2.3.4 Organizational Communication
and organization culture
For Driskill (2005:28), Organizational culture may be defined
as the knowledge, ideology, values, and rituals that individuals share.
There is not a single organizational culture within
organizations, as unique sub-cultures may emerge within organizations according
to demographics such as race, gender, sexual orientation, organizational
tenure, and membership in a particular work unit or division
According Driskill (2005:33), to the direction of information
flow, organizational communication has been trichotomized into downward,
upward, and horizontal directions, which depends upon who initiated the
communication and who received it. The boss-subordinate transaction through
downward or upward communication is probably the most common communicative
situation within a work organization.
a) The downward communication: This means the flow of
information from superiors to subordinates and it is a dominant channel in
accordance with formal communication networks. Garnett (1992:102) identified
four roles of downward communication: conveying a vision, communicating to
motivate subordinates, providing feedback on subordinates' performance, and
assigning tasks and conveying task-related information. Likewise, Katz
indicates five types of downward communication, including job instruction, job
rationale, procedures and practices, feedback, and indoctrination of goals. In
most cases, task-related messages, such as goals, disciplines, orders,
policies, and directions, are dominant. (Katz 1966:7)
However, this type of communication can cause message overload
to individuals, especially subordinates who usually receive messages, and it
leads them to avoid receiving messages from supervisors, senders. The
empirically proved the relationship between information overload and
organizational satisfaction and performance. He found that perceived
information overload is associated with lower performance but higher job
satisfaction because filtering means that messages have chances to be changed
or distorted during their travel from top to down within an organization due to
«number of links in a network, perceptual differences among employees, and
lack of trust in a supervisor». O'Reilly (1980:8)
b) The upward communication: this type of communication within an
organization is the flows of information from subordinates to superiors. Upward
communication is a channel to know «how work is processing, what problems
and opportunities subordinates see, what ideas subordinates have for improving
performance, what intelligence subordinates gather about what clients and other
organizations are doing and what subordinates feel about the agency, their
superiors, and their jobs». Garnett (1992:9)
c) The horizontal /lateral communication: Horizontal or
lateral communication consists of messages that are transmitted to other
individuals on the same rung of the organizational hierarchy. In essence,
horizontal or lateral communication occurs when individuals who have roughly
the same status interact with one another in an organization. It indicates the
lateral exchange of information, which flows in accordance with the functional
principle among people on the same level within an organization. Upward and
horizontal communications are emphasized for employee satisfaction (Miller,
1999:9).
However, upward communication could be another instrument to
control and regulate subordinates, as Shermerhorn, (2005: 10) mentioned:
«upward communication keeps higher levels informed about what lower level
workers are doing, what their problems are, what suggestions they have for
improvements, and how they feel about the organization and their jobs.
External communication processes link multiple organizations
and connect the organization to its environment. Organizations exist amidst a
complex web of relationships among multiple audiences, which Grunig described
as components enabling the environmental sector that controls the allocation of
authority (governments, regulatory agencies); the functional sector (suppliers,
employees, customers); the normative sector (trade association, professional
organizations); and the diffused sector (local community, media). Thus, at the
inter-organizational level of research, communication is understood in the
network relationship. Grunig (1984:11)
The External communication can also be divided into several
types in accordance with the target groups. There are, for instance, external
communication types with clients, with private companies, with political
parties, with nonprofits, with government agencies, and so on.
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