational communication scholars have at their disposal to understand

organizational communication.

Chapter 2 specifically delves into the world or organizational communication

ethics. The chapter is broken into three distinct sections: business ethics,

communication ethics, and organizational communication ethics. Ethics is a

very important part of the organizational communication landscape today.

Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 respectively introduce classical and modern theories

of organizational communication. These two chapters demonstrate how the

field has progressed historically in terms of perspectives on organizational

structure and management.

Chapter 5 examines how communication formally and informally occurs

within organizations. Additionally, this chapter provides a brief introduction

to the research practice of communication network analysis.

Chapter 6 delves into the area organizational climate, culture, and

globalization. It’s important in today’s world to understand the importance

that both an organizations climate and culture have on organizational

members. Furthermore, the days when organizations existed in isolation

within specific nation-states are rapidly disappearing. The book looks at both

the nature of globalization and its impact around the world.

Chapter 7 introduces the concept of the importance of leadership within an

organization and its various practices. Furthermore, the chapter delves into

the importance of followership. Too often, leadership discussions focus on

the leader without really investigating the importance of followership.

Chapter 8 delves into the issues of both identity and diversity. The chapter

starts by investigating different approaches that have been applied to

understand individual identities within organizations. The chapter then ends

with a discussion of diversity within the modern organization. As the

demographics within the United States are changing, it’s important for

organizations to celebrate difference.

Chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 examine how communication actually occurs

within an organization. A variety of different facets related to organizational

communication are examined in these chapters including team/group

communication; organizational socialization; technology; and stress, conflict,

and negotiation.

Chapter 13 is a chapter not normally found in introductory textbooks in

organizational communication – the dark side. Organizations are often

cauldrons of politics, backstabbing, bullying, discrimination, and a range of

other dysfunctional behaviors. Ultimately, we believe that it is important to

look at both the good and the bad aspects of organizational life.

Chapter 14 examines how organizations interact and communicate with

external stakeholders. Specifically, the chapter examines the processes related

to the field of corporate communications (public relations, marketing, sales,

etc.) and the importance of strategic communication (issue management, risk

communication, and crisis communication).

Chapter 15 is designed to introduce students to the professional side of

organizational communication. The chapter examines everything from

organizational development and communication audits to corporate training

and human performance improvement. The goal of this chapter is to show

students some of the possibilities that exist in the professional side of

organizational communication.

The final chapter in this book is designed to help students think about how

Best Practices:

Stakeholders:

they can apply everything within the book to their own professional lives.

The chapter discusses how to sell a degree in organizational communication

to potential employers while also examining basic competencies necessary

for professional corporate communicators. Furthermore, the chapter discusses

more basic issues like resume writing and interviewing for a job.

Overall, these sixteen chapters are designed to give you an overview of the

field of organizational communication. We sincerely hope that this book will

be the first step you take in your journey into the world of organizational

communication. We hope that you are able to avoid ethical pitfalls and strive

for organizational communication that edifies individuals in the workplace

instead of tearing them down. Remember, no organization is perfect because

the people within an organization are never perfect. We cannot expect

organizations to be perfect, but there’s nothing wrong with striving for

perfection.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

A practice which is most appropriate under the circumstances, esp. as considered acceptable or regulated in business; a technique or methodology that, through experience and research, has reliably led to a desired or optimum result.

Any party that has an interest in an organization. Stakeholders of a company include stockholders, bondholders, customers, suppliers, employees, and so forth.

[1] Shenkar, O., & Lou, Y. (2007). International business (2nd ed.).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, p. 1.

[2] Shenkar, O., & Lou, Y. (2007). International business (2nd ed.).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, p. 2.

[3] Kearney, A. T. (2005, January/February). Globalization’s last hurrah?

Foreign Policy, 128, p. 39.

[4] Shenkar, O., & Lou, Y. (2007). International business (2nd ed.).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, p. 9.

[5] IBM. (2008). The enterprise of the future: IBM global CEO study.

Somers, NY: IBM Global Business Services, p. 43.

[6] IBM. (2008). The enterprise of the future: IBM global CEO study.

Somers, NY: IBM Global Business Services, p. 43.

[7] IBM. (2008). Unlocking the DNA of the adaptable workforce: The

global human capital study 2008. Somers, NY: IBM Global Business

Services, p. 24.

[8] Best practice. Webster’s new millennium dictionary of English,

preview edition (v 0.9.7). Dictionary.com. Retrieved from

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/best practice

[9] Morrison, T., & Conaway, W. A. (2006). Kiss, bow, or shake hands:

The bestselling guide to doing business in more than 60 countries (2nd

ed.). Cincinnati, OH: Adams Media.

[10] Crowley, K., & Elster, K. (2006). Working with you is killing me:

Freeing yourself from emotional traps at work. New York, NY: Business

Plus.

[11] Fugere, B., Hardaway, C., & Warshawsky, J. (2005). Why business

people speak like idiots: A bullfighter’s guide. New York, NY: Free Press.

Chapter 1

Introduction to Organizational Communication: Why Communication Matters

© Thinkstock/iStock

We welcome you to the study of organizational communication. In writing this

book, we assume that you have some background in the field of human

communication and probably some exposure to the world of organizations. In

the preface of this book, which we strongly encourage you to read, we discussed

reasons why studying organizational communication matters in the twenty-first

century.

The average employed person in the United States works 7.5 hours per day (7.9

hours per day during the week, 5.5 hours per day on the weekend). [1] The US

Department of Labor further noted that these are just the hours a person spends

in a traditional working environment. People further spend on average about 36

minutes a week interacting with an educational organization, about 43 minutes

shopping, and about 16 minutes attending religious services or volunteering.

When people traditionally hear the word organization, they most often jump

right to the idea of a workplace. However, organization is a much broader term

and covers a lot more ground than just someone’s workplace. As such, hours

spent in an educational environment, shopping, attending religious services, and

volunteering are also examples of someone interacting with or in an

organization.

This book looks at organizational communication as a broad term that

encompasses a wide array of organizational types, which we’ll explore in more

detail elsewhere in this chapter. Even if you take just the average of 7.5 hours

per day that an individual spends “working” in an organization, you will end up

in an organizational environment a little over 111 days per year. If you work for

forty years, you’ll basically spend four of those years at work. We don’t tell you

this to scare you, but to help you understand the importance of knowing how to

interact and behave in organizations. So let’s get started.

[1] US Department of Labor. (2010). American time-use survey—2010

results [Press release]. Retrieved from

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf.

1.1 What is an Organization?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Understand the three common components of the various

definitions of the term organization.

2. Differentiate among the four types of organizations: mutual

benefit, business concerns, service, and commonweal.

As with any academic endeavor, you must understand what you are studying

before you can delve into the specifics and intricacies of the subject. For this

reason, we are going to start you with a basic definition for the term

organization. Later, in Chapter 4, we will explore alternative definitions. But for

now, let’s begin with a traditional conception of organization and then look at

three ways to categorize organizational types. These concepts will provide you a

natural bridge to the classical theories of organizational communication

discussed in Chapter 3.

Defining Organization

Many people have attempted to define what is meant by the word organization.

The Defining Organization sidebar contains a partial list taken from common

dictionary definitions and definitions proposed by business, psychology,

economics, and communication scholars.

Dictionary Definition

(1) the act of organizing or the state of being organized; (2) an organized

structure or whole; (3) a business or administrative concern united and

constructed for a particular end; (4) a body of administrative officials, as of a

political party, a government department, etc.; (5) order or system; method. [1]

General Business Definitions

“A system of consciously coordinated activities of two or more persons.” [2]

“The accomplishment of an objective requires collective effort, men set up an

organization designed to coordinate the activities of many persons and to

furnish incentives for others to join them for this purpose.” [3]

“A social unit of people, systematically structured and managed to meet a

need or to pursue collective goals on a continuing basis. All organizations

have a management structure that determines relationships between functions

and positions, and subdivides and delegates roles, responsibilities, and

authority to carry out defined tasks. Organizations are open systems in that

they affect and are affected by the environment beyond their boundaries.” [4]

“A Body of individuals working under a defined system of rules,

assignments, procedures, and relationships designed to achieve identifiable

objectives and goals.” [5]

Organizational Behavior Definitions

“A social unit within which people have achieved somewhat stable relations

(not necessarily face-to-face) among themselves in order to facilitate

obtaining a set of objectives or goals.” [6]

“An organization is a complex system, which includes as subsystems: (1)

management, to interrelate and integrate through appropriate linking

processes all the elements of the system in a manner designed to achieve the

organizational objectives, and (2) a sufficient number of people so that

constant face-to-face interaction is impossible.” [7]

Economics Definition

A shorthand expression for the integrated aggregation of those persons who

are primarily involved in “(1) the undertaking or managing of risk and the

handling of economic uncertainty; (2) planning and innovation; (3)

coordination, administration and control; (4) and routine supervision” of an

enterprise. [8]

Industrial/Organizational Psychology Definition

“Work consists of patterned human behavior and the ‘equipment’ consists of

the human beings.” [9]

“Lively sets of interrelated systems [task, structure, technology, people, and

the environment] designed to perform complicated tasks.” [10]

Organizational Communication Definitions

“Social collectives in which people develop ritualized patterns of interaction

in an attempt to coordinate their activities and efforts in the ongoing

accomplishment of personal and group goals.” [11]

“Including five critical features—namely, the existence of a social

collectivity, organizational and individual goals, coordinated activity,

organizational structure, and the embedding of the organization with an

environment of other organizations.” [12]

“Communicative structures of control.” [13]

“An organized collection of individuals working interdependently within a

relatively structured, organized, open system to achieve common goals.” [14]

“An aggregate of persons, arranged in predetermined patterns of

relationships, in order to accomplish stated objectives.” [15]

After reading this laundry list of definitions for the word organization, you may

wonder which is best. To be honest, we think they all have something to offer.

When you look at the various definitions for the word organization, you will

start to see a certain pattern of consistent themes. Jason Wrench [16] examined a

similar list of definitions and concluded that three primary features run through

all definitions of the term organization: structures, goals, and people. Let’s look

now at each of these features.

Organizational Structures

The first major theme commonly seen in the various definitions of the word

organization has to do with structure. When we talk about how organizations

are structured, we are talking primarily about how they function in terms of both

what happens within an organization and how an organization functions within

its external environment. For our purposes, we will look at structure in terms of

four basic processes: external environment, input, throughput, and output (Figure

1.1).

Figure 1.1 Organizational Structures

External Environment

The first factor to consider in thinking about an organization is the external

environment in which it exists. The external environment consists of all

vendors, competitors, customers, and other stakeholders who can have an impact

on the organization itself but exist outside the boundaries of the organization.

Changes in the external environment where an organization exists will have an

effect on the organization itself. For example, the government might impose new

regulations on your industry, and these new regulations will affect how your

organization must function. When it comes to how an organization interacts with

its external environment, we often refer to two different types of boundaries. An

organization with open boundaries allows for the free flow of information to

the organization and is more likely able to adapt to changes that occur within the

environment. Closed boundaries, on the other hand, occur when an organization

tries to insulate itself from what is occurring within its environment. When an

organization has closed boundaries, the organization ends up being less aware of

what is going on within the external environment and sets itself up for major

problems or even becoming obsolete. For most organizations, closed boundaries

simply are not realistic or possible, which is why most organizations have open

boundaries. At the same time, there are a couple of real reasons why some

organizations may need to have tightly controlled boundaries that are pretty

closed. If you are in the information world with lots of proprietary or sensitive

information (e.g., the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence

Agency, National Security Agency), you may have real, legitimate reasons to

keep the boundaries as closed as humanly possible to prevent leaks. Other

organizations may need to clamp down on some facets of communication

because opening themselves up to information flow (especially technologically)

could make the organization vulnerable to computer viruses or electronic

intrusions. In the past few years, many organizations have been hacked and had

sensitive and proprietary information stolen (e.g., Adobe, JetBlue, JCPenney,

Target, Visa). As information security becomes increasingly important,

organizations are forced to develop new rules and protocols for how information

is or is not accessible.

Input

The next major aspect of an organization’s environment involves inputs. Inputs

are those resources that an organization brings in from the external environment

in order for the organization to accomplish its goals. Typically, resources can be

discussed in three general categories: physical materials, people, and

information. First, an organization brings in physical materials that it needs to

accomplish its goals. Whether it is computers, desks, light fixtures, or supplies

necessary to build silicon microchips, organizations rely on a variety of vendors

in the external environment to provide physical materials.

The second type of input necessary from the external environment involves

people. An organization relies on skilled workers to accomplish its goals. One of

the biggest complaints of many organizations is a lack of skilled or qualified

workers. Depending on the organization, skills or qualifications can run from

specific college degrees, to specific industry experience, to specific technical

knowhow. According to Julian Alssid, executive director of the Workforce

Strategy Center in New York, “Employers seem to be less willing to invest in

training in this economy. Again, it is the combination of the right credential and

practical experience they look for.” [17]

The final type of input an organization needs is information. Information refers

to any data that is necessary for an organization to possess in order to create

knowledge. [18] According to the American Society for Training and

Development (ASTD), data “is raw and without context and can exist in any

form, usable or not.” [19] Often organizations end up with piles of data, including

customer service reports, market trends, and other material typically in the raw,

numerical form. Organizations then turn this data into information by giving the

data meaning through some kind of interpretation. While most people think of

data as purely numerical, there are other nonnumerical types of data that can be

important to turn into information. For example, if the US Congress passes a

new law that impacts how your organization must handle customer records, the

law may not specifically say how your organization must comply with the law.

In this case, the new law is data and your organization must turn that law into

usable information in the form of its own policies and procedures. When you

combine information with understanding that leads to action, information is

transformed into knowledge.

How do organizations go about acquiring data that can lead to action? ASTD

discusses two types of external environment scanning processes that

organizations can employ: proactive and reactive. [20] First, proactive scanning

occurs when an organization actively looks for data or existing information that

could be transformed into usable knowledge. For example, doing research on

your competitors in an effort to stay on top of your market is an example of

proactive scanning. Second, reactive scanning occurs when an organization

faces a specific problem and then makes sense out of the data/information that

arises from the problem, or searches the external environment for

data/information that could be useful in addressing the problem. Ideally, if an

organization does a good job with proactive scanning, reactive scanning will not

be necessary very often. When an organization is forced to use reactive

scanning, time is wasted in the attempts to find data/information and turn it into

actionable knowledge.

Throughput

Throughput is what an organization ultimately does, within its own confines,

with the inputs it receives. Throughput can range from the use of physical

materials, people, and information, to how organizations internally structure

themselves to create goal-oriented throughput. While we cannot discuss every

possible way an organization can utilize inputs, we should note that the issue of

internal organizational structure is very important at this level of an organization.

For this reason, we must discuss two ways that organizations commonly

structure themselves.

A hierarchy is a categorization system in which individuals/departments are

ranked over other individuals/departments based on their respective skills,

Figure 1.2

Hierarchies

centrality, and status. First, organizations can place people/departments over

others because of specific skill sets. For example, managers are placed over

workers because of their skills in managing people. While we know this isn’t

always why people get promoted, the general idea of a management class of

people is because managers can help organize employees toward the

organization’s goals. Second, people can be ranked over others because of their

centrality to the organization’s goals. For example, if your organization is a tech

company, the product developers may be ranged structurally over people in

customer support or marketing, because without the product developers there is

no need for customer support or marketing. Lastly, organizations can be

organized based on status—an individual’s relative position to others as a result

of esteem, privilege, or responsibility. When someone gets promoted to a higher

position, her or his status increases in terms of a formal hierarchy. Whether that

promotion is a result of esteem, privilege, or responsibility doesn’t matter at this

point; only the elevation within the hierarchy matters.

Now that we’ve discussed what hierarchy is, let’s talk about the two common

ways that organizations are typically patterned—flat versus tall hierarchies

(Figure 1.2).

Image A in Figure 1.2 represents a tall hierarchy, so called

because it has many hierarchical layers between those at

the bottom and those at the top. Two commonly discussed

tall hierarchies are the Catholic Church and the US military.

Within the Catholic Church, you have the average

parishioner at the bottom of the hierarchy and the Pope at

the top. In the US military, you have the average enlisted

soldier at the bottom of the hierarchy and the president of

the United States, as commander in chief, at the top. In both

cases, the people at the bottom have little or no

communication with those at the top.

Image B in Figure 1.2 represents flat hierarchies where only a couple of layers

separate those at the bottom and those at the top. Think of organizations like

mom-and-pop restaurants. In a typical small restaurant, the owner may also

serve as the chef and may have only a handful of waitstaff, table busers, and dish

cleaners as employees. In these hierarchies, it is very easy for those at the bottom

of the hierarchy to communicate with those at the top.

Output

The final aspect related to organizational structure is output, which is the

ultimate product or service that an organization puts back into the external

environment. One organization may create the components that go into a TV

remote, while another may send to your home the technician who hooks up your

cable or satellite. Every organization is designed to produce some kind of service

or product for the external environment. Even nonprofit organizations like the

American Red Cross are producing a range of both products and services for the

external environment.

Organizational Goals

Organizations have many goals, but it helps clarify those goals into a simple

typology (i.e., a classification into ordered categories). Edward Gross examined

the various types of organizational goals and created a simple typology

consisting of five distinct goals: output goals, adaptation goals, management

goals, motivation goals, and positional goals. [21]

Output

The first common type of organizational goal is called an output goal, or an

organizational goal that is “reflected, immediately or in the future, in some

product, service, skill or orientation which will affect (and is intended to affect)

that society.” [22] While Gross was initially discussing goals in terms of

educational organizations, the goals also apply to other organizational types as

well. In essence, every organization has some type of output goal that will be

released back into the external environment. For a pizza chain, the output goal

could be the pizza it delivers to your house (product), the customer service it

gives customers (service), or the expertise in pizza making that the chain brings

to the enterprise (skill).

Adaptation

The second type of organizational goal is what Gross called adaptation goals, or

goals for adapting to the external environment. [23] All organizations exist in

environments that change, and successful organizations will change and adapt to

that external environment. One of the biggest risks many organizations face if

they do not adapt to the external environment is obsolescence, which “occurs

when there is a significant decline in customer desire for an organization’s

products or services.” [24] Many organizations become so focused on making a

specific product that the product eventually is no longer wanted or needed by

customers, which will lead to the eventual death of an organization.

Management

Management goals are the next type discussed by Gross. These goals involve

three decisions: (1) who will manage the organization, (2) how conflict will be

managed, and (3) what output goals have priority. [25] First, organizations need

to decide on the organization’s formal structure and who will exist at various

rungs of the hierarchy. In addition to determining the formal structure, these

goals also determine the type of organizational hierarchy and who holds power

within it. Second, managerial goals focus on how conflicts within the

organization will be handled. Organizations have a vested interest in keeping the

organization running smoothly, so too much conflict can lead to interpersonal or

interdepartmental bickering that has negative consequences for the organization.

Lastly, management goals determine the overarching direction of the

organization itself. As the saying goes, someone has to steer the ship. We’ll

discuss different types of leaders in Chapter 7. But for now, we’ll just note that

having a clear direction and clear priorities is vital to the health of an

organization. If an organization tries to do too much, the organization may end

up scatterbrained and not function as a cohesive whole. If the organization tries

to do one and only one thing, the organization may become obsolete. Overall,

prioritizing output goals must by high on management’s to-do list.

Motivation

The fourth common goal for organizations is ensuring that employees are

satisfied with and loyal to the organization. [26] Gross called these motivational

goals. A wealth of research demonstrates the link between employee motivation,

job satisfaction, and worker productivity. [27] Whitman, Van Rooy, and

Viswesvaran surveyed seventy-three studies that affirm that satisfied employees

are more productive. [28] In addition, motivated employees are more likely to

remain loyal. According to Hart and Thompson, employee loyalty is “an

individual’s perception that both parties to a relationship [employee and

organization] have fulfilled reciprocal expectations that (1) denote enduring

attachment between two parties, (2) involve self-sacrifice in the face of

alternatives, and (3) are laden with obligations of duty.” [29] By this definition,

employees are loyal because they knowingly enter into a relationship with an

organization, sacrifice part of themselves to the organization (and vice versa),

and thus feel a sense of obligation or duty to the organization (a phenomenon we

explore fully in Chapter 8). Of course, loyalty only works when an employee

feels that the organization is standing up to its end of the reciprocal expectations.

If an employee feels that an organization is not meeting its basic obligations,

then the employee will view that organization unkindly and loyalty will diminish

over time. [30] As such, an organization must meet its basic obligations to

employees in order to foster loyalty.

Positional

The final type of organizational goal is positional goals. According to Gross,

these goals attempt to position an organization vis-à-vis other organizations in

the same market. [31] For example, an automotive tool manufacturer will attempt

to position itself against other automotive tool manufacturers. There are two

common ways to position an organization within a specific market: (1) higher

volume at a lower price or (2) higher quality at a higher price. The first strategy

offers more products or faster services at a cheaper cost, while the second offers

a luxury product or service for which people are willing to pay more. This

difference was illustrated in a 2011 report by PCWorld, which found that 56

percent of new cell phone users purchased Android devices and 28 percent

bought iPhones. [32] Androids are cheaper and sold in more versions, while

iPhones are made by Apple, which historically positions itself as a luxury brand.

Thus, while iPhones accounted for only 4 percent of the overall cell phone

market, their products accounted for 52 percent of industry profits. [33] Though

iPhones were not capturing a large percentage of the market, they were still

beating the competition.

Organizational People

After structures and goals, people are the final characteristic common to various

definitions of the word “organization.” In Jason Wrench’s original discussion of

the three common themes related to people, he discussed interdependency,

interaction, and leadership. [34] For our purposes, we also list a fourth notion—

control—as an important factor related to the people in an organization.

Interdependency

The first term associated with people in organizations is interdependency,

which means mutual dependence, or depending on one another. In organizations,

this means people depend on one another to achieve the organization’s goals. If

one part of the organization stops functioning properly, it will affect the other

parts. For example, imagine that you are a copy editor for a New York publisher.

If you get behind on your job, then the graphic designers, marketing

professionals, printers, and other groups of people will also get behind. At the

same time, interdependency can also help an organization. If you work with a

solid group of colleagues then, even when something happens to set you back,

the others can help pick up the slack and keep the work on schedule. Overall,

people impact each other in organizations.

Interaction

Our interactions with others help define and create what is an organization.

Without the interactions we have with our coworkers, customers, and other

stakeholders, an organization really doesn’t exist. For this reason, you can almost

say that the “thing” we call an organization doesn’t really exist because it’s not a

physical structure, but rather an outcome of our interactions with others. (We

will have more to say about this in Chapter 4.) An organization may have

physical objects within it (desks, computers, pencils, etc.), but the actual

organization is ultimately the people that make it exist.

At the same time, people within an organization also interact with each other in

various roles in an effort to accomplish the organization’s goals. People within

organizations and people who come in contact with organizations are constantly

in a state of interaction. As we will learn in Chapter 14, organizations have many

different stakeholders (an individual or group that has an interest in the

organization), and each requires different communication strategies. Ultimately,

communicative interaction is one of the most basic functions of any

organization.

Control

Organizations are, as Dennis Mumby pointed out, inherently entities that must

control the behaviors of members, even while members generally strive to meet

their own needs. [35] When one group has one set of needs and desires, and

another has a different set of needs and desires, we refer to these groups as being

in dialectical tension. Table 1.1 contains many of the dialectical tensions that

exist between an organization and its various members.

Table 1.1 Dialectical Tensions

What the Organization Needs/Wants What the Workers Need/Want

Minimize costs Maximize salary/benefit package

Systematization of job duties Autonomy to do one's job

Ability to streamline the organization Job stability

Agreement Dissent

Transparency Privacy

Conventionality Innovation

Organization-focused Self-focused

Permanence Change

Rights of the organization Rights of the individual

Work life Social life

As a result of these inherent dialectical tensions, an organization tries to stack

the deck in its favor to maximize its needs and desires and subsequently

minimizes the needs and desires of workers in the process. Let’s briefly examine

each of these dialectical tensions in turn.

Minimize costs versus maximize salary/benefits. The first dialectical tension

occurs when organizations try to keep their overhead costs low while workers try

to maximize what they earn in terms of both salary and benefits (health

insurance, stock options, retirement, etc.).

Systemization versus autonomy. Organizations like stability, so they prefer

workers who learn how to do a specific task and then systematize that task in the

most efficient manner. As such, organizations (especially in manufacturing

contexts) will provide explicitly detailed training in exactly how an employee

should accomplish a task. Workers, on the other hand, prefer to have autonomy

when making decisions for how best to accomplish their daily work and do not

enjoy being micromanaged.

Streamlining versus stability. Organizations are fundamentally focused on the

bottom line and therefore often want to have the ability to streamline the

organization in an attempt to maximize profits. If an organization can lay off

workers and maintain maximum productivity, then it’s often in the organization’s

best interest to do so. While streamlining is good for an organization, it can

create a chaotic environment for employees who crave job stability. Workers

want to know that their work is appreciated and that it will keep them employed.

Agreement versus dissent. The next dialectical tension listed here is agreement

versus dissent. In this tension, organizations prefer for workers to follow blindly

and do what organizational leaders dictate. Workers, on the other hand, want to

have a voice to articulate when they disagree with the dictates of leaders or with

the general direction of the organization. We’ll explore the area of organizational

dissent more in Chapter 5.

Transparency versus privacy. In our world today, organizations increasingly

want to know what workers are doing in the workplace. As such, organizations

expect that employee’s work lives are completely transparent. An organization

will do everything from monitoring e-mail and telephone calls to installing

software on workers’ computers that logs and monitors key strokes made on a

keyboard. Workers, on the other hand, are increasingly demanding some privacy,

especially in their digital lives.

Conventionality versus innovation. Organizations are innately slow-moving

organisms that do not like change, so it’s very common to hear, “But we’ve

always done it that way.” Workers, on the other hand, want to bring their own

creative problem-solving skills to the table and to think of new and innovative

processes and procedures that could benefit both the organization and the

workers. While not all worker ideas are spot on, organizations that stick to

conventional ways of thinking may end up losing a lot of employees who prefer

more freedom to be innovative.

Organization focus versus self-focus. Organizations innately want workers to

focus on their jobs and improve their productivity. Workers, on the other hand,

want to focus on themselves and improve themselves. Many organizations will

support self-improvement as long as it has a clear benefit for the organization,

but workers often want to focus on their own improvement even if that

improvement has no benefits for the organization or may lead the worker to find

a new organization.

Permanence versus change. When looking at the permanence/change dialectic,

organizations strive to maintain knowledge and thus keep people who are hard

workers for the long haul. Often, organizations call this employee loyalty.

Workers, on the other hand, desire change and can get very bored doing the same

work day in and day out. Often workers become pigeonholed in specific jobs

with specific duties, and there is no way to get out but to leave the organization.

Overall, an organization in our society has many more tools at its disposal to get

its way than do workers.

Organizational versus individual rights. Ultimately, when it comes to

organizations the focus is on the organization and its rights and less on the

individual’s rights. Workers believe that their human rights shouldn’t stop at the

front door of the organization. For example, many workers are shocked when

organizations fire them for posts made on social networking websites. Workers

believe these posts are, by rights, private. An organization, on the other hand,

may believe looking at social networking site posts is a completely appropriate

behavior and well within its rights as an organization. While this specific

example also overlaps with the transparency/privacy dialectic, the focus here is

on whose rights are more important.

Work versus social life. The last dialectical tension associated with

organizational control is the focus on work versus social life (a subject we

explore further in Chapter 8). Organizations believe that workers should be

focused purely on their work life. As a result of digital technology, it has become

increasingly easier for people to be on call 24/7 by their organizations. Workers,

on the other hand, believe they are entitled to a social life that does not involve

one’s organization. Furthermore, workers often believe that as long as their

private, social-life behavior does not impact their work life, the organization

should stay out of their personal lives. Many organizations go so far as to include

“morality clauses” in contracts that enable them to fire employees whose

personal-life behavior is deemed inappropriate for organizational members.

Leadership

The last term associated with people in organizations is leadership. Any

organization must have an individual or clearly discernible group that guides the

organization toward accomplishing its goals. Without such leadership, individual

members of an organization must puzzle over how to accomplish the

organization’s goals. When leadership is unsettled and people are pulling in

different directions, the organization is unlikely to accomplish much. For an

organization to thrive, it must have effective leadership that fosters effective

“followership.” In Chapter 7, we’ll examine leadership and followership in more

detail.

Types of Organizations

The last factor to realize in understanding organizations is that there are

numerous types of organizations. A good overview of the different systems that

have been proposed to categorize organizations is provided by Carper and

Snizek. [36] Here we will use the categories proposed by Peter Blau and W.

Richard Scott. [37] Blau and Scott created a classification system with four

distinct categories: mutual benefit associations, business concerns, service

organizations, and commonweal organizations.

Mutual Benefit Associations

The first type of organization is the mutual benefit association, which is

focused on providing services to its members. Examples are “political parties,

unions, fraternal associations, clubs, veterans’ organizations, professional

associations, and religious sects.” [38] People generally join these types of

organizations because of the benefits they receive. When these organizations are

first being created, organizational members are generally very involved in the

creation of the organization. However, once such an organization has been

around for a while, the majority of the members become passive and let the

minority run the organization. Whether you belong to a sorority or fraternity or

even the forensic team at your college or university, most people belong to at

least one mutual benefit association.

Business Concerns

The second type of organization is the business concern, which is focused on

doing well for itself. According to Blau and Scott, the “dominant problem of

business concerns is that of operating efficiency—the achievement of maximum

gain at minimum cost in order to further survival and growth in competition with

other organizations.” [39] Most for-profit organizations are business concerns.

These organizations face problems associated with “maximizing operating

efficiency in a competitive situation.” [40] Because of their need to cut costs and

maintain a competitive advantage, these organizations may even be cold and

callous in how they treat employees and customers. Everything from Walmart to

the New York Times is a business concern.

Service Organizations

Blau and Scott describe service organizations as those “whose basic function is

to serve [their own] clients.” [41] Service organizations can include “social-work

agencies, hospitals, schools, legal aid societies, and mental health clinics.” [42]

The basic problem that service organizations face is “the conflict between

professional service to clients and administrative procedures [that] are

characteristic of service organizations.” [43] Often service organizations are

steeped in organizational hierarchies and procedures that prohibit providing the

easiest and fastest service to potential clients. As a student, you’re currently

involved in a service organization—namely, your college or university. But most

of us also interact with doctors, clinics, dentists, optometrists, and more on a

semiregular basis. All these last organizations are profit driven, but their basic

purpose is to serve their clients.

Commonweal Organizations

The last type of organization discussed by Blau and Scott is commonweal

organizations, whose “prime beneficiary is the public-at-large.” [44] Examples

include “the State Department, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, military

services, police and fire departments, and also the research function as

distinguished from the teaching function in universities.” [45] All these

organizations were created because they represent areas where the general public

needs some level of protection or knowledge, or the organization serves the

administrative purposes of the government. Overall, the crucial problem posed

“by commonweal organizations is the development of democratic mechanisms

whereby they can be externally controlled by the public.” [46] One reason we pay

taxes is so we can have quick and easy access to many commonweal

organizations.

In the United States, firefighting has not always been a commonweal

organization. Until the mid-1800s, private gangs often controlled firefighting

brigades in large towns and cities. These gangs might set fires and then extort

building owners for money to put the fires out. On the other hand, some

buildings might burn to the ground while firefighting gangs fought over which

brigade controlled that neighborhood. One such riot broke out near Cincinnati,

Ohio, in 1851 and involved ten rival gangs. Two years later, Cincinnati became

the first US city to publicly fund its firefighters. Today, we cannot imagine that

firefighting is anything but a common good for all.

KEY TAKEAWAY

When one analyzes a variety of definitions for the term

organization, three common themes tend to emerge: the

structure, the goal, and the people. Organizational structure

examines how an organization functions both internally and within

its larger external environment. The goal is the general purpose a

group of people is trying to achieve. Lastly, the people refer to the

various internal and external stakeholders associated with the

organization.

There are four common organizational types: mutual benefit,

business concern, service, and commonweal. Mutual benefit

organizations are designed to help the individuals who belong to

the group (e.g., fraternities, sororities, clubs). Business concern

organizations are primarily concerned with turning a profit for the

organization and its shareholders (e.g., anything from Walmart

and Citibank to your local grocery store or restaurant). The third

type of organization is the service organization, which is geared

toward providing a specific service to people (e.g., hospitals,

legal-aid societies). Lastly, commonweal organizations are those

that are generally run by the government for the greater good of

society (e.g., the military, fire/police departments, department of

education).

Information :

Inputs :

Throughput :

Business Concern:

Commonweal Organizations:

EXERCISES

1. Think of an organization you currently belong to (or have

belonged to in the past). Looking at Figure 1.1, how has your

organization interacted with its environment with regard to input,

throughput, and output?

2. Of the ten dialectical tensions discussed in Table 1.1, which one

do you think has the strongest impact on an organization you

currently belong to (or have belonged to in the past)? Why do you

think this dialectical tension causes the greatest imbalance of

control?

3. From your own organizational interactions, find two different

organizations that fit into each of the four types of organizations:

mutual benefit, business concern, service, and commonweal.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Any data necessary for an organization to possess in an effort to create knowledge.

Those resources that an organization brings in from the external environment in order for the organization to accomplish its goals.

What an organization does with inputs within the confines of the organization itself.

Organization focused on doing well profitably for an organization and its stakeholders. /html>

Organization designed to benefit society at large.

External Environment:

Flat Hierarchies:

Hierarchy :

Interdependency:

Mutual Benefit Association:

Open Boundaries:

Output:

Proactive Scanning:

Reactive Scanning :

Service Organizations:

Structure:

Tall Hierarchy:

All the vendors, competitors, customers, and other stakeholders who can have an impact on the organization itself but exist outside the boundaries of the organization.

Hierarchy with only a couple of hierarchical layers between those at the bottom and those at the top of the hierarchy.

A categorization system where individuals/departments are ranked over other individuals/departments based on skills, centrality, and status.

Mutual dependence, or depending on one another.

Organization focused on providing for its membership.

Organizations that allow for the free flow of information to the organization and are more likely able to adapt to changes that occur within the environment.

The ultimate product or service that an organization disseminates to the external environment.

When an organization actively looks for data or existing information that could be transformed into usable knowledge.

When an organization faces a specific problem or crisis and then either makes sense of data/information it poses or searches the external environment for data or information that could be useful.

Organization whose prime concern is providing products or services for a specific public clientele.

How an organization functions in terms of what happens both within the organization itself and within its external environment.

Hierarchy with many layers between those at the bottom of the hierarchy and those at the top of the hierarchy.

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comparative approach. San Francisco, CA: Chandler, p. 45.

[39] Blau, P. M., & Scott, W. R. (1962). Formal organizations: A

comparative approach. San Francisco, CA: Chandler, p. 49.

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comparative approach. San Francisco, CA: Chandler, p. 43.

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comparative approach. San Francisco, CA: Chandler, p. 51.

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comparative approach. San Francisco, CA: Chandler, p. 51.

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comparative approach. San Francisco, CA: Chandler, p. 43.

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comparative approach (2004 printing). Stanford, CA: Stanford University

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comparative approach. San Francisco, CA: Chandler, p. 54.

[46] Blau, P. M., & Scott, W. R. (1962). Formal organizations: A

comparative approach (2004 printing). Stanford, CA: Stanford University

Press, p. 43.

1.2 What is Communication?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Define and explain what is meant by the term human

communication as introduced in this chapter.

2. Explain the SMCR model of communication and how it applies to

the organizational context.

© Thinkstock/iStock

There is no agreed-upon definition of communication. Scholars have examined

the term and found a vast array of approaches. [1] Frank Dance surveyed ninety-

five definitions of communication and broke them down into fifteen types. [2]

“Human communication,” he concluded, “is indeed a dappled thing, swift, slow,

sweet, sour, adazzle, dim. The search for its essence and the study of its meaning

is a search rich in the doing, not in the done.” [3]

In this introductory chapter, however, our challenge is to start you off with a

definition of “communication” that will help you get an initial grasp on

organizational communication. To do that, we begin with a definition that

accomplishes two things. First, our definition will help you understand that

communication is not something that just “happens” and that people simply “do”

like a knee-jerk reaction. Our beginning definition will introduce you to basic

components that go into human communication. Second, we are starting you off

with a definition of communication that will form a natural bridge to Chapter 3

and its discussion of classical theories of organizational communication. This is

because the model reviewed here embodies assumptions about human

communication that are reflected in classical theories. Later, when we review

modern theories of organizational communication in Chapter 4, we will discuss

other models of communication whose assumptions have guided modern

theorists.

But for now, our task is to introduce a model that will help you get an initial,

basic grasp of human communication, which you can then use as a foundation to

understand the classical theories in Chapter 3. As such, we begin here with a

definition of human communication as the process whereby one individual (or

group of individuals) attempts to stimulate meaning in the mind of another

individual (or group of individuals) through intentional use of verbal, nonverbal,

and/or mediated messages. [4] If we extend this to organizations, then we have a

starting definition of organizational communication as the process whereby an

organizational stakeholder (or group of stakeholders) attempts to stimulate

meaning in the mind of another organizational stakeholder (or group of

stakeholders) through intentional use of verbal, nonverbal, and/or mediated

messages. And what is a “stakeholder”? According to the American Heritage

Dictionary of Business Terms, a stakeholder is “any party that has an interest in

an organization. Stakeholders of a company include stockholders, bondholders,

customers, suppliers, employees, and so forth.” [5] An organization must also

interact with its external environment: competitors, community members,

governmental agencies, and more. Every organization has a wide range of

stakeholders with which it must communicate.

