Communication in the

Digital Age
 Channels of Communication
Formal Informal
• Path follows the authority • Spontaneous channels
chain from individual choice
• Messages relate to • Messages often personal
professional activities or social
The Communication Process
Direction of Communication

Executive
Upward Lateral

Manager Manager Manager

Downward
Employee
 Interpersonal
Communication
Three Forms:
• Oral
• Written
• Nonverbal
 Oral Communication

• Advantages
 Speed
 Feedback
 Simple to Correct

• Disadvantages
 Potential for distorted message when passed
through a number of people
 Written Communication
Advantages Disadvantages
• Provide a tangible and • Time consuming
verifiable record • Lack of feedback
• Record can be stored for • May not be read
an indefinite period of
time
• Physically available for
later reference
• More likely to be well
thought-out, logical, and
clear
 Nonverbal
Communication
• Body language conveys:
 The extent of affinity for another
 The relative perceived status
between a sender and receiver
• Meaning changes with:
 Intonation
 Facial Expression
 Physical Distance
 Formal Small-Group
Networks
• Chain gives best accuracy
• Wheel facilitates leadership development
• All-Channel provides member satisfaction
 The Grapevine
• Emerges when:
 Situation is important
 Ambiguity exists
 Situation causes anxiety

• Three Characteristics:
 Not controlled by management
 Perceived as being more believable and reliable (and
often is)
 Largely used to serve self-interest of those willing to
communicate
Electronic Communication

• E-mail
• Instant and Text
Messaging
• Web Logs (Blogs)
• Videoconferencing
 E-Mail
Limitations
• Easy to misinterpret
• Should not be used for
negative messages
• Overused and
overwhelms
• People are emotionally
disinhibited
• Privacy concerns
 IM & TM
• Essentially real-time
> Deal? • Inexpensive
> OMG y!
> ;) • Good for short
> BRB-BOS messages
>k
• Some find it intrusive
and distracting
• May be inappropriate
for formal business
messages
 Social Networking Software

• Explosive growth area.

• Facebook® and MySpace ®
• Individuals post information
about themselves publicly –
seen by:
 Potential employers
 Current employers
 Police, federal agencies…
Web Logs (Blogs)

• Another public private

space
• Web sites about a single
person or company
usually updated daily
• May be used to gather
information from
customers
Videoconferencing

• Permits employees to
conduct interactive
meetings without being
physically in the same
room
• Conserves travel funds
• Becoming more
accessible as costs drop
 Barriers to Effective
Communication
• Filtering
• Selective Perception
• Information Overload
• Emotions
• Language
• Communication
Apprehension
 Influence, Power and
Politics: An Organizational
Survival Kit
 Power
The capacity that A has to influence the
behavior of B so that B acts in accordance
with A’s wishes
 Nine Influence Tactics

Legitimacy Pressure
Rational persuasion Coalitions
Inspirational appeals
Consultation
Exchange
Personal appeals
Ingratiation
Three Influence Outcomes
Three possible outcomes:

• Commitment
 Substantial agreement

• Compliance
 Reluctant or insincere agreement

• Resistance
 Stalling, unproductive arguing or outright
rejection
 Five Bases of Power
Due organizational position:

• Coercive Power
 Complies from fear of the negative results

• Reward Power
 Complies due to desire for positive benefits

• Legitimate Power
 From the formal authority to control and use
organizational resources
Personal Bases of Power
Stems from an individual’s
unique characteristics:
•Expert
 Influence wielded as a result of
expertise, special skill, or
knowledge
•Referent
 Based on identification with a
person who has desirable
resources or personal traits -
charisma
 Effective Power Bases

• Expert and referent power are

positively related to performance and
commitment

• Reward and legitimate power are

unrelated to organizational outcomes
• Coercive power is negatively related to
employee satisfaction and commitment
 Power Tactics
• Used to translate
power bases into
specific actions that
influence others
• More immediate than
power bases
• Can result in the
accumulation of a
power base
 Influence Tactic Effectiveness

