Assignment: Exercise (Include Video)
Within this activity, we intend to exercise your understanding of the theoretical-methodological aspects of communication in organizations, studied in the module... It represents the opportunity to demonstrate your mastery of said contents. Need Assignment Help?
Make a video and upload it to the Canvas platform.
To do this, keep in mind and comply with the following:
You must define and explain, fully, in your own words:
a. What is organizational communication?
b. At least 3 functions of organizational communication.
c. Communications: descending, ascending and crossed.
d. Some "actors" of communication in organizations.
Considerations for video:
- You can be as creative as you want.
- If you wish (optionally) you can use examples to complement the explanations.
- The duration of each of the sections: a, b, c and d, in the video, must not exceed 30 seconds.
- The total length of the video should not exceed 2 minutes.
- If one of the four items: a, b, c and d, exceeds a few seconds (approximately 5-10 seconds) of what is established, you must guarantee that the total duration of the video does not exceed 2 minutes.
- The duration of each of the sections, and therefore of the video, may be less than the established times, provided that it complies with what is requested.
Review: Theoretical-Methodological Aspects of Communication in Organizations
Organizational communication, institutional communication, corporate communication, and business communication, are some of the denominations (not the only ones) that are used for the discipline that studies communication in organizations. In many communication careers it exists as a course (subject) and in many universities, it exists as a career.
In this module of our course, we will study some of the theoretical-methodological foundations of communication in organizations, which we will call Organizational Communication. In the second part of the module, we will analyze some of its practical applications. Organizations can be dispersed and assigned to other fields of the social sciences. The origin of the discipline is linked to the contemporary tendency to integrate areas of communication that worked in a disjointed way, such as advertising, public relations, internal communication and components of the marketing communication mix, among others. Of isolated fields or independent actions,
Defining Organizational Communication:
- It is the sum of the communicative processes that take place within the organization and those that it develops with its audiences to achieve the strategic objectives. It contributes to the formation of identity and organizational image, as well as being part of the culture and climate of the company
- A set of messages issued by an organization (whatever its field), both inside and outside, in a programmed and systematic way. This wide range of messages, regardless of their final recipient, must be consistent and homogeneous, in order to project a consistent and uniform image of the organization. From this perspective, internal communication, public relations and advertising are part of organizational communication, which thus becomes an integrating term
- Process by which members gather relevant information about their organization and the changes that occur in it.
Methodological Components of Organizational Communication:
Some of its functions:
1. Design, coordinate and channel communication strategies and plans.
2. Creates, unifies, develops and disseminates communication activity, both internally and externally, among employees, external customers and the general public, in particular the media.
3. It guarantees that the information is clear, transparent, fast and truthful.
4. It transfers to the Presidency/Management the echo of public opinion, on issues of orbits of action of the organization.
5. Get integration and motivation of all employees.
6. Maintains EFFECTIVE relationships with the media.
7. Manages, in coordination with the Presidency/Management, actions with the media based on the image of the organization.
8. Verifies and controls the quality and informative and advertising efficiency of the Communication Plans, evaluating them permanently (Research).
Classification of Organizational Communication:
King Núñez (2012) presents a simple and didactic classification of organizational communication in: descending, ascending and crossed. Here is his approach:
Downward Communication:
It occurs at high hierarchical levels and with a specific direction towards the lower hierarchy levels, this communication generally occurs in organizations whose authority is centralized and highly authoritarian.
Within downward communication, the main means used for the communication process are oral instructions to staff, which are presented through speeches, meetings with staff, by telephone, among others. Regarding written communication, the most used means are: memorandums, letters, email messages, manuals, and reports, among many others.
One of the main characteristics of this type of information is the fact that the information becomes diffuse and scattered as it goes down the line of command and hierarchical levels. Given these circumstances, the existence of a system that allows feedback of the information received is essential.