The definition of communication offered here can be broken down into what is

called the “SMCR” model of communication—source, message, channel, and

receiver. [6] Figure 1.3 represents this model in the context of publicspeaking, but

it is easily applied to organizational communication. Let’s briefly break down

the SMCR model into five basic concepts: process, source, message, channel,

and receiver.

Figure 1.3 SMCR Model of Communication

Image courtesy of Wrench, J., Goding, A., Johnson, D., and Attias, B. (2011). Stand Up, Speak Out: The

Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking, Irvington, NY: Flat World Knowledge.

Process

Anyone studying human communication must remember it is a process. There is

no distinct beginning or distinct end to our communications. Instead,

communication is a series of interactions that change over time and that produce

changes in those who are interacting. Success or failure at informing or

persuading can alter how people interact with each other in the future. Many

external factors also influence the process and are constantly in play. For

example, your cultural background can affect how you approach the

communicative process.

Source

The source in the SMCR model of communication is the individual, or group of

individuals, who attempts to stimulate meaning. In organizational

communication, the source may be conveying the ideas of a single person or the

ideas of an entire group. For example, if you are evaluating an employee’s job

performance, the message you are sending may come from you and you alone.

However, if you are a corporate CEO delivering a press conference, the message

may be coming out of your mouth but may represent dozens of individuals

involved in crafting the message. Furthermore, in the position as a CEO, you

would also be viewed as the mouthpiece of the organization, so anything you say

is also attributed to the organization, which could represent thousands of people.

Message

The basic goal of the source is, in the SMCR model, to take an idea in her or his,

or the group’s, mind and then transmit that same idea to another person (or

persons). The “idea” someone is trying to send is the message. We refer to this

transmission of a message from the source to the receiver as “stimulating

meaning” because, according to this view of communication, the source is

attempting to transmit her or his idea so that the receiver will understand the idea

in the same way as the source. One of the biggest mistakes novice managers can

make is to assume that if they tell an employee something, the message was

understood as intended. As such, it’s very important to ensure a receiver

understands the intended meaning of a message.

One of our coauthors was recently involved in a labor negotiation. Employees

believed the organization had a stash of funds that could be used to raise their

pay. But accounting standards mandated the funds be expended only for a

specific purpose and otherwise could not be touched. Our coauthor

recommended that the organization have its auditors craft a specific message to

this effect. Thus, where the employee negotiators saw the organization’s refusal

as biased, they understood the independent auditors’ message and backed down

on their demands. This case illustrates the need to ensure that the recipients of a

message correctly understand its meaning. The example also illustrates another

common problem: receivers of a message must see the source as credible and

trustworthy or they may dismiss the message.

Channel

A channel is “the means by which a message is carried from one person to

another.” [7] When a source decides to create a message, he or she can rely on

three primary channels to send that message: verbal, nonverbal, and mediated.

Verbal

The verbal channel consists of specific spoken sounds that represent real

phenomena or ideas. Yet when we say the word “office,” the letters o-f-f-i-c-e

may represent either an actual physical location (“Please come to my office!”) or

the general idea of a location in which work occurs (“I’m going in to the office

today”). Thus, for understanding to occur, the source and the receiver must have

similar understandings for the intended meanings of words. Ensuring that people

in an organization are using the same lexicon is such a common problem that

numerous humor books have been written on the subject. [8]

Nonverbal

The second channel through which people can transmit a message is the

nonverbal channel. This channel encompasses any stimuli that can elicit

meanings not contained in words themselves. Everything from how someone

gestures, looks, sounds, or smells can impact how others will view that person.

Research has indicated that 65 to 95 percent of a person’s understanding of a

verbal message is dependent upon the nonverbal behavior associated with the

verbal message. [9] For example, you walk into a colleague’s office and find she

is clearly red-faced and that her fists are clenched. You ask how she’s doing and

she flatly responds, “Fine!” If you pay attention only to the verbal message sent

(“Fine!”) you will interpret her message to mean that she’s excellent (like fine

wine). However, when you interpret her nonverbal behavior, you’ll quickly

ascertain that she is far from “excellent” but may not want to talk about what

happened at the moment.

Mediated

The last channel through which a source can send a message is a mediated

channel. A mediated message is any message that is sent using some kind of

technology such as print, audio, or video. Some of the earliest studies of

organization communication explored the use of employee newsletters. Today,

we increasingly depend at work on computer-mediated communication via e-

mail, Skype, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, vlogs, and who knows what comes next.

Receiver

While we’ve discussed the receiver of a message throughout this section, we

should note that the receiver(s) is ultimately, according to the SMCR model, the

person interpreting and understanding a source’s message. When a receiver

attends to a source’s message, he or she must interpret that message in light of

his or her understanding of the message. If the source uses unfamiliar words, the

receiver may not accurately interpret the message in the intended way. For this

reason, a source must consider any feedback the receiver sends about the

message to ensure that understanding has been achieved.

A Closing Thought

The SMCR model introduces communication concepts in an easily digestible,

linear fashion. Yet in most communicative contexts, you actually function as

source and receiver simultaneously. If you are speaking, you are also gauging the

verbal and nonverbal reactions of your colleagues; if you are listening, you are

also sending continuous feedback—a smile, a frown, a nod, an erect posture, a

slouch, verbal interjections of assent or dissent—about the message and its

source. The definition and model of human communication presented in this

introductory chapter are only starting points. You can build on this introduction

as you take up classical theories of organization communication in Chapter 3 and

then expand your horizons and consider alternative definitions and models

proposed by modern theorists in Chapter 4.

KEY TAKEAWAY

As an introductory definition, think of human communication as

the process whereby one individual (or group of individuals)

attempts to stimulate meaning in the mind of another individual (or

group of individuals) through intentional use of verbal, nonverbal,

and/or mediated messages. This can be extended to

“organizational communication” as the process whereby an

organizational stakeholder (or group of stakeholders) attempts to

stimulate meaning in the mind of another organizational

stakeholder (or group of stakeholders) through intentional use of

verbal, nonverbal, and/or mediated messages. A stakeholder is

any person or group that has an interest in the organization.

The SMCR model of communication examines four basic

components: source, message, channel, and receiver. The source

of a message is the individual or group originating an idea and

attempting to transmit that idea to another person or persons. The

message is the idea that is attempting to be transmitted. The

channel is the specific method of communication an individual

uses to convey a specific message: verbal (the use of words),

Channel :

Human Communication:

nonverbal (communicative characteristics outside of the words

themselves), and mediated (the use of technology to convey a

message). Lastly, the receiver is the individual who is targeted for

a message who receives the message and then has to make

sense of the message itself.

EXERCISES

1. Look at the introductory definition of human communication

provided in this chapter. Do you think this definition accurately

reflects how humans communicate with one another? Why or why

not? Do you think the introductory definition of organizational

communication presented here accurately reflects the nature of

how people in organizations communicate? Why or why not?

2. Imagine you’ve been asked to run a meeting consisting of five

people. Explain how a meeting of five people would relate to the

SMCR model of communication.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

The means by which a message is carried from one person to another.

Defined here as the process whereby one individual (or group of individuals) attempts to stimulate meaning in the mind of another individual (or group of individuals) through intentional

Mediated :

Message:

Nonverbal :

Organizational Communication:

Receiver:

Source :

Verbal :

use of verbal, nonverbal, and/or mediated messages.

Any message that is sent using some kind of technology such as print, audio, or video.

The “idea” someone is trying to send to a receiver.

Any stimuli that could elicit meanings not contained in words themselves.

Defined here as the process whereby an organizational stakeholder (or group of stakeholders) attempts to stimulate meaning in the mind of another an organizational stakeholder (or group of stakeholders) through intentional use of verbal, nonverbal, and/or mediated messages.

The person interpreting and understanding a source’s message.

The individual (or group of individuals) who attempts to stimulate meaning.

Specific spoken sounds that represent real phenomena or ideas.

[1] For example, see Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The “concept” of

communication. Journal of Communication, 20, 201–210; Dance, F. X.

(1984). What is communication? Nailing Jello to the wall. Association for

Communication Administration Bulletin, 48, 4–7; Losee, R. M. (1999).

Communication defined as complementary informative processes.

Journal of Information, Communication and Library Science, 5(3), 1–15;

Nilsen, T. R. (1957). On defining communication. Speech Teacher, 6(1),

10–17.

[2] Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The “concept” of communication. Journal of

Communication, 20, 201–210.Dance, F. E. X. (1970). The “concept” of

communication. Journal of Communication, 20, 201–210.

[3] Dance, F. E. X. (1980). Swift, slow, sweet, sour, adazzle, dim: What

makes human communication human. Western Journal of Speech

Communication, 44, 60–63, p. 63.

[4] Wrench, J. S., McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (2008). Human

communication in everyday life: Explanations and applications. Boston,

MA: Allyn & Bacon.

[5] Scott, D. L. (Ed.). (2009). Stakeholder. In The American heritage

dictionary of business terms. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p.

503.

[6] Berlo, D. (1960). The process of communication. New York, NY: Holt,

Rinehart & Winston.

[7] Wrench, J. S., McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (2008). Human

communication in everyday life: Explanations and applications. Boston,

MA: Allyn & Bacon, p. 10.

[8] For example, Beckwith, L. (2006). The dictionary of corporate bullshit:

An A to Z lexicon of empty, enraging, and just plain stupid office talk. New

York, NY: Broadway Books; Fugere, B., Hardaway, C., Warshawsky, J.

(2005). Why business people speak like idiots: A bullfighter’s guide. New

York, NY: Free Press.

[9] Wrench, J. S., McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (2008). Human

communication in everyday life: Explanations and applications. Boston,

MA: Allyn & Bacon.

1.3 History of Organizational Communication

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Explain the three different ways the term organizational

communication can be understood, according to Stanley Deetz.

2. Define the term organizational communication as it is used within

this section.

3. Identify some of the major historical events in the creation of the

field of organizational communication.

Now that we’ve introduced some beginning definitions, let’s switch gears. To

help you get an initial grasp of “organizational communication,” we’ll explore

three ways of viewing the term and then offer a brief history of the field.

Viewing Organizational Communication

Stanley Deetz argued that defining what is meant by the term organizational

communication is only half the question: “A more interesting question is, ‘What

do we see or what are we able to do if we think of organizational communication

in one way versus another?’ Unlike a definition, the attempt here is not to get it

right but to understand our choices.” [1] Instead, Deetz recommends that we

grasp three different ways to conceptualize organizational communication: as a

discipline, as a way to describe organizations, and as a phenomenon within

organizations.

Organizational Communication as Discipline

The first way the term organizational communication is defined is as a specific

subfield of the communication field. However, organizational communication is

not an academic area of study unique to the field of communication studies. The

ways that people within organizations communicate, and how organizations

corporately communicate, are also of interest to fields such as management

science, organizational behavior, and industrial psychology. Organizational

communication is a unique discipline, observed Dennis Mumby and Cynthia

Stohl, because it attracts a “community of scholars [who] constitute a

disciplinary matrix when they share a set of paradigmatic assumptions about the

study of a certain phenomenon.” [2] In other words, organizational

communication is a discipline because people who study it share certain core

ideas about the subject. Mumby and Stohl go on to note, “This does not mean

that there is a consensus on every issue, but rather that scholars see objects of

study in similar ways, and use the same language game in describing these

phenomena.” [3] In fact, you may find your teacher or even yourself disagreeing

with our interpretation of certain aspects of organizational communication,

which is very much a normal part of any academic discipline.

Organizational Communication as Descriptor

The second way we can view the term organizational communication is as

descriptor for what happens within organizations. Deetz explains, “In the same

way that psychology, sociology, and economics can be thought of as capable of

explaining organizations’ processes, communication might also be thought of as

a distinct mode of explanation or way of thinking about organizations.” [4] As

you will quickly see in this book, organizational communication is a hybrid

field—people in a variety of different academic areas conduct research on the

topic. Scholars in anthropology, business, psychology, sociology, and other

academic areas conduct research that is fundamentally about organizational

communication. Communication scholars differ in how we approach

organizational communication because our training is, first of all, in human

communication. So we bring to the study of organizational communication a

unique history and set of tools that other scholars do not possess.

Organizational Communication as Phenomenon

The final way one can view the term organizational communication is as a

specific phenomenon, or set of phenomena, that occurs within organizations. For

example, when two employees get into a conflict at work, they are enacting

organizational communication. When the chief financial officer of an

organization is delivering a PowerPoint presentation on the latest quarterly

earnings to the organization’s board of directors, he or she is engaging in

organizational communication. The latest advertisement campaign an

organization has created for the national media is another example of

organizational communication.

A History of Organizational Communication

Instead of providing a long, drawn-out history of the field of organizational

communication as we know it today, we’ve provided a brief timeline dating back

to the 1750s when the Industrial Revolution began in the United Kingdom. The

introduction of steam-powered machinery forever changed the way businesses

operated and led to the eventual creation of the modern corporation. Table 1.2 is

a summary of the major events in the history of organizational communication as

a field of study. This table is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but only a

representative list of key moments in the study of organizational communication.

Table 1.2 Major Events in Organizational Communication

c.

1750

The Industrial Revolution starts in the United Kingdom and quickly transforms the nature of

business.

1908

A. E. Phillips publishes the first public speaking book specifically aimed at businessmen,

Effectively Speaking.

Harvard Business School becomes the first academic program to focus on the scholarship of

business.

1910

The first meeting of the Eastern Public Speaking Conference is held. The association changed itself

to the Speech Association of the Eastern States in 1950 and then to the Eastern Communication

Association in 1973.

1914

The National Association of Academic Teachers of Public Speaking is formed and holds its first

convention the following year. This association changes its name four times over the next one

hundred years: National Association of Teachers of Speech, 1923; Speech Association of America,

1946; Speech Communication Association, 1970; and National Communication Association, 1997.

1919 Edward Bernays and Doris Fleishman open the first public relations firm.

1929 William Phillips Sandford and Willard Hayes Yeager are the first speech scholars to publish a

public speaking book aimed at business professionals, titled Business and Professional Speaking.

1937 W. Charles Redding publishes an article titled “Speech and Human Relations” in the academic

journal The Speaker. Redding is widely considered the father of organizational communication.

1938 Chester Barnard publishes The Functions of the Executive and argues, “The first function of the

executive is to develop and maintain a system of communication.” [5]

1941

Paul Lazarsfeld publishes the first review of the discipline of communication based on his and

others’ research at the Bureau of Applied Social Research and determines that communication can

be broken into four categories: (1) who, (2) said what, (3) to whom, and (4) with what effect.

1942 Alexander Heron argues that successful communication with one’s employees is necessary for

good business in his book Sharing Information with Employees.

1945 University of Denver holds the first graduate-level seminar in industrial communication.

1949 Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver publish The Mathematical Theory of Communication, which

provides the first major model of human communication (source, message, receiver, noise).

1952

The first dissertation specifically in industrial communication is completed by Keith Davis in the

Department of Business at Ohio State University. The title of the manuscript is “Channels of

Personnel Communication within the Management Setting.”

1953 Ohio State University and the University of Nebraska offer the first PhD degrees conferred by

speech departments in industrial communication.

1961 Lee Thayer, a speech professor with an interest in communication in businesses, publishes

Administrative Communication, the first true textbook in organizational communication.

1963 The Journal of Business Communication is started by the American Business Communication

Association.

1964

W. Charles Redding and George Sanborn publish Business and Industrial Communication: A

Source Book, which compiles copies of previously published articles on a wide range of

organizational communication topics. The publication of this book is generally seen as the true

start of the field of organizational communication.

1967

The first “Conference on Organizational Communication” is held at Marshall Space Flight Center

in Huntsville, Alabama. At the conference, Philip Tompkins reviews the state of organizational

communication and divides the types of research into two categories: (1) informal and formal

channels of communication and (2) superior-subordinate relationships. Tompkins’s presentation

marks the official acceptance of the term organizational communication.

Henry Voos publishes Organizational Communication: A Bibliography, sponsored by the Office of

Naval Research.

1968

Division IV, organizational communication, becomes an officially recognized group by the

National Society for the Study of Communication, which becomes the International

Communication Association in 1970.

1972

W. Charles Redding publishes his book Communication with the Organization: An Interpretive

Review of Theory and Research. In this monograph, he poses ten basic postulates of organizational

communication.

1973 The Academy of Management authorizes a new division within its association, titled

Organizational Communication.

1982

The Western Journal of Communication publishes a series of articles based out of a conference

held in Alta, Utah, “The Summer Conference on Interpretive Approaches to the Study of

Organization Communication.” This series of articles argues for the importance of incorporating

interpretive methods in the study of organizational communication.

1983

Linda Putnam and Michael Pacanowsky publish Communication and Organizations: An

Interpretive Approach. This edited book further solidifies the importance of interpretive research

methods in organizational communication.

1987 Fredric Jablin, Linda Putnam, Karlene Roberts, and Lyman Porter publish the Handbook of

Organizational Communication: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.

1991

Stacia Wert-Gray, Candy Center, Dale Brashers, and Rene Meyers publish an article titled

“Research Topics and Methodological Orientations in Organizational Communication: A Decade

in Review.” The authors find that of the 289 articles published in the 1980s, 57.8% were social

scientific, 25.9% were qualitative, 2.1% were critical, and 14.2% were categorized as other.

1993

Dennis Mumby articulates an agenda for critical organizational communication research in an

article titled “Critical Organizational Communication Studies: The Next 10 Years” in

Communication Monographs.

2001 Fredric Jablin and Linda Putnam publish The New Handbook of Organizational Communication:

Advances in Theory, Research, and Methods.

2004

Elizabeth Jones, Bernadette Watson, John Gardner, and Cindy Gallois publish an article titled

“Organizational Communication: Challenges for the New Century” in the Journal of

Communication. In the article, they identify six challenges organizational communication scholars

face in the twenty-first century: (1) innovate in theory and methodology, (2) acknowledge the role

of ethics, (3) move from the microlevel to macrolevel issues, (4) examine new organizational

structures, (5) understand the communication of organizational change, and (6) examine diversity

and intergroup communication.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Stanley Deetz articulated three different ways the term

organizational communication can be understood: the discipline,

ways to describe/explain organizations, and a phenomenon within

organizations. His first perspective describes organizational

communication as an academic discipline that consists of an

intellectual history, textbooks, courses, degrees, and so on. The

second way to describe organizational communication is as a way

of describing organizations. Under this perspective, organizational

communication is used to describe and/or explain how

organizations function. Lastly, organizational communication is a

specific set of behaviors exhibited within an organization itself.

People interact with one another, which is a form of organizational

communication, and through these interactions we actually create

the phenomenon that is an organization.

The history of organizational communication is a complicated one.

Starting with the Industrial Revolution and the evolution of the

modern corporation, the idea of organizational communication

ultimately crystallized in the 1950s and 1960s. During the early

years, most of the research examining communication within an

organization was conducted from a social-scientific perspective,

but starting in the 1980s with the work of Linda Putnam,

organizational communication research has become more

diversified to include both interpretive and critical perspectives.

EXERCISES

1. Find two examples of how you could use the term organizational

communication for each of Stanley Deetz’s three

Discipline:

Hybrid Field:

conceptualizations of the term. Did you find this process easy or

difficult? Why?

2. Since the 1960s, which decade do you think has been the most

important in the transformation of the field of organizational

communication? Why?

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

A community of scholars who share core ideas about an object of study.

A field of study in which research is conducted by scholars from a variety of academic areas.

[1] Deetz, S. (2001). Conceptual foundations. In F. M. Jablin & L. L.

Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication:

Advances in theory, research, and methods (pp. 3–46). Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage, p. 4.

[2] Mumby, D., & Stohl, C. (1996). Disciplining organizational

communication studies. Management Communication Quarterly, 10, 50–

72, p. 52.

[3] Mumby, D., & Stohl, C. (1996). Disciplining organizational

communication studies. Management Communication Quarterly, 10, 50–

72, p. 52.

[4] Deetz, S. (2001). Conceptual foundations. In F. M. Jablin & L. L.

Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication:

Advances in theory, research, and methods (pp. 3–46). Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage, p. 5.

[5] Barnard, C. I. (1938). The functions of the executive. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, p. 226.

1.4 Approaches to Organizational Communication

Research

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Explain what is meant by the social-scientific approach to

organizational communication.

2. Explain what is meant by the interpretive approach to

organizational communication.

3. Explain what is meant by the critical approach to organizational

communication.

© Thinkstock/iStock

In this first chapter, we have so far provided you with introductory concepts for

organization, communication, and organizational communication. The goal of

your Organizational Communication class is not only to learn but to apply these

concepts—and that means doing research, whether in the scholarly sense or in

the everyday sense of exploring and critically analyzing the world of

organizations all around you. So in this concluding section, we’ll give you a

brief and basic introduction to three approaches for researching organizations. In

Table 1.2, you read a basic history of organizational communication as an

academic discipline. The earliest years of the field were predominantly marked

by thought-pieces on the subject or were driven by social-scientific/quantitative

research. Then in the 1980s, new voices emerged that brought

interpretive/qualitative and critical approaches to the field. We believe it is

important to briefly describe these approaches in the first chapter because you’ll

be hearing much more about them as you read this book. We want you, as

readers, to critically analyze the research we present and to understand how the

different methodological traditions impact our understanding of the phenomenon

that is organizational communication.

Social-Scientific/Quantitative Approach

The first major research tradition in organizational communication is the social-

scientific/quantitative approach. Through the 1950s, most work in organizational

communication focused on effective business speaking or came from outside the

field of communication studies. Then, in the 1960s, the field started to solidify

and create professional boundaries that differentiated organizational

communication from business, psychology, sociology, and speech. During these

formative years, organizational communication research aspired to be scientific.

Researchers would reference theories, form hypotheses, and test their hypotheses

through experimental observations. Outcomes of these observations helped

researchers revise the original theory, which inevitably led to new research

questions and new hypotheses. The predominant research methodology of the

time was rooted in social psychology and therefore based in statistics. Even

today, the bulk of research is conducted from a social-scientific/quantitative

perspective. [1]

Social science follows a distinctive epistemology, or belief about how things are

“known.” (We will have much more to say about epistemology in Chapter 4.)

Amedeo Giorgi has broken down the epistemology of social scientists into seven

general beliefs: (1) social phenomena must be reduced to operational definitions

for ease of study, (2) social phenomena result from causes that can be duplicated,

(3) the goal of research is to predict behavior, (4) the researcher must be

independent from phenomena under study and strive for objectivity to avoid

influencing the data, (5) only data that can be observed or obtained from

participants is worthy of analysis, (6) other researchers should be able to

replicate the results, and (7) all phenomena should be numerically measured. [2]

Survey Research

The first common type of social-scientific method utilized in organizational

communication is probably the most common in communication research as a

whole—the survey. Surveys involve a series of questions that are designed to

measure individuals’ personality/communication traits, attitudes, beliefs, and/or

knowledge on a given subject. Surveys are popular because they yield massive

amounts of information from a wide array of people very quickly. However,

researchers must always question whether or not a survey is measuring the right

types of participants for a specific study. For example, using a group of college

students to discuss workplace violence may not be very accurate because of the

limited exposure of the average student to the world of work. In this case, the

researcher would be better off to survey people who are not in school and who

work for a living outside the college environment.

Experimental Research

The second common type of social-scientific/quantitative research in

organizational communication is the experiment. As in the physical sciences, the

goal of an experiment is to manipulate some facet of a participant’s experience

to determine how that participant responds. For example, in a study examining

the impact that an initial handshake has on job interviewers, the researcher could

hire and train someone to enter various job interviews as a “candidate” and

alternately shake hands with each interviewer weakly, aggressively, or with

average firmness. The interviewers, however, would not know that the

“candidate” is working for the researcher. The goal of this (hypothetical) study

would be to determine if interviewers’ experiences with the “candidate” differed

based on the type of handshake used at the beginning of an interview. The

researcher would manipulate the type of handshake used in each job interview,

but do so randomly so that the results are unintentionally biased. Experiments

generally involve much planning and time to pull off competently.

Content Analysis

The final type of social-scientific/quantitative research common to

organizational communication is content analysis. A content analysis involves

taking a series of artifacts and numerically coding information contained within

the artifacts to see if a discernible pattern emerges. Here, the term artifacts refers

to objects made by organizational members that capture their communication.

For example, the speeches of CEOs found on YouTube could be artifacts, or

press releases from Fortune 500 corporations, or policy manuals, annual reports,

or company newsletters. Second, the artifacts are scanned for specific contents.

For example, the researcher might analyze speeches made by Fortune 500 CEOs

and scan for references to patriotic themes: duty, honor, country, America, and so

on. The scan would then yield a numerical count of these patriotic references.

Next, the researcher might analyze how often these thematic references occur in

CEO speeches across different industries: automotive, banking, and so forth. In

this case, the goal would be to discover if CEOs are more or less likely to invoke

images of patriotism according to their respective industries.

For more information on conducting quantitative research, we recommend

reading Wrench, Thomas-Maddox, Richmond, and McCroskey’s Quantitative

Research Methods for Communication: A Hands-On Approach. [3]

Example of Social-Scientific/Quantitative Research

Individual Differences in Managers’ Use of Humor: Subordinate Perceptions

of Managers’ Humor

By Brian J. Rizzo, Melissa Bekelja Wanzer, and Melanie Booth-Butterfield [4]

In this study, Rizzo, Wanzer, and Booth-Butterfield set out to examine

subordinates’ perceptions of their manager’s use of humor in the workplace.

The researchers recruited 151 participants in introductory communication

courses, graduate communication courses, and master’s of business

administration (MBA) courses. All participants were either current or past

part-time (fewer than forty hours per week) or full-time (forty hours per week

or more) employees of some organization.

The researchers used three mental measures in this study: (1) self and

manager humor orientation (individual’s use of humor in interpersonal

interactions—completed once for self and once for the manager), (2) humor

behaviors (individual’s use of humor strategies in the workplace—completed

once for self and once for the manager), (3) manager affect (degree to which

a subordinate likes her or his manager), (4) and manager effectiveness

(degree to which a subordinate perceives her or his manager as effective).

The researchers had four hypotheses in this study:

•H1: High humor-oriented individuals will report using more humorous

behaviors in the workplace than low humor-oriented individuals.

•H2: High humor-oriented individuals will perceive more types of humorous

behaviors as appropriate for their manager to use in the workplace than will

low humor-oriented individuals.

•H3: Subordinates’ perceptions of managers’ humor orientation will be

positively associated with liking toward these managers.

•H4: Employees’ perceptions of managers’ humor orientation will be

positively related to perceptions of managerial effectiveness.

The Results

First, employees who rated themselves as using large amounts of humor in

their daily interactions with others used more humorous behaviors in the

workplace than those individuals who did not rate themselves as humorous.

Second, employees who rated themselves as using large amounts of humor in

their daily interactions with others believed that managers could use a wider

array of humor strategies in the workplace than those individuals who did not

rate themselves as humorous.

Third, employees’ perceptions of their manager’s use of humor in her or his

interactions with others were positively related to subordinates’ liking of that

manager.

Lastly, employees’ perceptions of their manager’s use of humor in her or his

interactions with others were positively related to subordinates’ perceptions

of the effectiveness of that manager.

In essence, all four of this study’s hypotheses were supported.

Interpretive/Qualitative Approach

While the essential question of the social scientist is to ask how phenomena

should be measured, observed Giorgi, the interpretive/qualitative researcher

asks, “What do the phenomena mean?” [5] Or as John Van Maanen noted,

qualitative research is “an umbrella term covering an array of interpretive

techniques which seek to…come to terms with the meaning, not the frequency,

of…phenomena in the social world.” [6] Given the variety of research techniques

that come under the larger title of “qualitative,” scholars often distinguish

between two major threads of qualitative inquiry: interpretive and critical. [7]

We’ll explore strictly interpretive research in this section and then review the

critical approach in the next section.

Chesebro and Borisoff have divided interpretive research into three foci: (1)

observing “how people communicate in their own natural environments,” (2)

discovering “when they are guided by their own personal objectives,” and (3)

learning “how they give meaning to their communication, especially…for those

pragmatic objectives that determine and control day-to-day existence.” [8] Let’s

review each aspect one at a time.

Communicating in Natural Environments

One goal of interpretive research is the desire to see how people communicate in

their natural environments rather than in a laboratory setting. Interpretive

researchers in organizational communication ideally want to observe people

going about their daily communicative routines with coworkers in a normal

fashion. [9] Interpretivists believe that communication in one’s natural

environment will be unforced and resemble how people actually communicate

instead of how they perceive their communication “should” be (which is an

inherent problem with some social-scientific research, especially surveys).

Guided by Personal Objectives

Second, interpretivists want to observe participants as they go about their daily

lives doing what they normally would do without altering their behaviors for the

researcher(s). One of the inherent differences between social-scientific research

and interpretive research is that interpretivists do not go into the research

encounter expecting to “see” anything specific. Social scientists set specific

hypotheses, determine how to test those hypotheses, and test the hypotheses;

thus, social scientists go into a research setting expecting to “see” something

very specific. Interpretivists, on the other hand, go into a research encounter to

observe and learn and ultimately see what their participants show them. Instead

of going in with a preset agenda, interpretivists watch how people behave when

the participants are guided by their own personal objectives and not those of the

researcher.

Giving to Their Own Communication

Lastly, interpretivists are interested in how people understand, and give meaning

to, their own communicative behavior. Humans generally behave and

communicate for an array of reasons and thus understand and ascribe a variety of

meanings to their communication. Interpretive researchers are less concerned

with attaching some kind of meaning to participants’ communications than they

are with understanding how participants view their own communicative

behaviors. As an outsider looking in, we can ascribe all kinds of incorrect

meanings to an individual’s communicative behavior. But when we get inside a

communicative interaction from the participant’s point of view, we can begin to

understand why someone is communicating in a specific manner and why that

communication is important to her or him. In an organizational setting, an

interpretive researcher might be interested in understanding how people view the

balance between their work lives and personal lives. Only after engaging with

people in the organization can the researcher start to develop a better idea of how

subjects view the work-life balance. Renee Cowan and Mary F. Hoffman did just

this in their study, reviewed in the accompanying sidebar, of how people view

their work and personal lives.

For more information on conducting interpretive research, two excellent

resources are Lindlof and Taylor’s [10] and Tracy’s [11] books on interpretive

research methods.

Example of Interpretive/Qualitative Research

The Flexible Organization: How Contemporary Employees Construct the

Work/Life Border

By Renee Cowan and Mary F. Hoffman [12]

In this study, the researchers set out to qualitatively examine how individuals

manage their work lives and their personal lives with each other. Specifically,

the researcher had one overarching research question in this study:

RQ1: How do employees of today define the terms flexibility and

permeability in regard to work/life balance?

The researchers recruited 30 participants. All participants had to be at least 18

years of age and currently employed in an organization that provided benefits

(e.g., retirement, stock options, health care). Ninety-nine percent of the

sample were permanent employees, 44 percent were female, and 56 percent

were male. Seventy percent of the sample were married, and 76 percent of the

sample had children.

All the participants agreed to take part in an interview about their

“perceptions and definitions of work/life balance, what balancing work/life

issues meant and looked like in their lives, what their company did that made

it easy or difficult to balance work/life issues, and any stories they had heard

about people using work/life benefits in their company” (p. 39). Ultimately,

the thirty interviews generated 112 single-spaced pages of transcribed text for

analysis.

Overall, the researchers found that the terms flexibility and permeability were

used interchangeably by the participants. Furthermore, these issues can be

broken into four distinct themes: time, space, evaluation, and compensation.

Time flexibility. Employees wanted to have flexibility in how their time was

calculated by the organizations. This included flex-time issues (instead of

coming in at eight and leaving at four, you could come in at ten and leave at

six), and the possibility of examining time over a larger period (not always

counting up forty hours within one work week, but averaged over the entire

year).

Space flexibility. Employees saw space issues as a two-pronged construct:

physical space and mental space. Physical space flexibility is the notion that

individuals should have the ability to telecommute and work from home

when possible. Mental space is the notion that individuals should be allowed

to think about work at home and think about home at work.

Evaluation flexibility. Employees believed that the evaluation of one’s work

should be based on the quality of the work itself and not on the amount of

time an individual spends in the office doing the work.

Compensation flexibility. Employees believed that their quality work should

receive extra financial compensation (bonuses, increase in pay, etc.) or time

compensation (increased number of vacation days, telecommuting options,

etc.).

Critical Approach

Traditional social-scientific research wants to make hypotheses and test them;

interpretive research wants to study how people communicate in a natural

environment and how they understand that communication. Critical research is

less concerned with explaining or understanding organizational communication

than it is with “analyzing values and judging, or criticizing, them.” [13] As the

word “critical” entails, critical research is about seeing how society—or for our

purposes, organizations—exists in a world of power imbalances. Within most

groups, there are those with power and those without. Critical researchers

strongly believe those with power inherently prevent those without from

achieving equality. As such, “critical scholarship tends to stand on the side of

‘weaker’ parties when studying or commenting upon relations of dominance.” [14]

Mats Alvesson and Karen Ashcraft have described critical research in four

dimensions: (1) critically questioning ideologies, institutions, interests, and

identities (the “four I’s”) that dominate a society or organization, are in some

way harmful, and yet are often unchallenged because the power imbalance is

made to seem natural; (2) “denaturalizing” the four I’s and “rearticulating” a new

vision; (3) inspiring social reform by resisting efforts of the four I’s to have

people accept the status quo as natural; and (4) recognizing that “real” conditions

may constrain choice and action in the contemporary organizational world. [15]

Questioning the Four I's

The first dimension in critical research identified by Alvesson and Ashcraft is

critically questioning ideologies, institutions, interests, and identities that appear

dominant and are in some way problematic. [16] Let’s look at each of these four

I’s in turn.

Ideologies

First, ideologies are the beliefs, myths, and doctrines that guide an individual,

group, or organization. Critical researchers examine whether or not ideologies

developed in an organization are fundamentally harmful, especially to workers.

Furthermore, they look to see if specific ideologies are unchallenged. For

example, much that is done within some organizations in the name of “profits”

can subordinate worker interests; yet the ideology that making a profit is good

for management and labor alike can seem only natural and thus be unquestioned.

Critical theorists look at a variety of ideologies that exist (and get

communicated) within an organization to shed light on how ideologies function

to preserve the power and dominance of management.

Institutions

Second, critical researchers examine whether various institutions that are

dominant in society impose ideological structures—such as racism and sexism—

that favor those in power and harm the general worker. Lammers and Barbour

have defined institutions as “constellations of established practices guided by

enduring, formalized, rational beliefs that transcend particular organizations and

situations.” [17] Thus, for example, systems of government, economy, or religion

are institutions. Organizations are, in fact, one of the key institutions of modern

society and therefore draw considerable attention from critical researchers. In

particular, they critique the structures that organizations create to maintain

managerial power. We’ll talk more about this idea in Chapter 4.

Interests

Third, critical researchers strive to expose the various interests that operate

within an organization, even when it outwardly seems stable and unified.

Specifically, critical researchers examine how an individual or group of

individuals maintains its power and advances its agenda, even though that

agenda may be hidden. In fact, the interests of those in power are often not the

same as those without power.

Identities

Lastly, critical researchers examine various identities that could be harmful or

underchallenged. For critical purposes, identity refers to the state of being or

believing that you are the same person or thing described or claimed by those

with power. For example, you might be labeled a “good worker” so you won’t

question the expectation of putting in fifty or sixty hours a week at your job.

Further, use of the “good worker” label may be a veiled threat that “bad

workers” get fired and only “good workers” get promoted. As such, workers

often adopt either the good or bad worker identity without ever realizing that it is

a tool of managerial control.

Denaturalization and Rearticulation

After identifying relevant ideologies, institutions, interests, and identities, a

critical researcher must “articulate an alternative position that challenges

conventional representations and critically probes (rather than taking at face

value) the reported views and experiences of research participants.” [18] In

essence, critical researchers hold up ideologies, institutions, interests, and

identities that have come to seem normal and natural and “denaturalize” them as

creations of people in power that can be altered. This leads to reopening the

discussion and articulating a new vision for ideologies, institutions, interests, and

identities that is more egalitarian and based on a truly informed consensus

between management and workers.

Inspiring Social Reform

After reopening ideologies, institutions, interests, and identities that had

previously been unchallenged, the next step is seeking change at a societal level.

Critical researchers do not stop at merely noticing the problems that exist in

society. They desire to change the power imbalances that exist by helping people

see new ideas, selves, motives, and practices. In the organizational context, the

goal is to emancipate workers or “break away from structures and ideologies that

tend to constrain forms of consciousness into prespecified routes that stifle

imagination.” [19]

Constraints on Choice and Action

While it would be wonderful if modern organizations could be utopian

enterprises where everyone was truly equal, critical researchers realize that

overly revolutionary or radical perspectives on organizing the modern workplace

may not be realistic or helpful. [20] Instead, critical researchers focus on the real

lives and experiences of people in modern organizations. This isn’t to say that

researchers must always be strictly “realistic” but, rather, that critical scholarship

“seeks to acknowledge how realizing ideals such as class, gender, race, and

ecological justice may have drastic consequences for the material functioning of

organizations alongside effects on member subjectivities.” [21]

Overall, critical research offers a proactive perspective on organizational

communication scholarship. For more information on conducting critical

research, we recommend Swartz’s (1996) [22] book on critical research methods

in communication.

Example of Critical Research

The Communicational Basis of the Organizational Text as Macroactor:

A Case Study of Multilevel Marketing Discourse

By Walter J. Carl [23]

In this study, Carl wanted to examine a macroactor (an individual who is

empowered to speak on behalf of a large number of people). In this specific

analysis, the macroactor was a letter to the editor in Forbes magazine by Ken

McDonald, the managing director of Quixtar, Inc. Prior to this letter, Karen J.

