Critical Theoretical Approach To Organisational Communication

1. INTRODUCTION
According to Kreps, G.L. (1986), organisation communication consists of establishing systematic processes which will be used to achieve task-oriented goals within a group of people. Furthermore, organisational communication occurs within formal settings like the workplace. The critical theoretical approach to organisational communication is merely a tool used establish and analyse whether or not the processes/operations within organisational communication are just and to identify methods of rectifying unjust systems within organisational communication. The following argument proposes that organisations are indeed sites of domination and therefore aims to discuss the critical theoretical approach to organisational communication.

CRITICAL THEORETICAL STANCE THROUGH VARIOUS ASSUMPTIONS 3.1 ONTOLOGICAL ASSUMPTION
Du Plooy Cilliers, F. (2014) states that ontology is the nature of being ans the study thereof would refer to how things come into existence and end up being the way they are.
The critical theoretical stance on ontology therefore states that individuals within society are socialised and taught through social institutions such as schools, families and church; cultural and religious practices and systems of ideas such as capitalism. These processes of socialisation therefore have an influence of why society is the way it is today and therefore serve as an explanation of the nature of society. Critical theorists believe that the perceptions and processes formulated from the above mentioned sociological perspectives give certain people a more dominant hand than others.
It is argued that in society, there is much more under the surface than what actually meets the eye. Unfortunately, deep structures of dominance, exploitation and oppression are so deeply rooted within society that they are not even questioned, there are merely just accepted and practiced in society because they are known to be the norm of society, as individual are not taught about alternative

(2014) describes epistemology as the “study of knowledge”. This assumption deals with researching how individuals know what they know. The critical theoretical stance of epistemology suggests that knowledge that is obtained by a researcher is subjective as it could be influences by the researcher’s values. Critical theorists therefore believe that information brought upon by a researcher should be criticised befor it is accepted as fact. Critical theorists “prefer to focus their research on social issues that stand in the way of social change towards a society without domination”. They therefore accumulate knowledge to practice it in order to achieve their goal of eradicating organisational