Upward Communication:
Unlike upward communication, this type of organizational communication occurs when workers (subordinates) transmit information to their bosses. That is, this information flows from lower levels to higher hierarchy levels. Unfortunately, the flow of information in this transmission channel does not always reach the highest levels in a complete and objective way, since as the information ascends; the receivers mediate the impact of the content, especially if it is about reports or news. Negative or unexpected by management or administration.
Upward communication is contrary to downward communication in the fact that while the second is authoritarian, the first (ascending) occurs in companies whose environment and communication process allow the participation of employees and maintain democratic policies for their intervention. The most used means for ascending information transmission are: Periodic meeting, personalized interview, Quality Circle, Telephone, Surveys, Complaints and Suggestions System, among others.
Cross Communication:
Within this type of communication flow, horizontal direction information is considered (that which occurs between similar levels of hierarchy within the organization) and the well-known "diagonal flow" (diagonal flow occurs when those involved in the process are part of different hierarchical levels and do not establish a dependency relationship between them).
The main purpose of cross-communication is to increase the speed in the transmission of information, improve the understanding of the information that is transmitted and the coordination of efforts to achieve the objectives of the company. Cross-communication is very common within organizations, since the flow of information is not always directed along the routes normally established in organization charts. Currently, organizations make great use of cross-communication, both oral and written, with the main purpose of improving the flow of information within companies.
Some "actors" of communication in organizations:
- Employees:
- Directors
- Technicians
- Middle managers
- White collar workers
- Blue collar workers
- Owners
- Workers' Representatives
- Unions
- Business Committees
Reflections on The Practical Applications of Organizational Communication
Kaplún (2001), states that participation, commitment, and communication are terms that permeate managerial discourse. Concrete business practices, however, seem quite distant. The gap opens an ambiguous but useful gap for working with organizations from a critical perspective and in particular for approaches from organizational communication.
Quality, excellence, reengineering...Among the jumble of terms and fashions that run through the management literature, two trends (generally converging) seem to stand out that would point to a fundamental change with respect to the model with which most of the companies were built. organizations since the Industrial Revolution. These two elements can be summed up in "simple" words: participation and commitment. A third is usually added to both, as an operational key: communication.
Promote horizontal communication. This appears especially important in the search for innovation. Facilitating exchange as much as possible seems to be an essential condition to activate creativity. "We do everything for people to meet and talk to each other," says a manager of a Silicon Valley design company. To do this, they ensure that each unit is small enough so that everyone can get to know each other, they prioritize common spaces more than individual offices and face-to-face meetings instead of teleworking (Vézina 1999, cited by: Kaplún, 2001).
One of the well-known tensions in practice and in the literature on organizational communication is that between internal and external communication. At least in our business context, we have the impression that this tension is tending to become more acute today. Indeed, to the extent that organizations have become more expert in smiling outwards, internal quarrels squeak more (Kaplún, 2001).
For his part, Saladrigas (2005) assures that certain academics of organizational communication are proposing new theoretical perspectives as an alternative to the hierarchical and bureaucratic structures that have characterized organizations during the last decades. These new perspectives or metaphors that some propose as theories for the 21st century are trying to answer questions such as the following: What are the ways of organizing that best respond to the needs of today's employees? What are the benefits and challenges of the presence of new employees, such as women? How can employees achieve their personal objectives while serving the company's objectives? What are the most efficient forms of communication in a company?
The Mexican Fernández Collado (cited by Saladrigas, 2005) for his part considers that "the challenge for this millennium is to find new forms of productive organization for work that give more power to individuals and maintain, at the same time, organizational practices and communication skills that sustain the delicate balance between the environment, families and work". The truth is that currently, the positivist approach prevails when investigating and explaining what concerns organizational communication.
Finally, from an ethical bases, it is necessary to involve one of the basic human rights, the right to expression, since freedom of expression in the workplace has been particularly affected historically by authoritarian and top-down managerial procedures (Saladrigas, 2005).