Bannan had written an article in Forbes titled “Amway.com” that discussed

how the notorious multilevel-marketing firm Amway was the sister company

of Quixtar, along with the perils of multilevel marketing. McDonald’s letter

in response to the Bannan letter to the editor took issue with the article

because it “ ‘did not provide an accurate picture of the company,’ citing an

inaccurate understanding of the corporate relationship among Amway,

Quixtar, and Alticor, unfair representations of Quixtar business meetings as

‘cult-like,’ and only publishing accounts from dissatisfied ‘Independent

Business Owners’” (p. 23).

The purpose of Carl’s analysis of McDonald’s letter was to demonstrate that

the letter is a clear piece of organizational rhetoric. While the organization

attempts to hide its actions in the voice of a single individual speaking out,

the very act of this letter is clearly a message with backing from the

institution itself. To aid in the development of his argument, McDonald

examined four major issues: “(1) the features of the text that make it a letter

to the editor and not, for example, a press release or news story or some other

kind of text [company logo, date, salutation, name of author, author identity,

etc.]; (2) the issue of authorship and its authorizing function [the signature on

the letter with the company’s logo makes the letter act as a function of the

organization itself]; (3) the presuppositions that, though absent, are necessary

for the text to ‘make sense’ to its audience [the primary presupposition is that

the reporter did not provide a fair, accurate, and objective account of

Quixtar]; and (4) how the text is constructed to orient to these

presuppositions and to build up a rhetorical case imputing motive to Forbes

magazine [the letter systematically explains why Quixtar felt the need to

respond]” (pp. 23–24).

Comparing the Three Traditions

Now that we’ve explained how each of the three methodological traditions

approaches organizational communication, let’s see how they compare side by

side. Table 1.3 charts how social-scientific/quantitative, interpretive/qualitative,

and critical research differ in their respective understandings and approaches to

organizational communication.

Table 1.3 How the Three Methodologies Compare

Methodological Traditions

Issue Social Science Interpretive Critical

Basic Goal

The goal of social scientific

research is to classify

organizational communicative

phenomena, measure them, and

construct statistical models to

explain the phenomena.

The goal of

interpretive research is

a complete, detailed

description of the

organizational

communication

phenomenon

examined.

The goal of critical research is

to examine how organizations

exist in a world of power

imbalances.

View of

Organization

Organizations are naturally

existing phenomena open to

description, prediction, and

control.

Organizations are

social entities with

day-to-day talk, rites,

rituals, and stories that

develop their own

unique culture with

Organizations are inherently

places of power imbalances.

Workers are typically

subjugated by superiors who

have implicit or expressed

aspects similar to other

cultures.

power.

Study

Purpose

Social-scientific researchers

have a very clear idea what

they are examining at the start

of a research study.

Interpretive

researchers generally

only have a vague idea

of what they are

looking for at the start

of a research study and

prefer to view

organizational

phenomena from the

viewpoint of their

participants.

Critical researchers generally

select artifacts from

organizations or about

organizations and analyze

those artifacts in an effort to

see how power is

communicated and utilized

within an organization.

Research

Design

Social-scientific research

designs are very carefully

planned before the data are ever

collected.

Interpretive research

designs develop over

the course of data

collection.

Critical researchers can follow

very stringent ways of

analyzing artifacts or create

the ways of analysis while

examining the data.

Tools of

Research

Scientific/quantitative

researchers use a variety of

measurement devices (e.g.,

questionnaires) as the primary

tool of data collection.

Interpretive/qualitative

researchers collect

their data themselves

through interviews and

observation, so the

researcher is the

primary tool of data

collection.

Critical researchers do not

need data sources beyond the

act (an actual communication

event) or artifact (the record of

a communication event) being

analyzed.

Writing

Style

Numbers and statistics are the

primary forms of data. Writing

tends to be very formal.

Words, pictures, and

artifacts are the

primary forms of data.

Writing tends to be

very narrative.

Acts and artifacts are the

primary forms of data. Writing

tends to be narrative.

Research

Scope

Social-scientific research tends

to be more succinct and quickly

conducted and can be

generalized to larger groups

than the sample utilized in the

study.

Interpretive research

tends to be more

detailed, time

consuming, and

limited to the group

the researcher studied.

Critical research tends to be

detailed in its analysis, but the

findings should help

researchers understand

organizational communication

in an effort to move toward

egalitarian power structures.

View of

Research

Social-scientific research is

more objective and able to

achieve a more detached view

of the communication

phenomena.

Interpretive research is

more subjective and

able to achieve an

insider’s point of view

of the communication

phenomena.

Critical research is highly

subjective to the individual

point of view of the critic. As

such, critics with differing

political persuasions will view

the same acts and artifacts in

differing ways.

Purpose of

Theory

Scientific/quantitative

researchers view theory as the

guiding metaphor for research.

As such, research starts with

theoretical ideas, then poses

and tests hypotheses, and

makes revisions to the theory.

Interpretive/qualitative

data collection ends

with the creation of

hypotheses and the

generation of theory.

Theory can either guide a

critical study or be arrived at

through the process of

analyzing an artifact.

Critiques

A lot of social-scientific

research is prescription based

and looks at skills people need

to have in modern

organizations. However, the

researcher is ultimately

responsible for which skills are

analyzed. Furthermore, there

tends to be little research

examining skills interculturally.

Interpretive research is

often very subjective.

Furthermore, there is a

serious debate as to

whether the

information gained

from one organization

can or should impact

how we view another

organization.

Critical research is often very

subjective and open to

interpretation based on one’s

political persuasion.

Furthermore, critical research

tends to err on the side of those

who are without power and are

in the minority, so the innate

political bias can be

problematic for some.

Wrench, J. S. (2013). Communicating within the modern workplace: Challenges

and prospects. In J. S. Wrench (Ed.), Workplace communication for the 21st

century: Tools and strategies that impact the bottom line: Vol. 1. Internal

workplace communication (pp. 1-38). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

The current state of organizational communication research was suggested in a

2007 study by Patric Spence and Colin Baker. [24] They surveyed 153 scholarly

articles, published between 1998 and 2004 by major communication journals,

that addressed the subject of organizational communication. Their survey,

depicted in Figure 1.4, found that nearly half of the articles presented findings

from quantitative research, while about a third presented qualitative (i.e.,

interpretive and critical) research. Thus, organizational communication research

today attracts a wide range of scholars and methodologies.

Figure 1.4 Types of Research Conducted

KEY TAKEAWAY

The social-scientific/quantitative approach to organizational

communication research starts with the decision to test a specific

theory about organizational communication, which leads to

hypotheses being made, data being gathered and interpreted,

and the data leading to further generalizations that help refine the

original theory. Social scientists typically conduct research using

surveys, experiments, or content analysis that can be analyzed

using statistical reasoning.

The interpretive/qualitative approach to organizational

communication research is concerned not with measuring the

frequency of social phenomena but with interpreting their

meaning. Although many research techniques fall under the

“qualitative” label, they share three foci: observing how

participants communicate in their natural environments rather

than a laboratory setting, observing participants going about their

normal routines without altering their behaviors for the researcher,

and learning the meanings that participants give to their own

communicative behavior. Unlike social scientists who expect to

“see” a specific result, interpretive researchers enter a research

encounter to observe and learn what participants show them.

The critical approach to organizational communication research

seeks to expose the power imbalances in organizations and the

wider society. As such, critical researchers question the “four

I’s”—namely, the ideologies, institutions, interests, and identities

that dominate an organization; are in some way harmful; and yet

are often unchallenged because the power imbalance is made to

seem normal and natural. Critical researchers strive to

“denaturalize” organizational power imbalances, articulate new

possibilities that were previously excluded, and thus inspire

resistance and reform. At the same time, critical researchers

recognize that “real” conditions may constrain choice and action

in the contemporary organizational world.

EXERCISES

1. Create an experiment testing the impact that verbal, nonverbal, or

mediated messages have on whether or not an organization’s

Surveys :

employees or members understand a new organizational policy.

2. Choose an organization to which you belong. The organization

need not be your workplace; a club, community group, or house of

worship will do just as well. Now get a sense of

interpretive/qualitative research by stepping back for a moment, as

best you can, observing with fresh eyes the members’ natural

communication with each other, their normal communicative

routines and behaviors, and the meanings they give to their

communication. What did you observe about communication in your

group that previously you had taken for granted and not even

thought about because it seemed natural to communicate that way?

3. Think again of the organization you chose for Exercise 2 above.

What are its dominant ideology, dominant interest, and dominant

identity? How do these employ communication to preserve

imbalances of power and make those imbalances seem normal and

natural? What ideologies, interests, and identities are silenced or

subjugated by this communication? What resistance is realistically

possible? How could you employ communication to help reform the

organization?

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Form of social-scientific research based on a series of questions designed to measure individuals’ personality/communication traits,

Content Analysis:

Experiment :

Identities :

Ideologies :

Institutions :

Interests :

attitudes, beliefs, and/or knowledge on a given subject.

Form of social-scientific research based on taking a series of artifacts and numerically coding information contained within the artifacts to see if a discernible pattern emerges.

Form of social-scientific research based on the manipulation of some facet of a participant’s experience to determine how that participant responds.

The state of being or believing that you are the same person or thing described or claimed by those with power.

The beliefs, myths, and doctrines that guide an individual, group, or organization.

Structures of established practices that transcend any single organization.

Whether or not an individual (or group of individuals) has a clear advantage or advancement of a personal or group agenda that is not necessarily clearly articulated to everyone within an organization.

[1] Spence, P. R., & Baker, C. R. (2007). State of the method: An

examination of levels of analysis, methodology, representation, and

setting in current organizational communication research. Journal of the

Northwest Communication Association, 36, 111–124.

[2] Giorgi, A. (1971). Phenomenology and experimental psychology. In A.

Giorgi, W. F. Fischer, & R. Von Echartsberg (Eds.), Duquesne studies in

phenomenological psychology (Vol. 1, part 1). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne

University Press.

[3] Wrench, J. S., Thomas-Maddox, C., Richmond, V. P., & McCroskey, J.

C. (2008). Quantitative research methods for communication: A hands-on

approach. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

[4] Rizzo, B. J., Wanzer, M. B., & Booth-Butterfield, M. (1999). Individual

differences in managers’ use of humor: Subordinate perceptions of

managers’ humor. Communication Research Reports, 16, 360–369.

[5] Giorgi, A. (1971). Phenomenology and experimental psychology. In A.

Giorgi, W. F. Fischer, & R. Von Echartsberg (Eds.), Duquesne studies in

phenomenological psychology (Vol. 1, part 1). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne

University Press, p. 21.

[6] Van Maanen, J. (1979). Reclaiming qualitative methods for

organizational research: A preface. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24,

520–526, p. 520.

[7] Fink, E. J., & Gantz, W. (1996). A content analysis of three mass

communication research traditions: Social science, interpretive studies,

and critical analysis. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 73,

114–134.

[8] Chesebro, J. W., & Borisoff, D. J. (2008). Interpretive research. In J.

S. Wrench, C. Thomas-Maddox, V. P. Richmond, & J. C. McCroskey

(Eds.), Quantitative research methods for communication: A hands-on

approach (pp. 449–486). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, p. 451.

[9] Yanow, D., & Ybema, S. (2009). Interpretivism in organizational

research: On elephants and blind researchers. In D. A. Buchannan & A.

Bryman (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods

(pp. 39–60). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

[10] Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2002). Qualitative communication

research methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[11] Tracy, S. J. (2013). Qualitative research methods. Malden, MA:

Wiley-Blackwell.

[12] Cowan, R., & Hoffman, M. F. (2007). The flexible organization: How

contemporary employees construct the work/life border. Qualitative

Research Reports in Communication, 8, 37–44.

[13] Fink, E. J., & Gantz, W. (1996). A content analysis of three mass

communication research traditions: Social science, interpretive studies,

and critical analysis. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 73,

114–134, p. 115.

[14] Alvesson, M., & Ashcraft, K. L. (2009). Critical methodology in

management and organization research. In D. A. Buchannan & A.

Bryman (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods

(pp. 61–77). Los Angeles, CA: Sage, p. 61.

[15] Alvesson, M., & Ashcraft, K. L. (2009). Critical methodology in

management and organization research. In D. A. Buchannan & A.

Bryman (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods

(pp. 61–77). Los Angeles, CA: Sage, p. 63.

[16] Alvesson, M., & Ashcraft, K. L. (2009). Critical methodology in

management and organization research. In D. A. Buchannan & A.

Bryman (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods

(pp. 61–77). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

[17] Lammers, J.C., & Barbour, J. B. (2006). An institutional theory of

organizational communication. Communication Theory, 16, 356-377; p.

357.

[18] Alvesson, M., & Ashcraft, K. L. (2009). Critical methodology in

management and organization research. In D. A. Buchannan & A.

Bryman (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods

(pp. 61–77). Los Angeles, CA: Sage, p. 64.

[19] Alvesson, M., & Ashcraft, K. L. (2009). Critical methodology in

management and organization research. In D. A. Buchannan & A.

Bryman (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods

(pp. 61–77). Los Angeles, CA: Sage, p. 64.

[20] Alvesson, M., & Ashcraft, K. L. (2009). Critical methodology in

management and organization research. In D. A. Buchannan & A.

Bryman (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods

(pp. 61–77). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

[21] Alvesson, M., & Ashcraft, K. L. (2009). Critical methodology in

management and organization research. In D. A. Buchannan & A.

Bryman (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods

(pp. 61–77). Los Angeles, CA: Sage, p. 65.

[22] Swartz, O. (1996). Conducting socially responsible research: Critical

theory, neo-pragmatism, and rhetorical inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage.

[23] Carl, W. J. (2005). The communicational basis of the organizational

text as macroactor: A case study of multilevel marketing discourse.

Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, 6, 21–29.

[24] Spence, P. R., & Baker, C. R. (2007). State of the method: An

examination of level of analysis, methodology, representation, and setting

in current organizational communication research. Journal of the

Northwest Communication Association, 36, 111–124.

1.5 Chapter Exercises

REAL-WORLD CASE STUDY

Around the world, this nonprofit has many different names: in

Albania, Rruga Sesam; in Egypt, Alam Simsim; in India, Galli Galli

Sim Sim; in Indonesia, Jalan Sesama; in Israel, Rechov Sumsum; in

Palestine, Shara’a Simsim; in Serbia, Ulica Sezam; in South Africa,

Takalani Sesame; and in the United States, Sesame Street. In all,

twenty versions of Sesame Street are produced through the

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame

Street. The goal of the Sesame Workshop is to improve the lives of

children and their societies in four specific domains: health and

wellness, respect and understanding, literacy and numeracy, and

emotional well-being.

In the 2006 documentary The World According to Sesame Street,

the filmmakers introduce you to a world coping with violence

(Kosovo), AIDS (South Africa), poverty (India), and gender

inequality (Egypt). And all over the globe, the Sesame Workshop

teaches students their alphabets and numbers because the Sesame

Workshop realizes that the only way to ensure a child’s future is

through education.

1. Of the four types of organizations discussed by Blau and Scott,

which type of organization is the Sesame Workshop? Why?

2. The Sesame Workshop is constantly attempting to address local

issues with their international programs. If you were going to

create a Sesame Street for corporations, what lessons do you

think they need to learn?

3. If you were producing a new Sesame Street in Iraq, what kind of

inputs from the environment do you think you would need?

REAL-WORLD CASE STUDY

Erik Lie and Randall Heron, two University of Iowa associate

professors in finance, conducted a research study in 2005 that

determined many CEOs were manipulating their stock-option

accounting rules in order to increase their annual salaries. In fact,

Lie and Heron found that upward of 29 percent of all public

corporations had major stock-option irregularities. Basically,

organizations were delaying their stock paperwork for months in an

attempt to look back and select the most lucrative dates for

reporting, which is a violation of federal law. Lie and Heron found a

way to actually determine whether or not an organization was

perpetrating this type of fraud. When the researchers realized what

they had found, they contacted the United States Securities and

Exchange Commission and showed the Wall Street Journal how to

use options records to look for fraud.

As a result of their research, Lie and Heron established a consulting

firm that examines whether accounting irregularities are simple

paperwork mistakes or something more fraudulent. The two make

more than $400 an hour examining corporations’ accounting records

and working with plaintiffs’ lawyers as expert witnesses. In a world

where CEOs are often being led out of their corporations in

handcuffs, organizations and lawyers are forced to take Lie and

Heron’s research findings very seriously.

1. While this specific case study examines accounting problems, do

you think there are any communication problems that can lead to

lawsuits?

2. Do you think a university researcher should be able to financially

profit from her or his research?

3. While more than two thousand organizations have been found to

have options irregularities, Lie and Heron suspect that some of

those organizations may be innocent. Could putting their research

out for the public have a negative effect on innocent

organizations? Do you think putting innocent organizations under

more scrutiny in order to find guilty organizations is justifiable?

REAL-WORLD CASE STUDY

On October 9, 2007, Harris Interactive found that in the United

States (32 percent) and Spain (28 percent), the most important

aspect of one’s job was salary. While salary was found to be

important elsewhere in Europe, Great Britain (33 percent), France

(30 percent), Italy (29 percent), and Germany (25 percent),

Europeans found the interesting nature of their jobs more important:

Great Britain (36 percent), France (44 percent), Italy (37 percent),

and Germany (44 percent). In the United States (28 percent) and

Spain (25 percent), lower percentages of people found the

interesting nature of their job to be the most important.

The study also asked the international participants to what degree

they liked their current bosses. In the United States (65 percent),

Great Britain (56 percent), and France (52 percent), the majority of

individuals polled liked their bosses. However, in Italy (48 percent),

Spain (34 percent), and Germany (47 percent), the majority of

individuals polled did not like their bosses.

1. Why do you think individuals in the United States and Spain

consider salary more important than the interesting nature of the

job?

2. Why do you think individuals in Great Britain, France, Italy, and

Germany find the interesting nature of the job more important

than their salary?

3. Does it surprise you that individuals in the United States are

considerably more satisfied with their bosses than the other

countries polled?

END-OF-CHAPTER ASSESSMENT

1. Joana works for an organization that prides itself on openness and transparency. However, the organization tends to actually insulate itself from what’s going on with its various competitors, its local community, and even governmental regulations. Based on this information, what can you say accurately about Joana’s organization’s relationship with its external environment?

a. the organization has open boundaries b. the organization has closed boundaries c. the organization has a tall hierarchy d. the organization has a flat hierarchy e. the organization has limited outputs

2. Stewart sat down with a set of spreadsheet data and quickly realized that if his coffee shop was going to last the summer, he really needed to spend more time focusing on business from tourists because they were his only real potential for growth. Which of Edward Gross’s organizational goals is Stewart faced with?

a. output goals b. adaptation goals c. management goals d. motivation goals e. positional goals

3. Diana works for an organization that on the surface says it’s very creative and always looking for new ways of doing business. However, every time Diana brings up a new idea she’s immediately shot down with a “but we’ve always done it this way” attitude from her management. Which of the dialectical tensions of control is Diana facing?

a. systemization vs. autonomy b. agreement vs. dissent c. conventionality vs. innovation d. organization vs. self-focused e. organizational vs. individual rights

4. Who is considered to be the Father of Organizational Communication?

a. Elton Mayo b. Chester Barnard c. Lee Thayer d. Fredric M. Jablin e. W. Charles Redding

5. Which of the three methodologies used by organizational communication scholars uses survey, experiments, and content analyses to examine organizational communication phenomena?

a. social-scientific b. qualitative c. interpretive d. critical e. rhetorical

Answer Key

1. b

2. b

3. c

4. e

5. a

Chapter 2

Organizational Communication Ethics

© Thinkstock/iStock

Why Ethics?

In this chapter, we examine how the philosophical world of ethics can be applied

to organizational communication. When people hear the word ethics used in

modern society, many different images and incidents quickly come to mind.

Sadly, the twenty-first century has already been plagued with many ethical

lapses in the business sector. Turn to any major global news station, newspaper,

magazine, or podcast and you’re likely to hear about some business that is

currently in a state of crisis due to lapses in ethical judgment. Table 2.1 contains

a short list of organizations and their various ethical lapses in judgment.

Table 2.1 Modern Ethical Lapses in Organizations

Organization Ethical Lapse

Arthur Andersen Accounting fraud; shredding documents wanted in a criminal investigation

Boeing Industrial espionage

Bridgestone-

Firestone Delayed a recall of defective tires

Catholic Church Sex abuse and cover-up

Coca-Cola Took groundwater from local farmers in India

Enron Accounting fraud

Halliburton Overbilled for products and services

Martha Stewart,

Inc.

CEO convicted of insider trading

McDonald’s Eight individuals provided family and friends with winning tickets in McDonald’s

sweepstakes promotion

Merrill Lynch Lied to investors

Napster Digital copyright violations

Parmalat Accounting fraud

Sanlu Group Knowingly distributed tainted baby formula

Tyco CEO convicted of embezzling

US military Abused prisoners of war in Iraq and Afghanistan

WorldCom Accounting fraud

Xerox Exaggerated revenues

In this chapter, four distinct areas of ethical understanding will be explored: the

nature of ethics, business ethics, communication ethics, and organizational

communication ethics.

2.1 Nature of Ethics

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Define the term ethics and how it relates to both means and ends.

2. Explain the four different ethical frameworks discussed in the

ethical matrix.

3. Differentiate among the eleven philosophical perspectives of

ethics and how they apply to both business ethics and

communication ethics.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word ethics derives from the

Greek word ethos, which means the nature or disposition of a culture. [1] Ethics

is further characterized as both a field of study concerned with moral principles

and as the moral principles that govern or influence human behavior. Parhizgar

and Parhizgar define ethics as the “critical analysis of cultural values to

determine the validity of their vigorous rightness or wrongness in terms of two

major criteria: truth and justice. Ethics is examining the relation of an

individual to society, to the nature, and or to God. How do people make ethical

decisions? They are influenced by how they perceive themselves in relation to

goodness and/or excellence.” [2]

Based on this definition, the study of ethics is “concerned with cultural value

systems that are operable, either with intending to do something or actually

doing something in the realm of goodness.” [3] As we will see in this chapter,

determining “goodness” is not always black and white. To help illustrate this

point, consider the following four scenarios below. In an effort to win a new

client for your business, you choose to do one of the following:

Scenario 1: Deliver a well-supported presentation demonstrating that your

company is better able than your competitor’s to help the prospective client

expand its market share; the client signs a contract and you help increase its

market share.

Scenario 2: Lie during a presentation to impress the prospective client, who

then signs a contract with your company; ultimately, you cause the client to

lose market share.

Scenario 3: Lie during a presentation to impress the prospective client, who

then signs a contract with your company; despite the lie, you help the client

expand its market share.

Scenario 4: Deliver a well-supported presentation arguing that your

business is better able than your competitor’s to help the prospective client

expand its market share; after the client signs a contract, however, you must

acknowledge that a competitor is actually a better fit for the client and, in

fact, you are causing the client to lose market share.

Each scenario can be broken down into two parts: means and ends. According to

McCroskey, Wrench, and Richmond, means are the tools or behaviors employed

to achieve a desired outcome, while ends are the outcomes that one desires to

achieve. [4] Both means and ends can be evaluated as either good or bad.

Remember, Parhizgar and Parhizgar’s definition of ethics involves the intent to

behave, and to actually behave, in the realm of goodness. [5] McCroskey took

this a step further to suggest that, in addition to the intent and the behavior, the

goodness of the outcome is also a vital ethical consideration. [6] From this ethical

framework (later expanded by McCroskey, Wrench, and Richmond [7]) we can

derive the ethical matrix shown in Figure 2.1. The matrix combines “good” and

“bad,” plus “means” and “ends,” to produce four possibilities we have labeled

Ethical Behavior, Unethical Behavior, Machiavellian Ethic, and Subjective

Ethic.

Figure 2.1 The Ethical Matrix

Good Means/Good End: Ethical Behavior

Scenario 1 is an example of a “good” mean leading to a “good” end, or what is

termed ethical behavior in the ethical matrix. In this case, you developed a clear

argument based on facts to persuade a client (means). As a result of signing with

your company, the client increased its market share (end). In essence, you had a

good means (factually supported argument) that led to a good end (increased

market share). Behavior that contains both a good means and a good end is

considered ethical behavior.

Bad Means/Bad End: Unethical Behavior

Scenario 2 illustrates a “bad” means leading to a “bad” end, or what is termed

unethical behavior in the ethical matrix. To gain the contract you lied to the

client (means). After the client was duped into signing with your company, the

client lost market share (end). In this case, you had a bad means (lying to the

client) that led to a bad end (decreased market share). When a bad means leads

to a bad end, the behavior is considered unethical.

The first two quadrants in the ethical matrix are obvious and easily discerned in

the world of business. Often, however, determining the ethical nature of behavior

is not as clear as in the first two examples. The next two examples provide the

last two variations in the ethical matrix.

Bad Means/Good End: Machiavellian Ethic

Scenario 3 describes a “bad” means that leads to a “good” end, or what is termed

the Machiavellian ethic in the ethical matrix. In this case, you purposely lied to

the client in an effort to win the contract. Despite this, the client actually gained

market share. Here we have a situation where there was a bad means (lying to

the client) that led to a good end (increased market share). When a bad means

leads to a good end, we refer to this as the Machiavellian ethic. The term

Machiavellian ethic derives its name from Niccolò Machiavelli, whose book The

Prince was written in 1513. The Prince was written during a dark period in

Machiavelli’s life after he had been imprisoned and tortured for his alleged role

in a conspiracy to assassinate a member of the ruling Medici family. Banished to

the Tuscan countryside, Machiavelli set about writing a treatise to help the

Medicis stay in power. While some ethicists claim that a bad means is always

unethical, others claim that “the end justifies the means.” Machiavelli argued in

The Prince that, while leaders should, if possible, avoid the hatred of their

subjects, it is better for leaders to be feared than loved. Since Machiavelli

believed that a leader’s primary job is to foster order and protect the people, a

prince must use any means necessary to achieve those ends. Although

Machiavelli never actually wrote “the end justifies the means,”

Machiavellianism is closely aligned with this general notion.

Good Means/Bad End: Subjective Ethic

Scenario 4 depicts a “good” means that leads to a “bad” end; this is termed a

subjective ethic in the ethical matrix. In this case, you presented a clear case to

the client based on your interpretation of the facts (means). But the client, after

signing with you, lost market share (end). When a good means (clear argument)

leads to a bad end (decreased market share), we refer to this as a “subjective”

ethic because your intent (as the presenter) is ultimately known only to you. On

the one hand, you may have honestly believed your interpretation of the facts,

even though the eventual outcome was not as you hoped. On the other hand, you

may have “spun” the facts to your advantage, despite knowing that lost market

share was a possible outcome if your interpretation proved wrong. Indeed, it is

even possible that you honestly presented the facts to the client, but all along

intended to win the contract and then undermine the client’s market position. So

your intention in making a clearly presented argument might alternatively have

been sincere, self-serving, or malicious. This is why we call this ethical situation

subjective, because it depends on the person’s intent.

While a discussion of means and ends is a helpful way to frame ethical thoughts,

many philosophical traditions have explored the nature of ethics. Table 2.2 lists

eleven major philosophical perspectives that have been used to determine what

is and is not ethical.

Table 2.2 Major Ethical Perspectives

Ethical Perspective Basic Premises Business Application Communication

Application

Altruism

The standard is based on

doing what is best or good for

others.

Ethical business behavior

must be good for other

people.

Communicative

behavior must lead

to a good end for

the receiver.

Categorical

Imperative/Deontology

The standard is based on the

notion that moral duties

should be obeyed without

exception. This perspective is

very clear on what is good and

what is bad—no middle

ground.

There are clear business

behaviors that are and are

not ethical, so all

individuals should avoid

behaving unethically in

business.

There are some

communicative

behaviors that are

never ethical (e.g.,

deception).

Communitarianism

The standard is based on

whether behavior helps to

restore the social fabric of

society.

Business must behave in a

manner that helps the

social fabric of society.

Communicative

behavior must help

the social fabric of

society.

Cultural Relativism

The standard is an individual’s

cultural or legal system of

values. These standards differ

from culture to culture.

(1) The law determines

business ethics.

(2) One’s nationalistic

culture determines what is

ethical.

(3) One’s organizational

culture determines what is

ethical.

Our legal system

and

cultures/cocultures

define ethical

communication.

Ethical Egoism

The standard is an individual’s

self-interest. Emphasis is on

how one should behave; it

encourages people to look out

People in business should

behave in whatever

manner is most effective

to achieve their self-

People should

communicate in

whatever manner is

most effective for

achieving their

for their own self-interests. interests. communicative

goals.

Justice

The standard is based on three

principles of justice: (1) each

person has a right to basic

liberties; (2) everyone ought

to be given the same chance to

qualify for offices and jobs;

and (3) when inequalities

exist, a priority should be

given to meeting the needs of

the disadvantaged.

Business decisions should

be made on how the

decisions will affect all

relevant stakeholders’

equally. However, when

stakeholders’ needs are in

conflict, priority should be

given to meeting the needs

of those in subjugated

stakeholder groups.

People should

communicate in a

manner that is

consistent with a

range of

stakeholders.

Nihilism

Ethics innately prevent

individuals from creating new

ideas and values that

challenge the status quo, so

individuals of superior

intellect should disavow any

attempt by others to subject

them to an ethical perspective.

Smart business people

should not be hampered in

their behavior by any

archaic or contemporary

notions of good and bad

business behavior.

Smart

communicators

know that what

matters is

achieving one’s

communicative

goals, so they

should not adhere

to any prescribed

notions of good

and bad

communicative

behavior.

People in business People actually

communicate in

Psychological Egoism

The standard is an individual’s

self-interest. Emphasis is on

how one actually behaves;

everything we do is influenced

by self-interested motives.

actually behave in

whatever manner is most

effective to achieve their

self-interests.

whatever manner is

most effective for

achieving their

communicative

goals.

Social Relativism

The standard is the interests of

an individual’s friends, group,

or community.

People in business should

behave in a manner

consistent with the

interests of their social

networks and

communities.

People in business

should

communicate in a

manner consistent

with the interests of

their social

networks and

communities.

Subjectivism

The standard is based on an

individual’s personal opinion

of moral judgment. For this

reason, perceptions of ethics

differ from person to person.

Whatever an individual in

business determines is

ethical for her or his

behavior is ethical for that

individual.

Individual

communicators

determine what is

and is not ethical

from their own

individual vantage

point.

Utilitarianism

The standard is the greatest

good for the greatest number

of people.

People in business should

behave in a manner that

does the greatest amount

of good for the greatest

People should

communicate in a

manner that does

the greatest amount

of good for the

number of people. greatest number of

people.

The eleven philosophical traditions described in Table 2.2 illustrate both the

great variety of ethical perspectives and that philosophers do not agree on any

single ethical system. [8] The rest of this chapter will focus on three contexts

where ethical thought has been applied: business, human communication, and

organizational communication.

KEY TAKEAWAY

The term ethics is a complicated one and has been defined by a

wide range of scholars over the years. Ultimately, ethics is an

examination of whether an individual uses “good” or “bad” means

in an attempt to achieve a desired outcome that could be deemed

“good” or “bad.” As simplistic as this may sound, actually studying

and determining whether behavior is ethical can be a daunting

task.

The ethical matrix examines the intersections of means and ends

by examining four distinct categories where ethical behavior may

occur. First, behavior is deemed ethical if an individual uses a

good means to achieve a good end. Second, behavior is deemed

unethical if an individual uses a bad means to achieve a bad end.

Third, behavior is referred to as the Machiavellian ethic when an

individual uses a bad means to achieve a good end. Lastly, when

an individual uses a good means to achieve a bad end, the

behavior is referred to as the subjective ethic.

There are many different philosophical traditions in the study of

ethics. Table 2.2 outlines eleven different ethical perspectives.

This table briefly explains each philosophical perspective and

then demonstrates how it can be applied both in a business

context and to organizational communication specifically.

EXERCISES

1. Look at a recent copy of Bloomberg Businessweek, the Wall

Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, or any other business-

oriented publication. Find articles that specifically discuss ethical

areas in modern business. How would you apply the definition of

ethics to these articles?

2. Look at a recent copy of Bloomberg Businessweek, the Wall

Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, or other business-oriented

publication. Find examples of each of the four different types of

ethical possibilities described by the ethical matrix.

3. Look at the list of major ethical lapses in business discussed at

the beginning of this chapter. Analyze one of the ethical lapses

listed, using three of the eleven philosophical perspectives on

ethics. How does filtering one’s ethical framework based on a

specific philosophical perspective alter how you view those ethical

Machiavellian Ethic:

Ends :

Ethical Behavior:

Ethics :

Means :

Subjective Ethic:

Unethical Behavior:

lapses?

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Component of the ethical matrix in which an individual employs bad means that lead to a good end.

Component of ethical analysis in which one examines the outcomes that an individual or group of individuals desires to achieve.

Component of the ethical matrix in which an individual employs good means that lead to a good end.

The philosophical study and evaluation of the means and ends of human behavior.

Component of ethical analysis in which one examines the tools or behaviors that an individual or group of individual employs to achieve a desired outcome.

Component of the ethical matrix in which an individual employs good means that lead to a bad end.

Component of the ethical matrix in which an individual employs bad means that lead to a bad end.

[1] Ethics. The Oxford English Dictionary. (1963). Oxford, UK: Clarendon.

[2] Parhizgar, K. D., & Parhizgar, R. (2006). Multicultural business ethics

and global managerial moral reasoning. Lanham, MD: University Press of

America, p. 77.

[3] Parhizgar, K. D., & Parhizgar, R. (2006). Multicultural business ethics

and global managerial moral reasoning. Lanham, MD: University Press of

America, p. 77.

[4] McCroskey, J. C., Wrench, J. S., & Richmond, V. P. (2003). Principles

of public speaking. Indianapolis, IN: College Network.

[5] Parhizgar, K. D., & Parhizgar, R. (2006). Multicultural business ethics

and global managerial moral reasoning. Lanham, MD: University Press of

America, p. 77.

[6] McCroskey, J. C. (2006). An introduction to rhetorical communication:

A Western rhetorical perspective (9th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

[7] McCroskey, J. C., Wrench, J. S., & Richmond, V. P. (2003). Principles

of public speaking. Indianapolis, IN: College Network.

[8] Lewis, P. V., & Speck, H. E. (1990). Ethical orientations for

understanding business ethics. Journal of Business Communication,

27(3), 213–232.

2.2 Business Ethics

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Identify Cherrington and Cherrington’s typology of ethical lapses

in business.

2. Understand how Cherrington and Cherrington’s typology of ethical

lapses applies to the modern workplace.

3. Explain how computer-mediated social networking and

generational differences impact ethics in the modern organization.

© Thinkstock/iStock

Table 2.1 lists a number of ethical lapses perpetrated by various organizations

during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Business ethics is such a hot

topic that, since 2000, more than a thousand books have been written with the

phrase “business ethics” in the title. One could easily be misled, then, into

thinking that the idea of ethical business behavior and practices is a creation of

the twenty-first century. But discussion of ethical and unethical business

behavior is as old as the marketplace itself. Closer to our own day, the Center for

Business Ethics at Bentley College was founded in 1976 and a year later held the

first academic conference on the subject. [1] The published proceedings of that

conference became the first text on business ethics and an international

bestseller. [2] In 1982, the Journal of Business Ethics was launched. We mention

this brief history to show that the idea of ethics and ethical violations in

organizations is not a new academic endeavor or corporate phenomenon. To

more fully understand the subject of business ethics, we will examine the most

common ethical lapses in organizations and present a series of survey results that

suggest the current state of business ethics.

Typology of Ethical Lapses

While most organizations believe that their specific ethical dilemmas are unique,

Cherrington and Cherrington found that most organizations face very similar

ethical dilemmas. [3] In so doing, they developed a typology, or classification

system, of twelve specific issues in business. The following ethical issues are

illustrative statistics taken from the annual Deloitte Ethics & Workplace Survey [4] and from surveys conducted by the Ethics Resource Center: [5]

1. Stealing ranges from taking a box of pencils home for personal use, to

conducting personal business (such as making phone calls, playing

computer games, and chatting on Facebook) on company time, to skimming

millions of dollars from corporate accounts.

2. Lying may be rationalized as a way to get a job, keep a job, or win a

promotion. Some occupations even encourage deception as an integral part

of the work. [6]

3. Fraud and deceit, which Cherrington and Cherrington distinguish from

general lying, is the attempt to create a false impression by representing

yourself or your organization as something it is not. For example, you

might pretend to be successful, when in reality, you are not, to gain the

confidence of a potential employer or client. This ethical lapse can also be

passive, as when you fail to set the record straight when someone praises

you for work done by others or when someone blames others for errors you

made.

4. Bribes, payoffs, and kickbacks are attempts to influence decision makers

into making decisions that favor the party who is offering the payments.

Such influence buying creates a conflict of interest for the decision maker,

who has allowed personal interests to interfere with professional judgments. [7]

5. Hiding versus divulging information raises a significant ethical question,

as those who possess information can greatly impact an organization by

their decisions about what to do with that information. Would you sell a

client what is technically the “latest” version of your product, even though

you know a better version is about to be released? If you were hired by a

competing company, would you give them inside information about your

old company?

6. Cheating is the attempt to gain an unfair advantage and thus the power to

control the outcome of a situation. Consider three examples: a company that

exploits its monopoly on a lifesaving drug, a CEO who receives a

multimillion-dollar bonus when hundreds of company employees are being

laid off, and an executive who promotes her son when other employees are

more qualified. In all three of these situations, people are taking unfair

advantage of the positions they hold.

7. Personal decadence was much in the news during the 2008 recession

when, for example, auto industry executives flew their corporate jets to

Washington and then asked Congress for billions of dollars to bail out their

companies. Yet personal decadence can be an ethical lapse for ordinary

employees who purposely work at a slow pace, use drugs or alcohol at

work, or otherwise indulge themselves at their organization’s expense.

