Comm audit paper

Andrea Fasoli-Igor Lyubenok- Stewart Cumming 25/02/16
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COM 347 Research Proposal:
“Organizational Culture within TASIS’ High school”

The research proposal has been set up for the purpose of conducting a Communication Audit,
which will evaluate the various aspects and characteristics of TASIS’ organizational culture;
particularly focusing on the High school division. In order to provide a little background, we
want to acknowledge that TASIS (The American School in Switzerland) was founded in 1956,
by M. Crist Fleming and since then the organization has been committed to “welcome young
people from all nationalities to an educational community that fosters a passion for excellence
along with mutual respect and understanding” (TASIS, ‘About Us’ section, Website). From this
extract of the school’s mission statement we can see how their community is highly
international and thus enriching the student body with various cultural traditions, values and
perspectives that only add to the virtues of this academic institution and create a more
dynamic organizational culture. The purpose of the communication audit is to understand the
interactions between the various bodies that compose the entirety of TASIS: The
Administration, Faculty & Student Body. Throughout three separate interviews with a senior
student, a professor and one of the Deans, we asked a set of open-ended questions to try and
understand if there were any discrepancies/conflicts within the organizational culture, which
could potentially halt the effectiveness of the members’ interactions. We found out that
individuals holding the highest positions in the administration harshly enforce regulations
onto the faculty and student body, by taking a dominant role into the daily activities of many
professors, whom then subsequently direct the student body with severity. The main issue is
the lack of a proper upward communication system, where both faculty and the student body
could productively voice their opinions and complaints to the administration, hence
improving the organizational dynamics and increase overall satisfaction.

We will first lay the foundations onto which we will build our case by defining what
organizational culture means: In order to give a proper definition we will break this term
down into two components, organizational & culture, hence providing the readers with the
understanding that “culture consists of the abstract values, beliefs, and perceptions that lie
behind people’s behavior; they are shared by members of a society, and when acted on,
produce behavior considered to be acceptable within that society” (M. J. Papa et. Al, 2008, Ch.
6, p. 129). Therefore when we combine the definition of culture and attach it to an
organizational framework we convey the sense that an organization, just like a nation, is able

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to create its own sets of values, traditions and perceptions in order to foster a greater sense of
unity and belonging among the members. In the field of Communication Studies there are a
number of scholars and theorists who look at this topic from different perspectives: First
there is the Traditionalist perspective, which focuses on organizational effectiveness and
views culture as a set of observable factors that can be manipulated and rearranged in order
to generate higher productivity. There is the Interpretivist perspective, which seeks to
understand the social interactions and dynamics that are formed among members of the
organization, its main theme is stating how people are the organization and their interactions
continuously shape and change the overall culture. Last but not least there is the Critical-
Interpretivist perspective that focuses on understanding the power struggles that exist within
the different subgroups of an organization and wants to identify how “members develop
shared and conflicting meanings to accomplish individual and organizational goals” (M. J.
Papa et. Al, 2008, Ch. 6, p. 133). In order to conduct a proper research, an auditor has to look
at the overall picture and be able to assess the characteristics of the organizational culture
from all three perspectives.

We first met with the student on the 10th of February 2016, where we discussed about TASIS’
regulations, roles of conduct and the informal communication system that exists among the
students, also known as horizontal communication, as well as the one existing among
students and faculty professors; defined as vertical communication. From the responses our
team understood that strict regulations were put in place, to create order among the students’
daily lives such as:
• Lights out in the dormitories at 11 pm
• No showering after 10 pm
• Proper dress code (mandatory to wear Tasis uniforms)
• Have written permissions whenever leaving the campus during a weekend
• Mandatory attendance to yearly-sponsored events (winter formal ball, conferences,
theatrical performances etc.)
The interview with the professor happened on the same day, February 10th, where he was
eloquent and honest about disbursing any details and comments that needed to be addressed,
especially about the existing problems within the organizational culture: He briefly
mentioned what the student had already said about the various regulations under which the
student body is subjected to, including the strictness of such rules and how many times
students would have difficulty in complying, which resulted in immediate referrals that led to

