Communication symbols allow people to communicate complex ideas and concepts. There are many types of symbols, including words, pictures, and actions. Words can have multiple meanings, while pictures and actions clarify word symbols. Effective communication symbols are important for organizational behavior, as they help people understand each other, provide guidance on interactions, and make tasks easier to understand. The analysis of organizational symbols provides insights into the culture, values, and underlying assumptions of a company.

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Communication Symbols
1.Introduction:
All communication is achieved through the use of symbols. There are many different types
of symbols to support the communication skills of individuals who do not use speech and
are deaf-blind. Symbols are the basis of all human understanding and serve as vehicles of
conception for all human knowledge. Symbols are a means of complex communication that
often can have multiple levels of meaning. This separates symbols from signs, as signs have
only one meaning. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas or visual images
and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon may be
a symbol for "STOP".
2. Discussion:
2.1 Communication Symbols:
A symbol is a mark, sign or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing
an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen
by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences.
Symbols are the basis of all human understanding and serve as vehicles of conception for
all human knowledge. Symbols facilitate understanding of the world in which we live, thus
serving as the grounds upon which we make judgments. In this way, people use symbols
not only to make sense of the world around them, but also to identify and cooperate in
society.
The constantly changing and tenuous nature of organizations is complicating the
relationships between individuals and organizations. We argue that physical symbols offer
individuals and organizations access to a rich, non-verbal “language” that can help clarify
this relational complexity. We advance physical symbols to be a mechanism for managing
two key aspects of relationships–identity and status, and offer suggestions for better
understanding, and even enhancing the use of these symbols in modern management.
Treating physical symbols as a language helps us comprehend their versatility and their

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ability to represent and maintain relationships. It also advances the argument that some
changes in relationships are often realized via physical symbols.
Fig 2.1: Different Symbols
Fig 2.2: Communication Symbols

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2.2 Differnet types of Communication Symbols :
There are some different types of communication symbols:
Fig 2.3: Types of Communication Symbols
2.2.1 Words:
Many employees spend more than 50 percent of their time in some form of verbal
Communication. A major difficulty occurs, however, since nearly every common word has
several meanings. Multiple meanings are necessary because we are trying to talk about an
infinitely complex word while using only a limited number of words.
Much of the organizational literature sent to employees and customers is more difficult than
standard levels of readability. Employee handbooks, codes of conduct, annual reports to
stockholders, product assembly manuals, strategic plan, and union contracts are consistently
rated “difficult” and “very difficult”.

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Fig 2.4: Various types of word
Fig 2.5: Various types of word (2)

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2.2.2 Pictures:
A second type of symbol is picture, which is used to clarify word communication.
Organizations make extensive use of pictures, such as blueprints, progress charts, fishbone
diagrams, casual maps, visual aids in training programs, scale models of products, and
similar devices.
Fig 2.6: Fishbone Diagram
2.2.3 Action (Nonverbal Communication):
A third type of communication symbol is action, also known as nonverbal communication.
Often people forget that what they do is a means of communication to the extent that such
action is open to interpretation by others.
Fig 2.7: Non verbal communication

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3. Significance of Communication Symbols in Organizational Behavior:
 It helps to understand the communicate each other.
 Symbolic behavior directs attention toward people's interaction and
communication.
 Easy to understand upward and downward direction.
 Understand what to do and what not to do.
 Monitoring readability and simplifying documents can easily maintain and
make easy to do that task.
4. Conclusion:
Our broad message is that an important part of understanding organizational culture is the
careful reading and analysis of organizational symbols. Such an analysis needs to examine
the emotions, thoughts, and actions that symbols may engender, and the integrated systems
of meaning that the convey.
Our analysis suggests that symbols serve four functions in organizations. They reflect
underlying aspects of culture, generating emotional responses from organizational
members and representing organizational values and assumptions.

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References:
1. https://www.google.com/search?q=importance+of+Communication+Symbols+in+
Organizational+Behavior%3A&oq=importance+of+Communication+Symbols+in
+Organizational+Behavior%3A&aqs=chrome..69i57.7767j0j7&sourceid=chrome
&ie=UTF-8
2. http://methods.sagepub.com/book/studying-organizational-symbolism/n1.xml
3. Organizational Behavior Human Behavior at work 12th
edition by keith Davis,
John w Newstrom.