8. Interpersonal abuse encompasses “physical violence, sexual harassment,

emotional abuse, abuse of one’s position, racism, and sexism” between

individuals in the workplace. [8]

9. Organizational abuse concerns the organization’s treatment of its

members, whereas interpersonal abuse occurs between individuals.

Examples include “inequity in compensation, performance appraisals that

destroy self-esteem, transfers or time pressures that destroy family life,

terminating people through no fault of their own, encouraging loyalty and

not rewarding it, and creating the myth that the organization will

benevolently protect or direct an employee’s career.” [9]

10. Rule violations in organizations can be a gray area. In society,

transgressing rules such as religious commandments and government laws

often has clear consequences. But in organizations, rules are typically

handed down in the form of an employee manual. At times, the

organization may benefit if the rules are “flexibly” applied; at other times, a

“zero-tolerance” approach is best. Many companies “bend” the rules on

personal phone calls a bit if the call is necessary and the employee keeps it

brief; no organization, however, should tolerate sexual harassment.

11. Abetting unethical acts occurs when an individual knows that another

person intends to commit, or has committed, an ethical violation and

decides to become an “accessory” by passively doing nothing or actively

going along. Those who find themselves in the accessory position face the

ethical dilemma of whether or not to report the violation.

12. Moral balance is a philosophical concept that refers to the possibility that a

good outcome may later have bad repercussions. For example, an

organization might introduce a product that can save thousands of lives

(primary outcome) but in the process will harm the ecosystem and make it

less able to sustain the next generations (secondary outcome). On the other

hand, a decision not to introduce the product will preserve the ecosystem

for future generations (primary outcome) but lead to a substantial loss of

life in the present (secondary outcome). How do you decide which option is

ethical? Decisions involving moral balance are often the most difficult to

make.

Social Networking and Generational Differences

Thus far we have examined basic issues related to business ethics and the

various types of ethical violations that commonly occur. Recent literature on the

subject of business ethics has focused on two emerging areas of concern: social

networking and generational differences.

The Ethics of Social Networking

With the invention of Web 2.0 technologies like YouTube, Facebook, and blogs,

organizations have faced ethical issues that previously did not exist. People have

always talked about their organization, and some would even go so far as to

publish articles in a local newspaper about an organization. However, with

today’s social media, the ability to easily and quickly write and/or say negative

things about one’s organization or to divulge private organizational information

to a wide public has grown exponentially. The 2012 National Business Ethics

Survey indicates that more than 70 percent of workers today engage in some

form of online social networking activity at work (among these workers, 95

percent are active during work hours on Facebook, 43 percent on Twitter, 37

percent on LinkedIn, 37 percent on Google+). [10] The Ethics Resource Center

breaks social networkers into three workplace categories: active (10 percent of

employees who spend at least 30 percent of their workday on social networking

sites), moderate (62 percent who spend less than 30 percent of their workday),

and nonwork social networkers (28 percent who do not use social media at

work). Most employers would regard excessive social networking on company

time as stealing from the organization. Jason Lundy [11] has listed eleven

concerns related to the ethics of social media use in the workplace:

1. Misuse of work time

2. Misuse of company equipment

3. Security risks to company computer systems, network, or data

4. Disclosure of confidential or other nonpublic information

5. Disparaging, harassing, or bullying coworkers online

6. Conflicts of interest (e.g., blogging about a product without mentioning you

work for the company; putting out information that makes it appear as if

you are communicating on behalf of the organization when you are not)

7. Unfair competition (e.g., posting Amazon reviews for your organization’s

products and services without saying you work for the organization;

disparaging a competitor’s products and services online without saying

whom you work for)

8. Records maintenance (e.g., sending work-related e-mails from a personal e-

mail account; using social media to distribute organizational

communications)

9. Espionage or fraud (e.g., acting like a customer with a competitor to see

what that organization is doing; posting false reviews of a competitor’s

products and services online without saying whom you work for)

10. Privacy (e.g., posting personal information of a colleague, client, or other

stakeholder; forwarding internal organizational communications without

permission)

11. Damage to reputation (e.g., disparaging your organization online in a way

that causes financial harm, recruitment problems, or other negative effects)

Although 79 percent of workers are employed in organizations that block access

to some (or all) social networking sites, people still find ways to access them

through their personal devices. Those individuals who are active social

networkers tend to be more lax in other ethical areas as well (e.g., retaining

confidential work documents that could be used in a future job, using company

credit cards for personal reasons, taking home company software). [12] As the

idea of keeping our personal lives private diminishes in society as a whole,

companies fear that employees may start to take a similar view of their

organizations’ privacy.

Although social media raises new ethical issues, the technology can be used for

work-related purposes in beneficial ways. Many organizations promote the use

of social networking for training, professional development, marketing, and

other purposes. The Ethics Resource Center [13] has identified a number of ways

organizations can positively utilize social networking to enhance their interaction

with various stakeholders:

Present a positive brand to external stakeholders

Externally promote new products, programs, and/or services

Demonstrate what the organization is doing positively for its community

Announce new business deals and ventures

Interact with customers/clients to better handle customer complaints

Recruit potential new clients and organizational members

Build internal loyalty among organizational members

Facilitate teamwork

Communicate employee achievements, performance, and personal

milestones

Allow leaders to directly communicate organizational values to members

Foster discussions of organizational ethics

From this list, you can see that the ethics of social networking are not black and

white. There is no clear-cut, one-size-fits-all model for handling social

networking ethics within the workplace. However, organizations today must

develop clear policies that describe and explain what constitutes ethical and

unethical social networking in the workplace.

Generational Differences and Business Ethics

Before too long, we will have five different generations of people working in the

modern organizational environment—and potentially five ways of approaching

work. [14] Although Generation Z has not entered the workforce for the most

part, we are starting to get an idea of how this postmillennial generation will

view work. [15] Table 2.3 presents a snapshot of how each of the five generations

views work.

Table 2.3 Generational Differences at Work

Generation

Workplace

Characteristic

Traditionalists

(Greatest

Generation)

1922–45

Baby Boomers

1946–64

Generation X

1965–80

Generation

Y

(Millennials)

1981–2000

Z

(iGeneration,

Plurals)

2000+

Work is a(n)… Obligation Adventure Challenge Means to an

end

Expression of

one’s self

Work values

Dedication, hard

work, respect for

authority

Team-oriented,

personal growth,

involvement

Diversity,

technoliteracy,

self-reliance

Optimism,

confidence,

sociability

Pleased,

energized,

indifferent

Communication Formal memo In person Direct, to the

point

E-mail, voice

mail Continuous

Motivation To be respected To be valued Freedom Environment Balance

View of

authority Respectful Love/hate Unimpressed Polite Respectful

Leadership by Hierarchy Consensus Competence Teamwork Independence

Based on research by Zemke, R., Raines, C., & Filipczak, B. (2013).

Generations at work: Managing the clash of Boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Yers

in the workplace (2nd ed.). New York, NY: AMACOM; and Frank N. Magid

Associates. (2012, April 30). The first generation of the twenty-first century: An

introduction to the Pluralist generation. Retrieved from http://magid.com

The generations’ differing approaches to work naturally drive some differences

in how each views business ethics. Figure 2.2 illustrates some of these

differences that exist between the Traditionalists, Boomers, Gen Xers, and

Millennials. You’ll notice that this table does not have information about

Generation Z, because they were not actively in the workforce when this study

was published in 2013.

Figure 2.2 Generational Differences at Work

Note on reading table: Colors indicate statistically significant differences. Green indicates most favorable

result; yellow is more favorable than red, and less favorable than green; and red is the least favorable

result. Light gray indicates the result is equal to all other groups.

Reprinted with permission of the Ethics Resource Center © 2013.

As you can see from this chart, differences exist among the generations about

ethics in the workplace. No one generation is “right.” Nevertheless,

organizations today face the challenge of promulgating codes of ethics that all

generations will support. Not an easy task! Still, every generation would likely

agree that organizational leaders must model the ethical behavior they expect of

everyone else.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Cherrington and Cherrington proposed a typology of twelve

ethical lapses that are common in modern business: (1) stealing,

(2) lying, (3) false impressions, (4) conflicts of interest, (5)

hiding/divulging information, (6) cheating, (7) personal

decadence, (8) interpersonal abuse, (9) organizational abuse,

(10) rule violations, (11) abetting unethical acts, and (12) moral

balance.

Surveys have found examples of all twelve ethical lapses. While

some lapses are clearly more common (e.g., 77 percent of

participants admitted to stealing corporate time by using

technology for personal uses), others did not appear to be

frequent ethical lapses (e.g., 6 percent took credit for someone

else’s work, 4 percent misused corporate finances).

Social media use in the workplace is an emerging issue in

business ethics. Excessive use lowers productivity and exposes

the organization to security risks. As employees expect less

privacy in their personal lives, companies fear their employees

may not fully respect expectations of organizational privacy. At the

same time, however, many organizations encourage social media

use at work for purposes of work-related training and professional

networking. Organizations today must develop clear policies for

what constitutes ethical and unethical social media use at work.

We now have five generations in the workplace: traditionalists

(born between 1922 and 1945), baby boomers (1946–64),

Generation X (1965–80), Generation Y (1982–2000), and

Generation Z (after 2000). Each generation has different views

about the meaning of work and its place in their lives, which may

drive different views of workplace ethics. Organizations must

develop codes of ethics, however, that all generations will

support. This process necessarily begins as leaders model the

ethical behaviors they expect of everyone else.

EXERCISES

1. Which of the twelve ethical lapses in modern business described

Moral Balance:

by Cherrington and Cherrington contain communication

components?

2. Of these ethical lapses, which one is the most pervasive in your

current workplace? Which one is the least pervasive? If you were

the CEO of your organization, what would you do to combat the

ethical lapses you identified as most systematic?

3. Look at a recent copy of Bloomberg Businessweek, the Wall

Street Journal, Forbes, or any other business publication. Find

examples of the twelve ethical lapses discussed by Cherrington

and Cherrington.

4. If you were a CEO, how would you go about developing a

company policy for social media use?

5. If you were a CEO, how would you go about developing a

company code of ethics that all five generations in the workplace

—Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, and Generations X, Y, and Z—

would support?

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

The philosophical debate that occurs when an individual is faced with the possibility that a good primary outcome may lead to a bad secondary outcome.

[1] Hoffman, W. M. (1982). Introduction. Journal of Business Ethics, 1,

79–80.

[2] Hoffman, W. M. (1977). The proceedings of the first national

conference on business ethics: Business values and social justice—

compatibility or contradiction? Waltham, MA: Center for Business Ethics.

[3] Cherrington, J. O., & Cherrington, D. J. (1992). A menu of moral

issues: One week in the life of the Wall Street Journal. Journal of

Business Ethics, 11, 255–265.

[4] Statistics cited in this section are derived in part from Deloitte. (2006).

Business ethics and compliance in the Sarbanes-Oxley era: A survey by

Deloitte and Corporate Board Member magazine; Deloitte. (2007).

Leadership counts: Deloitte & Touche USA 2007 ethics & workplace

survey results; Deloitte. (2008). Transparency matters: Deloitte LLP 2008

ethics & workplace survey results; Deloitte. (2009). Social networking and

reputational risk in the workplace: Deloitte LLP 2009 ethics & workplace

survey results; Deloitte. (2010). Trust in the workplace: Deloitte LLP 2010

ethics & workplace survey results. All surveys available online at

http://www.deloitte.com

[5] Statistics cited in this section are derived in part from Ethics Resource

Center (2012). 2011 national business ethics survey: Workplace ethics in

transition; Ethics Resource Center (2013a). Generational differences in

workplace ethics: A supplemental report of the 2011 national business

ethics survey; Ethics Resource Center (2013b). National business ethics

survey of social networkers: New risks and opportunities at work. All

surveys available online at http://www.ethics.org/nbes

[6] Shulman, D. (2007). From hire to liar: The role of deception in the

workplace. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.Shulman, D. (2007). From hire to liar:

The role of deception in the workplace. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.

[7] Desjardins, J. (2009). An introduction to business ethics (3rd ed.).

Boston: McGraw-Hill.Desjardins, J. (2009). An introduction to business

ethics (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

[8] Cherrington, J. O., & Cherrington, D. J. (1992). A menu of moral

issues: One week in the life of the Wall Street Journal. Journal of

Business Ethics, 11, 255–265, p. 256.

[9] Cherrington, J. O., & Cherrington, D. J. (1992). A menu of moral

issues: One week in the life of the Wall Street Journal. Journal of

Business Ethics, 11, 255–265, pp. 256–257.

[10] Ethics Resource Center. (2013b). National business ethics survey of

social networkers: New risks and opportunities at work. Retrieved from

http://www.ethics.org/nbes

[11] Lundy, J. (2010). Managing the workplace ethics of social media.

Retrieved from http://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/

[12] Ethics Resource Center. (2012). 2011 national business ethics

survey: Workplace ethics in transition. Retrieved from

http://www.ethics.org/nbes

[13] Ethics Resource Center. (2013b). National business ethics survey of

social networkers: New risks and opportunities at work. Retrieved from

http://www.ethics.org/nbes

[14] Zemke, R., Raines, C., & Filipczak, B. (2013). Generations at work:

Managing the clash of Boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Yers in the

workplace (2nd ed.). New York, NY: AMACOM.

[15] Frank N. Magid Associates. (2012, April 30). The first generation of

the twenty-first century: An introduction to the pluralist generation.

Retrieved from http://magid.com

2.3 Communication Ethics

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Understand Andersen’s three viewpoints for communication

ethics.

2. Differentiate the three ways that individuals understand ethics as

described by Arnett, Harden Fritz, and Bell.

“Stick and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!” We all

know that playground chant from our childhoods. Yet the fact is that name-

calling does hurt, perhaps even with lifelong psychological consequences. Just as

ethical decision making must guide our actions, so also our words. At a

minimum, observed Johannesen, Valde, and Whedbee, ethics must be considered

when a communicative behavior (1) “could have a significant impact on other

persons,” (2) “involves conscious choice of means and ends,” and (3) “can be

judged by standards of right and wrong.” [1] As we learned in Chapter 1—and

will discuss more in Chapter 4—human communication is a complex behavior.

The introductory model of communication we reviewed in Chapter 1 describes a

source who crafts a message, selects a channel, attempts to stimulate in the

minds of receivers an accurate interpretation of the message, and considers

feedback. All these actions are complexly interrelated. For that reason, argued

James McCroskey, simple debate over means and ends cannot lead to “viable

systems for evaluating the ethics of human communication.” [2]

Three Viewpoints for Ethical Communication

Ethics must be seen, noted Kenneth Andersen, as “a dimension that is relevant

to all the actors in the communication process—the source or the originator, the

person that initiates communication; the person who receives, interprets, hears,

reads the communication; and the people who, in effect, are further agents of

transmission.” [3] In essence, Andersen described three viewpoints that must be

considered: the source, the receiver, and the larger society.

Source Ethics

The ethics of the source come down to her or his intent toward the receivers of

the message. More than two millennia ago, Aristotle was the first to write on this

subject. For him, the techniques of rhetoric and persuasion were neutral, tools

that could be used by a speaker to produce predictable effects in an audience. If

the tools are neutral and the effects predictable, then “ethical judgments in

rhetorical communication should be based exclusively on the intent of the source

toward the audience.” [4]

Receiver Ethics

The ethics of the receivers involve their individual choices of how to process the

message being sent by the source. This “receiver ethic” starts with the notion

that receiving a message should be an active, not passive, process. Each receiver

has “a 100 percent responsibility to listen, to be critical, to evaluate, to reject, to

demand more information, to reject, whatever the case may be.” [5] Active

listening, however, first requires objective reception rather than forming snap

judgments based on initial perceptions of the source or the message. When these

perceptions interfere with our ability as a receiver to listen, be critical, evaluate,

or reject a message, we are not ethically attending to a message.

Society Ethics

The larger society is, for Kenneth Andersen, composed of third parties who are

not directly involved in a communicative exchange and yet are listening.

Whether you eavesdrop on a restaurant conversation at the next table or

inadvertently hear the couple next door fighting at three in the morning, you too

have ethics to consider. In both cases, your dilemma is what you should do with

the information you received. If you overhear gossip at the table next to you, is it

ethical to pass on that information to others? If you hear one partner next door

physically abusing the other, do you have an ethical obligation to call the police?

“[Your] responsibilities in every case will be unique to the situation, unique to

one’s ability to fulfill the role of intermediary.” [6]

Three Understandings of Ethics

A survey of business communicators discovered that most “come to the job with

a sense of ethics developed chiefly through the influence of their mothers and

fathers,” then “look to colleagues and supervisors as sources of continuing

moral guidance,” and ultimately “make their moral choices according to

feelings and conscience.” [7] The “intuitive ethics” practiced at work by these

professionals derive from “a composite of cultural lessons” whose values and

ideologies are routinized “until their adoption simply becomes common place.” [8] This aptly illustrates what Arnett, Harden Fritz, and Bell have called the

“commonsense” understanding of ethics. But rather than remain at this lowest

level of ethical understanding, they encourage communicators to engage with

theory and, at the highest level, dedicate themselves to ethical learning. [9]

Commonsense Understanding

Arnett, Harden Fritz, and Bell define commonsense as “the commonly

understood, taken-for-granted assumptions about the way the world works and

expected communicative behaviors one will meet in navigating that world in

daily life.” [10] Yet commonsense varies over time and across cultures. For

example, one researcher found that adults in a blue-collar Chicago neighborhood

were expected to physically correct rather than “communicate” with children,

while affluent parents in the Pacific Northwest urged children to “communicate”

their feelings. [11] The commonsense of many Middle Eastern cultures, on the

other hand, is that women should not speak to men they do not know. Nonverbal

communication is likewise governed by a culture’s commonsense. In the MTV

reality show Road Rules: The Quest, a female character was stoned when she

wore shorts on the streets of an Islamic city—a violation of the community’s

religious law and commonsense dress code. The enormous variety of

“commonsense expectations is neither good nor bad, but simply a defining

reality of our time.” [12]

Theoretical Understanding

Ethical theories of communication offer a step up from commonsense. As we

saw in Table 2.2, many theories have been proposed to guide individuals in their

ethical choices. But adopting any one theory of communication ethics cuts two

ways, for though it “opens the world, permitting us to see with clarity,” by

providing only a single frame it “simultaneously occludes our vision.” Thus “a

theory both illuminates and obscures.” [13]

Learning and Understanding

Given the limits of commonsense and even of theorizing, ethical communicators

must commit themselves to learning. First, ethical communicators must learn not

to assume that their own commonsense and their favorite theories are universal

truths acknowledged by all. Then, ethical communicators must take the lack of

consensus as an opportunity to seek out and learn from the many ways that

different cultures perceive and understand communicative ethics. “Learning and

understanding different standpoints is a pragmatic communication ethics act.” [14] Such a commitment to “diversity of perspective” and “to understand and

respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their

messages” is captured in the National Communication Association Credo for

Ethical Communication, which can be found here: NCA Credo.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Andersen argued that ethical decisions about communicative

behavior must be made not only by the sender of a message but

also by the receiver and by the larger society. The sender’s

ethical responsibility relates to his or her intention toward the

receivers. The receivers’ ethical responsibility relates to their

decisions about how to process the message, whether to give it

fair consideration and make a snap judgment. The larger society

—or those who were not directly involved in a communicative

exchange but heard the message—must decide what to do with

the information received.

Arnett, Harden Fritz, and Bell described three levels of

understanding in communication ethics. The lowest level is

commonsense, or understanding communication according to the

commonsense of one’s culture. The next level is theoretical

understanding, which rises above commonsense and allows one

to see more clearly but also limits the communicator to a single

framework. The highest level of understanding is attained through

learning, in which the ethical communicator seeks to learn from

diverse perspectives on communication.

EXERCISES

1. Look at a recent copy of Bloomberg Businessweek, the Wall

Street Journal, Forbes, or another business-oriented publication.

Commonsense :

Find an example of communication ethics and then describe that

example from the viewpoint of the source’s ethics, the receivers’

ethics, and the ethics of those (such as yourself) in the larger

society who were not directly involved in the exchange but have

heard the information.

2. Why do you think Arnett, Harden Fritz, and Bell (2009) argue that

learning is the first principle of ethics? Why is learning more

valuable than either common sense or theories?

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

“The commonly understood, taken-for-granted assumptions about the way the world works and expected communicative behaviors one will meet in navigating that world in daily life.”

[1] Johanessen, R., Valde, K. S., & Whedbee, K. E. (2008). Ethics in

human communication. Long Grove, IL: Waveland, p. 1.

[2] McCroskey, J. C. (2006). An introduction to rhetorical communication:

A Western rhetorical perspective (9th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon, p. 239.

[3] Andersen, K. E. (2007). A conversation about communication ethics

with Kenneth E. Andersen. In P. Arneson (Ed.), Exploring communication

ethics: Interviews with influential scholars in the field (pp. 131–142). New

York, NY: Peter Lang, p. 132.

[4] McCroskey, J. C. (2006). An introduction to rhetorical communication:

A Western rhetorical perspective (9th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon, p. 295.

[5] Andersen, K. E. (2007). A conversation about communication ethics

with Kenneth E. Andersen. In P. Arneson (Ed.), Exploring communication

ethics: Interviews with influential scholars in the field (pp. 131–142). New

York, NY: Peter Lang, p. 132.

[6] Andersen, K. E. (2007). A conversation about communication ethics

with Kenneth E. Andersen. In P. Arneson (Ed.), Exploring communication

ethics: Interviews with influential scholars in the field (pp. 131–142). New

York, NY: Peter Lang, p. 133.

[7] Dragga, S. (1997). A question of ethics: Lessons from technical

communicators on the job. Technical Communication Quarterly, 6, 161–

178, p. 173. See also Dragga, S. (1996). “Is this ethical?” A survey of

opinion on principles and practices of document design. Technical

Communication, 43, 255–265.

[8] Faber, B. (1999). Intuitive ethics: Understanding and critiquing the role

of intuition in ethical decisions. Technical Communication Quarterly, 8(2),

189–202, p. 193.

[9] Arnett, R. C., Harden Fritz, J. M., & Bell, L. M. (2009). Communication

ethics literacy: Dialogue and difference. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[10] Arnett, R. C., Harden Fritz, J. M., & Bell, L. M. (2009).

Communication ethics literacy: Dialogue and difference. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage, p. 62.

[11] Philipsen, G. (1975). Speaking “like a man” in Teamsterville: Culture

patterns of role enactment in an urban neighborhood. Quarterly Journal

of Speech, 61(1), 13–22; Katriel, T., & Philipsen, G. (1981). “What we

need is communication”: “Communication” as a cultural category in some

American speech. Communication Monographs, 48(4), 301–317.

[12] Arnett, R. C., Harden Fritz, J. M., & Bell, L. M. (2009).

Communication ethics literacy: Dialogue and difference. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage, p. 68.

[13] Arnett, R. C., Harden Fritz, J. M., & Bell, L. M. (2009).

Communication ethics literacy: Dialogue and difference. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage, p. 70.

[14] Arnett, R. C., Harden Fritz, J. M., & Bell, L. M. (2009).

Communication ethics literacy: Dialogue and difference. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage, p. 62.

2.4 Organizational Communication Ethics

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Differentiate among the components of Redding’s (1996) typology

of unethical organizational communication.

2. Understand the four phases of the feminist perspective of

organizational communication ethics proposed by Mattson and

Buzzanell (1999).

3. Describe why Montgomery and DeCaro (2001) believe that

human performance improvement can help organizations in

improving organizational communication ethics.

4. Assess the implementation of an organizational communication

ethics intervention using a human performance improvement

model.

The preponderance of everyday problems that plague all organizations is either

problems that are patently ethical or moral in nature, or they are problems in

which deeply embedded ethical issues can be identified. And this proposition is

ethically significant, of course, when we recall the axiom that communication is

a prerequisite for the very existence of any organization. [1]

This statement was written by W. Charles Redding, widely considered the father

of organizational communication as an academic discipline, who published this

shortly before his death. While he did not believe that organizational

communication scholars and practitioners need to become trained ethicists, he

urged anyone studying the subject to become versed in different theoretical

perspectives on ethics. Such familiarity could, he advised, help organizational

communicators address four basic questions:

1. “What messages or other communication events are perceived by which

perceivers as unethical?”

2. “Why? That is, what criteria are cited for making specific ethical

evaluations?”

3. “In what respects do these criteria appear to be grounded in organizational

(or other) cultures?”

4. “What are the consequences of unethical communication? What, in other

words, are the relationships between unethical communication and other

organizational and societal phenomena?” [2]

Identifying Unethical Communication

Redding was also keenly aware that theory must be translated into practice. For

as Matthew Seeger noted, applied ethics in organizational communication

“focuses on norms and guidelines of professional practice, methodologies for

promoting ethical decision-making, various codes of conducts and how these

function to promote discussion, informal decisions, and resolve practical ethical

problems.” [3] To aid organizations on an everyday level, Redding proposed a

typology—summarized in Table 2.4—for identifying unethical organizational

communication: coercive, destructive, deceptive, intrusive, secretive, and

manipulative/exploitative.

Table 2.4 Redding's Typology of Unethical Communication

An organizational communication act is

unethical if it is… Such organizational communication unethically…

Coercive

• Abuses power or authority

• Unjustifiably invades others’ autonomy

• Stigmatizes dissents

• Restricts freedom of speech

• Refuses to listen

• Uses rules to stifle discussion and complaints

Destructive

• Attacks others’ self-esteem, reputations, or feelings

• Disregards others’ values

• Engages in insults, innuendoes, epithets, or

derogatory jokes

• Uses putdowns, backstabbing, and character

assassination

• Employs so-called truth as a weapon

• Violates confidentiality and privacy to gain an

advantage

• Withholds constructive feedback

Deceptive

• Willfully perverts the truth to deceive, cheat, or

defraud

• Sends evasive or deliberately misleading or

ambiguous messages

• Employs bureaucratic euphemisms to cover up the

truth

Intrusive

• Uses hidden cameras

• Taps telephones

• Employs computer technologies to monitor

employee behavior

• Disregards legitimate privacy rights

Secretive

• Uses silence and unresponsiveness

• Hoards information

• Hides wrongdoing or ineptness

Manipulative/Exploitative

• Uses demagoguery

• Gains compliance by exploiting fear, prejudice, or

ignorance

• Patronizes or is condescending toward others

Redding’s list easily correlates to concepts of ethics that we reviewed earlier in

this chapter. Notice how the communicative acts described by Redding take us

back to Aristotle’s notion that the intent of a speaker is the key to judging a

communication. Many items on Redding’s list recall Cherrington and

Cherrington’s typology, as the latter includes lying, creating false impressions,

hiding information, and interpersonal and organizational abuse. And since

Redding wrote two decades ago, the potential for unethically intrusive

organizational communication has vastly increased. A 2005 survey by the

American Management Association [4] revealed the following:

36 percent of respondents reported that their organizations monitor at least

some of their computer keystrokes

50 percent reported some or all or their computer files are monitored

76 percent reported their workplace Internet activity is monitored

26 percent reported their organization had fired workers for misusing the

Internet

25 percent reported their organization had fired workers for misusing e-mail

3 percent reported their telephone calls are recorded

8 percent reported their physical whereabouts are monitored through GPS,

8 percent through employee identification cards, and 5 percent through

company cell phones

Courts in the United States have legalized all these procedures without

employees being forewarned. In the European Union, although employees must

be notified prior to monitoring, organizations may legally monitor their

workforces. Such secretiveness may be an understandable response to the

explosion of new communication and information-sharing technologies. But in

so doing, organizations have made what Thomas Nilsen called a significant

choice. “When we communicate to influence the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of

others,” he wrote, “the ethical touchstone is the degree of free, informed, and

critical choice on matters of significance in their lives that is fostered by our

speaking.” [5] Thus organizations make a significant choice when they follow or

deviate from this standard. Nilsen readily admitted that decision makers cannot

feasibly allow every possible vantage point to be fully discussed. Nor can every

possible alternative and contingency be explored. Instead, Nilsen argued that

ethical communication lies “not in expecting the individual speaker to be more

objective and informative, but in having many different speakers present their

conceptions of the issues under consideration, thus providing adequate

information for intelligent decision-making.” [6]

Because communication is so central to organizational processes, acknowledged

Dennis Mumby, organizations “must control the systems of signification in the

organization; that is, the process by which meaning becomes ‘attached’ to

organizational practices.” [7] In other words, organizations have a clear stake in

how people—both within and out—interpret what is going on in the

organization. Where organizations must make a “significant choice” is in

balancing the need for control with the ethical obligation to providing clear and

adequate information to all stakeholders. To us, reading this book, this

imperative seems clear. How could anyone disagree? Yet N. L. Reinsch made a

key point. [8] Some years ago he surveyed the literature on business

communication ethics and discovered a surprising finding from the research:

unethical business communication can sometimes be effective in the short run. If

unethical behavior was never effective, there would be no reason for anyone to

engage in it. But the simple fact is that, quite often, unethical behavior can help

people get ahead in life and in business. Nevertheless, the longer someone

engages in unethical communicative behavior, the greater the likelihood that

others will notice, thus leading to diminishing returns for further unethical

behavior. Does this mean you (or your organization) should communicate

unethically as long as you can get away it and as long as you can keep getting

some benefit? Not in the least! But perhaps now you can see the challenge.

A Feminist Communication Ethic

In Chapter 1, we reviewed the critical approach to organizational communication

research, an approach that looks for imbalances of power that favor dominant

interests and often seem “natural” and thus go unchallenged. Feminist scholars

Marifran Mattson and Patrice Buzzanell did just that by taking a second look at

Redding’s typology of unethical organizational communication. They concluded

that Redding’s typology reflects the dominant managerial ideology that links

communication to individual productivity and organizational effectiveness. In

other words, under Redding’s system, “to communicate unethically would create

situations in which managers do not receive crucial information and would leave

the firm vulnerable to productivity problems, strikes, and litigation.” [9] By

contrast, they believe organizational communication should afford a voice—that

is, the ability to both construct and articulate knowledge—to all.

As an alternative to Redding, Mattson and Buzzanell adapted Linda Steiner’s [10]

feminist ethic to the problem of organizational communication. While traditional

ethical systems focus on prescribing how individuals should act, a feminist ethic

strives “toward a vision of value transformation (equitable power-sharing and

decision-making)” and holds that being ethical “involves being a part of the

envisioning and struggling.” [11] Mattson and Buzzanell then created a four-

dimensional framework for ethical decision making, which is summarized in

Figure 2.3.

Figure 2.3 Mattson and Buzzanell’s Feminist Ethic

Between Redding’s typology and Mattson and Buzzanell’s framework, we may

be left with an ambiguity. While Mattson and Buzzanell’s framework is humane

and inclusive, we are still left to puzzle the question, What is the most ethical

action to take? On the other hand, Redding’s typology is concrete but leaves us

absolutist solutions that may not always fit the situation. Mark Ward has termed

this the difference between prescriptive and descriptive ethics, or between an

ethic that prescribes what a person should do and an ethic that describes the

structures of power that condition people’s responses. [12] In other words,

prescriptive ethics may tell us what to do but they don’t explain anything,

whereas descriptive ethics may explain things but they don’t tell us what to do.

To synthesize the two approaches, Ward suggested that ethical action should not

be viewed as a point on a line—as in “the” decision to “do” some single action

—but as latitude or a band of possibilities. Each of us sets ethical thresholds that

create the boundaries of that latitude. On one side of the boundary are ethical

decisions that are too trivial to be dilemmas (e.g., “Should I return that paper

clip to my office?”). On the other side are decisions of too great a magnitude and

significance to be real dilemmas (e.g., “Should I murder my boss?”). In between

are the ethical dilemmas that bedevil us. Ward proposed that traditional

prescriptive ethics can help us set our ethical boundaries, while critical

descriptive ethics can help us when a situation falls inside the band of

possibilities that present true ethical dilemmas.

Ethical Performance Improvement

So far we have introduced you to a traditional approach to organizational

communication ethics and a feminist approach based on critical theory. Finally,

we offer a human performance improvement (HPI) approach to organization

communication ethics, a perspective advocated by Daniel Montgomery and Peter

DeCaro. Just like any other performance issue, they argued, “Ethical problems

or dilemmas have behavioral consequences. Analysis can measure and monitor

the behaviors leading to the unethical act, or the act, itself. By analyzing the

antecedents and consequences, [organizations] can then design an intervention

to correct the behavior.” [13] Often, human performance interventions related to

ethics happen in hindsight: an ethical violation occurs and the human

performance improvement experts backtrack to determine how and why the

ethical violation occurred. At other times, human performance interventions start

with a written policy, such as the National Communication Association Credo

for Ethical

Communication, (https://www.natcom.org/uploadedFiles/About_NCA/Leadership_and_Governance/Public_Policy_Platform/PDF-

PolicyPlatform-NCA_Credo_for_Ethical_Communication.pdf) or the

International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Code of

Ethics (https://www.iabc.com/about-us/leaders-and-staff/code-of-ethics/),

followed by suggestions for ensuring policies are observed.

As you can see, human performance improvement “is a results-based,

systematic process used to identify performance problems, analyze root causes,

select and design actions, manage workplace solutions, measure results, and

continually improve performance within an organization.” [14] HPI professionals

digest academic research from various fields and help organizations translate

that research into practice. They can identify “knowledge gaps when it comes to

business ethics” and ask such questions as the following:

Does the workforce know how the organization’s code of ethics applies to

them?

Do they know what to do if they become aware of a violation of the code of

ethics?

Does the organization’s code of ethics meet accepted standards?

Does a code of ethics even exist? [15]

HPI professionals often serve in four roles: analyst (to determine gaps between

organization policy and employee knowledge), intervention specialist (to close

the performance gaps), change manager (to coordinate initiatives for closing

the gaps), and evaluator (to determine if the gaps have been closed). [16] Figure

2.4 graphically represents this process, based on the American Society for

Training and Development’s HPI Model and the International Society for

Performance Improvement’s Human Performance Technology Model. [17]

Figure 2.4 Human Performance Improvement Model

Thus, if the goal is to improve organizational communication ethics, the HPI

professional would start by analyzing performance gaps between any ethical

lapses and where the organization should be in terms of ethical communication.

The analysis would seek out the causes of the gaps. For example, are employees

communicating unethically because they are unfamiliar with or do not

understand the organization’s code of conduct? Are they communicating

unethically because the organization rewards them for success and not ethics? Or

are they communicating unethically because they are not disposed toward ethical

communication?

Once the analysis is complete and the root causes of the performance gaps are

identified, the HPI professional slips into the second role of intervention

specialist. Now the goal is to determine the most appropriate methods for

reaching the organization’s goal or at least decreasing performance gaps. To

improve performance in organizational communication ethics, the appropriate

intervention might be employee training sessions or promulgating a company-

wide code of communication ethics.

In the third role of change manager, the HPI professional “coordinates

implementation and roll out of solutions, especially complex or big efforts that

may involve multiple initiatives” and “works to build buy-in and support” from

all levels of the organization. [18] Then, in the final role of evaluator, the HPI

professional must evaluate the intervention to determine whether or not

performance has actually improved—and that the time and money spent have

helped the organization.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Redding’s typology of unethical organizational communication

consists of six distinct types of communicative acts: (1) coercive—

abuse of power or authority; (2) destructive—behavior that attacks

a receiver; (3) deceptive—behavior that is intentionally false; (4)

intrusive—monitoring behavior; (5) secretive—purposefully not

disclosing information; and (6) manipulative-exploitative.

Mattson and Buzzanell proposed that organizational

communication should be examined through four basic phases.

First, you should define the situation by identifying ethical issues

in context. Second, examine values (voice, community, and

fairness) and ideals. Third, apply the ethical principle while paying

attention to a person’s emotional reaction. Last, develop a

solution paying special attention so that vulnerable people are

least affected.

Montgomery and DeCaro argue that human performance

improvement procedures can help organizations improve

organizational communication ethics. This process involves

analyzing gaps between the organizational goal and actual

performance, designing an appropriate intervention to close the

gaps, managing the intervention, and then evaluating whether the

intervention closed the gaps.

EXERCISES

1. Thinking about your own organization, which of Redding’s

typology of unethical organizational communication do you think

is the most common? If you were the top leader in your

organization, how would you go about stopping this specific lapse

in ethical communication?

2. Look at a recent copy of Bloomberg Businessweek, the Wall

Street Journal, Forbes, or another business-oriented publication.

Look for a discussion of an issue that has ethical overtones and

Analyst :

Change Manager:

Coercive:

Deceptive:

Destructive:

then walk through Mattson and Buzzanell’s four dimensions of

feminist thinking when determining a specific solution. How do

you think Mattson and Buzzanell’s four dimensions would lead

you to different decisions than if you took a more traditional

stance on decision making?

3. Using an organization that you belong to, think about a specific

business or communication ethical dilemma your organization is

facing. Walk through the Human Performance Improvement

Model and think about how you could implement a change in your

organization’s thinking about ethics.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Role taken on by a human performance improvement specialist when he or she helps determine relevant gaps that exist in individuals’ behavior, knowledge, and/or attitudes.

Role taken on by a human performance improvement specialist when he or she coordinates implementation and execution of solutions while building buy-in and support from all levels of an organization’s hierarchy.

Category of unethical acts that describes communication events or behavior reflecting abuses of power or authority and resulting in the diminishing of another person’s autonomy.

Category of unethical acts that describes communication events or behavior reflecting a willful perversion of the truth in order to deceive, cheat, or defraud.

Category of unethical acts that describes communication

Evaluator :

Human Performance Improvement:

Intervention Specialist:

Manipulative/Exploitative:

Secretive:

Significant Choice:

events or behavior that attacks a receiver’s self-esteem, reputation, or deeply held feelings.