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punishments or restrictions from certain activities. The professor then focused on the
peculiar behavior about some members of the administration, who as careful observers,
monitor the faculty very diligently and are always on the lookout for any wrongdoing. The
professor emphasized on their desire to control everything that a faculty member does,
worried that some would not comply exactly with the school’s regulations. He specifically
mentioned the omniscient role of the Headmaster in many of the High school’s activities and
how the board of directors constantly influenced the faculty, forcefully imposing the
organization’s regulations over every, miniscule detail. The final interview with the Dean was
conducted on the 24th of February 2016, where we could finally have the perspective of the
administration on the interactions that occur with the faculty and student body. We
addressed the key factors that we collected from the previous interviews, which ultimately
addressed the communicational conflicts and possible disruption of the organizational
culture’s integrity. It was interesting to find out how different the perspective of the Dean was
compared to the professor’s: From the Dean’s understanding TASIS’ vertical communication,
from student body to faculty and from faculty to administration, was very smooth and
efficient. He explained how administrators interact daily with the faculty, share opinions and
constantly engage in discussions to come up with effective solutions to an upcoming problem.
Even more simplistic was the way the Dean described the communication process between
administrators and students, where face-to-face interactions was ordinary and any
complaints could be openly expressed and the two parties productively cooperated to find a
solution. We understood that there was a substantial gap between the professor’s and Dean’s
responses and that an underlying problem was not properly addressed, which if stated would
have provided close resemblance when comparing the answers of the two interviewees.

In short, there is a lack of awareness about the communication conflicts that occur between
the administration and the faculty. The Dean states that interactions are constant and
effective, although the professor mentioned how only selected members of the faculty could
join administrative meetings and be able to voice opinions and offer new ideas. This restricted
upward communication conveyed a clear dominance on the hierarchical level, where the
administration allows only certain channels of communication to arrive to them and most of
the interaction is presented in a downward fashion. This lack of expression created a unique,
new informal communication between the student body and the faculty. Because certain
professors felt they were excluded from administrative meetings, their level of compliance
towards regulations diminished and they interacted more with students in order to reach a

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healthy balance between cutting out some irrelevant rules and maintain others for the sake of
job security and avoiding punishments.

The beginning of this paragraph talks about the consequences of the authoritative/coercive
manner in which the administration runs the organization; however the purpose of our
research is to understand the driving causes for these phenomena to occur in the first place:
We have come to a conclusion that within the administration there is a dominant subculture
that is composed of the Headmaster and the board of directors; these individuals share a
paradoxical characteristic in which they could be physically removed from the school’s
campus, however their hegemonic presence influences and/or directly controls the way
faculty members behave and perform their duties. This research brought to light a classic case
of conflict that can exist between ownership and control, where we see how “the meaning that
possessions hold for an owner contribute to the owner’s identity as [he/she] begins to see
him/herself reflected in and partially defined by those possessions” (B. M. Galvin et. Al, 2015,
p. 170). This quote explains how the legacy of the founder M. Crist Fleming was passed on to
her daughter Lynn Fleming (TASIS, ‘About Us’ section, Website), who is currently the
chairman of the Board of Directors, and this notion of personal ownership places a powerful
sense of entitlement about the control of the organization. To better explain this case we can
state that “individuals may highly identify with the organization, meaning that they see little
difference between their identity and the organization’s identity; between their interests and
the organization’s interests” (B. M. Galvin et. Al, 2015, p. 163). Understanding this connection
is crucial in conveying the owner’s willingness to impose regulations and roles of conduct that
she perceives are appropriate. This attitude towards considering someone’s own believes,
values and perspectives equal to the organization is a clear sign of Narcissistic Organizational
Identification, which “means the individual sees his/her identity as central to the identity of
the organization, with the result that the individual perceives the organization’s identity as
being secondary and subsumed within the individual’s identity” (B. M. Galvin et. Al, 2015, p.
164).

