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Summary Strategic Communication In Organizations (SCiO) wk 1 t/m 6
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Summary Strategic Communication In Organizations (SCiO) of all the articles week 1 till 6
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LECTURE 1 - INTRODUCTIONtry to understand the overall message of the paper and relate it to current situations (apply it to the
news). what are they saying? what are the concluding? theoretical work > their interpretations. so
hypotheses. It’s what they conclude and what we can do with that.
Mumby, D. K. (2013). “Organizations as Communication systems,” Chap 5; and “Communication,
Culture, and Organizing,” Los Angeles, CA: Sage, pp. 105-154.
First there was reductionism: irreducible elements and then redesigning these elements into the one
best way.
Metaphor problem > typically don’t translate well for cultures and countries. It cannot be translated
that easy. (so also not in different organizations).
The goal is traditionally to produce something, it relates to a machine. Today, with technology,
connectivity > we don’t need organizations in their physical. Organizations are nowadays more
broader and not physical. there is a shift in how we should organize knowledge creation. we should
use different types to achieve it. we organize around goals and do so with all kind of costs.
GST: General system theory.
Mumby describes clearly how our view changed to a more systematic approach. We need more to
explain it. Management as the soul purpose. we need to understand organizations as systems. (with
smaller subsystems). management is not linear anymore. it happens through interactions.
example: the car. The parts are more than the sum of the parts. It is about how they work together.
The way we produce knowledge, it is hard to know how we get to the goal. Because it is about how
we work together (different elements).
8 elements of systems:
1 Interrelationships and interdependence: when something happens in one parts, it causes change in
the other parts. everything is interrelated and that makes it complex. we need to make adjustments.
2 Holism: the relationships are interrelated. the combination/interaction becomes more than the
sum of the parts, a system is non summative. the creativity emerges from the energy of their
dynamic interactions.
3. Input, transformation, and output of energy: The product you put in the system will come out
differently.
4 Negative Entropy: Entropy is a measure of the relative degree of disorder that exists within a
system at a given moment in time: the more disorder, the more entropy exists. by default there is
entropy. they try to counteract disorder with negative entropy. every system is doomed to fall in
chaos. the rate with which you deteriorate can be influenced. we are an open system > we are open
to other influences. (pandora’s box).
it can go bankrupt if it is that the organization is to complex or outdated.
5 Equilibrium, Homeostasis, and Feedback: Equilibrium is where you want to be, Feedback is what
you get to change the state. Homeostasis is the need to get there, how open you are. it’s not only
about to see it, bu to act to that. The Equilibrium needs to be the same as the feedback says it.
In this sense, open systems are able to adapt effectively to changes in environmental conditions.
6 Hierarchy: processing information and function dynamically across multiple levels; All these
hierarchically ordered levels are interrelated, and any change in one level will produce changes
throughout the system.
,7 Goal orientation: all systems are goal oriented, and through the process of feedback they are able
to adjust their activities in order to maintain progression toward their goal.
8 Equifinality and multifinality: Equifinality refers to the fact that a system can reach the same final
state from differing initial conditions and by a variety of paths. Multifinality refers to the ability of a
system to reach multiple goals and states from the same initial conditions and inputs.
Organizations as systems of communication
Both articles how looking at organizations has evolved over time. going back to the past, we saw
organizations as a container/facture. communication started to think about that we produce
knowledge in big organizations. organizations are not just physical, but how we create outputs that
defines organizations. entities that are more meaning senter, entities created through
communications. (sensemaking!) four important features of the system approach:
1. all behavior is communicative
2. intent is not necessary for communication to occur (an interpretive process)
3. communication is relational and contextual > shaped by the social context and participants.
4. a key feature of sensemaking is the process of punctuation (ongoing streams of behavior is
organized into meaningful units).
Weick’s model of organizing> he argues that organizations actually create or enact their own
environments, which they must then make sense of. > collective sensemaking.
He wants to get managers to think differently and creatively in circles and not straight lines.
Niklas Luhmann> extending Weick’s work; a systems theory of society.
Autopoiesis: self-production: All autopoietic operations are produced internally.
social systems reproduce themselves on the basis of communication. A system exists as such
because it can, through its communication processes, differentiate itself from its environment.
constructionist perspective.
Chap. 6. Organizational communication: A critical approach.
Cultural approach: organizations as structures of meaning created through the everyday symbolic
acts of their members. > making sense of organizational life. Language and communication do not
simply represent social reality but, rather, constitute it.
The concept of culture I espouse … is essentially a semiotic one. Believing, that man is an animal
suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the
analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law, but an interpretive one in
search of meaning. (thick description)
Two perspectives on organizational culture
1. The pragmatist approach: Organizational culture as a variable
a. In identifying culture as a variable, managers are interested in measuring how one
feature of the organization (the culture) affects the larger organization. From this
perspective, organization and culture are distinct entities.
b. culture is seen as something that an organization has. > a tool that provides
managers with a way to shape the organizational reality that employees experience.
c. Functions of culture:
, i. Creating a shared identity amongst organization members.
ii. Generating employee commitment to the organization.
iii. Enhancing organizational stability.
iv. Serving as a sense-making device.
2. The purist approach: Organizational culture as a root metaphor
a. culture is seen as something that the organization is. a meaning-based social
collective.
b. their interest lies in understanding organizational life as complex, dynamic and
constituted in an ongoing fashion through communicative processes.
i. use of interpretive, ethnographic methods
ii. study of symbols, talk and artifacts (culture expressions)
1. relevant constructs (objects)
2. facts (social knowledge)
3. practices (routines)
4. vocabulary (jargon)
5. metaphors (to interpret the sensemaking process)
6. rites and rituals
7. storytelling (they provide us with a coherent and compelling reality)
Putnam, L. L., & Boys, S. (2006). Revisiting metaphors of organizational communication. In S. R.
Clegg, C. Hardy, T. B. Lawrence, & W. R. Nord (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational studies
(2nd ed., pp. 541-576). London: Sage.
This shift moves the study of communication from linear transmission within organizations to the
way that social interaction, discursive processes and symbolic meanings constitute organizations.
A metaphor is defined as a way to link abstract concepts to concrete things.
criticism:
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