Role taken on by a human performance improvement specialist when he or she (1) examines if intervention is actually improving performance and (2) demonstrates the effectiveness of the intervention to the organization.

The systematic process for identifying and analyzing human performance problems and designing results-oriented interventions to improve people, processes, and organizations.

Role taken on by a human performance improvement specialist when he or she determines the most appropriate method for getting the organization to its goal or decreasing the performance gap.

Category of unethical acts that describes communication events or behavior that takes place when the source purposefully prevents the receiver from knowing the source’s actual intentions behind a communicative message.

Category of unethical acts that describes communication events or behavior that is undisclosed even when disclosing the information could be in an organization’s best interest.

The degree to which decisions are made (1) free from coercion, (2) with all available information, (3) through an examination of reasonable alternatives and short-term and long-term consequences, and (4) with an openness toward personal motives.

[1] Redding, W. C. (1996). Ethics and the study of organizational

communication: When will we wake up? In J. A. Jaksa & M. S. Pritchard

(Eds.), Responsible communication: Ethical issues in business, industry,

and the professions (pp. 17–40). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, p. 18 (emphasis

in original).

[2] Redding, W. C. (1996). Ethics and the study of organizational

communication: When will we wake up? In J. A. Jaksa & M. S. Pritchard

(Eds.), Responsible communication: Ethical issues in business, industry,

and the professions (pp.17–40). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, p. 24.

[3] Seeger, M. W. (2001). Ethics and communication in organizational

contexts: Moving from the fringe to the center. American Communication

Journal, 5(1), para. 18. Retrieved from http://ac-

journal.org/journal/vol5/iss1/special/seeger.htm

[4] AMA E-Policy Institute. (2005). 2005 electronic monitoring and

surveillance survey. American Management Association. Retrieved from

http://www.amanet.org

[5] Nilsen, T. R. (1974). Ethics of speech communication (2nd ed.). New

York, NY: Bobbs-Merrill, p. 46.

[6] Nilsen, T. R. (1974). Ethics of speech communication (2nd ed.). New

York, NY: Bobbs-Merrill, p. 43.

[7] Mumby, D. K. (1988). Communication and power in organizations:

Discourse, ideology, and domination. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

[8] Reinsch, N. L., Jr. (1990). Ethics research in business communication:

The state of the art. Journal of Business Communication, 27, 251–272.

[9] Mattson, M., & Buzzanell, P. M. (1999). Traditional and feminist

organizational communication ethical analyses of messages and issues

surrounding an actual job loss case. Journal of Applied Communication

Research, 27, 49–72, p. 62.

[10] Steiner, L. (1997). A feminist schema for analysis of ethical

dilemmas. In F. L. Casmir (Ed.), Ethics in intercultural and international

communication (pp. 59–88). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

[11] Mattson, M., & Buzzanell, P. M. (1999). Traditional and feminist

organizational communication ethical analyses of messages and issues

surrounding an actual job loss case. Journal of Applied Communication

Research, 27, 49–72, p. 62.

[12] Ward, M., Sr. (2010). The ethic of exigence: Information design,

postmodern ethics, and the Holocaust. Journal of Business and Technical

Communication, 24, 60–90.

[13] Montgomery, D. J., & DeCaro, P. A. (2001). Organizational

communication ethics: The radical perspective of performance

management. American Communication Journal, 5(1) [online journal],

para. 32. http://ac-journal.org/journal/vol5/iss1/special/decaro.htm

[14] Beich, E., Holloway, M., & McGraw, K. (2006). Improving human

performance: ASTD learning system—Module 3. Alexandria, VA:

American Society for Training and Development, p. 1.

[15] Rothwell, W. J., Hohne, C. K., & King, S. B. (2007). Human

performance improvement: Building practitioner competence (2nd ed.).

Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, pp. 180–181.

[16] Willmore, J. (2004). Performance basics. Alexandria, VA: American

Society for Training and Development.

[17] Rothwell, W. J. (2000). ASTD models for human performance

improvement: Roles, competencies, and outputs (2nd ed.). Alexandria,

VA: ASTD Press.

[18] Willmore, J. (2004). Performance basics. Alexandria, VA: American

Society for Training and Development, p. 20.

2.5 Chapter Exercises

REAL-WORLD CASE STUDY

For the February 6–12, 2012, edition of Bloomberg Businessweek,

the editors decided on a shocking cover. The cover story for the

magazine was about the merger of United and Continental Airlines.

In an interesting twist, the magazine cover had a United Airlines

plane being mounted by a Continental Airlines plane with the tag

line “Let’s Get It On.” (http://loyaltylobby.com/2012/02/05/bloomberg-

businessweek-article-about-united-continental-merger/) The sexual

overtones of this cover shocked many readers. In the following

weeks, many readers wrote to the magazine conveying their dismay

at the organization’s choice to run this cover. [1]

One reader put it this way: “Offensive…displeasing…indecent…

abominable…obscene…objectionable…that’s what I have to say

about your Feb. 6–12 cover. You should be ashamed.” [2] Another

subscriber said, “Your cover page is so subtle it should have a

condom over the dominant top plane (should be United) and a

diaphragm shield inside the tail of the submissive bottom one

(should be Continental). You will lose several subscriptions…Who

was the genius who sent this around legal without thinking?”

Furthermore, Joseph Cirillo, vice president for reporting and

planning at Blyth, had this to say about the cover: “Your Feb. 6–12

cover page was in extremely poor taste. You made it even worse

with the headline ‘Let’s Get It On.’ Surely you could have described

the business events going on between Continental and United in a

better fashion, and not by showing two planes having sex with each

other on the cover of an important business magazine.” While there

were some people who found the cover humorous, the negative

reactions clearly outnumbered the positive.

1. Why do you think so many people reacted so negatively to the

sexual portrayal of a merger of two major airlines? Was this move

unethical or just in bad taste on the part of the editors of

Bloomberg Businessweek?

2. Using Andersen’s three viewpoints for ethics (sender, receiver,

and the larger society), analyze this cover from an ethical

perspective.

3. Would this cover have received as many negative responses if it

had been on the cover of a fitness magazine or a comic book?

END-OF-CHAPTER ASSESSMENT

1. Paul is preparing to deliver an address to his board of directors. He knows that if he explains the full costs of a new project, the board will block the project. However, Paul realizes that the project will have a huge return on its

investment. As such, Paul decides not to disclose the actual cost of the project. Which of the types of ethics discussed in the ethical matrix is Paul representing?

a. ethical behavior b. unethical behavior c. Machiavellian ethic d. subjective ethic e. rejective ethic

2. When Maxine interacts with various stakeholders in her organization, she is always very even handed and treats everyone the same. In fact, people often remark at how consistent her communicative behavior is with all people. What philosophical perspective described in Table 2.2 most closely resembles Maxine’s approach to communication?

a. communitarianism b. altruism c. ethical egoism d. justice e. social relativism

3. Hiro knows that his coworker is stealing from the petty cash fund at work. However, reporting this behavior to his superiors will only result in increased paperwork and decreased trust from his peers around the office. As such, Hiro decides not to tell anyone and instead just wait for his coworker to get caught. Hiro’s behavior is an example of which of Cherrington and Cherrington’s typology of twelve ethical lapses common in modern business?

a. abetting unethical acts b. rule violations c. stealing

d. false impressions e. unfair advantage

4. As a CEO, Danna believes everyone under her is an idiot. As such, her primary mode of leadership involves manipulating people to do her bidding by exploiting her followers’ fears, prejudices, or areas of ignorance. Which of Redding’s typology of unethical organizational communication is Danna illustrating?

a. coercive b. destructive c. deceptive d. intrusive e. manipulative-exploitative

5. Which of the three values described by Mattson and Buzzanell refers to the ability to both construct and articulate knowledge?

a. community b. fairness c. hope d. voice e. wisdom

Answer Key

1. c

2. d

3. a

4. e

5. d

[1] http://loyaltylobby.com/2012/02/05/bloomberg-businessweek-article-

about-united-continental-merger/

[2] Feedback: Our cover story on United-Continental merger draws some

passionate reactions. (2012, February 20). BusinessWeek. iPad version.

Chapter 3

Classical Theories of Organizational Communication

Information sharing is vital for effective decision making and should include the

full range of creativity, experience, and insight from employees.

What Is Theory?

In this chapter, we are going to explore classical theories in organizational

communication. Classical theories focus on organizational structure, analyzing

aspects such as optimal organizational performance plans, organizational power

relationships, and compartmentalizing different organizational units. [1] As

organizational communication scholars, these theories help us better appreciate,

recognize, and comprehend interactions and behaviors. We will discuss how

these theories work and apply to effectiveness of organizational communication.

What is theory? The word theory derives from the Greek word theoria, θεωρία,

which roughly translated means contemplation or speculation. Modern

understandings of the word theory are slightly different from the ancient Greeks,

but the basic idea of contemplating an idea or speculating about why something

happens is still very much in line with the modern definition. A theory is a

“group of related propositions designed to explain why events take place in a

certain way.” [2] Let’s break this definition down into its basic parts. First, a

theory is a “group of related propositions,” which are a series of statements

designed to be tested and discussed. Ultimately, these statements propose an

explanation for why events take place and why they occur in specific fashions.

For example, Sir Isaac Newton (of the claimed apple falling on his head) created

the modern theory of gravity to explain why the planets and stars didn’t go

crashing into each other (a very simplistic summation of his theory). While

Newton’s theory of gravity was pretty good, it couldn’t account for everything,

so ultimately Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity came on the stage to further

our understanding of how gravity actually works. In both cases, we have two

well-respected researchers attempting to understand a basic phenomenon of our

physical world—gravity. Just as physicists have been trying to understand why

the planets rotate and don’t crash into each other, organizational scholars have

attempted to create theories for how and why organizations structure themselves

the way they do, why people behave the way they do in organizations, why

leaders’ and followers’ interactions lead to specific outcomes, and so on.

Eric Eisenberg and Lloyd Goodall wrote that “the way we talk about a problem

directly influence the solutions we can articulate to address the problem.

Theories of organization and communication should enhance our ability to

articulate alternative ways of approaching and acting on practical issues.” [3] They further noted that theories have two basic qualities: metaphorical and

historical. [4] When we say that theories are metaphorical, we mean that

theories provide a linguistic means of comparing and describing organizational

communication and function. As you know from studying English, a metaphor is

a figure of speech where a word or phrase is applied to an object or action, but

Theories Are Historical:

Theories Are Metaphorical:

the word does not literally apply to the object or action. In this chapter and

Chapter 4, we’ll see theories comparing organizational phenomena to machines

and biological organisms. On the other hand, when we say that theories are

historical, we perceive theories in terms of the period in which they were

created and were popular. Theories are historical because they are often a

product of what was important and prevalent during that time. Hence each

theory is partial in addition to historical and metaphorical. In this chapter, we’ll

examine three different theoretical periods commonly referred to as the classical

perspective, human relations, and human resources. Each of these three

groupings exists primarily as an opportunity for retrospective analysis. In other

words, when we look back over the history of theoretical development in

organizational communication, these three periods jump out as being uniquely

different, so we ultimately group different ideas and important thought leaders

together because of similarities in their theoretical approaches to organizing.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

The notion that we perceive theories in terms of the period in which they were created and were popular.

The notion that theories provide a linguistic means of comparing and describing organizational communication and function.

[1] Fisher, D. (2000). Communication in organizations (2nd ed.). New

York, NY: Jaico.

[2] Infante, D., Rancer, A., & Womack, D. (2003). Building communication

theory (4th ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland, p. 356.

[3] Eisenberg, E. M., & Goodall, H. L., Jr. (1993). Organizational

communication: Balancing creativity and constraint. New York, NY: St.

Martin’s Press, p. 53.

[4] Eisenberg, E. M., & Goodall, H. L., Jr. (1993). Organizational

communication: Balancing creativity and constraint. New York, NY: St.

Martin’s Press.

3.1 The Classical Perspective

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Understand Frederick Taylor’s scientific management.

2. Explain the bureaucratic theory.

3. Describe Max Weber’s types of authority.

4. Discuss the implications of each classical perspective.

To understand classical theories, a brief history of industrialization is necessary.

Industrialization, or the Industrial Revolution, refers to the “development and

adoption of new and improved production methods that changed America and

much of Europe from agrarian to industrial economies.” [1] So how did both

Europe and America transform themselves from agrarian-, or farming, based

economies to industrial ones? To pinpoint a single event or invention that really

created the Industrial Revolution is almost impossible. From approximately 1750

to 1850, a variety of innovations in agriculture, manufacturing (both iron and

textiles), mining, technology, and transportation altered cultural, economic,

political, and social realities. For the first time in history, people stopped

working on family farms or in small family-owned businesses and started

working for larger organizations that eventually morphed into the modern

corporation. While there had been models of large organizations with massive

influence, such as the Catholic Church, these organizations had been very

limited in number. As more and more people left the family farm or local weaver

in hopes of bettering their lives and the lives of their families through

employment in larger organizations, new tools and models for managing these

workers had to be developed.

Perhaps the most widely known theories of organizational communication are

those from the classical period that stemmed out of the Industrial Revolution.

The main idea of the classical perspectives of organizational communication is

that organizations are similar to machines. Hence if you have a well-built and

well-managed machine, then you will have a very productive and effective

organization. The assumption is that each employee is part of a large machine,

which is the organization. If one part fails, then the entire machine fails.

Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management

In 1913, Frederick Taylor published Principles of Scientific Management, [2]

ushering in a completely new way of understanding the modern organization.

Taylor was trained as an engineer and played a prominent role in the idea of

scientific management. Scientific management is a management-oriented and

production-centered perspective of organizational communication. [3] Taylor

believed that the reason most organizations failed was that they lacked

successful systematic management. He wrote, “The best management is true

science resting upon clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation.” [4] He further noted, “Under scientific management arbitrary power, arbitrary

dictation ceases, and every single subject, large and small, becomes question for

scientific investigation, for reduction to law.” [5] Taylor believed that any job

could be performed better if it was done scientifically. He created time-and-

motion studies that resulted in organizational efficiency.

Working as a foreman for the Bethlehem Steel Works in the 1900s, Taylor

observed how workers could do more with less time. He analyzed coal shoveling

at the organization. He noticed several workers would bring different-sized

shovels from home. Workers who brought small shovels could do more but it

took them longer, and workers who brought big shovels could do less but it was

faster. He observed that the best size of shovel was one that weighed about

twenty pounds. Hence he ordered the organization to provide all the workers

with the same size shovel. He also provided pay incentives for workers who

could shovel more coal. By making these changes, the organization was able to

increase production drastically.

Taylor believed that several steps were involved in getting to a more productive

organization. First, one must examine the job or task. Second, one needs to

determine the best way to complete the job or task. Third, one must choose the

most appropriate person for the task, at the same time properly compensating

that person. Lastly, one must be able to train the person to do the task efficiently.

Taylor believed that by using these scientific steps, organizations would have

fewer misuses of human effort.

Taylor’s idea of scientific management originated during the time in history

when most training of workers was based on apprenticeship models. In an

apprenticeship, a person would be taught and schooled by a more experienced

person, who would illustrate the task so that the inexperienced person could

model the behavior. Taylor believed that this was a very ineffective way of

training, because he felt that workers would differ in terms of tasks that were

performed, and the effectiveness of the tasks would be dependent on the type of

training received. Taylor argued that there should be only one way to explain the

job and one way to execute the task. He did not believe that it should be left up

to the expert to train apprentices on the task.

Overall, Taylor felt that employees were lazy and needed constant supervision.

He posited, “The tendency of the average [employee] is toward working at a

slow easy gait.” [6] In other words, he noted that this tendency is called natural

soldiering, which is affected by systematic soldiering, which occurs when

employees decrease their work production based on input or communications

from others. According to Taylor, systematic soldiering happens when

employees feel that more production will not result in more compensation. In

addition, if employees are paid by the hour and want to increase their income,

then they might demonstrate that it takes more time in order to get compensated

more than they would if they exerted more effort. Because Taylor thought

employees were inherently lazy, he thought employees also impacted the rate of

production.

Taylor is known for his idea of time and motion. Time and motion refers to a

method for calculating production efficiency by recording outcomes and time to

produce those outcomes. Taylor believed that if each task was designed

scientifically and the workers could be trained, then production could be

measured by timing the labor the workers performed. It was his intention to

create a work benchmark that could be quantified to improve efficiency and

production outcomes. We should also mention that Taylor’s ideas on time and

motion were ultimately furthered by the research of Frank Gilbreth, who filmed

workers in action in an effort to gain a better idea of physical movements. [7] In

the following video, you can see the work of Frank Gilbreth, along with his wife,

Lillian, as they attempted to use time-and-motion techniques to make

bricklaying more effective, productive, and profitable.

Video Link

Gilbreth Time and Motion Study in Bricklaying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDg9REgkCQk

In this video, the original configuration of the scaffolding required a lot of

bending motion on the part of the bricklayers. The bending motion not only took

more time but also increased worker fatigue over a long day, which would make

workers less effective and productive. After completing the time-and-motion

study, you see the second half of the video where the workers have actually

created scaffolding for the bricks that does not involve bending over to pick up

the bricks. Ultimately, this simple example clearly illustrates the impact that

time-and-motion study techniques could have on making workers better at their

jobs.

Taylor felt that it would be ideal if organizations were run like machines,

because all tasks were clear-cut and simple. At the same time, these tasks

typically did not allow for flexibility, creativity, or originality. In addition, there

is a clear-cut distinction between managers who think and workers who labor.

Thus this perspective does not account for work motivations, relationships, and

turbulence in organizations.

Another key factor of Taylor’s scientific method is the style of communication.

Taylor did not feel the need to build rapport among workers. Rather, he felt that

managers needed to communicate clearly and candidly. Further, employees did

not need to provide input, they just needed to know how to execute their jobs.

While Taylor’s ideas took off like wildfire, they were not without their

detractors. As early as 1912, the US Commission on Industrial Relations was

expressing skepticism about scientific management, or what many were just

calling Taylorism:“To sum up, scientific management in practice generally tends

to weaken the competitive power of the individual worker and thwarts the

formation of shop groups and weakens group solidarity; moreover, generally

scientific management is lacking in the arrangements and machinery necessary

for the actual voicing of the workers’ ideas and complaints and for the

democratic consideration and adjustment of grievances.” [8]

Think about fast-food restaurants or package-delivery companies. These

organizations still use scientific management to run their businesses efficiently.

Each worker has a designated job and is required to do the same task over and

over again. Even though this is an old idea, it is still used in current workplaces.

Bureaucratic Theory

Max Weber and Henri Fayol were two other theorists known for their work in

the classical perspectives to organizational communication. These two theories

focus on the structure of the organization rather than the organizational activities.

Many of their ideas are around today.

Max Weber

Max Weber defined bureaucracy as the ideals to which organizations should

aim and aspire. [9] Weber was influenced by socialist philosophy. He developed

the idea of bureaucracy when he noticed several corrupt and unethical behaviors

of leaders. He felt that organizational leadership should center on task

proficiency and impersonal relationships. Even though many people associate

bureaucracy with red tape and ineffective organizations, this is not the outcome

of bureaucracy. According to Weber, bureaucracy should be synonymous with

order, consistency, reason, and reliability. In order to aspire to these traits,

organizations need to have specific rules and emphasize impersonality. He noted

that bureaucratic organizations must have the following characteristics:

Specialization and division of labor. Specific, set tasks allow an employee

to achieve his or her own objective. Thus every worker did not have to do

many jobs but an exclusive task that was assigned to that worker. This

helped to alleviate multiple trainings and increase production.

Rules and procedures. Written policies help manage and direct the

organization. Managers spend a majority of their time on how these policies

help to guide and function in the organization. These procedures would

serve as a guide and resource for the organization.

Hierarchy of authority. Organizations need to have a chain of command

that is shaped like a pyramid. There are levels of supervisors and

subordinates. Each worker answers to her or his corresponding superior.

This would assist in creating a direct line of communication and better

efficiency in the organization.

Formal communication. All decisions, rules, regulations, and behaviors

are recorded. This information and communication are shared in terms of

the chain of command. Hence everything is documented and accounted.

There is no question about what needs to be done, because it is written

down and passed through formal communication channels (a very top-down

approach to communication).

Detailed job descriptions. The organization has clear and concise

definitions, directions, and responsibilities of each position. Each worker is

aware of her or his task.

Employment based on expertise. The organization assigns workers

positions that fit their competencies. Hence workers are placed in the

organization where they can maximize production.

Impersonal environment. Relationships need to be impersonal and

separate so that workers’ personal thoughts or feelings do not affect or bias

decisions. Workers just need to work, and they do not need to interact with

others. Interpersonal relationships may jeopardize the organization’s

outcomes.

Weber categorized three types of authority: traditional, bureaucratic, and

charismatic. [10] Traditional authority is related to the backgrounds and traditions

of an environment. This leadership is usually passed down from one family

member to another with little regard to who is more apt or capable. Thus

authority is given to another based on custom or tradition. Think of family-

owned businesses and how those businesses usually do not let outsiders interfere

unless they are related to the family.

Charismatic authority is founded on the idea that the best candidate for this

position will be the one who can exert authority. This person is usually

charismatic, hence the name. If this person ever leaves the position, then their

authority does as well. According to Weber, charismatic leaders can lead to

insecure and unpredictable organizations, because there is a vague idea of who

will replace their position.

Another type of authority is bureaucratic. Weber felt that bureaucratic authority

was the best way to delegate authority in an organization. Bureaucratic authority

is founded on set objectives and criteria. Hence the best leaders were

bureaucratic leaders because they were picked in terms of the guidelines set out

for that organization’s mission. Weber believed that bureaucratic authority was

the ideal way to select authority because it thwarted ideas of nepotism,

preferential treatment, prejudice, and discrimination. Hence a candidate would

be selected in terms of job competency and not lineage or personality.

Table 3.1 Weber's Types of Authority

Traditional Charismatic Bureaucracy

Based on Family lineage Personality Rules and actions

Specialization None Charisma Technically qualified

Hierarchy Seniority Preferences Authority

Leadership Succession Family Popularity Most appropriate for the position

Communication Depends Depends Is written and has numerous records

Viewed as Nepotism Partisan Systematic

Fayol’s principles of management are similar to the military because there is unity in direction, unity in

command, subordination of individual interests to the general interest, and order.

© Thinkstock/iStock

Henri Fayol

Henri Fayol [11] managed a French mining company called Comambault, which

he was able to transform from an almost bankrupt organization to a very

successful one. Originally, he worked there as an engineer, then moved into

management, and later leadership. Similar to Weber, Fayol felt that there needed

to be division of labor, hierarchy, and fair practices. Fayol believed that there

were principles of management that included the following:

Unity of direction. The organization should have the same objectives, one

plan/goal, and one person of leadership/authority.

Unity of command. Employees should get orders from only one person.

Therefore, there would not be a chain of command. One person would be

the person in charge and be responsible.

Authority. Managers are entitled to provide orders and obtain compliance.

No other individuals in the organization have the privilege of power.

Order. The organization must have set places for workers and resources.

These should be in the right place at the correct time.

Subordination of individual interest to the general interest. The interest

of the organization is most significant and not that of the group or

individuals working for the organization.

Scalar chain. There is a hierarchical order of authority. There is a sequence

and succession to how communication is transferred from one person to the

other. This is similar to horizontal communication where workers of the

same level communicate with each other.

Even though Fayol’s principles may appear strict, he was one of the first

theorists to grasp the idea that having unconditional compliance with an

organization may lead to problems. Hence he also noted that each organization

must determine the most favorable levels of authority.

All in all, communication in the classical perspective has two functions: control

and command. Fayol believed that organizations must limit their

communication to precise and explicit words for task design and

implementation. Thus communication is not spontaneous and is more centralized

in a classical organization.

Workers need to feel their input is valued or they will strike.

© Thinkstock/iStock

Fayol also believed there were certain management activities, specifically five

activities that are applied to the administration unit of an organization. These

activities included planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and

controlling. As explained by Fayol, planning is where managers create plans for

the organization and predict future organizational needs. Next, organizing occurs

when organizations employ people and materials to complete their plans.

Commanding is what managers do to get the optimal output in production and

efficiency. Coordinating is where managers bring together the labors of all of

their employees. Last, controlling determines the accuracy of the organization’s

efforts and its plan. Fayol’s work still has a big influence on the climate,

structure, and leadership of many of today’s organizations. For instance, the

military is a great example of the ideas presented by Fayol, because there are so

many chains of command and so much structure. Communication in the military

is usually downward, and leadership is very important to its core.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Theories help us understand and predict communication and

behaviors.

Frederick Taylor created the idea of “scientific management,”

which is a management style that focuses on producing outcomes

and has a high orientation on management.

Max Weber felt that bureaucracy was the best way to select

authority. It is based on criteria and standards for the task rather

than other variables such as family relationship or popularity.

Henri Fayol believed that there are principles of management,

which include unity of direction, unity of command, authority,

order, subordination of individual interest to the general interests,

and scalar chain. He also felt that classical perspectives have two

functions: control and command.

EXERCISES

Scientific Management:

1. Determine how these classical perspectives are similar to and

dissimilar from each other. Create a chart or table to highlight

these differences.

2. Discuss the pros and cons of utilizing each classical perspective

in your current occupation and/or your dream job. Is the classical

perspective effective or ineffective? Why or why not?

3. Contact someone who is currently part of or has been a part of

the military. Ask them specific questions regarding the military as

an organization and types of communications in the military. Do

you see relationships between the military and the organizational

theories presented in this chapter?

4. Divide the class into small groups. Each group must select a

classical organizational perspective. They will act out their role in

front of the class, and the class must guess which perspective is

being acted. If the class is in an online format, ask students to

create a visual presentation of an organizational perspective with

the pros and cons of that perspective.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

This type of organization emphasizes a management-oriented and production-centered perspective of organizational communication. This approach believes that organizations should be run like machines. Worker must do labor, and managers must do the thinking. There is limited communication.

Bureaucracy :

Control And Command:

Time And Motion:

Time-And-Motion:

Ideals that organizations should try to attain. The term also refers to selecting authority based on criteria and standards rather than popularity or family relation. Hence it makes organizational decisions harder to execute, but it also protects workers from mistreatment, because there is order and structure to the communication.

Organizations must limit their communication to precise and explicit words for task design and implementation. At the same time, communication is not spontaneous and is more centralized in a classical organization.

Methods for calculating production efficiency by recording outcomes and time to produce those outcomes. A researcher can determine how long a worker needs to yield an expected result by measuring workers’ movements over time.

Methods for calculating production efficiency by recording outcomes and time to produce those outcomes. A researcher can determine how long a worker needs to yield an expected result by measuring workers’ movements over time.

[1] Scott, D. L. (Ed.). (2009). Industrial revolution. The American heritage

dictionary of business terms. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p.

259.

[2] Taylor, F. (1913). Principles of scientific management. New York, NY:

Harper.

[3] Eisenberg, E. M., & Goodall, H. L., Jr. (1993). Organizational

communication: Balancing creativity and constraint. New York, NY: St.

Martin’s Press.

[4] Taylor, F. (1913). Principles of scientific management. New York, NY:

Harper, p. 19.

[5] Taylor, F. (1913). Principles of scientific management. New York, NY:

Harper, p. 211.

[6] Taylor, F. (1913). Principles of scientific management. New York, NY:

Harper, p. 19.

[7] Nadworny, M. J. (1957). Frederick Taylor and Frank Gilbreth:

Competition in scientific management. Business History Review, 31, 23–

34.

[8] US Commission on Industrial Relations (1912). A government

evaluation of scientific management: Final report and testimony.

Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, p. 136.

[9] Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organization

(A.M. Henderson and T. Parsons, Trans.). London, England; Collier

MacMillan.

[10] Weber, M. (1947). Essays on sociology. New York, NY: Oxford

Press, pp. 196–198.

[11] Fayol, H. (1949). General and industrial management. London, UK:

Pitman.

3.2 Human Relations Theories

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Understand the human relations approach.

2. Identify key people in the human relations approach.

3. Explain the implications of the human relations approach.

During the 1930s, the world was in the middle of the worst economic

depressions. During this period, workers started to dislike and question scientific

methods and bureaucracy in organizational settings. In this section, we will

introduce the human relationship approach. We will discuss the historical and

cultural backgrounds of this approach.

The Great Depression, which occurred between 1929 and 1940, caused

economic and social struggles for many Americans. Many governmental policies

were changing, such as Social Security, welfare, and public improvement

projects. The Depression caused many families to move from drought-stricken

farming areas to the West Coast and from poor Southern cities to more enriched

areas of the North. These families were looking for a better life. However, the

increase of workers to these areas led to more competition. Moreover, it led to

many types of worker abuse by corrupt and immoral managers. It was during

this time that many people advocated for human rights, labor unions, better

wages, and improved work conditions. “Fair wages” was defined by how much

workers produced as output. In turn, this increased output usually led to more

injuries, illnesses, and deaths. Human rights were defined as having twelve-hour

workdays, working six days a week, and getting a thirty-minute break for lunch.

These perspectives concerning “fair” and “human rights” were seen differently

by managers and employees. The difference in perspectives caused tense and

strained relationships between managers and workers.

World War II changed everything. There was an increase of employment in the

private sector and the military. These changes resulted in a more human relations

approach to communication in organizations, because there was an increase in

well-educated workers. These new workers encouraged an awareness of the

worker’s needs, such as feeling important and appreciated as a worker and an

individual. To better understand how new management ideas ultimately started

to transform the face of the workplace, we will first discuss a number of key

ideas in the group of theories labeled under the term human relations, followed

by an analysis of two of the major theorists in this category: Elton Mayo and

Kurt Lewin.

Key Ideas in Human Relations

Before we jump in and discuss the major theoretical thinkers who spawned the

human-relations movement, we need to understand the basic characteristics of

the theoretical developments in this time period. As with many theoretical

movements, the notion of “human relations” was drawn by researchers after the

fact. Specifically, Raymond E. Miles, a business professor at the University of

California at Berkeley, is responsible for much of the work on crystallizing the

notion of “human relations.” [1]

Miles, in a famous article in the Harvard Business Review, [2] discussed human

relations as the natural knee-jerk reaction that many management theorists

(along with workers and managers as well) had to Frederick Taylor’s scientific

management. Where Taylor viewed people as parts of a working machine, the

human-relations approach shifted the viewpoint from the task to the worker. For

the first time, workers were viewed as an important part of the organization that

should be viewed holistically instead of as bundles of skills and aptitudes. As

Miles noted, managers “were urged to create a ‘sense of satisfaction’ among

their subordinates by showing interest in the employees’ personal success and

welfare.” [3] Most importantly, the goal of human relations was to make workers

feel as though they belonged to something bigger than themselves, and thus the

workers’ work was important to the overall effort of the organization.

For communication scholars, the human relations approach is important because

it is the first time that two-way communication was encouraged; communication

between a worker and a manager was like a dialogue instead of a unidirectional

communication from the manager targeted at the worker. Furthermore, the

human-relations perspective sees communication as a tool that can be used by

management to “buy” cooperation from subordinates. Robert Dubin [4] coined

the term privilege pay to refer to a tool managers can utilize with subordinates

when the manager provides subordinates departmental information and allows

the subordinate to engage in open communication about various departmental

issues with the manager. Dubin sees this as a form of payment a manager makes

in order to “buy” cooperation from subordinates. The manager must give up

some of her or his access to private information and control over subordinates,

because this process enables subordinates to engage in some self-direction.

In sum, the human-relations perspective on organizational management notes

that the world would be easier for managers if they could just make decisions

and have subordinates follow those decisions. However, because employees are

more productive when they are satisfied, it becomes the job of the manager to

engage with subordinates. As Miles notes, “This model suggests, the manager

might do better to ‘waste time’ in discussing the problem with subordinates, and

perhaps even to accept suggestions that he believes may be less efficient, in

order to get the decision carried out.” [5]

Key People in Human Relations

Now that we’ve explored some of the theoretical underpinnings of the human-

relations approach to management, we will explore two of the most important

thinkers who are seen as falling into this category: Elton Mayo and Kurt Lewin.

Elton Mayo

Elton Mayo was a Harvard professor with a huge interest in Frederick Taylor’s

work. He was interested in learning ways to increase productivity. In 1924, Elton

Mayo and his protégé, Fritz Roethlisberger, were awarded a grant by the

National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Science to study

productivity and lighting at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric

Company. The Hawthorne experiments, as Elton Mayo’s body of work became

known, are a series of experiments in human relations conducted between 1924

and 1932 at Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois.

Illumination Study

The first study at Hawthorne Works was designed to explicitly test various

lighting levels and how the lighting levels affected worker productivity. The

original hypothesis of the illumination study was that as lighting increased,

worker productivity would increase. The opposite was also predicted, as lighting

decreased, worker productivity would decrease. The original push behind the

study was the electric power industry, who believed that if they could

demonstrate the importance of artificial lighting, organizations around the

country would adopt artificial lighting in place of natural lighting to ensure

worker productivity.

The research began in the fall of 1924 and continued through the spring of 1927

as three different groups of workers were put through the experiment: relay

assembly workers, coil-winding workers, and inspectors. [6] After three different

testing conditions were concluded, the researchers were perplexed by their

findings. It did not matter if the researchers increased or decreased light in the

company; the workers’ productivity increased. This finding was true even when

the researchers turned down the lights to where the workers could barely see.

The researchers later realized that lighting did not affect worker productivity;

rather, the researchers’ presence had an impact. That’s why production outcomes

were similar to those in the lighting study—because workers were influenced by

the attention they got from the researchers. [7] This incident was labeled the

Hawthorne effect.

Figure 3.1 Hawthorne Studies Findings

Relay-Assembly Study

To further clarify the impact of a variety of factors on productivity, a second set

of tests was designed to evaluate rest periods and work hours on productivity.

The goal of this study was to determine how fatigue impacted worker

productivity. Six women operators volunteered to participate in the relay-

assembly study. The women were given physical examinations at the beginning

of the study and then every six weeks to ensure that the experiment was not

adversely affecting their health.

The six women were isolated in a separate room away from other Hawthorne

workers, where it was easier to measure experimental conditions like output and

quality of work, temperature, and humidity. The specific task in the relay-

assembly test was an electromagnetic switch consisting of thirty-five parts that

had to be put together by hand.

The experimenters introduced a variety of changes to the workers’ environment:

pay rates, bonuses, lighting, shortened workdays/weeks, rest periods, and so

forth. Surprisingly, as the test period quickly spanned from an original testing

period of a couple of months to more than two years, no matter what the

experimenters did, productivity increased. In fact, productivity increased more

than 30 percent during the first two and a half years of the study and then

plateaued for the duration of the tests. The physicals the workers received every

six weeks also showed that the women had improved physical health and their

absenteeism decreased during the study period. Even more important, the

women regularly expressed increased job satisfaction.

Once again the researchers were stumped. They quickly tried to determine what

was causing the increased productivity and quickly ruled out all the manipulated

conditions and settled on something considerably more intangible—employee

attitudes.

Employee-Interview Study

In the middle of the relay-assembly studies, a group of Harvard researchers led

by Elton Mayo and F. J. Roethlisberger joined the team of engineers at

Hawthorne Works to add further expertise and explanation to the studies under

way. One of the most important contributions Mayo made was during the

follow-up to the illumination and relay studies when workers at Hawthorne

Works were interviewed.

From 1928 to 1931, the Harvard researchers interviewed more than twenty-one

thousand workers in an attempt to gauge worker morale and determine what job

factors impacted both morale and job satisfaction. The researchers predicted,

based on the illumination and relay studies, that if they could increase worker

morale and satisfaction, then the workers would be more efficient and productive

as well. The interview study definitely posed some new challenges for the

researchers. Mayo thought that the “experience itself was unusual; there are few

people in this world who have had the experience of finding someone intelligent,

attentive, and eager to listen without interruption to all that he or she has to

say.” [8] To this end, Mayo trained a series of interviewers to listen and not give

advice as they took descriptive notes of what was being told to them by the

workers.

After the interviewing study was completed, the researchers attempted to make

sense of the mounds of data they had accumulated. One interesting side effect

was noted. After being interviewed by a researcher about the employee’s

working conditions, the employee reported increased satisfaction. Ultimately, the

very act of being asked about their working conditions made the employees

more satisfied workers and ultimately more productive. One of the interesting

outcomes of this study is the practice of employee-reaction surveys, which are

still widely used in organizations today.

Bank-Wiring Observation Study

One of the findings of the interview study was that workers tended to create an

informal standard for output that was predetermined by the group but never

clearly stated. These productivity standards were never really in line with the

ones communicated by either efficiency engineers or managers. To examine the

influence of informal group rules on worker productivity, Mayo and his team

created the bank-wiring observation study.

Fourteen bank wiremen (nine wirers, three smolders [individuals who fused

metal parts together using high temperatures], and two inspectors) were placed

in a room and told to complete their individual tasks. The men in the room were

putting together automatic telephone exchange components that consisted of

three thousand to six thousand individual terminals that had to be wired. The

workers spent a lot of time on their feet. To ensure that the men were not

affected by the Hawthorne effect, the researchers never let the men know they

were being studied. However, a researcher named W. Lloyd Warner, a trained

anthropologist with an interest in group behavior, was present in the room, but

he acted like a disinterested spectator and had little direct interaction with the

wiremen. In the experimental condition, pay incentives and productivity

measures were removed to see how the workers would react. Over time, the

workers started to artificially restrict their output and an average output level

was established for the group that was below company targets. Interestingly

enough, the man who was considered the most admired of the group also

demonstrated the most resentment toward management and slowed his

productivity the most, which led to cascading productivity of all the other men in

the group.