Because the owner has an overwhelming sense of responsibility towards the way the
organization should be run, she will make sure that the subordinates comply with the
regulations and that every member accepts and applies her values. This type of control
expresses clear signs of micromanagement; which occurs when an individual “oversees their
workers too closely and spends an excessive amount of time supervising particular [details]

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and telling people exactly what to do and how to do it” (R. D. White Jr., 2010, p. 72). The
micromanagement phenomenon is fostered when certain characteristics in an organization
are present and looking at TASIS’ organizational structure, we can see it closely resembles a
“scientific approach, [which] revolves around unity of command, centralized decision making,
specialization of tasks, predetermined rules, and formal communication” (C. Koermer & J.
Petelle, 1996, p. 26). When every decision is taken centrally, whether the issue of the matter is
highly important or superfluous, it conveys a sense of distrust that the members of the board
and the headmaster hold whenever they try to allow faculty members to act on their own
discretion, depending on the case and context at hand. The way the faculty is being treated
can be compared to the “Leader-member exchange theory (LMX); [explaining] that managers
who are reluctant to delegate, and become possible micromanagers, are those that show a
lack of confidence in subordinates’ capabilities, see tasks as being too important to be left to
subordinates, or view the tasks as too complex or technically difficult” (R. D. White Jr., 2010, p.
73). The type of hierarchical segregation created by this ‘higher-group’ of the administrative
body is not a very efficient way in understanding the upcoming issues and conflicts that may
arise within the organization; “such hierarchical control excludes many of the key members of
the staff and revolves around only certain individuals, making it difficult for voices to be
heard” (C. Koermer & J. Petelle, 1996, p. 28). This case is especially prevalent among the lower
end of the hierarchy, with student body-to-faculty relations, since only certain members of
faculty are allowed to attend administrative meetings, be able to explain the current issues,
while the student body is completely cut out from the decisions of the Head Master and Board
of directors.

We now go back to the original point where faculty professors and students would develop an
informal way of communication, in order to fill the significant void that the formal structure
created, in order to ease the life of the students, make their engagement with the faculty more
fun/positive and at the same time making the professors’ jobs more enjoyable. This
phenomenon described by the professors’ willingness to approach students as a peer rather
than a monitor could closely resemble the Instructional Humor Processing Theory (IHPT),
which “predicts that students become more motivated to process course content because
positive affect is created when their instructors use successful humor and fortunately this
study suggests that such humor motivates all students to be more actively involved in the
learning process.” (A. K. Goodboy ET. Al, 2015, p. 56). We believe that this innovative
approach to teaching will have positive effects not only in the academic career of a student

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but also benefit his/her every day life outside of the classrooms. Although we would all enjoy
an organization with loose regulations and allowing its members more freedom on how to
interact and perform their duties, we have to remember that this particular case talks about
an academic institution; specifically an international High school.

The student body is composed of 400 individuals, where about 150 of them live in
dormitories and away from their homes and loved ones, while the remaining live close by
with their families or other legal guardians. The majority of these students are under-aged
and, especially for those who live in dormitories, TASIS claims huge responsibility over the
safety and care of these pupils. Parents put great trust into the representatives of this
institution and thus we can understand why regulations may be so strict whenever revolving
academia and the student’s daily lives. It is evident that “on one hand, the school doesn’t want
to be known as a ‘jail’ where students have no freedoms and are forced to obey a strict code,
whereas on the other hand the school doesn’t want their students getting in trouble and
developing [the] reputation of an institution that cannot keep their students safe” (J.
Binkhorst & S.F. Kingma, 2012, p. 925). From this quote we can convey the need for a healthy
balance between regulations and concessions, where students understand the importance of
rules, however the administration and faculty understand the need for students to freely
make decisions in their daily lives and social interactions. From one of our sources we can
understand the two extremes of the spectrum, defined by “the path of high-reliability-
organization (HRO) whereby the school concerns heavily with safety and takes full
responsibility, or become a low-reliability organization (LRO) where safety is not a primary
concern and the school doesn’t have to take as much responsibility for their students” (J.
Binkhorst & S.F. Kingma, 2012, p. 914). A compromise between high-reliability and low-
reliability could be the golden mean for this institution, however the school often follows the
suggestion of its investors (i.e. the parents) rather than its customers (i.e. the students); thus
TASIS has come to choose the HRO model that “satisfies parents who send their children
there, but the kids are not happy about it since they are not given much freedom and are
required to go through numerous bureaucratic procedures. Whilst the parents are happy, the
kids are not and grow in an environment of high dependency” (J. Binkhorst & S.F. Kingma,
2012, p. 928).

