communication

• Communication – the exchange of information and understanding
• Verbal communication – refers to oral and written communication
• Non-verbal communication – refers to communication through body movements, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, or body contact
• formal, classification of communication that takes place within prescribed, routine organizational work arrangements,
• informal, classification of communication that is not defined by an organization’s hierarchical structure
• direction and flow of communication:

  vertical, upward, downward, horizontal/lateral, diagonal communication
• Vertical communication involves communication flow between people belonging to different organizational levels.
• Upward communication is the flow of information from an employee who belongs to a lower hierarchical level to the boss/manager who belongs to a higher hierarchical level. Employees/subordinates may communicate * regarding their personal problems, requests that they would like the boss to approve, issues with coworkers, and others.
• Downward communication is the flow of information from the manager, who belongs to a higher hierarchical level, to the subordinates/employees, who belong to lower hierarchical levels. Examples are when the boss gives orders to subordinates to finish certain tasks, communicates organizational policies and practices, and comments about work performance among others
• Horizontal/lateral communication takes place among employees belonging to the same hierarchical level. Members of cross-functional teams who belong to different units/departments but occupy the same organizational level make use of this type of communication in order to save time and facilitate coordination.
• Diagonal communication entails communicating with someone or others who belong to different departments/units and different hierarchical levels. For example, an employee belonging to the company’s financial management department communicates directly with the head of the human resource department about his personal complaint against a marketing department employee.
• communication networks in organizations:

  chain network, wheel network, all-channel network
• Chain network – where communication flows according to the usual formal chain of command, downward and upward.
• Wheel network – where communication flows between a leader and other members of their group/team.
• All-channel network – where communication flows freely among all members of a team.
• elements of communication process:

  input, sender, code, channel, noise, receiver, output, feedback
• barriers to communication:

  emotions, information overload, defensiveness, language, national culture
• Emotions – the interpretation of communications which may be influenced by extreme emotions felt by the receiver.
• Information overload – another barrier to good communication since there are too many pieces of information received by an individual may have a negative effect on a person’s processing capacity.
• Defensiveness – the act of self-protection when people are threatened by something or someone. Due to this feeling, people may resort to communicating lies in order to protect themselves or to interpret communications differently to defend their interests, thus, reducing mutual understanding
• Language – could also hamper good communications because words used may have different meanings to different people belonging to different age, educational background, or cultural group.
• National culture – just like language, the prevailing * may also cause problems in communication among members of an organization, especially if it is multinational company Certain office practices, like sending formal memoranda to employees, may be negatively interpreted by employees coming from another country with a different culture that values faceto-face interpersonal communication. Such negative interpretation may, in turn, cause employee dissatisfaction and less motivation to perform their work well.