The researchers ultimately concluded that the wiremen created their own

productivity norms without ever verbally communicating them to each other. For

the first time, the researchers had clear evidence that within any organization

there exists an informal organization that often constrains individual employee

behavior. The bank-wiring observation study was stopped in spring of 1932 as

layoffs occurred at Hawthorne Works because of the worsening Great

Depression.

Conclusion

The Hawthorne Studies and the research of Mayo and Roethlisberger reinvented

how organizations think about and manage workers. Contrary to Taylor’s

perspective, Mayo and Roethlisberger felt that interpersonal relationships were

important. Moreover, they thought that society is composed of groups and not

just individuals; individuals do not act independently with their own interests but

are influenced by others; and most workers’ decisions are more emotional than

rational. We cannot overstress the importance that Mayo and Roethlisberger

have had on management theory and organizational academics. Overall, these

studies demonstrated the importance that communication has in subordinate-

supervisor interactions, the importance of peer relationships, and the importance

of informal organizations.

While the Hawthorne Studies revolutionized management theory, they were also

quite problematic. For example, most of the major studies in this series consisted

of very small samples of workers (six in the relay study and thirteen in the bank-

wiring study), so these results are definitely suspect from a scientific vantage

point. Furthermore, some people would argue that Hawthorne effects were really

the result of workers who were afraid of unemployment rather than

communication relationships. [9] Regardless of potential errors of the studies, the

conclusion that Mayo, Roethlisberger, and Dickson found was quite

extraordinary. Relationships have a significant impact on the quality of

organizational performance.

Kurt Lewin

Kurt Lewin was another person who explored the human-relations side to

organizational communication. Lewin was a refugee from Nazi Germany. He

adored democracy and had a passion for applying psychology to improving the

world. [10] During World War II, Lewin was at the University of Iowa. The US

government asked him to research ways to advise housewives against purchasing

meat, because there was such a short supply. [11] Lewin felt that there was a huge

barrier because housewives were expected to buy meat as their families, friends,

and parents anticipated being served meat. Lewin hypothesized that if

housewives were able to talk with other housewives about their meat-buying

tendencies, they would be able to overcome this barrier. Lewin and his cohorts

performed the experiments and found support for his hypothesis. Housewives

who were able to talk about their meat purchasing with other housewives were

ten times more likely to change their behavior.

Lewin felt he could analyze these same principles in an organization. Lester

Coch and John R. P. French [12] found that workers in a pajama factory were

more likely to espouse new work methods if they were given the opportunity to

discuss them and exercise some influence on the decisions that affected their

jobs. These new findings helped organizations realize the benefits of group

formation, development, and attitudes. Lewin’s ideas helped influence future

organizational communication theorists by emphasizing the importance of

communication. Lewin helped identify the fact that workers want to have a voice

and provide input about their tasks.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Elton Mayo and his research associates studied how lighting

affects production. They later realized that the workers were not

affected by lighting but by the researchers’ presence.

Kurt Lewin felt that group dynamics impacted behavioral

outcomes. If workers can talk about their tasks with others, it

impacts the organization.

Workers usually tended to create an informal standard for output

that was never stated but also predetermined by the group.

EXERCISES

Hawthorne Effect:

Privilege Pay:

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the human

relations approach?

2. Can you think of how group dynamics impact behavior outcomes?

Is this true from your experience? How so?

3. Do you believe that group dynamics are important in an

organization? Why or why not? Can you provide some specific

examples?

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Workers’ behaviors were affected by the attention they received rather than by other variables such as lighting or temperature. Once workers felt as though they were being noticed or recognized, it influenced their productivity. Group norms were also affected.

A tool managers can utilize with subordinates when the manager provides subordinates departmental information and allows the subordinate to engage in open communication about various departmental issues with the manager.

[1] Miles, R. E. (1965). Human relations or human resources? Harvard

Business Review, 43(4), 148–157.

[2] Miles, R. E. (1965). Human relations or human resources? Harvard

Business Review, 43(4), 148–157.

[3] Miles, R. E. (1965). Human relations or human resources? Harvard

Business Review, 43(4), 148–157, p. 149.

[4] Dubin, R. (1958). The world of work. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-

Hall. Dubin, R. (1958). The world of work. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-

Hall.

[5] Miles, R. E. (1965). Human relations or human resources? Harvard

Business Review, 43(4), 148–157, p. 150.

[6] Roethlisberger, F. J., & Dickson, W. J. (1939). Management and the

worker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[7] Roethlisberger, F. J., & Dickson, W. J. (1939). Management and the

worker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[8] Mayo, E. (1945). The social problems of an industrial civilization.

Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, p. 163.

[9] Rice, B. (1982). The Hawthorne defect: Persistence of a flawed

theory. Psychology Today, 16(2), 70–74.

[10] Tannenbaum, A. S. (1966). Social psychology of the work

organization. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, p. 86.

[11] Lewin, K. (1958). Group decision and social change. In E. F.

Maccoby, T. M. Newcomb, & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in social

psychology (pp. 197–211). New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

[12] Coch, L., & French, J. R. P., Jr. (1948). Overcoming resistance to

change. Human Relations, 1, 512–532.

3.3 Human Resources Theories

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Define and understand the differences between human relations

and human resources.

2. Identify key people in human-resources theories.

3. Discuss motivation theories.

4. Discuss and explain Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y and Theory X.

In Section 2, you were introduced to the research of Elton Mayo and Kurt Lewin

under the banner of human-relations theories. In this section, we’re going to

further our understanding of theory in organizations by examining those

theoretical perspectives that fall into the human-resources camp.

The notion of human resources as a general category for a variety of

management-related theories was originally proposed by Raymond Miles. [1] First and foremost, Miles’s human-resource theories posit that all workers are

reservoirs of untapped resources. Miles believed that every worker comes into an

organization with a variety of resources that management can tap into if they try:

“These resources include not only physical skills and energy, but also creative

ability and the capacity for responsible, self-directed, self-controlled behavior.” [2]

Under this perspective then, managers should not be focused on controlling

employees or getting them to “buy in” to decisions, which are the hallmarks of

scientific management and human relations. Instead, the primary task of

management should be the creation of a working environment that fosters

employee creativity and risk taking in an effort to maximize and tap into the

resources employees bring to the job. As such, communication in this

perspective must be constant and bidirectional, and participation in decision

making must include both management and workers. Miles explains that his

human resources model “recognized the untapped potential of most

organizational members and advocated participation as a means of achieving

direct improvement in individual and organizational performance.” [3] To help

us understand human resources, we will describe how human resources differ

from human relations and discuss some key people in human resources.

Human-Relations versus Human-Resources Theories

To understand the notions of human relations and human resources is to

understand Raymond Miles’s [4] original ideas on both concepts. Miles, as

explained earlier, articulated a very clear theoretical perspective that was high on

communication, high on tapping into employee resources, and high on employee

input in decision making. These ideas were not his, but he did create a clear

categorization scheme where he delineated between two groups of researchers

whom he labeled “human relations” and “human resources.” Although Miles

believes these two groups exist, he also admits that these groups exist primarily

in how managers interpret and apply various the ideas of various innovators

within the field of management, so the researchers who fall into the human-

relations camp often discuss concepts that seem to fall within Miles’s own

human-resources framework. Table 3.2 provides a list of the major differences

that Miles believed existed between human relations and human resources.

Table 3.2 Human Relations versus Human Resources

Human Relations Human Resources

Worker

Needs

Workers need to belong, be liked,

and be respected.

While workers need to belong, be liked, and be

respected, workers also want to creatively and

effectively contribute to worthwhile goals.

Worker

Desires

Workers really desire to feel as

though they are a useful part of the

organization.

Workers really desire to exercise initiative,

responsibility, and creativity, so management should

allow for these.

Outcomes

If worker needs and desires are

filled, they will willingly cooperate

and comply with management.

Management should tap into worker capabilities and

avoiding wasting untapped resources.

Job

Satisfaction

When employees’ needs and

desires are met, they’ll be more

satisfied.

When employees feel that they have self-direction

and control and are able to freely use their creativity,

experience, and insight, they will be more satisfied.

Productivity

Job satisfaction and reduced

resistance to formal authority will

lead to more productive workers.

When employees feel that they have self-direction

and control and are able to freely use their creativity,

experience, and insight, they will be more

productive.

Management

Goals

Managers should strive to ensure

that all employees feel like they are

part of the team.

Managers should help employees discover hidden

talents and ensure that all workers are able to fully

use their range of talents to help accomplish

organizational goals.

Decision

Making

Management should allow

employees to offer input on routine

decisions and be willing to discuss

these decisions, but management

should keep important decisions to

themselves.

Management should allow and encourage employees

to freely participate in the decision-making process

with all types of decisions. In fact, the more

important the decision is, the more the manager

should seek out employee resources in the decision-

making process.

Information

Sharing

Information sharing is a useful tool

when helping employees feel like

they are part of the group.

Information sharing is vital for effective decision

making and should include the full range of

creativity, experience, and insight from employees.

Teamwork

Management should allow teams to

exercise moderate amounts of self-

direction and control.

Management should encourage teamwork and

continually look for areas where teams can exercise

more control.

This table is based on Miles’s models of participative leadership. Miles, R. E.

(1965). Human relations or human resources? Harvard Business Review, 43(4),

148–157, p. 151.

Key People in Human-Resources Theories

As we see in Table 3.2, there some key differences between human-relations and

human-resources theories. These differences can be broken down into two basic

categories: motivation and decision making. The rest of this section surveys both

of these areas and the key people who researched these phenomena.

Motivation Theories

Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Many theorists tried to explain the importance of the human resources approach.

One of these individuals was Abraham Maslow. [5] He is widely known for his

creation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In order to get employees to work, he

tried to understand what motivates people. He knew that managers and

consultants were aware that certain aspects of work were more appealing than

others for workers. Workers can rank what they feel is most important for them

as an individual. With this information, Maslow came up with five needs that

need to be satisfied at one stage before moving on to another stage. Maslow felt

that needs vary from person to person and that individuals want their needs

fulfilled. One must determine what is the motivational factor.

Physiological Needs. The first level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is

physiological, which means that physical needs such as food and water need to

be met before moving to the next level. If workers do not make enough money to

buy food and water, then it will be hard for them to continue working.

Safety Needs. The second level is safety. Workers need to be in a safe

environment and know that their bodies and belongings will be protected. If

workers don’t feel secure, then they will find it hard to work efficiently. Think of

the many occupations that are highly unsafe. According to an article on the CNN

Money website, [6] the top ten most dangerous jobs in the United States are as

follows:

1. Fisherman

2. Logger

3. Airplane pilot

4. Farmer and rancher

5. Mining machine operator

6. Roofer

7. Sanitation worker

8. Truck driver/delivery person

9. Industrial machine repair person

10. Police officer

According to Maslow’s basic theoretical premise, these individuals will have a

harder time worrying about needs at the higher levels unless they can overcome

the inherent lack of safety within these jobs.

Love, Affection, and Belongingness Needs. The third layer is called love,

affection, and belongingness needs. Maslow believed that if an individual met

the basic physiological and safety needs, then that individual would start

attempting to achieve love, affection, and belongingness needs next. “He [sic]

will hunger for affectionate relations with people in general, namely, for a place

in his [or her] group, and he [or she] will strive with great intensity to achieve

this goal.” [7] Maslow believed that organizations would have better worker

retention and satisfaction if they kept their employees in a cohesive environment.

Furthermore, if a worker feels isolated or ostracized from the work environment,

then he or she feels less motivated to work, which will lead to a decrease in

overall productivity.

Esteem Needs. The fourth layer is called esteem, and is represented by two

different sets of needs, according to Maslow. First, individuals are motivated by

the “desire for strength, for achievement, for adequacy, for confidence in the

face of the world, and for independence and freedom.” [8] Maslow goes on to

discuss a second subset of esteem needs: “We have what we may call the desire

for reputation or prestige (defining it as respect or esteem from other people),

recognition, attention, importance or appreciation.” [9] While Maslow originally

separated these two lists from each other, they clearly have more in common

than not. If employees do not feel that their input is valued at the organization,

they will seek out other places of employment that will value their input, because

humans have an intrinsic need to be appreciated for their efforts.

Self-Actualization Needs. The fifth layer is called self-actualization, and it is

the hardest to attain. Self-actualization “refers to the desire for self-fulfillment,

namely, to the tendency for [a person] to become actualized in what he [sic] is

potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and

more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”

Maslow goes on to explain, “A musician must make music, an artist must paint,

a poet must write, if he [or she] is to be ultimately happy. What a man [or

woman] can be, he [or she] must be. This need we may call self-actualization.” [10] Maslow felt that if individuals could have their needs met in order of the

layers, then they would both be motivated and seek opportunities to excel.

All in all, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs helps us understand how to motivate

workers to strive for more in the organization. Hence communication is very

important, because we need to understand what our employees need in order to

motivate them to work more proficiently and productively. In organizational

communication, we must understand that people will be more responsive to the

organization if their needs are fulfilled in order. If they are not fulfilled, then

workers will be frustrated and unable to work efficiently.

Figure 3.2 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg

Frederick Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory

Another researcher to enter the fray of human motivation was Frederick

Herzberg. Originally trained as a clinical psychologist, Herzberg switched focus

over the course of his career and became one of the first researchers in the

growing field of industrial psychology. The original notion of Frederick

Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory was that traditional perspectives on

motivation, like Maslow’s, only looked at one side of the coin—how to motivate

people. Herzberg and his original colleagues [11] theorized that what ultimately

motivated individuals to work were not necessarily the same factors that led to

demotivation at work. In Herzberg’s worldview, motivation on the job should

lead to satisfied workers, but he theorized that satisfaction and dissatisfaction

were not opposite ends of one continuum. Instead, he predicted that the factors

that lead to positive job attitudes (and thus motivation) were different from the

factors that lead to negative job attitudes (and thus demotivation). For the

purposes of his theory, he called the factors that led to positive job attitudes

motivators and those factors that led to negative job attitudes hygiene factors.

In Table 3.3, the basic motivators and hygiene factors are listed. Notice that the

motivators are all centered on ideas somewhat similar to the esteem needs and

self-actualization needs of Abraham Maslow. On the other hand, the hygiene

factors all examine the context of work.

Table 3.3 Motivators and Hygiene Factors

Motivators Hygiene Factors

Achievement Policy and administration

Recognition Micromanagement

Advancement Relationships (supervisor, peers, and subordinates)

The work itself Job security

Responsibility Personal life

Potential for promotion Work conditions

Potential for personal growth Status

Salary Salary

Upon looking at Table 3.3, you may notice that Salary is entered for both

motivators and hygiene factors. In The Managerial Choice, Herzberg reversed

his previous thinking that salary was purely a hygiene factor: “Although

primarily a hygiene factor, it [salary] also often takes on some of the properties

of a motivator, with dynamics similar to those of recognition for achievement.” [12]

Decision Making

Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y

As we discussed earlier, the classical perspective felt that leadership should

control and order subordinates. Then, in the human-relations approach, we

learned that superiors need to cultivate and support their employees. Douglas

McGregor, [13] a management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology in the 1950s and 1960s, felt that there are two different perspectives,

which he termed Theory X and Theory Y. These theories were based on

assumptions that managers have about their workers.

McGregor defined a Theory X manager as one who believes that most people do

not like work. Workers are not smart or creative. People do not care about the

organization, and will adequately work when there are promises for rewards and

potential punishments. Moreover, a Theory X manager believes that people want

to have direction in order to evade responsibility.

On the other hand, Theory Y managers feel that people want to do what is best

for the organization and can direct themselves under the right conditions. Table

3.4 illustrates the differences between Theory X and Theory Y.

Table 3.4 Differences between Theory X and Theory Y

Theory X Theory Y

Workers:

• dislike work and find ways to avoid it

• avoid responsibility

• want direction

• resist change

• are not intelligent

• are not creative

Workers:

• perceive work as natural and find it enjoyable

• want responsibility

• prefer self-direction

• want to work toward organizational goals

• have the potential to develop and adapt

• are intelligent

• believe managers must control, reward, and/or

punish employees to maintain performance

• are creative

• believe work conditions need to be set to

achieve worker and organizational goals

KEY TAKEAWAY

Human resources encourages an environment where employees

have the ability to be creative and take risks in order to maximize

outcomes.

Human resources places an emphasis on more communication

than does human relations.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs helps us to understand what

motivates people in organizations.

McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y are assumptions that

managers have about their employees. They differ in the type of

communication involved, as well as the expectations of workers.

EXERCISES

1. Describe what you think are the most important characteristics of

human relations and human resources. Which do you prefer?

Why?

2. Think of examples where you see scientific management

principles, for example, “time is money,” being implemented today.

Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs:

Theory X:

Theory Y:

Hygiene Factors:

Motivators :

3. Create your own hypothetical Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. What

would motivate you to work in an organization? Use Figure 3.2 as

a guide when creating your pyramid.

4. Do you agree or disagree with the statement “The happy worker

is a productive worker”? Why or why not? Discuss your answers

as a group to determine if happiness is associated with

productivity in the workplace.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Model that suggests there are certain levels of human motivation and each level must be met before moving to the next level. Shaped like a pyramid, the model shows that humans’ most basic needs from lowest to highest are physical, then safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

This approach is similar to the scientific-management approach, where workers are expected only to work. In this perspective, managers believe that workers are apathetic toward work and people need direction. In addition, managers believe that workers are not smart, do not seek advancement, and avoid responsibility.

This approach is similar to the human-relations approach. In this perspective, managers believe that people want to succeed and they can excel if you give them the right to be creative. In addition, people want to work, seek direction, and are ambitious.

The list of factors that lead to negative job attitudes according to motivation theorist Frederick Herzberg.

The list of factors that lead to positive job attitudes according to motivation theorist Frederick Herzberg.

[1] Miles, R. E. (1965). Human relations or human resources? Harvard

Business Review, 43(4), 148–157.

[2] Miles, R. E. (1965). Human relations or human resources? Harvard

Business Review, 43(4), 148–157, p. 150.

[3] Miles, R. E., & Ritchie, J. B. (1971). Participative management:

Quality vs. quantity. California Management Review, 13(4), 48–56, p. 48.

[4] Miles, R. E. (1965). Human relations or human resources? Harvard

Business Review, 43(4), 148–157.

[5] Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological

Review, 50, 370–96.

[6] Christie, L. (2011, August 26). America’s most dangerous jobs: The 10

most dangerous jobs in America. CNNMoney [website]. Retrieved from

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/pf/jobs/1108/gallery.dangerous_jobs/index.html

[7] Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological

Review, 50, 370–96, p. 381.

[8] Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological

Review, 50, 370–96, p. 381.

[9] Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological

Review, 50, 370–96, p. 381–382.

[10] Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological

Review, 50, 370–96, p. 382. Emphasis in original.

[11] Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B. S. (1959). The

motivation to work. New York, NY: Wiley.

[12] Herzberg, F. (1976). The managerial choice: To be efficient and to be

human. Homewood, IL: Dow-Jones-Irwin, p. 71.

[13] McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of enterprise. New York, NY:

McGraw-Hill.

3.4 Chapter Exercises

REAL-WORLD CASE STUDY

McDaniel’s Burger Restaurant is a family-owned restaurant located

in a small town in Texas. The family has had the restaurant for three

generations. People come from far and wide to eat at the restaurant,

because McDaniel’s takes pride in cooking each burger to the

customer’s wants and needs. The restaurant prides itself in having

the most selections for meat and vegetarian burgers. In addition,

they carry a wide variety of toppings, such as ordinary toppings like

tomatoes, bacon, cheese, onions, and lettuce, but also unique

toppings like cucumbers, salsa, salad dressing, pineapple, and

sprouts. Customers can decide how they would like their burger

cooked: grilled or fried. Everyone in town loves McDaniel’s Burgers

because they are personalized and delicious.

Lately, business has been increasing because the population has

increased. The McDaniel family can no longer keep up with the

demand and decided to sell their business to a bigger firm, Burger

Business. Burger Business has many establishments and is used to

catering to large crowds. Burger Business executives liked

McDaniel’s Burgers but felt that the restaurant was not very efficient,

because customers would have to wait a long time before their

order was completed. Over time, the executives and consultants of

Burger Business felt that they needed to have five different stations.

The first station was for meat selection. For instance, the customer

can choose from beef, bison, elk, chicken, or veggie patty. The

second station was for meat preparation. The customer can choose

if they want their meat fried or grilled and to what degree. The third

station was for toppings. An attendant would help the customer with

the toppings for their burger. The fourth station was the side bar,

where customers could choose drinks and sides such as French

fries. The last station was the cashier, where customers would pay

for their meal. Most of the employees of McDaniel’s Burgers were

already trained in all areas of operations. Hence they could work in

any station and in any order. The Burger Business executives felt

that this would help with employee satisfaction because they could

work in a variety of stations and they could have more flexibility.

However, over time, the profits for McDaniel’s Burgers were not very

high. Moreover, employee retention was at an all-time low. However,

executives felt they could replace workers, because the task was so

simple. In addition, several customers no longer liked dining in the

restaurant as in the past. More customers were requesting to take

their orders home. The executives were confused because they felt

they had made productive and efficient changes. Initially, the

executives felt that the reason customers felt negative about the

business was because certain stations tended to have longer lines,

such as the toppings and sides bar. Hence they divided the toppings

stations into original toppings and unique toppings. They also

divided the sides bar into fries and drinks. The executives also

decided to get rid of toppings that customers rarely ordered, such as

anchovies and sauerkraut. Overall, the executives were happy with

the changes they made and felt that they could open more

McDaniel’s Burgers in other locations.

1. In the end, Burger Business executives had a positive perspective

of the future of McDaniel’s Burgers. Do you agree? Why? What

are some potential risks or pitfalls that the executives need to be

cautious about? What could they do to motivate workers?

2. Can you identify some of the classical theories presented in this

case study? What are some of the advantages and

disadvantages of these theories in this case study?

3. Let’s pretend Burger Business hired you as a communication

consultant for McDaniel’s Burgers. What information would you

collect? How will this information help you predict the future

outcome of this business? What would you expect the findings to

be? How would you use this information to make suggestions to

the executives?

4. Pretend you are a customer of McDaniel’s Burgers. How do you

feel communication can be improved for the customers of

McDaniel’s Burgers? What would customers prefer or dislike with

this establishment?

5. Pretend you are an employee of McDaniel’s Burgers. How do you

feel that communication can be improved? Why is there such a

high employee turnover rate? How can executives help with the

employee retention rate?

REAL-WORLD CASE STUDY

Clancey Shoe Factory has a reputation for good shoes made with

pride and love. Clancey Shoe Factory is a small family business that

supports many of the businesses in the major metropolitan area of

Lubbock, Texas. However, a new generation of Clancey children

would like to see their business grow and have expanded their

market online. Now, the business is getting even busier. More and

more orders are coming in every day from all around the world. To

keep up with the demand, the Clancey family had to hire more

workers to make shoes. However, with more workers also come

more problems. In order to keep production moving in an efficient

and timely order, they had three main work areas. The first station

was in charge of advertising and taking orders and inventory. The

second station was in charge of shoe development and creation.

The third station was in charge of shoe delivery and order

completion. Every worker had different perceptions about the other

stations and believed that their own work was harder. Hence they

wanted more compensation and more benefits compared to the

other workers in the various stations. Within stations, there was

friction among the workers with more experience or higher customer

satisfaction. At first, everyone was paid the same amount. However,

workers felt that was not fair due to their personal tasks or

experiences. The Clanceys have many orders to fill, but they will

lose business if they cannot satisfy their workers.

1. Pretend you have been asked to be a human-resources expert for

the company. What can you do to improve the company?

2. How can you fix this problem? What changes can be made to the

company?

3. If you were a worker for this company, what would you want?

Why?

4. If you were the owner of this company, what would you do? Why?

END-OF-CHAPTER ASSESSMENT

1. The word theory originally derives its name from a Greek word theoria, θεωρία, which roughly translated means:

a. generalization b. affiliation c. contemplation d. harmonization e. actualization

2. Sara gets a job where she has to stamp letters all day. She is given no other task or opportunity to talk with others. What classical perspective best describes her job?

a. scientific management b. bureaucracy c. Theory Y d. Hawthorne effect e. authority

3. Weber stated that the best way to select authority was:

a. bureaucracy b. traditional ways c. charismatic d. b and c e. all of the above

4. Fayol believed that there is a hierarchical order of authority, a sequence and succession to how communication is transferred from one person to another. This is known as:

a. scalar chain b. subordination of individual interests to general interest c. order d. authority e. unity of command

5. All of the following are characteristics of the human relations

approach except:

a. workers’ desire to feel as though they are a useful part of the organization

b. if workers’ needs are filled, they will comply c. when employee needs and desires are met, they are more

satisfied d. management should tap into worker capabilities e. management should allow employees to offer input but

keep important decisions to themselves

Answer Key

1. c

2. a

3. a

4. a

5. d

Chapter 4

Modern Theories of Organizational Communication

Expanding Your View

Up to now, your introduction to organizational communication has been fairly

straightforward. The definition of an “organization” presented in Chapter 1

emphasized aspects of the workplace that you probably expected, such as

structure, goals, and personnel. Likewise, the definition of “communication”

featured elements that can be easily understood—source, message, channel,

receiver. Then in Chapter 3, we explored classical theories of organizational

communication that are driven by attitudes you have likely encountered on the

job—your supervisor’s desire for machinelike efficiency, your company’s view

of employees as “human resources” that must be beneficially managed.

In this chapter, however, we are going to complicate these pictures. Yet by

expanding your view of “organization” and “communication,” you can better

understand the often bewildering and messy realities of everyday life on the job.

Modern theories of organizational communication—the subject of this chapter—

are driven by a recognition that “real life” in the workplace seldom conforms to

such ideals as smoothly operating hierarchies and clearly transmitted messages.

For example, has your boss ever yelled at you? Irrational behavior can be

difficult to square with classical theories of organization and communication.

Though a message is obviously being transmitted from a source (your boss) to a

receiver (you), insults generate far more mental stimulation than is necessary

and, in fact, introduce inaccuracies that will likely cause you to misinterpret the

message. Cursing hardly reflects the scientific management advocated by

Frederick Taylor, the impersonal environment espoused by Max Weber, and the

precise wording of commands favored by Henri Fayol. So by these lights, your

boss’s yelling is inefficient and counterproductive. Neither are curses and insults

conducive to good human relations in the workplace or to satisfying your

hierarchy of needs, or giving you positive motivation and enjoyment in your job,

or encouraging your involvement in workplace decisions. By all these accounts,

yelling and cursing is bad management and yet, as we will see in Chapter 13, it

occurs daily in organizations worldwide. One study estimated that 37 percent of

workers will be subjected to workplace bullying in the course of their careers. In

the United States alone, that amounts to more than fifty-six million people. [1]

In this chapter, we will expand our view of organization and communication in

ways that allow us to consider some new perspectives: Did your boss yell to

assert power over you? Was this assertion of power rooted in historical

prejudices or in attitudes that prevail in the surrounding society? Is aggression

tied to the very nature of organizing itself? Or is aggression rooted in the culture

of your particular organization, a pattern that employees past and present have

established, so that yelling is a way that people “make sense” of a

supercompetitive work environment?

Learning about modern theories of organizational communication will help us

explore such questions. Before describing these theories, however, we must

revisit the assumptions that we have built up in the preceding chapters. This is

because modern theories are often based on different assumptions about the

nature of organizations and communication than are classical theories. We are

not asking you to discard classical thinking; the theories of Taylor, Weber and

Fayol, and those of human relations and human resources, address real issues in

the workplace and remain influential. Rather, we are asking you to build on the

foundation of classical theory and now expand your view.

[1] Namie, G. (2010). 2010 U.S. workplace bullying survey. Workplace

Bullying Institute. Retrieved from

http://www.workplacebullying.org/wbiresearch/2010-wbi-national-survey

4.1 Rethinking the Organization

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Differentiate among the four approaches to theorizing about

organizations: postpositive, interpretive, critical, and postmodern.

2. Understand how these approaches are driven by three decisions

about ontology (how things exist), epistemology (how things are

known), and axiology (what is worth knowing).

In Chapter 1, we read fifteen representative definitions of “organization” (see

“Defining Organization” sidebar). All fifteen contained one or more of the

following words (or their variants): system, structure, unit, collective, pattern,

coordination.

When we think of a “system” or “structure,” we usually think of an object, a

thing that exists independently of the people in it. People come and go, but the

system endures. Yet when we think of a system as a “thing,” we are thinking

metaphorically. As noted in the introduction to Chapter 3, a metaphor is not a

literal description but rather a linguistic means to grasp a concept by comparing

it to something from the real world. Thus we think of time as an object in such

metaphors as “time flies” and “time is money.” [1] In the same way, although a

system is not an actual, literal, physical object that you can hold in your hands,

thinking of it that way helps you picture how a system functions.

Similarly, when you think of an “organization,” you probably think of it as an

object with its own existence. Most people do. A corporation, for example, is

considered a “person” under US law for purposes ranging from taxation to free

speech. Clearly, however, thinking of an organization as an object is a metaphor.

Nevertheless, the way that we conceptualize an “organization” has very real

consequences for organizational communication theory.

Three Decisions about Theory

The assumption that an organization is an object with an independent existence

—that is to say, it has an “objective” rather than “subjective” reality—is

characteristic of the postpositive (sometimes called positivist or functionalist)

tradition in organizational communication scholarship. In this section we will

review the postpositive perspective and then, as alternatives, introduce the

interpretive, critical, and postmodern perspectives on organizations. Each

approach to how we conceive of organizations involves different assumptions.

For theorists, their assumptions imply three decisions: ontology, epistemology,

and axiology.

Ontology: How things Exist

Our ontology is how we think about the nature of being. Do we think of an

organization as having its own existence and own behaviors that continue

independently of the various managers and employees who come and go over

time? Or do we believe these individuals create and continuously recreate the

organization and therefore drive its behaviors? Or is our concept of the

organization, and our expectations for the form it should take and what it should

do, determined by larger historical and cultural forces?

Epistemology: How Things Are Known

Our epistemology is our philosophy of how things come to be known. Do we

believe that knowledge about an organization is attained by observing collective

actions and measuring aggregate behaviors? Or by listening to individual

members of an organization and interpreting organizational life on their terms?

Or by tracing the historical and cultural forces that have shaped people’s

expectations for what an organization should be and the roles that managers and

employees should play?

Axiology: What is Worth Knowing

Our axiology is what we believe is worth knowing, a decision that involves a

value judgment. Many social scientists believe that only empirical evidence, or

what can be directly and impartially observed and measured, is worth knowing.

Others ask whether any research is truly value neutral or can be based on “just

the facts.” Does not the choice of research method influence what is found?

Indeed, is not a decision to accept only what can be measured in itself a value

judgment? Where some scholars strive to produce impartial knowledge that

organizational management can use to improve results, others believe such a

goal implicitly supports the current system and those in power. Furthermore,

where some researchers measure aggregate responses, others strive to hear

organizational members on their own terms while giving voice to the powerless

and thereby effecting social change.

All three issues—ontology, epistemology, and axiology—are deeply implicated

in both classical and modern theories of organizational communication.

Four Questions about Organizations

What is now called the postpositive (or sometimes positivist or functionalist)

approach dominated organization studies through the 1970s. [2] Most scholars in

the field took it for granted that organizations could, and should, be studied

through scientific methods. Then in 1979, Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan

published an influential work that proposed new paradigms for organizational

studies. [3] They started with four basic questions about the assumptions of social

science:

1. Do social realities, such as organizations, have objective or subjective

existence; that is, do they exist on their own or only in people’s minds?

2. Can one understand these social realities through observation or must they

be directly experienced?

3. Is knowledge best gained by scientific methods or by participating in a

social reality from the inside?

4. Do people have free will or are they determined by their environments?

According to Burrell and Morgan, these issues boil down into two fundamental

debates: whether social realities exist objectively or subjectively and whether

their basic state is order or conflict. These two questions form the axes of a 2x2

matrix, which we have adapted from Burrell and Morgan and show in Figure

4.1.

Figure 4.1 Burrell and Morgan’s Approaches to Organizations

During the 1980s and beyond, scholars used Burrell and Morgan’s matrix to

flesh out new approaches for organizational research. [4] More recently, Stanley

Deetz took stock of how the field has developed since Burrell and Morgan’s

original analysis. [5] For him, the two fundamental issues in research are whether

order or conflict is the natural state of an organization and whether researchers

apply “knowledge to” or derive “knowledge from” an organization—that is,

whether they start with an existing theory and see how an organization might fit

or study an organization on its own terms. Thus some researchers begin with a

general theory of why organizations produce order (or conflict) and then apply

the theory to explain a specific case. Other researchers, however, first study a

specific organization to discover its patterns of order (or conflict) and then

explain these patterns by citing an existing theory or proposing a new one.

Our own survey of the literature suggests that theorizing about organizations is

governed by two basic questions. First, do social realities (such as organizations)

have objective or subjective existence? In other words, do social phenomena

“have a reality that is independent of their being perceived by someone” or

“exist only in relation to some point of view”? [6] Second, what is the source of

structure? Here, theorists debate the issue of structure versus agency—or

whether people are determined by their environments (structures) or have free

will (agency). Applied to an organization, the question is whether its structures

are determined by larger social forces or created by its members. From our two

basic questions—the nature of reality, the source of structure—we derive the

four approaches to modern organizational communication theory that are used

throughout this book:

1. Postpositive theorists hold that an organization’s structures, although

originally created by its members, literally take on a life of their own and

over time become objectively real.

2. Interpretive theorists hold that an organization’s structures exist

subjectively (i.e., only in relation to its members’ perceptions) and so are

constantly created and recreated.

3. Critical theorists hold that an organization’s structures are objectively real,

but they believe these structures originate in the larger social environment,

which determines who is privileged and who is not.

4. Postmodern theorists hold that structure is subjective and, further, is

constantly in flux because organization members are preconditioned by

competing social forces to perceive reality in competing ways.

Thus a postpositive researcher might study how an organization’s hierarchy

endures even as individual managers and employees come and go; an

interpretive researcher would investigate how managers and employees

constantly adapt the hierarchy to changing needs. On the other hand, a critical

researcher might demonstrate how an organization’s hierarchy reflects

unquestioned assumptions of male domination that prevail throughout society,

and a postmodern researcher might show how power relations in a given

organization are constantly shaped and reshaped by members’ competing

perceptions.

As we will describe later, your task is not to choose one “best” approach to

organizational communication but to appreciate and draw from each. Toward

that end, let us now explore each of the four approaches in more detail. In so

doing, we will focus on their ontologies, epistemologies, and axiologies, which

are summarized for you in Figure 4.3 at the end of this section. For now, we are

only describing the approaches and not specific theories within each approach.

Postpositive Approach

The word postpositive suggests the approach is a successor to a “positive”

philosophy. The two terms have specific meanings in the history of science. As

Steven Corman explained, where positivist scientists of the early twentieth

century believed reality matters only when it can be perceived, today’s

postpositivists hold that reality exists independently of perception. [7] Thus as we

have already seen, the postpositive approach holds that an organization is

objectively “real” and does not depend for its existence on its members’

subjective perceptions.

Lex Donaldson succinctly captured the implications of this approach: “In any

situation, to attain the best outcome, the decision-makers must choose the

structure that best fits that situation…with the ideas of the decision-makers

making no independent contribution to the explanation of the structure.” Since

an organization can survive only if it performs well, managers are ultimately

forced—no matter how they individually perceive the problem—to choose the

course of action that gets the best results. Even when managers choose second-

best options, the resulting performance deficit forces managers to correct the

mistake. In the end, “the consciousness of the actors [is] superfluous” because

“there will be an irresistible tendency for organization managers to choose

options that conform to the situational imperative…with no moderation by

managerial ideas.” [8] In other words, because the organization is objectively

“real,” no matter what any single individual thinks, the needs of the organization

come first.

The same holds true when managers communicate; they are forced, in the end, to

choose messages and channels that best contribute to the bottom line. In the

postpositive view, then, the purpose of organizational communication is

instrumental—that is, an instrument for achieving results. Accurate messages

and precise instructions are therefore seen as the best guarantors of optimal

performance.

Given this conception of the organization, we can see how the postpositive

approach exhibits a distinctive ontology (belief in how things exist),

epistemology (belief in how things are known), and axiology (belief in what is

worth knowing). Because the organization has an independent reality, its

imperatives—to survive, to get the best results—drive what people do (rather

than vice versa). And because individual mind-sets ultimately do not matter,

researchers learn about an organization by observing its aggregate behaviors.

Thus Frederick Taylor’s classical theory of scientific management is based on

the assumption that what comes out of the organization is a function of what

went in. This idea is expressed in the popular acronym GIGO, for “garbage in,

garbage out.” So when managers observe poor output, they must scientifically

adjust input so their metaphorical well-oiled machine can work at maximum

capacity. The goal, not only for managers but for postpositive organizational

theorists, is to move from description and explanation to prediction of causes

and effects, which implies the ability to control effects by adjusting causes.

Figure 4.2 illustrates this progression. In organizational research, studies

undertaken from a postpositive perspective are often intended to generate

knowledge that can be applied to improving management practices.

Figure 4.2 Goals for Postpositive Research

Even as Taylor did a century ago with his time-and-motion studies, those today

who study organizations from a postpositive perspective see themselves as social

scientists. They practice nomothetic research methods that emphasize scientific

testing of hypotheses and employ quantitative methods, such as surveys and

experiments, which generate numerical data. For postpositive researchers, this is

the only data worth knowing; they disfavor the ideographic data generated by

such qualitative methods as ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, journals, and

diaries. Postpositive scholars believe that ideographic data is inherently

subjective and thus unable to describe the objective reality of organizational

communication. The ultimate goal of nomothetic research is to discover general

laws that, ideally, can be applied to all cases. Classical examples of the

nomothetic approach to research are described in Chapter 3, including the

Hawthorne Studies of Elton Mayo and the pajama factory study of Kurt Lewin.