Here we arrive at a point of stall in our research, where we no longer have evidence to back
our further statements, hence we will have to speculate and create hypothetical scenarios

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where the organization could take decisive steps into improving this warped organizational
communication: From the notions of renowned scholars Nancy E. Fenton & Sue Inglis, we can
concur that “an integration perspective is characterized as having organization wide
consensus, consistency between the intent of organizational values and employee behavior,
and the absence of ambiguity” (N. E. Fenton & S. Inglis, 2007, p. 338). The authors convey
these factors as essential in the integrative process for the members of an organization, to
gain a real sense of belonging, foster a harmonious community and comply effectively with
the organization’s rules. Once members have been properly integrated, the organization has
to accept the fact that regulations will not be followed exactly in the manner that was
originally intended by the creator of such rules; thus it is key to identify that “a differentiation
perspective focuses on inconsistencies and the existence of subcultures that are characterized
as different from the norm” (N. E. Fenton & S. Inglis, 2007, p. 338). Since TASIS is such an
international community it is normal that certain individuals belonging to various cultures
may interpret regulations differently and perceive the organization’s identity in their own
unique ways. It is the role of the administration and faculty to effectively cooperate with such
differences and find common ground in order to minimize conflict and tensions as much as
possible.

The real question then emerges: What could be an effective way in which the organization
could gather different points of view, comments and suggestions from the student body and
faculty? In order to come up with an innovative solution, “the findings reinforce the
importance of the role of the board of directors and executive director [i.e. the chairman] to
examine organizational data by gathering perspectives from all levels of the organization and
various functional roles” (N. E. Fenton & S. Inglis, 2007, p. 346). This quote emphasizes the
importance of gathering as many different perspectives as possible, from students and faculty
members of different backgrounds. People will feel more included into the solution making
process, thus motivate them by knowing that their organization values their opinions. One of
the main roles of the administration and the board would be to bring members of the TASIS
community together and “everybody must genuinely feel they are part of what makes the
school system more successful and their input and evolvement is crucial” (J. Sack-Min, 2015,
p. 49). Thanks to the huge advancements in technologies, specifically talking about
Information and Communication technologies (ICT), it has become so much easier and rapid
to exchange messages and share huge amounts of data; the author agrees that “social media
and digital technologies have been game changers for engaging students, parents, staff

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internal and external” (J. Sack-Min, 2015, p. 48). ICT’s have been a true revolution in the way
organizations can spread information internally and externally, however in moments of
misunderstandings, when members of a community need to confront each other and debate
over certain aspects of a topic to find common ground, face to face interaction may be the
most effective medium of communication. It is important to acknowledge “there are also
times when bringing people to town hall-style meetings and speaking to them directly in
person is the right thing to do” (J. Sack-Min, 2015, p. 48). This quote can be translated into
TASIS’ context and understand how open meetings with representatives of the
administration, where the faculty and student body can foster a new method of interaction,
will allow all levels of the organization to come together and voice their opinions, give each
other feedback, thus collectively find a solution to the current challenges that TASIS faces.
These examples show how such small changes could take place, where the administration
opens up to its own community, meanwhile delivering positive results and establishing a
more stable organizational culture.

Method:

Qualitative interviews

• On the 10th of February 2016 we interviewed the Senior Student and the Professor, for
30 minutes each (roughly).
• On the 24th of February 2016 we interview the Dean for about 45 minutes.

These were the outlined open-ended questions that we asked every single interviewee (the
discussion developed further with improvised questions):

1. What do you define by Organizational Culture?

2. What is TASIS objective and ultimate goal?

3. Describe the most crucial factors of TASIS in defining the formal structure: Such as
regulations, objectives/goals, civic duties that form the culture.

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4. Define and describe the most crucial factors of TASIS in defining the informal structure:
Such as student group dynamics, extra-curricula activities (sports clubs, theater etc.)
social activities (bars, clubs, shopping etc.). (Question for Student only)

5. What are some of the regulations/roles of conduct that could potentially conflict with
the informal dynamics?

Quantitative survey

This survey was distributed electronically to the senior class of TASIS since we believed they
have a better understanding of the organization, its regulations and can present a higher level
of maturity to take the survey seriously. We sent the survey to the Dean we interviewed, who
distributed it to all the senior students, hoping to receive a minimum of 30 completed surveys
for the statistical significance of our audit.

