Summary of the book Organizational Communication from Mumby & Kuhn, the 2nd edition (2019). Suitable for all EUR students who follow the course CM1014 Communication and Organizations as this is a summary of the second edition!
CHAPTERS: 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 (all necessary chapters f...
Summary Organizational
Communication
Dennis K. Mumby & Timothy, R. Kuhn
2nd edition (2019)
Course: CM1014 Communication and
Organizations
1
,TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION?...........................................................................3
CHAPTER 3: FORDISM AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION.....................................................................5
CHAPTER 5: COMMUNICATION, CULTURE, AND ORGANIZING..........................................................................7
CHAPTER 6: POST-FORDISM AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION............................................................11
CHAPTER 7: POWER AND RESISTANCE AT WORK.........................................................................................15
CHAPTER 8: COMMUNICATING GENDER AT WORK......................................................................................18
CHAPTER 10: BRANDING, WORK, AND CONSUMPTION...............................................................................22
CHAPTER 11: LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION IN THE NEW WORKPLACE............................................................25
CHAPTER 12: INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN/AT WORK.............................................29
CHAPTER 13: ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION, GLOBALIZATION AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.........31
CHAPTER 14: COMMUNICATION, MEANINGFUL WORK, AND PERSONAL IDENTITY...............................................33
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,Chapter 1: What is organizational communication?
Our relationships to organizations and the communication processes are essential to our
self-definition and sense of being in the world, but we navigate them without really
paying attention to how they give meaning to our lives.
With the advent in the 1980s of an economic and political system called neoliberalism
and an organizational form called post-Fordism, corporations significantly expanded their
spheres of influence such that work and consumption increasingly define people’s lives.
Organizational communication as a process is inescapably linked to the exercise of
power.
Wage slavery = working for an employer rather than for oneself
to be described as an employee was not a compliment
The shift from a society consisting of workers to one consisting of managers and
employees is key to understanding the historical transformations that led to the
emergence of an organizational society.
Thompson identifies the shift from task time to clock time as being a defining feature in
the emergence of industrial capitalism.
Task time = an organic sense of time where work is shaped by the demands of the tasks
to be performed.
Employers attempted to impose a new sense of time – clock time – that was alien to most
workers but essential to the development of systematic and synchronized forms of mass
production. Under the employer-employee industrial relationship, time was transformed
from something that was passed to something that was spent – time became a form of
currency. In this relationship, it is not the task that is dominant but the value of the time
for which the employer is paying the worker.
Organizations coordinate the behaviour of its members so that they can work collectively.
Organizational control = the dynamic communication process through which
organizational stakeholders struggle to maximize their stake in an organization
Communication in organizations
This perspective views organizations as relatively stable, physical structures within which
communication occurs.
Limitations
1. Treating communication simply as an information transmission process tends to
downplay the significance of communication in the optimal performance of
organizations
2. It overlooks the complexity of the communication process
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, 3. We have a sense of who we are, our connections to others, and our place in the
world because we are communicating beings.
4. It tends to treat organizations as given
Organizations as communication
This perspective has a more muscular conception of communication in framing the
organization-communication relationship. This perspective argues that communication
constitutes organization. Communication activities are the basic, defining stuff of
organizational life.
Communication = the dynamic, ongoing process of creating and negotiating meaning
through interactional symbol (verbal and nonverbal) practices, including conversation,
metaphors, rituals, stories, dress and space.
Organizational communication = the process of creating and negotiating collective,
coordinated systems of meaning through symbolic practices oriented toward the
achievement of organizational goals.
1. Interdependence: no member can function without affecting, and being affected
by, other organization members
2. Differentiation of tasks and functions: specialization in tasks
3. Goal orientation: sometimes company goals can conflict with those of other
interests
4. Control
direct control: supervising employees in direct and explicit ways and monitor
behavior
technological control: control through various kinds of organizational
technology. Technological forms of control often shift work from employees to
customers.
panopticism = technological control in the form of electronic surveillance
bureaucratic control: still common in many organizations; system of rules,
formal structures and roles
ideological control: the development of a system of values and beliefs and
meanings with which employees are expected to identify strongly
Biocratic control: shifts the focus away from conformity, instead attempting
to capture the diversity of its workface
) many organizations use multiple forms of control
) these forms of control operate with decreasing levels of direct coercion
and increasing levels of participation by employees in their own control
) the increasingly sophisticated forms of organizational control require a
similarly sophisticated understanding of the role of communication in these
control processes
To understand the five forms of control keep in mind:
- Many organizations use multiple forms of control at the same time
- The forms of control operate with decreasing levels of direct coercion and
increasing levels of participation by employees
- Each form of control tends to develop in response to the failure of earlier forms of
control to adequately deal with employee autonomy and resistance
- The increasingly sophisticated forms of organizational control require a similarly
sophisticated understanding of the role of communication in these control
processes.
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