In fairness, we must point out that people who conduct postpositive research

generally do not use that term. Since the field of organizational communication

arose in the early twentieth century as an outgrowth of management science,

scholars today who draw on that tradition in their studies of communication call

themselves social scientists—as do their counterparts in allied fields such as

industrial psychology and organizational behavior. Even today, the social-

scientific approach to organizational communication accounts for nearly half of

the research published within the field. [9] As noted earlier, you can refer to

Figure 4.3 for a summary of postpositive ontology (how things exist),

epistemology (how things are known), and axiology (what is worth knowing).

Interpretive Approach

Where postpositive theorists believe the organization drives what its people do,

interpretive theorists believe the reverse: that people drive what their

organizations do and, in fact, what their organizations are. As Dennis Mumby

and Robin Clair put it, “Organizations exist only in so far as their members

create them through discourse,” with discourse being “the principal means by

which organization members create a coherent social reality that frames their

sense of who they are.” [10] In other words, communication is not just one

activity, among many others, that an organization “does.” Rather, the

organization itself is constituted through its members’ communication; it does

not exist objectively, but only in relation to its members’ points of view.

This explains the ontology of interpretive theorists, or their belief in how

organizations have being. Their epistemology, or how these theorists believe

knowledge is gained, is expressed by the word interpretive. Recall that

postpositive theorists believe the mind-sets of individuals do not matter since

they are irresistibly forced to choose the most effective courses of action; thus to

know an organization it is sufficient to observe its aggregate behaviors. By

contrast, interpretive theorists believe that simple observation is insufficient; the

mind-sets of organization members must also be interpreted. Hence this

approach to studying organizational communication is called interpretive.

But how do you interpret what is going on inside someone’s mind? Many

methods are used. These usually begin with collecting primary data such as

interviews with people at various levels of the organization and copies of

organizational documents such as mission statements, annual reports, policy

manuals, internal memoranda, and the like. Researchers who engage in

organizational ethnography do fieldwork in which they may spend a year or

more visiting an organization, attending weekly staff meetings, participating in

rituals such as office parties and company picnics, joining in ordinary

conversations around the water cooler, and then recording their observations.

Techniques for analyzing these ideographic data are also varied and may include

discourse analysis, conversation analysis, genre analysis, rhetorical analysis, and

other methods.

These analytical methods involve an examination of how organization members

use language to construct a shared social reality. By interpreting how language is

used (e.g., company slang, recurring phrases, common metaphors, use of active

and passive voice, what arguments employees find persuasive, how people

address one another, how people take turns in talking), researchers uncover the

underlying assumptions within an organization that its people take for granted

and may not explicitly verbalize. Interpretive researchers, then, believe that

organizational communication is not merely an instrument for getting results.

Rather, people in organizations communicate with each other to make sense of

their workplace and negotiate their places within the organization. Though

managers may believe that precise instructions maximize productivity, directives

that ignore employee perceptions can be disregarded, misinterpreted, and even

counterproductive.

The axiology of interpretive scholars is evident from their research. Where

postpositive researchers do not regard organization members’ individual mind-

sets (which cannot be directly observed or measured) as worth knowing,

interpretive researchers believe these data and their interpretation are essential to

understanding organizational life. Moreover, where the goal of postpositive

researchers is to move from description and explanation to prediction of

organizational behaviors, interpretive scholars believe that studying an

organization on its own terms means producing a description and interpretation

of organizational life that is faithful to its members’ own understandings.

Interpretive researchers can, and do, make their findings about an organization’s

communication and culture available to their subjects; in turn, organizations may

use this information to address negative perceptions and to change a

dysfunctional company culture into a more humane one. Interpretive researchers

see their role not as changing the status quo but describing it. Yet identifying the

unspoken assumptions that circulate within an organization may be the first step

in addressing inhumane practices. For a summary of interpretive ontology (how

things exist), epistemology (how things are known), and axiology (what is worth

knowing), see Figure 4.3.

Critical Approach

A generation ago, you might have read a company manual that stated, “When an

employee is late to work, he must report immediately to his supervisor.” Today

we read that sentence and, right away, notice its use of sexist language. But at

the time, it was common to use the masculine pronoun as an inclusive reference

for both sexes. For decades, even centuries, the practice was so widely accepted

as natural and self-evident that people did not question this use of the masculine

pronoun. In the 1960s, for example, the mission of the starship Enterprise in the

Star Trek television series was “to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Not until a sequel series debuted in the late 1980s was the mission statement

rephrased, “To boldly go where no one has gone before.” Living in the twenty-

first century, we now wonder how an earlier generation could have accepted

sexist language without question. Yet consider this: which of our own

assumptions will someday seem “unenlightened” to our children and

grandchildren?

Think of some things we take for granted about the workplace. If someone asked

you who “owns” the company you work for, you would answer with the name of

person who is the “owner” in a financial sense. It just seems natural and self-

evident that the one who holds the purse strings is the owner—even though you

too have a tangible stake in the company and help make its activities possible.

And in a free enterprise economy, we take for granted the notion that increased

profits benefit everyone. Even college students, before they enter the workforce,

accept this premise. Most young people attend college to “make more money”

by learning job skills that will fit them into the needs of money-making

corporations. Therefore, as corporations and their employees all make more

money, everyone wins.

These assumptions illustrate what critical theorists call the reification and

universalization of managerial interests. Reification is the process by which

something historical is made to seem natural. For example, what we call the

profit motive did not always exist; it emerged under specific historical conditions

as premodern feudal economies gave way to modern capitalist economies. But

we have so reified the profit motive that its pursuit seems natural, normal, self-

evident, and beyond questioning. This process of reification produces a “double

move” by ensuring that managerial interests are considered the only legitimate

interests, while simultaneously hiding the domination of those interests by

making them seem perfectly natural. Thus the interests of management are

universalized and represented as identical to everyone’s interests. To speak of

“company interests” is, in reality, to speak of managerial interests. Such

distortion becomes, from a critical perspective, the very purpose of

organizational communication—that is, the operation of dominant interests to

create a “false” consensus between management and employees.

Critical theorists, like the postmodern theorists we will review later in this

section, see the organization as created by larger forces of history and society.

But unlike postmodern theorists who see the organization in constant flux within

the swirling streams of those forces, critical theorists tend to see the structures of

power and domination as being so reified that they constitute “a concrete,

relatively fixed entity.” [11] Again, this requires a decision about ontology or the

nature of existence—in our case, about the nature of organizational existence.

In addition to reification and universalization, critical theorists are concerned

with two more questions: how reasoning in organizations becomes grounded in

“what works” and how dominant managerial interests gain the consent of

subordinate interests. Jurgen Habermas noted how the modern age has

increasingly supplanted practical reasoning that seeks mutual consensus with

technical reasoning that calculates the means and controls needed to accomplish

a desired end. [12] Critical theorists have applied this insight to organizational life

by critiquing how corporations make technical reasoning—or determination of

“what works” in achieving managerial interests—appear to be the only rational

approach. Practical reasoning that fosters mutual determination of organizational

goals either is made to seem irrational or is even leveraged by management as

another “technique” to further its own interests. Thus ideas such as promoting

worker participation are either dismissed as inefficient or used as a new means to

bring workers into alignment with corporate interests. Why do workers consent

to such domination? Critical theorists have looked at bureaucratic forms,

coercions and rewards, and organizational cultures. These structures may

provide no chance for alternative modes of thinking—or may cause employees

to identify so completely with an organization, they no longer require control but

willingly discipline themselves.

But if organizational structures have been made to seem natural, then how,

according to critical scholars’ epistemology, can these taken-for-granted

structures become known? Most critical-organization researchers engage in

ideology critique. These researchers bring to their subjects an existing theory

and then use it as a framework to expose how a dominant ideology has operated

to reify and universalize its interests. A good example is provided by Karl Marx,

the originator of ideology critique. He theorized that differences between capital

and labor are built into the very structure of the capitalist system and its

ideology. Then he employed his theory to explain how the few (who owned

capital) could not only exploit the many (who owned only their labor) but also

make their domination appear legitimate and natural. Notions of economic class

differences remain an influential strand of ideology critique. Yet other bases for

criticism have also become important. More recently, feminist theory offers

another example of ideology critique as researchers bring theories about gender-

based structures of domination and use these as frameworks to expose or

“denaturalize” the patriarchal assumptions that organizations take for granted.

In addition to ideology critique, a second stream of critical scholarship has

emerged that follows the theories of Jurgen Habermas about “communicative

action.” [13] Where critical scholars have traditionally plumbed the ways that

meaning, thought, and consciousness itself are distorted by dominant discourses,

Habermas began in the late 1970s to explore how communication is distorted.

He proposed that, ideally, a communicative act should satisfy three conditions:

participants should have equal opportunities to speak, should be heard without

preconceptions of what is “true” or preconceptions of what is “proper,” and

should be able to speak according to their own lived experiences. Scholars, then,

can critique how organizations distort these conditions. The following are

examples:

Managers have more opportunities to speak.

“Bottom-line” considerations are a privileged form of knowledge and seen

as the only rational basis for resolving issues.

The organization’s structure dictates, in advance, the proper relations

between management and labor.

Discussions of workplace concerns must take place within the context of

“company” (i.e., managerial) interests.

Yet Habermas’s model for communicative action also suggests possibilities for a

positive agenda. A number of scholars have proposed how legitimate

organizational communication can be restored through democratization of the

workplace. [14]

As we learned previously in this section, postpositive and interpretive theorists

look for order to emerge in organizations. Postpositive researchers look for the

ways that organizational imperatives for efficiency and productivity bring

members into alignment; interpretive researchers look for the ways that members

create, through their communication, stable communities and shared cultures. By

contrast, critical theorists believe that organizations are sites where historical and

societal ideologies are in conflict and where reified structures produce dominant

and subordinate discourses. Other researchers may look for surface stability, but

critical theorists’ axiology regards an organization’s submerged voices—

workers, women, people of color—as worth knowing. Critical theorists’

scholarship aims to recover these marginalized voices, lay bare an organization’s

reified structures for all to see, reopen possibilities previously foreclosed by

those structures, and replace false consensus with true consensus. Given that

emancipation is their goal, critical researchers combine scholarship with

activism. Again, you can see Figure 4.3 for a summary of critical ontology (how

things exist), epistemology (how things are known), and axiology (what is worth

knowing).

Postmodern Approach

Many critical theorists hold that larger social forces produce structures of power

—such as male domination or racial discrimination—with fixed and objective

existences. But postmodern theorists of organizational communication take a

different view. “Reality” constantly fluctuates in the ongoing contests among

competing social forces or “discourses.” Humans themselves are sites of

competition between these discourses. So, despite our conceit that we have an

independent “self” and control our own intentions, we are products of the

multiple voices that shape and condition us. As Robert Cooper and Gibson

Burrell explained, postmodern theorists “analyze social life in terms of paradox

and indeterminacy, thus rejecting the human agent as the center of rational

control and understanding.” In contrast to the modernist approach in which the

“organization is viewed as a social tool and an extension of human rationality,”

the postmodern approach sees the “organization [as] less the expression of

planned thought and calculative action and more a defensive reaction to forces

extrinsic to the social body which constantly threaten the stability of organized

life.” [15]

Perhaps an analogy can help. Imagine the sweep of great historical and cultural

discourses as an ocean. Its constantly swirling waves and currents determine the

actions and perceptions of all who sail upon it. An organization, then, is like a

flotilla of ships that negotiate a temporary agreement to sail as a convoy until

land is reached. Though an organization may last for decades, rather than days or

weeks, in time the currents of history and society that brought it together will

pull it apart. Postmodern theorists therefore reject the notion that, as a social

object, the “organization” has an objective and enduring existence.

As postmodern theories of organizational communication have developed over

the past generation, several themes have emerged. First is the centrality of

discourse, so that an organization is regarded as a “text” that postmodern

analysts can “read.” The goal in “reading” this “text” is to unravel the underlying

—and hidden—historical and cultural discourses reflected in the organization.

This focus on discourse also means that postmodern scholars view language,

rather than thought or consciousness, as the decisive factor in the social shaping

of organizations. Individuals are not the bearers of meaning but are caught in

webs of meaning that language creates.

Following on this idea, a second theme emerges. Organizations are said to be

decentered; the free will of their members is not the central driving force since

people are preconditioned by language. Moreover, since organizations are only

clusters of temporary consensus between competing discourses, over time these

discourses tend to produce fragility rather than unity. Different levels of

organization—from executives and middle managers to office employees and

field personnel—look at things according to their own experiences and interests.

These multiple voices generate varying perspectives, producing multiple social

realities rather than a single organizational culture. Thus postmodern scholars

say that organizations are fragmented. Nor is clash of voices without effect on

individuals, who are shaped by the multiple discourses operating across the

organization and surrounding society. For this reason, postmodernists say

individuals’ organizational identities are overdetermined and therefore

precarious and unstable.

Given that each organization is a unique “text” that is ever fluid, a third theme in

postmodern analysis is what Jean-François Lyotard called an “incredulity toward

metanarratives.” [16] In contrast to critical scholars who look at organizations

through the prism of an overarching theory—such as Marx’s theories about class

struggle or Habermas’s theories about communicative action—postmodern

scholars deconstruct the “text” of an organization for what it is; they do not fit

the “text” into an existing theory or “metanarrative.” Thus a fourth theme in the

postmodern approach to organizations is the need to deconstruct the particular

connections, within each organization, between knowledge and power.

Organizational communication, then, amounts for postmodernists to the ongoing

contest between discourses. The dominant interest works to sustain its power by

ensuring that organizational knowledge is rendered on its own terms; any other

interpretations are made to seem unnatural. Postmodern scholars strive to reopen

taken-for-granted discourses of knowledge and power, trace their formation, and

help recover the voices that have been marginalized.

In tracing out the knowledge-power connection, many postmodern

organizational scholars follow the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault. [17] Like Foucault, these scholars are concerned with the ways that modern

organizations have eliminated the need to enforce discipline through physical

punishment and real-time surveillance but have “manufactured consent” and

thereby “produced” employees who willingly discipline themselves.

Nevertheless, Foucault did not see power only in terms of constraint. Power also

enables action by charting possibilities and the channels to realize them.

Postmodern scholarship lays bare the power relations within organizations,

putting these relations back into play and helping marginalized voices restructure

the field of action to open up previously foreclosed possibilities. [18]

Figure 4.3 Approaches to Organizational Theory and Research

Combining Approaches

Until the 1970s, organizational research mostly proceeded from what we have

called a postpositive approach. Articulating new paradigms, Stanley Deetz

noted, “gave legitimacy to fundamentally different research programs and

enabled the development of different criteria for the evaluation of research.” [19]

At the same time, however, labeling has created distinct communities of

researchers that each favor a particular paradigm and can sometimes ignore or

even dismiss the work of others.

The authors of this textbook individually take different approaches to

organizational communication research. Yet we believe all perspectives make

valuable contributions. For example, we share a common interest in

communication by members of organized religions. Jason Wrench and Narissra

Punyanunt-Carter are postpositive researchers who have conducted, with other

colleagues, extensive surveys of religious believers to produce an aggregate

statistical picture of their communication behaviors. [20] By contrast, Mark Ward

is an interpretive researcher who spent several years visiting local congregations,

participating in worship and rituals, observing communication firsthand, and

learning how members talk among themselves. [21] Yet we see these different

approaches not as an “either/or” choice but as complementary. The more detailed

case studies we have, the more possible it is to build reliable theories about

organizational communication. And the more reliable our theories become, the

more we can make sense of individual cases.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Different conceptions of an “organization” are behind different

approaches to theorizing about organizational communication.

The postpositive approach holds that an organization has an

objective existence; people come and go, but the organization

endures. The interpretive approach holds that an organization has

a subjective existence—people create and sustain it through their

communication. The critical approach holds that the structures of

power within an organization have a fixed existence and reflect

larger historical and cultural forces. The postmodern approach

also holds that the power relations within an organization reflect

larger historical and cultural discourses, but that these discourses

are fluid and ever changing.

Theories of organizational communication reflect assumptions

with regard to ontology (how things, including social phenomena

such as organizations, have existence), epistemology (how things

become known), and axiology (what is worth knowing). In the

previous takeaway, the ontologies of the four approaches to

theorizing about organizational communication are described. The

postpositive approach holds that organizations are known through

scientific inquiry and that only empirical findings are worth

knowing. The interpretive approach holds that organizations are

known by directly experiencing them and that individuals’

perceptions (though these cannot be measured) are worth

knowing. The critical approach holds that hidden power structures

are exposed by applying general theories about domination and

that the voices of marginalized groups are worth knowing. The

postmodern approach also holds that marginalized discourses are

worth knowing, but that hidden power relations are exposed by

deconstructing, or tracing back, how various discourses have

formed in a given organization.

EXERCISES

1. Think of the college or university that you are attending. Then

imagine a prospective student asking you, “What is the best way

to find out what your school is really like?” Would you advise the

prospect to take a survey of current students, or to spend some

time living on campus and participating in school activities? What

is the reason for your advice? Could you imagine how a

combination of both methods could be useful? Explain your

reasoning.

2. We described in this section how most students go to college to

“make more money,” taking for granted that higher education is

about fitting into the needs of corporations. Can you think of other

ways that the corporate world has influenced college students so

that you might think in ways that serve corporate interests? Why

might these thoughts seem natural to you, so that you do not

Critical:

Interpretive:

Postmodern :

Postpositive:

Axiology :

question them?

3. Which approach to theorizing organizational communication—

postpositive, interpretive, critical, or postmodern—makes the most

sense to you? Why? Explain your answer.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

An approach to organizational communication that employs theory as a framework to expose the hidden power structures in organizations and the ways that dominant interests distort meaning, thought, consciousness, and communicative action to maintain their domination by marginalizing alternative expressions.

An approach to organizational communication holding that organizations have subjective existences and, in fact, are constituted through their members’ communication. As such, it is not enough to observe aggregate behaviors; individual mind-sets must be also be interpreted.

An approach to organizational communication holding that organizations come into existence as temporary combinations of interests against the threatening fluidity of larger historical and cultural discourses. As a reflection of these discourses, the organization is a “text” that can be “read” in order to trace back how its hidden power relations were formed.

An approach to organizational communication holding that organizations have objective existences. Since the imperative to optimize performance governs the organization, individual mind-sets ultimately are superfluous. Organizational behaviors are therefore best studied in the aggregate through empirical observations that lead to measurable results.

Philosophy of what is worth knowing. Some researchers accept only knowledge gained empirically through observation and measurement of aggregate behaviors; others believe that people’s

Decentered:

Deconstruct :

Epistemology :

Fragmented:

Ideographic :

Ideology Critique:

Nomothetic :

Ontology :

perceptions must be analyzed.

Because postmodernists believe that individuals are not autonomous but are shaped by language, they hold that individual free will is not the central driving force of an organization.

Postmodernists believe that an organization is a “text” that can be “read.” Deconstruction is the method by which analysts trace back the discourses that have formed the power relations within an organization.

Philosophy of how things are known. Some researchers believe it is sufficient to observe and measure an organization’s aggregate behaviors; others believe that the mind-sets and interactions of individuals must also be interpreted.

Because postmodernists believe that organizations are temporary and fluid combinations of differing interests, they hold that the various discourses of the interests do not produce the stability of a single unified pattern but instead generate multiple social realities that lead to organizational fragility and fragmentation.

An approach to knowledge that takes each case on its own terms by considering qualitative data such as ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, journals, and diaries.

An approach to critical scholarship that employs theory to expose how dominant interests distort meaning, thought, and consciousness to simultaneously legitimize and hide their domination.

An approach to knowledge that emphasizes scientific testing of hypotheses and employs quantitative tests, such as surveys, which generate numerical data. The ultimate goal of nomothetic research is to discover laws that can be generally applied across many cases.

Philosophy of how things have being. Some theorists believe an organization exists independently from how people perceive it; others believe an organization exists only in relation to the perceptions of its people or in relation to society.

[1] Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL:

University of Chicago Press.

[2] Redding, C., & Tompkins, P. (1988). Organizational communication—

Past and future tenses. In G. Goldhaber & G. Barnett (Eds.), Handbook

of organizational communication (pp. 5–34). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

[3] Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and

organizational analysis. London, UK: Heinemann.

[4] For example, see Redding, C., & Tompkins, P. (1988). Organizational

communication—Past and future tenses. In G. Goldhaber & G. Barnett

(Eds.), Handbook of organizational communication (pp. 5–34). Norwood,

NJ: Ablex; Putnam, L. (1982). Paradigms for organizational

communication research. Western Journal of Speech Communication,

46, 192–206.

[5] Deetz, S. (2001). Conceptual foundations. In F. M. Jablin & L. L.

Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication:

Advances in theory, research, and methods (pp. 3–46). Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage. See also Deetz, S. (1994). Representative practices and the

political analysis of corporations. In B. Kovacic (Ed.), Organizational

communication: New perspectives (pp. 209–242). Albany: State

University of New York Press.

[6] Corman, S. R. (2005). Postpositivism. In S. May & D. K. Mumby

(Eds.), Engaging organizational communication theory and research:

Multiple perspectives (pp. 15–34). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, p. 25.

[7] Corman, S. R. (2005). Postpositivism. In S. May & D. K. Mumby

(Eds.), Engaging organizational communication theory and research:

Multiple perspectives (pp. 15–34). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[8] Donaldson, L. (2003). Organization theory as a positive science. In H.

Tsoukas & C. Knudsen, The Oxford handbook of organizational theory:

Meta-theoretical perspectives (pp. 39–62). Oxford, UK: Oxford University

Press, pp. 44–45.

[9] Spence, P. R., & Baker, C. R. (2007). State of the method: An

examination of level of analysis, methodology, representation and setting

in current organizational communication research. Journal of the

Northwest Communication Association, 36, 111–124.

[10] Mumby, D. K., & Clair, R. P. (1997). Organizational discourse. In T. A.

van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as structure and process, Vol. 2 (pp. 181–205).

London, UK: Sage, p. 181.

[11] Deetz, S. (2001). Conceptual foundations. In F. M. Jablin & L. L.

Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication:

Advances in theory, research, and methods (pp. 3–46). Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage, p. 27.

[12] Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and human interests (J. Shapiro,

Trans.). Boston: Beacon. Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and human

interests (J. Shapiro, Trans.). Boston: Beacon.

[13] Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action: Vol. 1.,

Reason and the rationalization of society (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston:

Beacon; Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicative action: Vol.

2, Lifeworld and system. Boston: Beacon.

[14] For example, see Cheney, G. (1995). Democracy in the workplace:

Theory and practice from the perspective of communication. Journal of

Applied Communication Research, 23, 167–200; Deetz, S. (1992).

Democracy in the age of corporate colonization: Developments in

communication and the politics of everyday life. Albany: State University

of New York Press; Harrison, T. (1994). Communication and

interdependence in democratic organizations. In S. Deetz (Ed.),

Communication yearbook 17 (pp. 247–274). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[15] Cooper, R., & Burrell, G. (1988). Modernism, postmodernism, and

organizational analysis: An introduction. Organization Studies, 9, 91–112,

p. 91.

[16] Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on

knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, p. xxiv.

[17] See Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the

prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York, NY: Pantheon; Foucault, M.

(1980). The history of sexuality (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York, NY:

Pantheon; Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the self. In L. H. Martin,

H. Gutman, & P. H. Hutton (Eds.), Technologies of the self: A seminar

with Michel Foucault (pp. 16–49). Amherst: University of Massachusetts

Press.

[18] Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8, 777–

795, p. 791.

[19] Deetz, S. (2001). Conceptual foundations. In F. M. Jablin & L. L.

Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication:

Advances in theory, research, and methods (pp. 3–46). Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage, p. 8.

[20] Punyanunt-Carter, N. M., Corrigan, M. W., Wrench, J. S., &

McCroskey, J. C. (2010). A quantitative analysis of political affiliation,

religiosity, and religious-based communication. Journal of

Communication and Religion, 33, 1–32; Punyanunt-Carter, N. M.,

Wrench, J. S., Corrigan, M. W., & McCroskey, J. C. (2008). An

examination of reliability and validity of the Religious Communication

Apprehension Scale. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research,

37, 1–15; Wrench, J. S., Corrigan, M. W., McCroskey, J. C., &

Punyanunt-Carter, N. M. (2006). Religious fundamentalism and

intercultural communication: The relationship among ethnocentrism,

intercultural communication apprehension, religious fundamentalism,

homonegativity, and tolerance for religious disagreements. Journal of

Intercultural Communication Research, 35, 23–44.

[21] Ward, M., Sr. (2009). Fundamentalist differences: Using ethnography

of rhetoric (EOR) to analyze a community of practice. Intercultural

Communication Studies, 18, 1–20; Ward, M., Sr. (2010). “I was saved at

an early age”: An ethnography of fundamentalist speech and cultural

performance. Journal of Communication and Religion, 33, 108–144;

Ward, M., Sr. (2013). Managing the anxiety and uncertainty of religious

otherness: Interfaith dialogue as a problem of intercultural

communication. In D. S. Brown (Ed.), Interfaith dialogue: Listening to

communication theory. Lanham, MD: Lexington; Ward, M., Sr. (in press).

Cognition, culture, and charity: Sociolinguistics and “donor dissonance” in

a Baptist denomination, Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and

Nonprofit Organizations; Ward, M., Sr (in press). The PowerPoint and the

glory: An ethnography of pulpit media and its organizational

impacts. Journal of Media and Religion.

4.2 Rethinking Communication

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Differentiate among the three models for how communication

functions—linear, interactional, and transactional—and the

limitations of each model.

2. Differentiate among the seven traditions of communication theory

and understand how each approaches the nature of

communication and how meaning is exchanged.

In Section 1, we challenged you to rethink the concept of organization. Now we

turn to “communication.” You were introduced in Chapter 1 to the SMCR

(source, message, channel, receiver) model of communication. For two good

reasons, numerous textbooks in communication begin with this longstanding

model. First, its components—source, message, channel, receiver—are easy to

grasp. In our modern world of phones, computers, networks, and mass media,

we encounter the basic idea of the SMCR model on a daily basis. Second, the

model is effective in getting students to think—often for the first time—about

communication as more than just a reflex action, more than something that just

“happens.”

Now, however, we will consider two questions: how communication works and

what communication is. The SMCR model, for example, suggests

communication works by traveling in a straight line from source to receiver. But

scholars have largely moved beyond this simple linear model and have

described communication as an interactional or, more recently, a transactional

process. In “How Communication Works: Three Models, we will review these

three models of how communication works. Yet an even more basic question

concerns what communication is. The SMCR model belongs to a body of

theories that conceive of communication as information processing, an approach

that is called a “cybernetic” concept of communication. Yet the cybernetic

concept is not the only body of communication theories. Robert Craig has

described seven distinct traditions of communication theory. [1] Since modern

theories of organizational communication are often built on a different concept

of communication than a cybernetic one, later in this section we will review the

seven approaches to answering this question: what is communication?

How Communication Works: Three Models

At the most basic level, the three models of how communication works—linear,

interactional, and transactional—can be represented by the three graphics in

Figure 4.4. The linear model originated in the 1940s, the interactional in the

1950s, and the transactional in the 1970s. That the original linear model of

communication remains influential is attested to by its inclusion in so many

introductory textbooks, including this one. But theorists have long noted its

limitations: the assumptions that listeners are passive, that only one message is

transmitted at a time, and that communication has a beginning and an end. In

fact, a source could transmit a confusing or nonsensical message rather than a

meaningful one, and the linear model would work just as well; there is no

provision for gauging whether a message has been understood by its receivers.

Neither is the context of a communication situation taken into account.

Nevertheless, the linear model introduces helpful concepts and terms that are the

basis for understanding, as we will see later, the interactional and transactional

models of communication.

Figure 4.4 Three Concepts of Communication

Linear Model

Inspired by postwar research at Bell Laboratories on telephone transmissions,

Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver developed the “mathematical model” of

human communication shown in Figure 4.5. [2] In their model, successful

sending and receiving of a message is a function of the channel’s capacity to

handle signal degradation caused by static noise on the line. When applied in

general to human communication, “noise” can be physical (background noises

that make the message harder to hear), physiological (impairments such as

hardness of hearing), semantic (difficulties in understanding choices of words),

and psychological (predispositions and prejudices that affect how the message is

interpreted). As you can see in Figure 4.5, communication travels in a straight

line.

Figure 4.5 Shannon and Weaver’s Linear Model of Communication

A decade after Shannon and Weaver, David Berlo adapted their concepts into the

now-familiar SMCR model. [3] This is the model we introduced in Chapter 1 and

have reproduced in Figure 4.6. Berlo’s adaptation was “tremendously

influential” in offering a more flexible and “humanized conception of Claude

Shannon’s model” that facilitated its application to oral, written, and electronic

communication. [4] Moreover, the notion of feedback provided a means for

gauging reception and understanding of the message. Yet, as we will see in the

descriptions of the interactional and transactional models, subsequent theorists

have attempted to show how communication is better understood as circular

rather than linear, how listeners are also active participants in communication,

how multiple messages may be sent simultaneously, and how context and culture

impact understanding.

Figure 4.6 Berlo’s Linear Model of Communication

Interactional Model

Only a few years after Shannon and Weaver published their one-way linear

model, Wilbur Schramm proposed an alternate model that portrayed

communication as a two-way interaction. [5] Writing several years before Berlo,

he was the first to incorporate feedback—verbal and nonverbal—into a model of

communication. The other important innovations in Schramm’s interactive

model, which we have adapted in Figure 4.7, were the additions of the

communication context (the specific setting that may affect meaning) and of

“fields of experience” (the frames of reference and the cultures that each

participant brings to the communication).

Figure 4.7 Schramm’s Interactional Model of Communication

With Schramm’s model, communication moves from a linear to a circular

process in which participants are both senders and receivers of messages. Yet the

model portrays communication like a tennis match: one participant serves up a

message and the other participant then makes a return. Each waits, in turn,

passively for the other. Thus communication goes back and forth as one person

(on the left of Figure 4.7) initiates a message and waits until the other (on the

right) responds. But if you think about times when you have engaged in

conversation, you will recognize how the other person is simultaneously sending

messages—often nonverbally—while you are talking. Unlike a tennis match,

you do not wait passively until the “ball is in your court” before acting

communicatively. To demonstrate the simultaneity of communication, we move

next to a transactional model.

Transactional Model

Perhaps the first model to portray communication as a simultaneous transaction

is attributed to Dean Barnlund. [6] Later theorists have developed this idea of

simultaneity, which is illustrated in Figure 4.8. As you can see, messages and

feedback are being exchanged at the same time between communicators. And

because they are engaged together in the transaction, their fields of experience

overlap. Useful concepts such as noise and context can likewise be added to the

model.

Figure 4.8 Transactional Model for Communication

An expanded view of how communication functions can help us to better

understand how individuals within organizations communicate. But for a firmer

grip on modern theories of organizational communication, we will now go

beyond message-centered models and take a meaning-centered approach.

What Communication Is: Seven Traditions

You have probably heard the proverbial question, If a tree falls in the forest and

no one is around to hear, does it make a sound? Similarly, we might ask, If you

send a message that the receiver does not understand, has communication taken

place? This question introduces the idea of meaning into the equation. Let us

borrow from the SMCR model one more time to explore the place of meaning in

communication.

Some theorists believe (as you probably do) that the meaning of a message lies

in the sender. You think up a message and transmit it, and then the receiver must

decode what you mean. But other theorists believe the meaning of a message is

something that the sender and receiver construct together as they interact

through their communication. Still other theorists believe that meaning resides in

the channel—perhaps in the signs and symbols that, over time, humans invest

with implied meanings, or perhaps in the larger structures of history and culture

that condition how we perceive the world. As noted at the start of this section,

Craig has identified seven traditions in communication, each of which will be

described in this section. [7] Each tradition wrestles with the question of how

people derive meaning from a communication. And if we grant that

communication only takes place when meaning is exchanged, then the issue of

how people derive meaning is another way of putting the question: what is

communication?

A helpful way of grasping the seven theoretical traditions is to pose a single

communication scenario and then consider it from each of the seven approaches.

For our purposes, we will pick a common scenario from organizational life—

namely, the annual employee recognition luncheon in which awards are given to

those who reach five, ten, or fifteen years of service, and so on up until

retirement. During this festive event a catered lunch is served in a large room,

speeches are made by key executives, long-serving employees come forward as

their names are called and receive a certificate or plaque, and the luncheon

concludes on a light note as employees organize a mock ceremony to give out

humorous awards. For our overview of the seven traditions, let us begin with the

tradition to which you have already been introduced—the cybernetic tradition—

and see how it might explain our communication scenario.

Cybernetic Tradition

Theorists in the cybernetic tradition start with the assumption that an

organization is a system composed of many parts that mutually depend on each

other and therefore must communicate to share and process information.

Cybernetic theorists chart the pathways that information travels within an

organization and how a system continually makes adjustments to sustain itself.

Indeed, the word cybernetics was coined from the Greek word for “steersman”

by Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Norbert Wiener. [8] In

devising a new antiaircraft firing system during World War II, he addressed a

major problem: though existing systems could feed back information on firing

trajectories, targets would pass by before human operators could make

adjustments. He saw that the new system must regulate itself by acting on its

own feedback, a principle Wiener then extended to human societies.

Communication theorists picked up on this idea by casting the communication

process as a self-regulating system in which feedback loops connect the various

parts of the system into networks so that people can adjust their messages,

gradually eliminate distortions, and arrive at intended meanings. Now, let’s see

how the annual employee awards luncheon shows this cybernetic process in

action.

A Cybernetic Take on the Awards Luncheon

Consider all the parts of the organization that must communicate to

successfully stage the annual employee awards lunch: executives who make

speeches and set policies for giving awards; managers who implement the

policies; the human resources department that generated the list of

employees eligible for awards and organized the luncheon; the corporate

communications department that will issue a news release after the event;

the accounting department that processed purchase orders and payments to

the caterer; the information technology department that set up the

audiovisual equipment for the ceremony; the maintenance department that

prepared the room and will clean up afterward; and the employees who

attended the luncheon, received awards, and put on the humorous

entertainment.

Each part depended on communicating with another part: for example,

human resources needed feedback from maintenance on the room setup and

from the accounting department on the event budget; corporate

communications needed feedback from top executives on the desired theme

of the press release; and so on. Through all these avenues of organizational

communication, the system processes the information it needs to keep going.

Phenomenological Traditional

According to the phenomenological tradition of communication theory, you

derive meaning by directly experiencing a particular phenomenon. Thus you

come to know your organizational world by directly and consciously engaging in

it, pondering the organization’s meaning for you, interpreting that meaning

through language to define and express it through dialogue (another important

phenomenological concept) with coworkers, and then continually reconstructing

the interpretation in light of new experiences. As you will see, phenomenology

—though far different from cybernetics—offers another productive framework

for understanding the annual awards luncheon.

A Phenomenological Take on the Awards Luncheon

Imagine yourself as a new employee attending the luncheon for the first time.

As you watch the first group of honorees go forward and accept their five-

year service certificates, you picture yourself in their shoes and ponder, “Is

this company a place I want to be in five years? Or is it a stepping stone?”

Then you see the ten-year honorees and think, “Wow, ten years! If I’m still

here in ten years, that means I’m committed long term.” Also, you notice that

ten-year employees tend to be people who have better job titles and higher

pay, so longevity has its rewards. Finally, you see plaques handed out to

retirees and say to yourself, “I can’t even relate! What will my career have

been like when I look back on it someday? What do I want to be known for?”

In the days after the luncheon, you run into some five- and ten-year honorees

you know, tactfully engage them in conversation, and try to feel out their

answers to the question, “Is it worth it to stay long enough to earn a service

award?”

At the luncheon, then, you were confronted with the phenomenon of

employee loyalty and longevity. Based on this experience, you weigh your

perceptions. The annual luncheon was a dialogue as you listened to the

various speeches and presentations. And after the event, you dialogued with

coworkers who had been honored for their long service. Through these

dialogues, you open yourself to the experiences of others and can integrate

this into your own experience.

Sociopsychological Tradition

In Chapter 1, you were introduced to a definition of human communication as a

“process whereby one individual (or group of individuals) attempts to stimulate

meaning in the mind of another individual (or group of individuals) through

intentional use of verbal, nonverbal, and/or mediated messages.” We offered

this definition in the opening chapter because it is a good place to start. For one,

the definition is held by many communication theorists. For another, it accords

with what most laypeople (probably including you) believe about

communication and about personhood. You likely see yourself as a distinct

individual—your mind is your own. This is the basic assumption of

sociopsychological theories about communication—that people control their

own intentions. Human communicative behaviors are thus seen as rooted in

human psychologies since, by definition, communication is one person’s

intention to impact another person’s intention. If that is so, the task of the

researcher is to discover what stimuli elicit what responses. Consider, then, how

the sociopsychological tradition might explain the annual employee recognition

luncheon.

A Sociopsychological Take on the Awards Luncheon

Consider first the speeches given by top executives to celebrate company

values and, by implication, the loyalty these values merit from employees.

One theory suggests that, psychologically, you are more likely to be

persuaded if sufficiently motivated to carefully consider the arguments and

less likely if the speakers utter clichés you’ve heard before. [9] Another theory

claims that opinions are best understood not as a single point on a line, but as

a continuum between acceptable and unacceptable; the more that the execs

pitch their arguments on company loyalty toward the edge of this continuum,

the more likely they can push the boundaries of what you will accept.