The survey questions were based on likert scale and multiple-choice criteria.

The likert scale can be easily explained as a linear grading, where a spectrum of possible
choices is given and the participant was able to choose only one option:

Ø In our case the full spectrum was comprised into 5 digits, ranging from 1 to 5
Ø 1 stood for ‘strongly disagree’, 2 ‘disagree’, 3 ‘neutral’, 4 ‘agree’ and 5 meant ‘strongly
agree’

Once the responses were provided, numerous histograms were made for each individual
question, showing the total frequency of 1-5 digits that were being selected by the whole
sample size.

When all the responses were collected, every category received a ‘best-desirable score’, which
showed what would be the best possible grade, if students were to ‘strongly agree’ with each
statement provided. Out of the 30 questions, 27 are accounted for this test, since two of them
cannot be quantified into a likert scale setup and one of them is our own personal addition to

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the original organizational-culture survey template; which was provided by communication
theorist Cal W. Downs (1977) (C.W. Downs ET. AL, p. 266-267). Therefore the best desirable
score for each question would be 325, since the total number of participants was 65 students,
hence (65 x 5= 325). After each category’s score has been calculated, then every result will be
summed up into one final grade, which will allow us to understand how successful the
institution was at maintaining an effective organizational culture.

In addition to this calculation we also evaluated the average score that each question
received, then found the total average of all 65 responses for each question and last but not
least we created a total average for each category, where we calculated the average of all the
questions that pertained to one of the specific categories; call it the ‘average of all averages’.

Results

The sample size allowed us to conduct statistically significant analysis and understand which
questions had a greater weight on the final conclusion of the communication audit. The survey
questions were divided among specific categories; to test the overall results of each category
and understand which set of questions were yielding the most positive, negative or mixed
results. Here are the results for each category:

Morale (Score: 1501 out of 2275)
TASIS promotes a productive working
relationship

(1 - 1.5%, 2 - 9.2%, 3 - 33.8%, 4 - 36.9%, 5 - 18.5%)
TASIS motivates me to put out my best efforts

(1 - 6.3%, 2 - 12.5%, 3 - 28.1%, 4 - 34.4%, 5 - 18.8%)
TASIS respects its students

(1 - 10.9%, 2 - 9.4%, 3 - 20.3%, 4 - 46.8%, 5 - 12.5%)
TASIS treats students in a consistent and fair
manner

(1 - 17.2%, 2 - 10.9%, 3 - 32.8%, 4 - 31.3%, 5 - 7.8%)
Studying here feels like being part of a family

(1 - 12.7%, 2 - 12.7%, 3 - 22.2%, 4 - 25.4%, 5 - 27%)
There is an atmosphere of trust at TASIS

(1 - 14.1%, 2 - 17.2%, 3 - 28.1%, 4 - 31.3%, 5 - 9.4%)
TASIS motivates students to be efficient and
productive

(1 - 12.5%, 2 - 12.5%, 3 - 31.3%, 4 - 34.4%, 5 - 9.4%)

Information Flow (Score: 856 out of 1300)
I get enough information to understand the big
picture

(1 - 3.1%, 2 - 12.5%, 3 - 23.4%, 4 - 32.8%, 5 - 28.1%)

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When changes are made, the reasons why are
made clear

(1 - 15.6%, 2 - 25%, 3 - 21.9%, 4 - 28.1%, 5 - 9.4%)
I know what is happening in other classes outside
of my own

(1 - 17.2%, 2 - 28.1%, 3 - 20.3%, 4 - 26.6%, 5 - 7.8%)
I get the information I need to prepare properly
for my classes

(1 - 3.1%, 2 - 4.7%, 3 - 26.6%, 4 - 42.2%, 5 - 23.4%)

