Organisation and Management

1. Organisation and Management BA-Siv, 3rd semester Managing Communications

2. Managing Communications • From rhetoric (Aristotle, Socrates, Platon) via studies of propaganda (early 20s century) towards a communication science. • From the idea of transmission to the idea of interaction (influenced by cybernetics = the study of electronic and mechanical devices compared to biological systems) • The concept of feedback (communication as an interactive circle involving sender, receiver, message, media and feedback loops)

3. Managing CommunicationsMain theories • Organisational communication as ’the giant hydra’ (from Greek mythology ’the Lernæan Hydra’ = a watersnake with 9 heads) Different departments of an organization may tell different stories due to conflicting interests, e.g. the unions, the employees, gossip in markets, etc.

4. Main theories: Organisational Behaviour Different perspectives on organisational behaviour with the emphasis on: • Culture (shared meanings through communication) • Human relations (openness, trust, collaboration) • Power (communication used to promote certain views and interests) • Discourse theory (discourse shapes and constructs organisational reality).

5. Main theories: Organisational Behaviour • Storytelling as an example of discourse (how do employees represent the organisation to the outside world on the basis of internal and external communication?) • ’One cannot not communicate’ (meaning?) (= implicit communication, e.g. through images. Look at images on p. 48 and comment)

6. Levels of Communication • Dyadic communication (between two people) • Small group communication • Organisational communication (a culturally driven process of sensemaking) • Mass communication Based on personal and social involvement (Littlejohn 1989).

7. Levels of Communication: Dyadic communication, interpersonal or impersonal What is signalled in the two commands: • ’You have until Monday to write this report’ • ’Would it be possible to have your report by Monday’? • What is understood by ’the vicious circle of control’ (e.g. Weick’s ’double interact’) – p. 50 • Call Centres (any disadvantages?)

8. Levels of Communication • Small group communication • Groupthink (any disadvantages?) • Shared meanings (predictable communication patterns develop in organizations and reduce equivocality) ’All organisational reality is constituted and constructed through communication and miscommunication’ (Clegg et al 2005, p. 53)

9. Levels of Communication: mass communication • The church as the earliest form of mass communication (through iconic symbols) • Modern mass marketing (TV advertising, billboards, Web sites, newspapers, sponsorship of events)

10. Levels of Communication: Organisational Communication Four functions in organisational communication: • Informative function (to generate action) • Systemic function (the glue for social interaction) • Literal function (not just fact transmission but also sensemaking) • Figurative function (linkage to wider environment  identity, mission and purpose.

11. Audiences • Internal audiences (Intraorganisational communication to employees) • Other organisations (Interorganisational communication to partners, suppliers, etc.) • Communication to the wider society (markets, society, press, etc.)

12. Internal audiences: Intraorganizational Communication The importance of integrated communication (the same message communicated by everybody in a company). An example: (quotation from Ginger Graham, CEO at a US company) ’I’ve always heard about what a wonderful company ACS is, but frankly, that’s not what I see’ (what role can openness and honesty play?)

13. Interorganisational Communication: Co-operation with other organizations • Why do organisations co-operate with others? • Networks, boundary spanners and interlockers? • Communication with stakeholders (identity creation – the example of Nike in Mexico and The Body Shop) • Drawing a border-line between marketing and organisational communication (how can marketing be a communication exercise?)

14. Communication as marketing and branding • Marketing communication (advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling and direct marketing) • The importance of communicating an image rather than the benefits of a product (e.g. Benetton) • The importance of branding (to communicate your organisation, to facilitate choice, to create personal identity) social responsibility • Negative aspects of branding (negative image of an old brand stays, strong brands make companies vulnerable to public critique)

15. Managing the multiheaded hydra • The expressive organisation’s primary communication purpose is to manage symbolic and emotional capital and thus to ’manage meanings’. • Three organisational features: vision (strategy), culture (employees) and image (brand). • Three gaps (the vision-culture gap; the image-culture gap and the image-vision gap)

16. Deconstruction to reconstruct • Managing organisations polyphonically (listening to and respecting the many voices expressed in stories about the organisation). • Deconstructing the language games by questioning the taken-for-granted. • Deconstruction as a precondition for change.