Organizational communication is complex and varied but important for organizational success. It occurs at micro, meso, and macro levels both formally and informally. Effective communication is key for informing, directing, regulating, socializing, and persuading others. It helps with compliance, leadership, motivation, decision-making, and conflict management. Communication technologies continue to impact organizational structures and processes.

1. Organizational communication
 Complex and varied but important for
organizational functioning and success
 Variation across type and structure
 Impact of communication technologies and
capabilities on effective organizational forms
and processes
 Communication at micro, meso, and macro
levels
 Formals and informal communication
practices
 Externally directed communications

2. Key functions of communication
 Basic function of communication is to effect receiver
knowledge or behavior by informing, directing,
regulating, socializing, and persuading.
 compliance gaining, leading, motivating, and
influencing, sense making, and decision making,
conflict management, negotiating, and bargaining
 Coordinating and regulation of production activities;
socialization; innovation

3.  Three perspectives on communication:
Technical, contextual, and negotiated perspectives
 Communication as Mechanistic system: How can an information source
get a message to a destination with a minimum of distortion and errors?
 Contextual approach:
It focuses not just on content (accurate exchange of information or convey
the meaning), but on the larger context of communication- verbal and
nonverbal cues, relational context between the sender and receiver within a
larger social, organizational and cultural context
Negotiated View:
Looks at the overall body of communication.
It seeks to exploit how the creation and maintenance of social relations
materialize in talk.

4. Key Distinctions
 Levels:
Interpersonal communication-Micro
Group level communication-Meso
Organizational level communication-Meso
Inter-organizational level communication- Meso
Mass Communication-Macro

5. Interpersonal communication
 Major form of communication
 Focus on improving communication skill of members (speaking and
writing). Topics include-
Active non-evaluative listening-The skill to receive messages is as
important as the skill associated with the messages
Skill incompetence- the tendency on the part of the professionals to
preserve their reputation by not admitting what they don’t know, and
on the part of most persons to duck tough issues and avoid conflict
‘Flamming’ Effect of computer mediated communication- Ignorance
of social context and free expression as receivers don’t have
nonverbal cues
 Distinctions within interpersonal communication include:
Sending /receiving (listening), oral/written/electronic, and verbal and
nonverbal

6. Meso level: Group, organizational
and inter-organizational level
 Formal Vs Informal communication
 Say- do matrix
-managers say one thing but do another
-Ideal is high say-do quadrant- there is
sufficient communication and management
actions match their communication
 High say low do- culture of informal and
formal communication conflict

7. Vertical, horizontal, and diagonal :
Hierarchical communication
 Hierarchical Communication: exchange of information
between managers and employees
 Managers provide five types of information through
downward communication
 Job instructions
 Job rationale
 Organizational procedures and practices
 Feedback about performance
 Indoctrination of goals
 Employees in turn communicate information about
 Themselves
 Co-workers
 Problems
 Organizational practices and policies
 What needs to be done and how to do it

8. Downward Communication
 Top managers should directly communicate with
immediate supervisors
 Immediate supervisors should communicate with
direct reports
 On issues of importance top managers should
then follow up by communicating with
employees directly.
 Communicate orally, then follow up in writing

9. Upward communication
 Enhanced through surveys, suggestions,
grievance programmes and employee
participation
 Reasons for poor upward communication:
Fear of appraisal
Filters- ideas/concerns get modified as they get
transmitted upward
Time- impression that managers don’t have time
to listen

10. Lateral and Diagonal
communication
 Lateral- Involves communication among
persons who do not stand in hierarchical
relation to one another
 Diagonal- refers to communication
between managers and workers located in
different functional divisions

11. Internally Vs. Externally directed
communication
 When organization increases the range and
centrality of their interactions with suppliers,
customers and the public, communication
competencies of the organization become
important.
 Done through organizational alliances,
partnerships, networks, participative
management, employee and stakeholder
involvement

12. Communication Technologies
 Groupware or computer facilitated group
communication technologies-
Temporal- synchronous/asynchronous
Spatial- distributed/ co- located (figure 5)

13. Benefits of Email
1) Reduces the cost of distributing
information to a large number of
employees
2) Increases teamwork
3) Reduces the cost and time
associated with print duplication
and paper distribution
4) Fosters flexibility

14. Benefits of Telecommuting
1) Reduction of capital costs
2) Increased flexibility and autonomy
for workers
3) Competitive edge in recruitment
4) Lower turnover
5) Increased productivity
6) Tapping nontraditional labor pools

15. Some questions
 What current communication needs and challenges are
not being adequately addressed?
 Do critical/formal communication conflicts exist?
 What new communication needs and challenges are most
likely to be faced by the organization?
 How could communication technologies and computer
aided communication rich environments enable and
facilitate communication across boundaries and
geographical distances?
 Can new communication technology improve the
effectiveness and efficiency?