Involvement (Score: 806 out of 1300
I have a say in decisions that affect my
academic career
(1 - 11.1%, 2 - 11.1%, 3 - 23.8%, 4 - 27%, 5 - 27%)
I am asked to make suggestions about how
I could perform better in my classes
(1 - 12.5%, 2 - 25%, 3 - 17.2%, 4 - 29.7%, 5 - 15.6%)
TASIS values the ideas of the faculty and
student body
(1 - 6.3%, 2 - 17.5%, 3 - 33.3%, 4 - 27%, 5 - 15.9%)
My opinions count in this organization
(1 - 16.9%, 2 - 29.2%, 3 - 27.7%, 4 - 24.6%, 5 - 1.5%)

Supervision (Score: 1805 out of 2600)
Academic requirements are made
clear by my professors
(1 - 1.6%, 2 - 11.1%, 3 - 11.1%, 4 - 46%, 5 - 30.2%)
When I do a good work my
professors tell me
(1 - 4.8%, 2 - 11.3%, 3 - 16.1%, 4 - 46.8%, 5 - 21%)
My professors take criticism well
(1 - 11.1%, 2 - 19%, 3 - 39.7%, 4 - 22.2%, 5 - 7.9%)
Professors delegate responsibility
(1 - 4.8%, 2 - 9.7%, 3 - 35.5%, 4 - 43.5%, 5 - 6.5%)
My professors are approachable
(1 - 1.6%, 2 - 6.3%, 3 - 25.4%, 4 - 41.3%, 5 - 25.4%)
My Professors give me criticism in a
positive manner
(1 - 4.8%, 2 - 3.2%, 3 - 34.9%, 4 - 44.4%, 5 - 12.7%)
My professors are good listeners
(1 - 3.2%, 2 - 9.7%, 3 - 38.7%, 4 - 41.9%, 5 - 6.5%)
Professors tells me how I’m doing
(1 - 3.2%, 2 - 22.6%, 3 - 27.4%, 4 - 35.5%, 5 - 11.3%)

Meetings (Score: 712 out of 1300)
Decisions made at Faculty & administration
meetings get put into action
(1 - 13.3%, 2 - 8.3%, 3 - 56.7%, 4 - 16.7%, 5 - 5%)
Everyone at TASIS takes part in discussions at
meetings
(1 - 31.1, 2 - 27.9%, 3 - 24.6%, 4 - 13.1%, 5 - 3.3%)
Discussions in meetings stay on track
(1 - 13.3%, 2 - 10%, 3 - 41.7%, 4 - 30%, 5 - 5%)

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Time in meetings is time spent well
(1 - 15%, 2 - 20%, 3 - 33.3%, 4 - 25%, 5 - 6.7%)
If students could form meetings with the faculty
and administration to discuss over issues, it would
tap greater creative potential for overall problem
solving
(1 - 0%, 2 - 3.1%, 3 - 26.2%, 4 - 41.5%, 5 - 29.2%)

This survey included a whole array of questions, exploring various aspects of TASIS
organizational culture and our task was to focus specifically on the issues we believed created
the greatest communicative barrier among the different bodies that represented the
institution. Of the tables shown above, we have highlighted the responses from the questions
that pertain to the scope of this communication audit, which consisted on understanding
whether or not the administration can or cannot establish an efficient upward channel of
communication and include the feedback of the student body. We thought 11 questions truly
resembled what the study wanted to convey and we collected them from the various enlisted
categories:

Ø Morale
According to the data most of the questions regarding this realm of the organizational culture
indicated that students are being motivated to effectively perform their daily activities. One
question stuck out in particular (TASIS treats students in a consistent and fair manner), where
a lot of the answers were regarded as 3-neutral, 32.8% of the total responses, and it was the
question that received the most strong disagreement, response 1, at 17.2% of the total
responses. This led us to infer that many students had conflicting experiences, where
sometimes they were treated fairly though on certain occasions they were not. However our
presumptions to this particular question are limited, since TASIS is a broad generalization
that includes both the faculty and administration. Therefore we don’t know which department
or who was treating the students unfairly.

