Grapevine is an informal channel of business communication.

It is called so because it stretches throughout the organization in all directions irrespective of the authority levels. Man as we know is a social animal. Despite existence of formal channels in an organization, the informal channels tend to develop when he interacts with other people in organization. It exists more at lower levels of organization. Grapevine generally develops due to various reasons. One of them is that when an organization is facing recession, the employees sense uncertainty. Also, at times employees do not have selfconfidence due to which they form unions. Sometimes the managers show preferential treatment and favour some employees giving a segregated feeling to other employees. Thus, when employees sense a need to exchange their views, they go for grapevine network as they cannot use the formal channel of communication in that case. Generally during breaks in cafeteria,the subordinates talk about their superiors attitude and behaviour and exchange views with their peers. They discuss rumours about promotion and transfer of other employees. Thus, grapevine spreads like fire and it is not easy to trace the cause of such communication at times. Examples of Grapevine Network of Communication 1. Suppose the profit amount of a company is known. Rumour is spread that this much profit is there and on that basis bonus is declared. 2. CEO may be in relation to the Production Manager. They may have friendly relations with each other. Pros and Cons of Grapevine Communication
Advantages of Grapevine Communication

1. Grapevine channels carry information rapidly. As soon as an employee gets to know some confidential information, he becomes inquisitive and passes the details then to his closest friend who in turn passes it to other. Thus, it spreads hastily. 2. The managers get to know the reactions of their subordinates on their policies. Thus, the feedback obtained is quick compared to formal channel of communication. 3. The grapevine creates a sense of unity among the employees who share and discuss their views with each other. Thus, grapevine helps in developing group cohesiveness. 4. The grapevine serves as an emotional supportive value. 5. The grapevine is a supplement in those cases where formal communication does not work. Disadvantages of Grapevine Communication 1. The grapevine carries partial information at times as it is more based on rumours. Thus, it does not clearly depicts the complete state of affairs. 2. The grapevine is not trustworthy always as it does not follows official path of communication and is spread more by gossips and unconfirmed report. 3. The productivity of employees may be hampered as they spend more time talking rather than working.
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4. The grapevine leads to making hostility against the executives. 5. The grapevine may hamper the goodwill of the organization as it may carry false negative information about the high level people of the organization. A smart manager should take care of all the disadvantages of the grapevine and try to minimize them. At the same time, he should make best possible use of advantages of grapevine.

Grapevine (gossip)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia See also Chinese whispers, Gossip

To hear something through the grapevine is to learn of something informally and unofficially by means of gossip and rumor. The usual implication is that the information was passed person to person by word of mouth, perhaps in a confidential manner among friends or colleagues. It can also imply an overheard conversation or anonymous sources of information. For instance "I heard through the grapevine that Brad was getting fired."

Contents

1 Etymology 2 Grapevine/Informal Communication 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading

Etymology
In the autobiography of Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery, Washington says that slaves in the South kept up-to-date on current events by "what was termed the 'grape-vine' telegraph." He said,

Often the slaves got knowledge of the results of great battles before the white people received it. This news was usually gotten from the coloured man who was sent to the post office for the mail... The man who was sent to the post office would linger about the place long enough to get the drift of the conversation from the group of white people who naturally congregated there, after receiving their mail, to discuss the latest news. The mail carrier on his way back to our master's house would as naturally retail the news that he had secured among the slaves, and in this way they often heard of important events before the

white people at the 'big house,' as the master's house was called.

According to Jitendra Mishra:[1]

The term grapevine can be traced to Civil War days when vinelike telegraph wires were strung from tree to tree across battlefields and used by Army Intelligence.[4] The messages that came over these lines were often so confusing or inaccurate that soon any rumor was said to come from the grapevine. Usually, grapevines flow around water coolers, down hallways, through lunch rooms, and wherever people get together in groups.[5] The lines of communication seem to be haphazard and easily disrupted as the telegraph wires were, however, they transmit information rapidly and in many cases faster and with a stronger impact than the formal system allows.

The term gained a boost in popularity through its use in the Motown song "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", a major hit single for both Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight & the Pips in the late 1960s.

Grapevine/Informal Communication
The term grapevine communication is often used interchangeably with the term informal communication. The term originated in the 1860s during the American Civil War. It was used as a term that described the telegraph lines that were strung through the trees in a manner that resembled grapevines. It also came to mean informal communication that was not very effective because the telegraph system was not a reliable source of communication at the time. Almost a century later, it was discovered that the path of grapevine communication does resemble a cluster of grapes. It has been shown that informal communication or grapevine communication occurs when formal communication is not sufficient. Research and studies have concluded that informal communication occurs either when insufficient of ambiguous information is transmitted through formal communication. Some organizational theorists feel that some informal or grapevine communication is needed in organizational life. The way grapevine communication works is one person, Person 1, sends a message to Person 2 and Person 3. Then, Person 2 tells Person 4 and Person 5. And Person 3 tells Person 6. Not all participants within the grapevine send messages. Some participants are just receivers. Liaisons within an organization usually help facilitate grapevine communication. The use of this type of communication is common among managers as well as subdivision employees. The types of rumors that are spread through grapevine communication can be classified into two groups, spontaneous and premeditated. Spontaneous rumors are spread when people are stressed or in an untrustworthy environment. Premeditated rumors spread within highly competitive environments. These two groups can be broken down into four classifications: wish fulfillment,
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anxiety, wedge drivers, and home stretchers. These types of rumors can also be spread through other types of informal network structures such as the single strand chain, the cluster chain, the probability chain, and the gossip chain. Jitendra Mishra derived 8 reasons Grapevine communication Exists. Some of the reasons include the need for faster communication, useful messages transmitted, outlets for imagination and apprehension, and helps build teamwork and corporate identity. Surprisingly, 75% of all organizations practices, policies, and procedures are shared through grapevine communication. Studies have shown the employees find informal communication such as grapevine communication to be more effective than formal channels of communication.

See also