Organizational Behaviour, emerging knowledge and practice for the real world, by S. McShane, M. Von Glinow (fifth edition) – Summary chapter 9

Frequent, timely and accurate communication is the primary means through which employees and work units effectively synchronize their work. The functions of communication are coordination, organizational learning, decision making, changing behaviour and support employee well-being.

The communication process model states that messages are formed and encoded and decoded and feedback is formed and encoded before being sent back and being decoded. According to this model, effective communication depends on the sender’s and receiver’s ability, motivation, role clarity and situational support to efficiently and accurately encode and decode information. There are four main factors that influence the effectiveness of this encoding-decoding process. A codebook makes effective communication easier (1), experience makes the process easier (2), the process is easier if the sender and receiver are skilled and motivated (3) and the process depends on the sender’s and receiver’s shared mental models of the communication context (4).

The medium is the channel through which information is transmitted. There are verbal and nonverbal channels. The use of e-mail in an organization reduces social and organizational status differences between sender and receiver. Written digital communication (e.g: e-mail) can potentially reduce stereotyping and prejudice because age, race and other features are unknown or less noticeable. The lack of face-to-face contact may also increase reliance on stereotypes.

There are several problems with email and other digital message channels. It is difficult to communicate emotions using digital message channels (1), there is less politeness and respectfulness (2), it is inefficient in ambiguous, complex and novel situations (3) and it contributes to information overload (4). Flaming describes digital messages that convey strong negative emotions.

Nonverbal communication includes facial gestures, voice intonation, physical distance and silence. Nonverbal cues are generally more ambiguous and susceptible to misinterpretation. Emotional contagion is the automatic process of catching or sharing another person’s emotions by mimicking that person’s facial expressions and other nonverbal behaviours. Emotional contagion influences communication and social relationships in three ways. Mimicry provides feedback (1), mimicking seems to be a way of receiving emotional meaning from people (2) and mimicry helps us fulfil the drive to bond (3).

There are four important factors when deciding which communication channel to use:

1. Synchronicity
   This is the extent to which the channel requires or allows both sender and receiver to be actively involved in the conversation at the same time or at different times. Whether this factor is important depends on time urgency, the complexity of the topic, cost of both parties communication at the same time and whether the receiver should have time to reflect before responding.
2. Social presence
   This is the extent to which a communication channel creates psychological closeness to others, awareness of their humanness and appreciation of the interpersonal relationship. Whether this factor is important depends on the need to empathize with and influence others.
3. Social acceptance
   This refers to how well the communication medium is approved and supported by the organization, teams and individuals involved in the exchange. Whether this factor is important depends on the organizational, team and cultural norms, each party’s preferences and skills with the channel and the symbolic meaning of the channel.
4. Media richness
   This is a medium’s data-carrying capacity. Whether this factor is important depends on whether the situation is nonroutine and whether the situation is ambiguous.

The media richness theory states that rich media are better than lean media when the communication situation is nonroutine and ambiguous. Three factors explain why digital channels may have more media richness than the media richness predicts

1. Ability to multi-communicate
   It is possible to multi-communicate using digital channels, which is difficult to do while communicating face-to-face with someone.
2. Communication proficiency
   People with higher proficiency can push more information through the channel, thereby increasing the channel’s information flow.
3. Social presence effects
   Channels with high media richness tend to have more social presence. High social presence can distort or divert attention away from the message.

Persuasion is the deliberate attempt to change someone’s attitude or behaviour using communication. Face-to-face interaction is more persuasive than other forms of written communication because spoken communication is typically accompanied by nonverbal communication (1), spoken communication offers the sender high-quality, immediate feedback about the message (2) and because listeners have a higher motivation to pay attention in face-to-face interactions (3).

Barriers to communication are called noise. Noise can exist because people use jargon, have a different codebook or because of the tendency to filter messages. Information overload is a condition in which the volume of information received exceeds the person’s capacity to process it. Information overload can lead to poorer quality decisions as well as higher stress. Information overload problems can be minimized by increasing our information processing capacity (1), reducing the job’s information load (2) or through a combination of both (3).

There are several cross-cultural communication issues, such as voice intonations (1), language (2), the usage of silence in a conversation (3) and conversational overlaps (4) (e.g: being interrupted). There are also non-verbal differences across cultures. There are subtle differences between genders in communication. Men make more use of report talk, which includes giving advice and asserting power, while women make more sue of rapport talk, which includes relationship building.

Active listening is a process of mindfully sensing the sender’s signals, evaluating them accurately and responding appropriately. Sensing is the process of receiving signals from the sender and paying attention to them. Evaluating includes understanding the message meaning, evaluating the message and remembering the message. Responding includes providing feedback to the sender, which motivates and directs the speaker’s communication.

There are three organization-wide communication strategies:

1. Workspace design
   The location and design of the workspace shape to whom we speak as well as the frequency of that communication. One challenge is to increase social interaction without raising noise and distraction levels.
2. Internet-based organizational communication
3. Direct communication with top management
   Effective organization includes regular interaction directly between senior executives and employees further down the hierarchy. Management by walking around (MBWA) is a communication practice in which executives get out of their offices and learn from others in the organization through face-to-face dialogue. Direct communication can lead to more empathy for executive decisions.

The corporate grapevine refers to an unstructured and informal communication network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts and job descriptions. The grapevine distorts information by deleting fine details and exaggerating key points of the story. A benefit of the grapevine is that employees rely on it when there is no available information from formal channels.