A Summary Of Organizational Communication

Communication in an organization are very important in delegating works, information and related matters towards the employees. The concept of communication has been illustrated by Shannon and Weaver (1948) which stated that communication occur when there are messages that being transmitted from the receiver to the sender in conveying information (Barry, 2003).

Organizational communication has been defined as the communication that occur within the organization. The activity that were done such as sending messages through the medium that are used by the employees. It can be formal and informal communication (Koschmann, 2012).

According to Srivastava (2005), formal communication is the path that usually were used by the organization in informing

The use of language symbols are used by the receiver in coding an information and then will be decoded to the receiver. There are two types of messages in the decoding process which are known as the acquisition and the interpretation of the message. It is where the supposed “understanding” that is through the meaning of the symbols intended. The understanding of the information are depends on how the recipient or receiver interprets on the intended messages. The receiver might perceived the information wrongly and not according to what the original message means.

The communication in the organization are not only restricted to the structure but it also depends on its complex elements of the organization which are the goals, people and technical appliances (Słomski, 2008). Communication is important in an organization as without it, the employees will be clueless on what are the associates are doing while the management will not receive any inputs on the information regarding to the organization matters and lastly the management will have problem in giving proper instructions towards the employees (Srivastava,

The example of informal communication are such as rumours and grapevines. Rumours is where the unofficial statement about the organization were spread out towards the employees without a reliable resources. In an organization, it could be spread rapidly when the information are about the interest on some issue that regards to an individual nor about the decision making that will be done by the superior. The issues that usually perceived by the spreading of rumours is that it could bring harm to the organization as the information could be spread out to the external parties and this could give negative impact towards the company. Despite that, it may also cause conflict within the employees or between employees and the organization if they are not satisfied and when the information is misleading from the original message (Sims, 2002).

The other types of informal communication are known as grapevine which are usually about the matter regarding the information from the organization that are not official yet. The situation is when the messages are being transmitted first without having the official statement. The network is also known as the network of unofficial flow of information (Sims, 2002). It also has been stated that grapevine completes the employees desires to know about the current issue that are happen in the organization that could be either related to them or it also could be the other