Ø Information Flow
The question which caught our attention was ‘When changes are made, the reasons why are
made clear’ and we witnessed mixed results, (1 - 15.6%, 2 - 25%, 3 - 21.9%, 4 - 28.1%, 5 - 9.4%)
which could suggest that the decision-making within the school excludes a lot of the students
and only occurs on the top levels of the administration; the responses from students who
disagreed with this statement (Responses 1 & 2 that total 40.6%), found it unclear as to why

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changes were made, which shows a communication distortion that occurs within the
downward channels of interaction; from top to bottom of the hierarchy.

Ø Involvement
From the first question we see how 54% (only including responses 4 and 5 combined), agree
that students have a say in decisions that affect their academic career. While 45.3%, again,
only including responses 4 & 5, agree that students are asked to make suggestions about how
they could perform better in their classes. While the results from these two questions are
definitely a positive factor to state, we saw that in the third question ‘TASIS values the ideas of
the faculty and student body’, there was a sudden increase in the percentage of neutral
responses (33.3%), which suggested once again that students have mixed feelings about this
aspect of TASIS’ performance. The last question is very similar to the previous one, however it
is phrased in a much more personal level, ‘My opinions count in this organization’, and we can
see how the results in this one are very much contradicting: quite a significant amount of
neutral responses at 27.7%, with similar scores for the opposing views between agreeing (#4)
24.6% and disagreeing (#2) 29.2%. These results show that whilst opinions of the student
body tend to have an influence on the decisions made by the faculty, as shown by the first two
questions, it does provide a more neutral/negative opinion when asked if the students,
regarding their individual opinions, were taken into consideration by the institution.

Ø Supervision
The two questions that we wanted to focus on asked whether or not professors take criticism
well and if they are approachable. The responses regarding criticism were mostly neutral
(39.7%) and leaning towards a positive result (22.2% agreed). What was reassuring came
from the overall positive remarks that students had towards their professors about how
approachable they can be, which showed how 41.3% agreed with the statement and 25.4%
strongly agreed; this conveyed a good level of communication and interaction among the
student body and faculty that sustains our original claim of the two bodies establishing a more
productive mode of interaction to increase compliance and cooperation.

Ø Meetings
This final category was essential in order to back our original claims, regarding Tasis issues
about the lack of proper upward communication channels: The first question ‘Decisions made
at Faculty & administration meetings get put into action’ shows us how 56.7% of the

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respondents gave a neutral answer; entailing how there are conflicting opinions within the
student body and more than half of the participants believe that this statement doesn’t fully
reflect the institution’s current management. The second question ‘Everyone at TASIS takes
part in discussions at meetings’ presented an overwhelming majority (59%) of the student
body stating that they either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement. This last
result clearly shows how there is a lack of feedback from the student body that could
potentially benefit the administration’s decision making. Keeping all the previous results in
mind, we could say that the problem lies with the administration’s ability to communicate and
allow the students to get involved in the problem solving process, not a lack of interaction
with their professors. The last question in this category reinforces the idea that students
would love the opportunity to form meetings with the administration and faculty, to discuss
over various issues, helping TASIS come up with more effective and meaningful solutions; in
fact 70.7% agreed or strongly agreed about the implementation of this new form of
communication.

The following table shows the final results that were collected from the 27 quantifiable
questions that pertained to the original survey template and included all the responses from
the 65 participants:

The ‘actual category sums’ of course adds up the total score for each category and the ‘desired
category sums’ shows the ‘best desirable score’ if the institution were able to gain a strongly
agree on every question, from every student. The column that says ‘percentage of
achievement’ signifies the percentage of successfulness that the institution has been able to
achieve out of the total score. We have to point out that these results do not represent the
opinion of the entire senior class, nor of the entire TASIS student population; nonetheless a
sample size of 65 students does provide a good estimate of what the entire population would
convey. From what the table portrays we can see how TASIS has gained the best score in the
‘supervision’ section and this result definitely backs up our previous presumptions: showing
how students are most satisfied with their professors’ performances and how they conduct

15
their classes. The lowest score was appointed to the ‘meetings’ category, once again providing
stronger evidence that students are not satisfied in the way meetings within the faculty and
administration are carried out, as well as the student body being cut out of the decision
making process or from the possibility of voicing their opinions and share ideas. The average
test also concluded on the same remarks:
CATEGORIES: TOTAL AVERAGE FOR EACH CATEGORY
MORALE 3,30
INFO FLOW 3,29
INVOLVEMENT 3,13
SUPERVISION 3,47
MEETINGS 2,74

This table shows how the ‘supervision’ section acquired the highest average out of 5 possible
points (3,47/5) and the ‘meetings’ category acquired the lowest average (2,74/5).

