MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY OF KENYA

P.O. BOX 15653 –00503, NAIROBI, KENYA. MAGADI ROAD,

Tel. +254 20 891 201/2, Fax: +254 20 891 949

FACULTY OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
 
Semester :September- December 2019
Course title : Organizational Communication
Course code : MAC 2322
Instructor : Muthini F.
Time/Days : MONDAYS 11.00- 1.00pm
Venue : J 12
Office Time : Wednesdays 8.00-10.00am
Contact : mutanuf@yahoo.com/ cell phone 0735-419734
1. COURSE DESCRIPTION
The aim of this course is to equip students with the relevant knowledge, skills,
sensitivity, and values associated with the variety of communications within and
between organizations. It also enables students explore various methods, channels,
and audiences of organizational communication in the corporate world.

2. COURSE PURPOSE

The primary focus of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the
central role of effective communication in organizations. It further helps learners
experience twenty-first century organizational challenges within the context of learning
about communication and organizations.

3. PREREQUISITE: MAC 2322

4. LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:

1. Define “communication competence” with reference to six variables: process,

people, messages, meaning, purpose, and ethics.

2. Describe the influence of four “schools” of organizational communication:

Scientific Management, Human Behavior, Integrated Perspectives, and Cultural
Approaches.

3. Describe the major types of groups in an organization with regard to their goals,
roles, norms, leadership, stages of development, and dissolution.
 4. Compare leaders and managers with regard to their traits, styles, names,
situations, and transformations.

5. Illustrate via examples the problem-solving and the decision-making processes,

using a decision matrix and assigning weights to the “desirables” and the
“options.

6. Identify the five positions on a conflict grid and describe at least half of the 12
negotiation strategies and their outcomes (“zero sum” vs. “everyone’s a winner”).

7. State the communication guidelines for conducting effective meetings and

presentations: roles, objectives, agendas, timing, location, participation, closure,
follow-up, and control.

5. REQUIREMENTS
Attendance and punctuality is required and expected. It is your responsibility to ensure
that you keep time.
Mobile phones use is not permitted in class and all assignments must be submitted
within stipulated deadlines.

6. TEACHING APPROACHES
The course will be taught using a variety of methods, including lecture, paired work,
small group work, case study analysis, and oral presentations

7. GRADING

CAT 30%

EXAM 70%

8. COURSE CONTENT

Week 1: Introduction to Organizational Communication: understand the

communication model, recognize the impact of technology on organizations, describe
the organization in terms of process, people, messages, meaning, and purpose.

Week 2&3: Communication Implications of Organizational Behavior Examine and

compare/contrast the Scientific Management theory, the Human Behavior School,
integrated perspectives, and recent cultural approaches.
Week 4&5: Communication Theories of the Individual and the Organization
Examine and compare/contrast Malsow’s Hierarchy of Needs, theories of motivation,
McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, Skinner’s reinforcement theory, and subgroups
within the organization.

Week 6: Sit- in- CAT 1

Administer Take away Assignment

Week 7: Team Based Communication in Organizations Communications List

different types of groups (teams, task forces, committees, focus groups, and social
support groups), understanding task roles and maintenance roles within groups, discuss
how to deal with negative group behavior.

Week 8: Leadership and Management Communications Differentiate between

leadership skills and characteristics, list and explain the four approaches to leadership
(traits, style, situation and transformational), describe the sources of power.

Week 9: sit-in CAT 2

Collecting take away Assignments

Week 10: Developing Critical Organizational Communications Competencies

Develop an action plan, list the eight-step problem-solving process; discover how to
collect and evaluate evidence; describe how to use a decision matrix

Week 11: Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Define conflict; examine the sources
of conflict; list and discuss the five stages of conflict; review several techniques for
escalating, avoiding, maintaining, and reducing conflict; describe and evaluate desirable
outcomes of negotiation; forms of negotiation; interpret the ethics of negotiation

Week 12 : Interviewing and Surveying Realize when to interview and when to survey;
create some directive and non-directive interview questions; discuss the guidelines for
survey questionnaire preparation; list guidelines for scheduling and conducting
interviews.

Week 13: Conducting Meetings and Making Presentations Identify when to hold a
meeting; explain how to prepare objectives and agendas’ identify roles to be filled; list
and evaluate several guidelines for meeting planners; list and evaluate several
guidelines for participating in meetings.
Week 14: Values and Ethical Communication Behaviors Compare and contrast
values, ethics, and law; differentiate between terminal and instrumental values; list and
describe five values that influence our lives at work; list and describe four guidelines for
evaluating the ethics of an organization

9. COURSE REFERENCE MATERIALS

Shocley- Zabalak, P.(2012). Fundamentals of organizational communication.

Knowledge, Sensitivity, Skills, Values. University of Colorado.
Cheney, G., and L. Christensen. 2001. Organizational Identity. Linkages between
internal and external Communication. The new Handbook of Organizational
Communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods, eds. F. Jablin and
L.Putnam, 231-269. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.
Mintzberg, H.1990. Strategic Formation: Schools of thought. Perspectives on strategic
management, ed. J. W. Frederickson, 105-235. New York: Harperbusine
10. ADDITIONAL READING
Miller, K. 2009. Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes. 5th ed.
Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.

Hargie, O. & Tourish, D. 2009. Key Issues in Organizational Communication. London:

Pearson Publishing.

Rachel Barker, George Charles Angelopulo, George Charles Angelopulo

(2006).Integrated Organisational Communication, Juta and Company Ltd

Michael Fielding,(2006). Effective Communication In Organisations ,Juta and Company

Ltd.