• Most effective:
 Rational Persuasion
 Inspirational Appeals
 Consultation

• Least effective:
 Pressure

• Combining tactics increases effectiveness

• Direction, sequencing, individual skill, and
organizational culture modify effectiveness
 Employee Empowerment
“Sharing varying degrees of power with lower-level
employees to tap their full potential”

W Alan Rudolph: Definition of empowerment

Recognizing and releasing into the organization the power
that people already have in their wealth of useful
knowledge, experience and internal motivationOutside of
job requirements
Participative Management
Individual Factors Contributing
to Political Behavior

• Traits that encourage political action:

 High self-monitors
 High need for power

• Situational influences leading to

illegitimate political actions:
 Lower organizational investment
 Greater the number of perceived alternatives
 Greater expectations of success
 Politics: Power in Action
Politics occur when employees convert power into action

Organizational Politics:
Activities not required as part of one’s formal role in the
organization, but that influence, or attempt to influence, the
distribution of advantages and disadvantages within the
organization
Outside of job requirements
Requires the use of power
 The Reality of Politics

Politics arise in organizations because of:

• Conflicting interests
• Limited resources
• Ambiguity in decision making

Politicking: twisting facts to support one’s

own goals and interests
 Organizational Factors
Contributing to Political Behavior
• Organizational resources declining or
distribution shifting
• Opportunity for promotion exists
• Organizational culture issues:
 Low trust
 Role ambiguity
 Zero-sum reward allocation
 High performance pressures
 Leading by poor example
 Impression Management (IM)
• The process by which individuals attempt
to control the impression others form of
them
• People may misrepresent themselves in
situations of high uncertainty or ambiguity
• Misrepresentations may discredit the
individuals – seen as insincere or
manipulative
Impression Management Results

• Interviews
 Self-promotion and ingratiation
work well

• Performance Evaluations
 Ingratiation positively related
 Self-promotion is negatively
related
Designing Effective
Organizations
Organizations: Definition
& Dimensions
• An organization is a system of
consciously coordinated activities or
forces of two or more persons
• The unity of command principle
specifies that each employee should
report to only one manager
 Organization Charts
• An organization chart is a graphic
representation of formal authority
and division of labour relationships

• Hierarchy of Authority – working

from bottom to top, top with the
highest authority e.g. CEO
 Work Specialization
• Also known as division of labor
• Describes the degree to which activities in
the organization are subdivided into
separate jobs
• Benefits:
 Greater efficiency and lower costs
• Costs:
 Human costs when carried too far
 Job enlargement as a solution
 Departmentalization

• Basis by which jobs are grouped together

so that common tasks can be coordinated
• Common bases:
 Function
 Product
 Geography
 Process
 Customer
 Chain of Command
Unbroken line of authority that extends from
the top of the organization to the lowest
echelon and clarifies who reports to whom

•Authority: positional rights

•Unity of Command principle: one boss
•Fewer organizations find this is relevant
 Span of Control

• The number of employees a manager is

expected to effectively and efficiently
direct
• Determines the number of levels and
managers an organization has
 Trend is toward wider spans of control
 Wider span depends on knowledgeable employees
 Affects speed of communication and decision making
 Division of Labour
• Spans of Control – the number of
people reporting directly to a given
manager
• Staff personnel – provide research,
advice and recommendations to line
managers
• Line managers – have authority to
make organizational decisions
 Centralization and
Decentralization
Centralization - degree to which decision
making is concentrated at a single point in
the organization
 Only includes formal authority: positional rights
 Highly centralized when top managers make all the
decisions
 Decentralized when front line employees and
supervisors make decisions
 Trend is toward increased decentralization
 Formalization

Degree to which jobs

within the organization
are standardized
 Formal = minimum
discretion over what is to
be done, when it is
done, and how
 Informal = freedom to
act is necessary
Common Organizational Designs