Conclusions:
From the results acquired in this communication audit we can say that the senior students
seem to be satisfied with the overall performance of their institution. The one aspect that this
research wanted to highlight is the absence of an effective upward communication system,
which would allow for a reciprocal exchange of ideas and opinions that would only foster
greater sense of unity and belonging within TASIS’ organizational culture. Majority of the
participants either agreed or strongly agreed that allowing the student body to participate to
the meetings of the administration and faculty would establish better problem solving
processes and make the students feel like they truly count in the organization, knowing that
they can contribute to positive change in their high school. Every body that constitutes TASIS:
whether the administration, the faculty or the student body, each member of the organization
will be able to interpret and react to the organizational culture in numerous ways; thus “an
organizational culture is a place that generates consensual or contested meanings” (M. J. Papa
ET. AL., 2008, p. 142). This quote wants to address the possibility that certain members of
TASIS will not comply directly with the rules and regulations, because the culture of this
institution may not reflect the believes, values and traditions of those individuals. A
proposition that could potentially be implemented would be a TASIS Student Committee
(TSC), where a selected number of students, from each grade, would be elected by their peers

16
each year and these representatives will be given the task to gather and prioritize the most
prominent issues and concerns, in order to influence the decision of the administration; with
the hope that students too will be able to learn how to come together and collectively channel
their ideas in an effective manner. It is easy to acknowledge the members who praise the
actions of the institutions, however the true competence of any organization is how it can deal
with conflicts and “it may be more important to gain an understanding of the contested
meanings that create struggles for [students]” (M. J. Papa ET. AL., 2008, p. 142). This course of
action will definitely encourage students to stand up for themselves and learn how to behave
and act in a pseudo democratic process; these values and experiences will only enrich TASIS’
curriculum and generate greater satisfaction among its students and faculty members.

Citations:

1. Binkhorst, J., & Kingma, S. F. (2012). Safety vs. reputation: risk controversies in emerging policy
networks regarding school safety in the Netherlands. Journal Of Risk Research, 15(8), 913-935.
doi:10.1080/13669877.2012.686049

2. Downs, C. W., Berg, D. M., & Linkugel, W. A. (1977). The organizational communicator. New York, NY:
Harper & Row.

3. Fenton, N. E., & Inglis, S. (2007). A critical perspective on organizational values. Nonprofit Management &
Leadership, 17(3), 335-347. doi:10.1002/nml.153

4. GALVIN, B. M., LANGE, D., & ASHFORTH, B. E. (2015). NARCISSISTIC ORGANIZATIONAL
IDENTIFICATION: SEEING ONESELF AS CENTRAL TO THE ORGANIZATION'S IDENTITY. Academy Of
Management Review, 40(2), 163-181. doi:10.5465/amr.2013.0103

5. Goodboy, A. K., Booth-Butterfield, M., Bolkan, S., & Griffin, D. J. (2015). The Role of Instructor Humor and
Students’ Educational Orientations inStudent Learning, Extra Effort, Participation, and Out-of-Class
Communication. Communication Quarterly, 63(1), 44-61. doi:10.1080/01463373.2014.965840

6. Koermer, C., & Petelle, J. (1996). Scientific Management in Higher Education: Concerns and Using
Collaborative School Management to Improve Communication. Journal Of The Association For
Communication Administration, (1), 25-39.

7. Papa, M. J., Daniels, T. D., Spiker, B. K., & Daniels, T. D. (2008). Organizational communication:
Perspectives and trends. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

8. Sack-Min, J. (2015). Communication is key for Baltimore County. Education Digest, (4), 47.

9. TASIS The American School in Switzerland: About Us. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://switzerland.tasis.com/page.cfm?p=2

10. White Jr., R. D. (2010). The Micromanagement Disease: Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Cure. Public Personnel
Management, 39(1), 71-76.

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