Chapter 11: Communication

Communication – transfer and understanding of meaning

FUNCTIONS OF COMMUNICATION

1. Control member behavior

2. Fosters motivation by clarifying to employees what they must do
3. Provides for emotional expression of feelings and fulfillment of social needs
4. Provides the information that individuals and groups need to make decisions

THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS

-steps between source and receiver that result in the transfer and understanding of meaning

1. sender – initiates a message by encoding a thought

a. message – actual physical product of the sender’s encoding

b. encoding

2. channel – medium through which the message travels

Formal Channels – established by an organization to transmit messages related to the

professional activities of members

Informal Channels – created spontaneously and that emerge as responses to individual choices

3. receiver – the person to which the message is directed

a. decoding – translating the symbols into understandable form

4. Noise – represents communication barriers that distorts the clarity of the message

5. Feedback – the check on how successful we have been in transferring our messages as originally
intended

DIRECTION OF COMMUNICATION

1. Downward communication – communication that flows from one level of a group or

organization to a lower level
2. Upward communication – flows to a higher level in the organization or group
3. Lateral Communication – takes place among members of the same work group, members of
work groups at the same level, managers at the same level, or any other horizontally equivalent
workers

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

1. Oral Communication
2. Written Communication
3. Nonverbal Communication
 -intonation
-body movement
-facial expression
-physical distance

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION

Formal Small-Group Networks

1. Chain – rigidly follows the formal chain of command

2. Wheel – relies on a central figure to act as a conduit for all the group’s communication
3. All-channel – permits all members to actively communicate with each other

The Grapevine – organization’s informal communication network

Electronic Communication

Managing information

-information overload – condition in which information inflow exceeds an individual’s

processing capacity

CHOICE OF COMMUNICATION CHANNEL

channel richness – amount of information that can be transmitted

PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION

Automatic and Controlled Processing

1. Automatic – relatively superficial consideration of evidence and information making use of

heuristics
2. Controlled – detailed consideration of evidence and information relying on facts, figures and
logic
3. Interest Level
4. Prior Knowledge
5. Personality
6. Message Characteristics

BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

1. Filtering – sender’s purposely manipulating information so the receiver will see it more
favorably
2. Selective Perception – receiver’s …
3. Information Overload – condition in which information inflow exceeds an individual’s processing
capacity
4. Emotions
5. Language
6. Silence
 7. Communication Apprehension – undue tension and anxiety about oral communication, written
communication, or both
8. Lying

GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS

1. Cultural Barriers
a. Semantics – words mean different things to different people
b. Word connotation – words imply different thing in different languages
c. Tone differences – formal in some, informal in others
2. Cultural Context
a. High-context – rely heavily on nonverbal and subtle situational cues in communication
b. Low-Context – rely heavily on words to convey meaning in communication