[10] Still another leading theory proposes that if the speakers can make you

feel an inner conflict between self-interest and group loyalties, you will be

psychologically driven to resolve the conflict rather than feel torn. [11]

Then there are the conversations you had with longer-tenured coworkers. One

theory of interpersonal communication holds that people’s personalities are

structured like the layers of an onion. To elicit your coworkers’ inner feelings

about staying long term with the company, you had to go beyond mere

chitchat about sports and the weather and instead penetrate their goals,

convictions, fears, fantasies, and, at the deepest level, their self-concepts. [12] Another theory claims that people experience an ongoing psychological

tension between their need to be connected and need to feel unique, and

between their need to be open and need to keep some things to themselves. [13] In order to elicit coworkers’ true feelings about their service with the

company—and to expose your own concerns—you must navigate both of

these tensions.

Sociocultural Tradition

For the sociopsychological theorist, the meaning of a communication resides in

each individual. But for the sociocultural theorist, the meaning of a

communication arises from interaction as people engage in discourse and

socially construct what they jointly perceive to be real. George Herbert Mead, a

founder of the sociocultural tradition, noted more than a century ago that—in

contrast to the prevailing view that each individual is autonomous—people only

develop a sense of self by being around other people. Further, since speech is the

means by which people interact, then people develop their sense of self through

communication. Indeed, without language—which arose because humans exist

in society—there would be no thought. [14] Another theorist in the sociocultural

tradition, Erving Goffman, likened social interaction to a drama. Imagine

yourself in an ordinary conversation and (being honest) think how you take a

role (anything from clown to peacemaker) and “play to the audience” by

communicating in ways that (you believe) will make you socially acceptable. [15] W. Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen have described conversational

interaction as a “coordinated management of meaning” in which people not only

coconstruct a social world but are, in turn, shaped by that world. [16]

Given these assumptions, theorists in the sociocultural tradition look at the ways

communication is used by people in interactions to produce—and then reproduce

—stable patterns of social order. Sociocultural theorists of organizational

communication, then, are interested in how organizational cultures arise as their

members communicate with one another. And they would take a keen interest, as

we can see next, in the annual employee awards luncheon.

A Sociocultural Take on the Awards Luncheon

The event is a ritual where the people on the platform speak and act in ritual

sequences (an employee’s name is called, he or she comes forward, and the

certificate is given with praise, smiles, and handshakes) that ultimately pay

homage to the company. Second, the awards ceremony constitutes a story that

fosters a “loyalty myth.” As the myth is enacted, the audience learns how

they too are expected to fit into the story. Third, the awards ceremony is a

“social drama” in which awardees gain honor by their perseverance, thus

showing the audience how they can likewise win approval and continue to

belong.

Organizational cultures are maintained not only through public events but

also in natural conversation as employees spontaneously use “insider” talk.

Such talk begins to form patterns that unconsciously express the assumptions

of an organization culture. [17] Over time, the patterns seem so natural that

employees use the talk without thinking and take the underlying assumptions

for granted. So perhaps the employee awards luncheon featured talk about the

company as a “family,” or praised award recipients for being “customer

oriented,” or continually referred to “aggressive” growth, “aggressive”

marketing, and so forth. If you later spoke one on one with award recipients,

chances are their use of such insider language in spontaneous conversation

reflected their integration into the organizational culture.

Semiotic Tradition

The old saying “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” captures the essence of the

semiotic tradition in communication theory. Semiotics is the study of signs—and

a classic example, of course, is how the presence of smoke is the sign of a fire.

Charles Saunders Peirce, a founding theorist of semiotics, would have called

smoke an index, or a trace that points to another object. [18] Thus thunder is the

sign of an approaching storm, a bullet hole the sign of a shooting, a footprint the

sign of prey. Other signs are icons or abstract representations of another object—

for example, the stylized image of a pedestrian on a traffic-crossing light. Yet

other signs are symbols that have a purely arbitrary relationship to another

object. Again, to use traffic signs as an example, think of how a red octagon

means “stop” and a yellow inverted triangle means “yield.”

The most common symbols of all, of course, are words. Consider this: the word

“dog” has no inherent relation to the actual animal. Instead, as C. K. Ogden and

I. A. Richards famously pointed out, the word “dog” may connote a friendly pet

to one person and a dangerous beast to another. To explain how words work,

they proposed a triangle of meaning. [19] They theorized that meaning emerges

from the interplay between a referent (in our example, a dog), a symbol (the

word “dog”), and the reference (what a person thinks when he or she hears the

word). As such, the meaning of “dog,” whether a cute pet or dangerous animal,

resides not in the word but, rather, in the mind of the person. In this way, as

Robert Craig observed, semiotic theorists regard communication as a process of

“intersubjective mediation by signs.” [20] In other words, the meaning of a thing

is subjective for each person. Thus as we communicate about that thing, there is

an encounter between the different meanings each of us carries. The encounter is

mediated by a sign—whether the sign is a word or an image—and that sign

makes it possible for at least some meaning to be shared between

communicators. As we will see next, the annual employee recognition luncheon

is replete with signs and symbols.

A Semiotic Take on the Awards Luncheon

In addition to the many words used at the annual luncheon, shared meaning is

created by the symbols of the award certificates and plaques, the printed

program with elegant cursive script, the cake and the balloons with

congratulatory messages, the round tables that were set up rather than the

room’s usual classroom-style seating, the festive centerpieces on the tables,

the company posters and slogans posted on the walls, the formal business

attire of the executives who presented the awards, and the large company

logo that is hung on the podium and printed on items ranging from table

napkins to t-shirts.

All these symbols enable important meanings—about company values,

employee loyalty, labor-management relations—to be communicated and

shared by dozens of people, even though each brings his or her own

subjective thoughts to the event. Even the company itself morphs into a

symbol as it assumes a distinctive corporate image. Roland Barthes equated

this kind of “second-order” symbol to mythmaking. [21] Thus, for example,

Apple Corporation has come to symbolize high-tech innovation, a corporate

image that instills in its employees a strong sense of organizational identity.

Critical Tradition

Stanley Deetz, a leading critical scholar in organization studies, has described

“managerialism” as an ideology that systematically distorts communication to

produce a “discursive closure” that renders alternative views difficult to express

or even think. [22] The task of critical scholars is to “denaturalize” unjust

ideologies and structures that are taken for granted, exposing them to resistance

and discussion, and thereby reopening choices and possibilities the system had

foreclosed. Thus a critical scholar infuses research with action. Such a scholar

would have a field day with the annual employee awards luncheon and its array

of hidden meanings that favor management.

A Critical Take on the Awards Luncheon

Who decided that employee loyalty would be the only value recognized with

a special annual celebration? The decision was made by dominant interests to

maintain their power since the luncheon establishes loyalty to the company as

a taken-for-granted part of organizational life. Yet even though employees

must be loyal in order to gain approval, the company has no corresponding

obligation of loyalty to employees and may lay them off as needed. Not only

is this proposition tacitly accepted, but to suggest that a second luncheon be

held to make a public accounting of the company’s loyalty to its workers

would seem irrational. So would the suggestion that workers, rather than the

human resources director, should plan the annual luncheon and decide what

values should be recognized and what awards given. Though employees are

permitted to plan a humorous “awards” segment, that is only a parody and a

way to control workers by giving them a sense of participation without any

real substance.

Then, too, because the luncheon celebrates only those employees who have

served long term, the event actually silences the voices of traditionally

marginalized workers. Women, persons of color, persons with disabilities,

and the working poor have often lacked the ability to acquire skills that

would make them promotable in the corporate world. Put disproportionately

in low-wage jobs, they are the first to be laid off or shunted into temporary

work. Yet they do work the company needs. Why is there no event to

celebrate their contributions? Instead, the emphasis on longevity only

marginalizes them further. The system follows an ideology that, in ways

made to seem natural and inevitable, structures power relations to favor some

at the expense of others.

Rhetoric Tradition

For the last of the seven traditions in communication theory, we come to the

oldest. More than 2,300 years ago, Aristotle wrote The Rhetoric and gave us, as

many believe, the world’s first systematic treatment of human psychology. [23] He lived in Athens, one of the democratic city-states of ancient Greece

where citizens publicly stated their cases in the assemblies and courts. Alarmed

that some used oratory for personal gain rather than public good, Aristotle

examined how speakers persuaded audiences and devised a theory and method

of reasoned public address. [24] Today the phrase “That’s just rhetoric” connotes

hollow or self-serving words. Aristotle had the same concern. Thus rhetorical

theory, from classical times to the present, has concerned itself with the problem

of how things get done. In other words, rhetorical theorists—including those

who study organizational rhetoric—examine the processes by which speaker and

listeners move toward each other, decide what is best, and find common grounds

to go forward.

Studies of organizational rhetoric distinguish between external rhetoric aimed at

stakeholders outside the organization and internal rhetoric aimed at employees.

Mary Hoffman and Debra Ford classified four types of external rhetoric: to

create and maintain an organization’s public identity, to manage issues, to

manage risks, and to manage crises. Internal rhetoric, on the other hand, aims to

align employees with organizational values and imperatives so they are

motivated to do their jobs. [25] Thus the rhetoric of the annual employee

recognition luncheon is internal, an attempt by management to find common

ground with employees and persuade them to adopt company values. After the

luncheon, the company will engage in external rhetoric as the corporate

communications office issues a press release that, when carried by local media,

will hopefully reinforce the company’s image as a great workplace that inspires

employee loyalty. Rhetorical theory offers many avenues for analyzing the

speeches heard at the awards luncheon.

A Rhetoric Take on the Awards Luncheon

Aristotle held that speakers must invent a persuasive argument, effectively

arrange its points, word it in an appropriate style, deliver it in a suitable

manner, and draw on a memory of phrases and stories to extemporaneously

flesh out the argument for a given occasion or audience. Today we call this

method the five canons of rhetoric. Yet to be compelling, arguments must be

grounded on points of commonality between speaker and audience. Thus if

everyone agrees profit is good for both management and labor, speeches at

the awards luncheon can extol honorees for their contributions to the bottom

line. But if the organization is nonprofit, arguments based on profits would

fall flat. Aristotle also theorized that skillful speakers can employ three types

of proofs: logic, emotion, and speaker credibility. Executives who spoke at

the luncheon likely tried all three by stating how loyal employees are

rewarded (logic), how such employees’ dedication is admirable (emotion),

and how management can be trusted and believed (speaker credibility).

New theories have also gained wide acceptance in recent decades. Kenneth

Burke held that persuasion cannot occur without identification between

speaker and audience. [26] Thus company leaders can persuade employees to

be loyal only if the audience feels executives sympathize with their concerns.

Chaim Perelman contended that persuasion cannot occur without presence;

the speaker must highlight “elements on which the speaker wishes to center

attention.” [27] Thus management hopes its appeal for loyalty is enhanced by

staging a special yearly event. Walter Fisher contrasted persuasion through

logic with a narrative paradigm in which audiences are persuaded through

stories. [28] Thus the awards luncheon will foster loyalty only if executives

can tell a story that resonates with the lives of employees.

KEY TAKEAWAY

There are three models for how communication functions have

been proposed: linear, interactional, and transactional. The linear

model holds that a message travels in a straight line from its

source, through a channel, and to its receiver. The interactional

model holds that communication travels in a circle as a sender

transmits a message and then the receiver responds with

feedback; thus both parties become sender/receivers. The

transactional model holds that sending and receiving occur

simultaneously.

Seven traditions in communication theory have been identified by

Robert Craig. The cybernetic tradition theorizes communication

as information processing. The phenomenological tradition

theorizes communication as dialogue and the experience of

otherness. The sociopsychological tradition theorizes

communication as expression, interaction, and influence rooted in

human psychological processes. The sociocultural tradition

theorizes communication as the production and maintenance of a

social order, such as an organizational culture. The semiotic

tradition theorizes communication as intersubjective mediation by

signs, or the ways that a sign (including a word) or symbol of a

thing mediates the different thoughts that people have about the

thing and thus permit meaning to be shared. The critical tradition

theorizes communication as discursive reflection, or reflection on

the ways that discourses create dominant and marginalized

voices. The rhetorical tradition theorizes communication as the

practical art of discourse and how persuasion is accomplished.

EXERCISES

1. Your class in organizational communication is itself a type of

organization. Think about the communication that takes place in

your class, whether the class is face to face or online. Would you

say that communication between the students and the instructor

is best explained as a linear, interactional, or transactional

process? Explain your answer.

2. In the subsection “What Communication Is: Seven Traditions,” we

imagined how the annual employee awards luncheon could be

explained, in turn, by each of the seven traditions. On your own,

think of another communication scenario that occurs in

organizations (perhaps in your college or university, such as

freshman orientation or the annual commencement ceremony)

and then explain your scenario by each of the seven traditions.

Critical :

Cybernetic :

Interactional :

Linear :

Phenomenological :

Rhetorical :

Semiotic :

Sociocultural :

Sociopsychological :

Transactional :

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

A scholarly tradition that theorizes communication as discursive reflection, or reflection on the ways that discourses create dominant and marginalized voices.

A scholarly tradition that theorizes communication as information processing.

A model of communication holding that communication travels in a circle as a sender transmits a message and then the receiver responds with feedback; thus both parties become sender/receivers.

A model of communication holding that a message travels in a straight line from its source, through a channel, and to its receiver.

A scholarly tradition that theorizes communication as dialogue and the experience of otherness.

A scholarly tradition that theorizes communication as the practical art of discourse and how persuasion is accomplished.

A scholarly tradition that theorizes communication as intersubjective mediation by signs, or the ways a sign (including a word) or symbol of a thing mediates the different thoughts that people have about the thing and thus permit meaning to be shared.

A scholarly tradition that theorizes communication as the production and reproduction of a social order, such as an organizational culture.

A scholarly tradition that theorizes communication as expression, interaction, and influence rooted in human psychological processes.

A model of communication holding that sending and receiving of messages/feedback occurs simultaneously.

[1] Craig, R. T. (1999). Communication theory as a field. Communication

Theory, 9, 118–160.

[2] Shannon, C., & Weaver, W. (1949) The mathematical theory of

communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

[3] Berlo, D. (1960). The process of communication. New York, NY: Holt,

Rinehart & Winston.

[4] Rogers, E. M. (2001). The department of communication at Michigan

State University as a seed institution for communication study.

Communication Studies, 52, 234–248; p. 234.

[5] Schramm, W. (1954). How communication works. In W. Schramm

(Ed.), The process and effects of communication (pp. 3–26). Urbana:

University of Illinois Press.

[6] Barnlund, D. (1970). A transactional model of communication. In K. K.

Sereno & C. D. Mortensen (Eds.), Foundations of communication theory

(pp. 83–102). New York, NY: Harper.

[7] Craig, R. T. (1999). Communication theory as a field. Communication

Theory, 9, 118–160.

[8] Wiener, N. (1954). The human use of human beings: Cybernetics in

society. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

[9] Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and

persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. New York,

NY: Springer-Verlag.

[10] Sherif, M., Sherif, C., & Nebergall, R. (1965). Attitude and attitude

change: The social judgement-involvement approach. Philadelphia, PA:

Saunders.

[11] Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA:

Stanford University Press.

[12] Altman, I., & Taylor, D. A. (1973). Social penetration: The

development of interpersonal relationships. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart

& Winston.

[13] Baxter, L. A., & Montgomery, B. M. (1998). A guide to dialectical

approaches to studying personal relationships. In B. M. Montgomery & L.

A. Baxter (Eds.), Dialectical approaches to studying personal

relationships (pp. 1–15). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

[14] Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago, IL: University

of Chicago Press.

[15] Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden

City, NY: Doubleday; Goffman, E. (1971).

[16] Pearce, W. B., & Cronen, V. (1980). Communication, action, and

meaning. New York, NY: Praeger.

[17] Philipsen, G. (1997). A theory of speech codes. In G. Philipsen and

T. L. Albrecht (Eds.), Developing communication theories (pp. 119–156).

Albany: State University of New York Press.

[18] Peirce, C. S. (1958). Charles S. Peirce: Selected writings (P. P.

Weiner, Ed.). New York, NY: Dover.

[19] Ogden, C. K., & Richards, I. A. (1923). The meaning of meaning.

London, UK: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner.

[20] Craig, R. T. (1999). Communication theory as a field. Communication

Theory, 9, 118–160.

[21] Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies (A. Lavers, Trans.). New York, NY:

Hill and Wang.

[22] Deetz, S. (1992). Democracy in the age of corporate colonization:

Developments in communication and the politics of everyday life. Albany:

State University of New York Press.

[23] For example, see Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J.

Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, p.

178.

[24] Aristotle. (2006). On rhetoric: A theory of civic discourse (2nd ed.; G.

A. Kennedy, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

[25] Hoffman, M. F., & Ford, D. J. (2009). Organization rhetoric:

Situations and strategies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[26] Burke, K. (1950). A rhetoric of motives. New York, NY: Prentice-Hall.

[27] Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The new rhetoric: A

treatise on argumentation. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame

Press, p. 142.

[28] Fisher, W. (1987). Human communication as narration: Toward a

philosophy of reason, value, and action. Columbia: University of South

Carolina Press.

4.3 Representative Modern Theories

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Understand the basic precepts of systems theory and Karl

Weick’s theory of organizing and sensemaking.

2. Understand the basic precepts of Giddens’s structuration theory

and its applications made by Poole and McPhee to organizations.

3. Understand how, according to feminist theory, organizations are

gendered and a primary site for configuration of gender roles.

To this point, we have explored approaches to theorizing organizational

communication rather than specific theories. We believe that focusing first on

approaches is important. To speak of “interpretive organizational theory,” or

“critical organization theory,” or “postmodern organization theory” is not to

speak of any one single theory. Rather, each is—along with the postpositive

perspective—a general approach to looking at the problem of organizational

communication. Each approach is informed by its own ontology (belief about

how things exist), epistemology (belief about how things can be known), and

axiology (belief about what is worth knowing). Out of these respective beliefs

emerge specific theories. In the remainder of this section, we will describe

important modern theories of organizational communication that have emerged

from the different approaches. And by first grasping the underlying approaches

and how each looks at the problem in a different way, we believe you will be

better equipped to understand specific theories and “where they’re coming

from.” The theories described in the section, “Postpositive Approach: Systems

Theory” show the innovative work being done on vital problems of

contemporary organizational life through different approaches to organizational

communication and also through blending some aspects of those approaches.

This should persuade us that each approach has something to contribute.

Postpositive Approach: Systems Theory

Systems theory offers a good illustration of how organizational communication

research from a postpositive perspective has continued to develop and even

incorporate insights from other approaches. The story of systems theory begins

in the mid-1950s when, as we saw in Chapter 3, the heyday of classical

management theory had passed and the human-resources approach was

ascendant. In 1956, Canadian biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy first published

his “general system theory,” which proposed that traits found in biological

systems could be applied to any system. [1] A decade later, the notion of applying

the theory to organizations was popularized in an influential book by Daniel

Katz and Robert Kahn. [2] The old metaphor of the organization as a machine

was replaced by the metaphor of a biological organism. As a result, the

conception of the organization as a closed system was replaced by that of an

open system. Where a machine operates on its own, a biological organism can

survive only by interacting with and gathering inputs from its surrounding

environment. Thus, compared to the input-output of a machine, the operations of

a biological organism involve input-throughput-output (a concept we

encountered in Chapter 1; see Figure 1.1). Through systems theory, other

principles from biology have been applied to organizations as shown in Table

4.1.

Table 4.1 Systems Applications to Organizations

Like a biological organism, an

organization…

This trait is

called… An example in an organization would be…

is not a hodgepodge of parts, but

an ordered system

hierarchical

ordering

An oil refinery has four divisions—finance,

operations, sales and marketing, human resources

—overseen by a CEO.

is composed of parts that rely on

each other to properly function interdependence

The refinery’s operations division manufactures

orders generated by sales and marketing, using

employees recruited by human resources.

is greater than the sum of its parts,

since the parts are interdependent holism

The gasoline that the refinery supplies to customers

is not merely a manufacturing output; all divisions

contribute to success, from sales and customer

service to quality control and delivery.

requires communication between

its parts to correct deviations and

spread information that fosters

growth

feedback

Balance sheets, sales reports, production reports,

time sheets, and more are generated by the week,

month, quarter, and year to keep the refinery on

track.

must trade its outputs with the

outside environment to acquire

the inputs it needs to function;

otherwise, it will feed on itself

and die

exchange

The refinery sells the products it manufactures and

generates revenue to purchase needed raw

materials, technology, labor, and market

information.

has boundaries that set it apart

from the environment, yet also

permit exchanges with the

environment

permeability

Though the refinery is legally chartered in the

United States, it purchases crude oil supplies from

around the world.

freely permits the resources it

needs to pass into its system and

thus can grow

negative

entropy

While a closed system eventually tends to break

down, an open system can reverse this tendency by

importing new resources; thus the diversity of

resources acquired and processed by the refinery

leads to greater order rather than disorder.

must be as complex as the inputs

it requires from the environment,

in order to handle those inputs

requisite variety

To refine oil into gasoline, the plant must

distinguish between light, heavy, sweet, and sour

crude.

deals with a complex environment

by having multiple means to

achieve its goals and not

depending on any single option

equifinality

Because crude supplies vary as market conditions

fluctuate, the refinery must adjust its

manufacturing processes as needed to produce

gasoline that meets industry and government

specifications.

The most influential theory to emerge from the systems approach was proposed

in the 1960s by Karl Weick and refined by him over the next three decades. [3] The theory begins with the observation that an organization’s environment

includes information as well as material resources. Since the late twentieth

century, the information environment has grown increasingly complex. Many

communication situations cannot be handled by routines and rules. Moreover,

the organization and its members both shape and are shaped by the information

environment in which they operate—a principle Weick borrowed from the

interpretive approach. Because all these factors introduce what he called

“equivocality,” the goal of organizational communication is equivocality

reduction. To meet the challenges of a complex information environment,

organization members’ natural response is the enactment of their own internal

informational culture—again, a notion taken from the interpretive approach and

yet also an aspect of the interdependency predicted by systems theory. Next,

Weick proposed a concept drawn from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and

natural selection. Though organization members have enacted an information

environment, they each bring different interpretations of what that environment

means. Thus a part of the organizing process is selection of the best

interpretations and then their retention to guide future enactments and selections.

This collective process of enactment, selection, and retentions is, in Weick’s

model, called retrospective sensemaking and is represented in Figure 4.9.

Organization members muddle through complexities, perceive over time what

works, and collectively reduce equivocality and make sense of their workplace.

Thus Weick has constructed a theory of organizing that is rooted in systems

theory and follows a postpositive research agenda of observing and measuring

aggregate behaviors. And yet his theory usefully draws on interpretive principles

about the social constructedness of collective environments.

Figure 4.9 Weick’s Retrospective Sensemaking

Interpretive Approach: Structuration Theory

Weick’s theory of organizing blends interpretive perspectives into a systems

theory. But a key systems concept—that the parts of a system are interdependent

—is given a new, interpretive twist through structuration theory and its

applications to organizational life. In traditional systems theories about

organizations, the parts of the system are the various departments that have been

hierarchically ordered to compose an organization. But in structuration theory,

the system is a system of human practices, where practices are understood as

patterns of activity that have meaning for participants. Thus the organizational

system is not the operations department, the marketing department, the

accounting department, and so on. Rather, the organizational system is

composed of patterns of practices—from the way that sick leave is handled, to

the way that purchase orders are processed, to the way that meetings are

conducted. At the end of this section is a brief scenario about company dress

codes and casual Fridays. In structuration theory, then, “structure” is not used in

the conventional sense of a hierarchy. Rather, structure refers to the

interrelationships between practices.

By basing notions of system and structure on practices, and defining practices as

meaningful patterns, we can see how structuration theory reflects an interpretive

approach. This move sprang from, as Marshall Scott Poole and Robert McPhee

have related, the concerns of scholars in the 1960s who felt that the

sociopsychological or individual-oriented emphasis in communication studies

did not adequately allow for group effects. “The properties of systems were most

often cast as constraints on behavior that acted from outside the individuals

involved,” such that individuals were not seen as agents involved in constructing

those systems. [4] Then in the late 1970s and 1980s, communication scholars

discovered the work of British theorist Anthony Giddens. [5] His theory of

structuration resolved the structure-versus-agency debate with an innovative

move. Giddens proposed that structure and agency are not “either/or” but are

“both/and,” or, as he put it, not a dualism but a duality. In other words, people

create a structure through their actions—but they also perpetuate, or reproduce,

the structure by acting within it. As Giddens explained, structure is both “a

medium and an outcome” of social action. Structure not only constrains action

but also enables it, even as action produces and reproduces the structure—and

thus we have the process of structuration, which gives the theory its name.

In this theory, the concept of rules and resources has special meaning.

Individuals act within the structure’s enablements and constraints by drawing on

shared rules to guide their actions, as well as resources (whether material or

nonmaterial) they can employ to take action. And as the process of structuration

goes forward, a system of practices evolves that guides signification (how things

are interpreted), legitimation (what is deemed moral and should be done), and

domination (how power is distributed to get those things done). Nevertheless,

people are mostly unaware that their actions are grounded in, and impact upon,

larger structurational process, because their actions and consequences are

separated in space and time.

Poole and McPhee outlined how structuration theory might be generally applied

to communication studies. In the early 1980s, they began exploring applications

to organizational communication. [6] First, they suggested that structuration can

explain the formation of an organization’s climate (a concept discussed in

Chapter 6) or “collective attitude, continually produced and reproduced by

members’ interactions.” [7] Climate emerges from a concept pool of shared terms

and phrases that members use to describe the organization, culminating in a

kernel climate as members adopt a commonly shared abstraction to capture their

basic understandings of the organization, and then progressing into particular

climates that guide members’ attitudes and actions in specific situations. [8]

Further developments in organizational structuration theory have asserted that

organizational communication occurs at three centers of structuration:

conception, implementation, and reception. [9] Though much overlap and

conflict can occur, top management typically dominates conceptual

communication, middle management oversees implementation, and employees

receive and enact what has been decided. These communications may be classed

into four flows that are respectively concerned with membership negotiation

(who can be a member), activity coordination (what members do), self-

structuring (how activities are organized), and institutional positioning (how the

organization differentiates itself from others). Meanwhile, structurational

processes also operate at the individual level to drive organizational identity (a

phenomenon addressed in Chapter 8). Through an identity-identification duality,

the more that organization members are linked with other members who share

the same premises, the more they will all cultivate a like identity for themselves

and, in turn, be self-actualized by relationships with like-minded individuals. [10]

Giddens’s original stucturation theory addressed processes at the societal level

and the institutions that societies create and sustain. A societal institution, he

observed, can accrue and channel great power as it becomes a nexus for

concentrating, organizing, controlling, and then projecting resources.

Structurational processes govern how things are interpreted, what is deemed

moral and should be done, and how power is distributed to do those things. This

same attention to the ways in which power operates through a system has

continued to be a concern for scholars who apply structuration theory to

organizations. In looking back on two decades of theory development, Poole and

McPhee believed, “Structuration theory…has the potential to bring a critical

edge to the analysis of organizational systems because it charges scholars to

look for the role of power and domination in structuring processes that underlie

organizations.” Further, the theory “shows how organizations are created and

sustained by human action and how, potentially, they can be changed.” [11] Thus,

they concluded, “We hope future researchers will take a more critical stance in

developing the future of the structurational perspective.” [12]

The Structuration of "Casual Fridays"

Your office observes the human practice of “casual Fridays.” Since this

implies that people don professional attire the rest of the week, your office

has an unspoken system for what people wear. The relationship between the

two practices—professional dress Monday to Thursday, casual on Friday—

provides a structure that guides daily norms and the permitted exception.

Though casual Fridays were started by a management decision several years

ago, everyone now reproduces the structure by following the rule to dress

professionally four days a week and casually on Friday, and by acquiring the

resource of a suitable personal wardrobe. Through structuration, your office

has evolved the assumption that one’s personal appearance signifies

professionalism. This structure legitimates proper attire on proper days and is

enforced through office etiquette.

The word “Friday” has entered the office concept pool as shorthand slang for

proper dress. Common putdowns are “I guess you thought it was Friday” (for

underdressed employees) and “Don’t you know it’s Friday?” (for the

overdressed). This produces a climate that guides employee dress choices.

Interestingly, ideas of “professional” and “casual” dress differ among

executives, managers, and employees. Still, talk around the office about what

to wear fosters a group consciousness, coordinates dress choices, structures

when each choice should be worn, and positions your company as different

from others that do not observe casual Fridays. Yet some employees are

starting to complain that casual Fridays have become a way to exert more

control over personal appearance. Managers can push for “higher” standards

(usually their own preferences) during the week with the excuse, “Well, you

can relax on Friday.”

Critical/Postmodern Approaches: Feminist Theory

Feminist theory provides an apt subject to conclude this chapter on modern

theories of organizational communication—and to conclude this section, which

has highlighted ways that modern theories often blend perspectives from

different approaches. First, a cohesive body of work in feminist organizational

communication studies is a newer development, having emerged only since the

1990s. Second, despite its recent pedigree, feminist theorizing about

organizational communication draws on diverse schools of thought, which have

enriched one another in innovative ways. Katherine Miller identified five distinct

approaches to feminist theorizing; [13] Marta Calas and Linda Smircich identified

seven; [14] and Michael Papa, Tom Daniels, and Barry Spiker recently identified

eight. [15] Feminist theorizing that specifically addresses organizational

communication is generally identified with the critical approach to

organizations, although Dennis Mumby also identified a postmodern strain in

feminist inquiry about organizational life. [16]

While feminist theorizing has generated a diverse body of research, some

common themes emerge. Yet before describing these, let us review some ideas

that retain a large influence on popular culture (so that you have probably heard

about them) but do not represent current directions in feminist organizational

communication studies. Karen Lee Ashcraft has recounted how research in the

1980s and 1990s frequently focused on sex differences. [17] Women were

depicted as “different” from men. Even if a “feminine style” of communication

and leadership was celebrated as valuable, the notion nevertheless perpetuated a

stereotype. Moreover, “feminine style” and “women’s concerns” were largely

equated with those of middle-class white women. Finally, the workplace was

seen as neutral territory into which individuals brought their sex differences and

societal prejudices; organizations were simply places where people played out

gender issues imported from the outside. Two decades of feminist organizational

communication scholarship has altered this picture. The workplace is no longer

viewed as neutral; instead, organizations are seen as profoundly gendered

institutions and a primary source of gendering (i.e., configuring gender roles) in

contemporary society.

To explain this phenomenon, let us begin with the basic concept of “male” and

“female.” The concept inherently lends itself to “either/or” thinking, or what

scholars call a binary mode of thought. Another binary common to Western

society is the “mind/body” dualism, which holds that the mind is nonmaterial

and the body is physical. A tendency to think in terms of binaries, feminist

scholars have shown, suffuses modern organization in ways that (as critical

theory tells us) work simultaneously to make “masculine” values dominant and

yet hide that domination by making it seem natural. For example, the modern

bureaucratic organization is based on ordered hierarchies. Such ordering

privileges the abstract (a “masculine” value) over the personal (a “feminine”

value), establishes the workplace on the basis of individual categorization rather

than egalitarian cooperation, and fosters a management/labor binary. [18] Hierarchy promotes linear modes of thinking and communication so that

organizations extol a cause/effect binary as the only rational way to make

decisions, rather than a holistic approach. [19] Indeed, the rational/emotional

binary is another mode of thought that gives a “masculine” gendering to

organizations. [20] Likewise, the leader/follower binary, which is inherent to

hierarchy, is patriarchal and fosters a dependency that “feminizes” workers. [21] Conflict management is another area where “masculine” values reign; even

when individuals agree to set aside the win/lose binary, settling their differences

through negotiation privileges the skill of bargaining. [22] Modern organizations

even configure female bodies according to masculine values, as a woman’s

“professional body” is expected to be trim and thus show discipline. [23] Finally,

Weber’s ideal of the impersonal-but-fair bureaucracy (see Chapter 3) is alive

today in the public/private binary that governs most organizations. That

“masculine” values are the standard is ensured by the rule that public workplace

performance takes precedence over private concerns. [24]

The connections between feminist theory and critical theory are clear. Today, a

growing body of feminist research employs fieldwork and ideology critique to

show how organizations reify and universalize “masculine” values. Recently,

other feminist scholars have demonstrated how a postmodern approach to

organizations can inform research by deconstructing how discourses of

domination—such as male domination—have formed over time. An example is

Ashcraft and Mumby’s study of airline pilots, a profession in which white males

predominate. They documented how early aviators were romanticized as

daredevils but, when the prospect of commercial aviation arose, celebrated

“lady” pilots made aviation seem less intimidating. As commercial flights

became a reality and the public worried about safety and reliability, the industry

promoted the image of the fatherly (white) professional pilot in a crisp naval-

style uniform. [25] Their project also explores the issue of race and illustrates

how the feminist approach to organizational communication has come to span

questions of race, class, sexuality, and ability.

As our look at systems theory, structuration theory, and feminist theory affirms,

modern theories of organizational communication are diverse. In addition, they

afford opportunities for innovative, as well as blended, approaches to explaining

problems of organizational life in the twenty-first century.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Systems theory is based on the metaphor of the organization as a

biological organism. Its parts, though hierarchically ordered, are

interdependent and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Feedback between parts spreads needed information. But an

organization is an open system with permeable boundaries,

engaging in exchange with its environment to gather resources

required for growth. Because its environment is complex, the

organization must have the requisite variety to deal with that

complexity. This is aided through equifinality, or the ability to take

multiple paths for achieving the same goal. Karl Weick’s theory of

organizing holds that information is part of an organization’s

environment. Since the information is increasingly complex, a

goal of organizational communication is equivocality reduction

through processes of sensemaking.

Structuration theory provides a new answer to the question, Do

people have free will or are they determined by their

environments? Anthony Giddens theorized that structure and

agency are not a dualism but a duality. That is, people’s actions

produce structure but, by acting within a structure, they also

perpetuate or reproduce it. This is called structuration. Thus

structure is both an outcome of and a medium for social action.

For Giddens, a system is composed of human practices that have

meaningful patterns for participants. Poole and McPhee, and

subsequent scholars, have applied the theory of structuration to

explain the processes of organizational climate, organizational

communication, and organizational identity.

Feminist scholarship on organizational communication

encompasses a diversity of approaches and theories. However,

these approaches share a conception of the modern organization

as being gendered (rather than a neutral site where sex

differences and societal prejudices play out) and as a primary site

in the modern world for configuring gender roles. The male/female

distinction reflects a binary mode of thought that suffuses

organizations. Other binaries found in organizations include

cause/effect, rational/emotional, leader/ follower, win/lose, and

public/private. Bureaucratic hierarchy “feminizes” workers by

making them dependent, while basing organizational life on

individual categorization rather than egalitarian cooperation.

EXERCISES

1. Where classical theory is based on the metaphor of the

organization as a machine, systems theory is based on the

metaphor of the organization as a biological organism. Make a list

of other possible metaphors that might be used and explain how

each one can help us understand the ways that an organization

works.

2. In developing a theory of organizational structuration, Robert

McPhee proposed that communication occurs in four flows:

membership negotiation (who can be a member), activity

coordination (what members do), self-structuring (how activities

are organized), and institutional positioning (how the organization

Feminist Theory:

Systems Theory:

Binary :

differentiates itself from others). Think of an organization to which

you belong and then make a list of the types of communication

that occur within each of the four flows. Can you identify any

patterns or structures in these communication practices? Do

these structures help people in the organization get their

messages across and be understood? Or do they limit what

people can say? Or both?

3. Again, think of an organization to which you belong. Name some

examples of binary thinking (e.g., cause/effect, rational/emotional,

leader/follower, win/lose, public/private) you have observed. How

does this binary thinking affect what you have experienced in the

organization? Does this type of thinking tend to make “masculine”

values (e.g., competition, individualism, being rational, showing

no emotion, taking action) more favored than “feminine” values

(e.g., cooperation, integration)?

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Not a single theory, but an approach to organizational communication scholarship that sees organizations as gendered and as sites for configuring gender roles.

A theory based on the metaphor of the organization as a biological organism, so that the organization is seen as an open system that interacts with its environment in order to acquire the resources it needs to survive and grow.

An opposition such as male/female, cause/effect, rational/emotional, leader/follower, win/lose, or public/private. Feminist

Enactment, Selection, And Retentions:

Equivocality Reduction:

Human Practices:

Interdependency :

Open System:

Reproduce:

Retrospective Sensemaking:

Rules And Resources:

Structuration Theory:

theory holds that binary thinking in organizations leads to the domination of “masculine” values such as competition over “feminine” values such as cooperation.

In Weick’s theory, organizations respond to equivocality in their environments by enacting their own information system, selecting their best responses for reducing equivocality, and retaining them to guide future responses.

Because modern organizations are confronted by an increasingly complex information environment then, according to Weick’s theory, they seek to reduce the amount of equivocality (uncertainty) they experience.

In structuration theory, patterns of activity that have meaning for participants.

The notion in systems theory that the parts of the system depend on one another in order to function properly.

A system that is open to its surrounding environment, as opposed to a closed system that is not. A closed system is only concerned with input and output, whereas an open system encompasses input, throughput, and output.

Structuration theory holds that individuals act within a structure by drawing on shared rules to guide their actions and by employing resources (material or nonmaterial) to take action.

Name given in Weick’s theory to the process of enactment, selection, and retention by which organization members make sense of their environment.

Structuration theory holds that individuals act within a structure by drawing on shared rules to guide their actions and by employing resources (material or nonmaterial) to take action.

A theory proposed by Giddens to answer the question, Do people have free will, or are they determined by their environments? He theorized that structure and agency are not a dualism but a duality. That is, people’s actions produce structure but, by acting within a structure, they also perpetuate or reproduce it.

Structure :

System :

In structuration theory, the interrelationships between human practices.

In structuration theory, a system is composed not of parts (such as an organization’s various departments) but of human practices.

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