• Simple structure
• Bureaucracy
• Matrix structure
 Simple Structure

• Low degree of departmentalization

• Wide spans of control
• Authority centralized in a single person
• Little formalization
• Difficult to maintain in anything other
than small organizations
 Bureaucracy
• Highly routine operating tasks achieved
through specialization
 Formal rules and regulations
 Centralized authority
 Narrow spans of control
 Tasks grouped by functional departments
 Decision making follows the chain of command
 Matrix Structure
• Combines two forms of
departmentalization
 Functional
 Product
• Dual chain of command
• Advantages:
 Facilitates coordination and efficient allocation of
specialists
• Disadvantages:
 Possible confusion, fosters power struggles, stress
Matrix Structure for a College
of Business Administration
 Managing Change and
Organizational Learning
Forces of Change

External Forces for change

originate outside the
organization
• Demographic Characteristics
• Technological Advancement
• Customer & Market Changes
• Social & Political Pressures
Forces of Change

Internal Forces for change

come from inside the
organization
• These forces can be subtle such
as low job satisfaction or
• Manifest in outward signs such as
low productivity, high turnover
and conflict
Approaches to Managing
Organizational Change

• Lewin’s Three-Step Model of

Change
• Kotter’s Eight-Step Model of
the Change Process
• Organizational Development
 Sources of
Resistance to Change
People tend to resist change, even in
the face of evidence of its benefits.
Individual Organizational
• Habit • Structural Inertia
• Security • Limited Focus of Change
• Economic Factors • Group Inertia
• Fear of the Unknown • Threat to Expertise
• Selective Information • Threat to Established
Processing Power Relationships and
Resource Allocations
 Change Agents

• Persons in organization responsible for

managing change activities
• Can be managers or non-managers,
current employees, newly hired
employees or outside consultants
• Outside consultants can provide objective
perspectives, but don’t have to live with
the consequences of change
Lewin’s Three-Step Model

Unfreezing can be achieved by:

 Increase driving forces that direct
behavior away from the status quo
 Decrease restraining forces that hinder
movement from the existing equilibrium
 Combine the two above approaches
 Creating a Learning Organization

Organizational learning (OL) and a

learning organization (LO) are not the
same thing
Types of Learning:
 Single-Loop: error correction process relies on past
routines and present policies
 Double-Loop: errors are corrected in ways that
involve the modification of the organization’s
objectives, policies and standard routines – used by
learning organizations
 Kotter’s Eight-Step Plan

1. Create urgency 5. Empower others

2. Form coalition 6. Reward “wins”
3. Create new vision 7. Consolidate
4. Communicate the improvements
vision
Movement
Refreezing

Unfreezing 8. Reinforce the change

 Organizational Development
A collection of planned-change interventions
that seek to improve organizational
effectiveness and employee well-being
Based on humanistic-democratic values:
 Respect for People
 Trust and Support
 Power Equalization
 Confrontation
 Participation
Overcoming Resistance to Change

1. Education and Communication

2. Participation
3. Building Support and Commitment
4. Implementing Changes Fairly
5. Cooptation
6. Selecting People who Accept
Change
7. Coercion
 Defining OL and LO

OL is a reflective process, played out by

members at all levels of the organization, that
involves the collection of information from both
the external and internal environment
LO is one that proactively
creates, acquires, and
transfers knowledge and that
changes its behaviour on the
basis of new knowledge and
insights
 Five Basic Characteristics of a
Learning Organization

People in a learning organization:

1. Are willing to put aside their old ways of thinking
2. Learn to be open with each other
3. Understand how the organization really works
4. Can form a plan or vision that everyone agrees on
5. Can work together to achieve that vision
 Building an Organization’s
Learning Capability
Learning capabilities are defined as the special
knowledge,skills and technological know-how
that differentiate an organization from its
competitors and processes that enable an
organization to adapt to its environment
Two major contributors:
 Facilitating Factors
 Learning Mode
The End