Introduction to Organizational

Communications
J.S. Wrench & N. Punyanunt-Carter

Professor Jorge L. Rodríguez

What is an organization?

Definitions:

General Business “A social unit of people systematically structured and managed to meet a
need or pursue collective goals on continuing basis. All organizations have a management
structure that determines relationships between functions and positions, and subdivides and
delegates roles, responsibilities and authority to carry out defined tasks. Organizations are
open systems in that they affect and are affected by the environment beyond their
boundaries.”

Organizational Behavior “a social unit within which people have achieved somewhat stable
relations among themselves in order to facilitate obtaining a set of objectives or goals”

Industrial Psychology “lively sets of interrelated systems [task, structure, technology, people,
and the environment] designed to perform complicated tasks.”
What an organization holds?

Structure
• External Environment
• Input
• Throughput
• Output
Goals
• Output Goals
• Adaptation Goals
• Management Goals
• Motivation Goals
• Positional Goals

The People
• Interdependency
• Interaction
• Leadership
Structure
External Environment
• Outside the boundaries of the organization
• Vendors, competitors, customers and other
Stakeholders (party concerned)

Input
• Resources brought from the external
environment
• Physical materials, people (Workers), and
information (Know how, data)

Throughput
• Using the inputs in the organization (Hierarchy)

Output
• Product or service that an organization distribute
back to the external environment
Goals
Output Goals
• Immediate product, service or skill

Adaptation Goals
• Changing to adapt to external environment
(Obsolescence)

Management Goals
• Based on the objective behind the management
position (Leadership or cohesive whole)

Motivation Goals

• Employees satisfaction (Loyalty and reciprocal

expectations)

Positional Goals
• Position within the environment in comparison to
other organizations
People
Interdependency
• Depending on one another
(To achieve goals – Getting
behind)

Interaction
• An organization is the
outcome of people
interactions with others

Leadership
• That who guides the
organization towards
accomplishing its goals
Types of organizations

Mutual benefit associations

• Providing for its membership (Political parties, labor unions,
professional associations and religious sects)

Business concerns
• Focused on doing well for the organization (Efficiency)

Service organizations
• The beneficiary is the public in direct contact (Social Work
Agencies, hospitals, schools, legal aid societies)

Commonweal Organizations
• The beneficiary is the public at large (Government agencies,
military services, police and fire departments, universities)
What is communication?

Human communication is defined as the process whereby one

individual (or group of individuals) attempts to stimulate meaning
in the mind of another individual (or group of individuals) through
intentional use of verbal, nonverbal, and/or mediated messages.
What communication
withstands?

Process
Source
Message
Channel
Receiver
Human communication

Process
• A series of interactions that alter with time and produce
changes to those involved

Source
• Person or group idea (Company or the person)

Message
• Transmit an idea to others

Channel
• The means by which a message is carried (Verbal, Non
verbal)

Receiver
• The person or group interpreting and understanding a source
message
What is organizational
Communications?

The process whereby an organizational stakeholder (or group of

stakeholders) attempts to stimulate meaning in the mind of another
an organizational stakeholder (or group of stakeholders) through
intentional use of verbal, nonverbal, and/or mediated messages.
When can we trace OC?

1750 – Steam powered machinery forever

changed the way businesses operated
When can we trace OC?

1750 – Industrial revolution

1919 – The first public relations firm

1983 – Linda Putnam and M. Pacanowsky publish

Communication and organizations: an interpretative
approach
Organizational Communication Research

Different methodological traditions impact our understanding of the

phenomenon that is organizational communication. There are two
major branches of organizational communication: social-
scientific/quantitative and qualitative
Human communication

Social-scientific/ Quantitative

• The use of theory to form a series of hypotheses, the researchers would

then test these hypotheses through experimental observation, and the
outcomes of the experimental observations would help the researchers
revise the original theory, which inevitably lead to new research
questions and hypotheses

• Surveys
• Experiments (repetitive behaviors)
• Content Analysis (Patterns in content)
Human communication

Qualitative

• Interpretive techniques which seek to describe, decode, translate, and

otherwise come to terms with the meaning, not the frequency, of certain
more or less naturally occurring phenomena in the social world.

• Interpretative (What do the phenomena mean?)

• Critical (Organizations exist in a world of power imbalances)
Thank you