Instructor Resource
Dainton, Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
Lecture Notes
Chapter 9: Organizational Communication
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will be able to . . .
2. Explain how a system’s perspective provides a framework for understanding
organizational communication
4. Recognize the four stages of organizational assimilation
6. Use the concept of a double interact to understand the communication process in
an organization
7. Compare and contrast major theoretical approaches to organizational
communication
Summary
Chapter 9 provides an overview of theories of organizational communication. We first look at
organizational culture, using two distinct theories to illustrate this concept: Deal and Kennedy’s
Instructor Resource
Dainton, Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
A. Modern approaches center on the extent to which meaning is created between
II. Systems Metaphor
A. Systems metaphor focuses on the interdependences that develop when people
interact with one another
B. The systems metaphor includes several concepts
2. Nonsummativity—the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (Fisher, 1978)
3. Interdependence—all system members are dependent on all other system
members. This is the main reason why nonsummativity occurs
5. Equifinality—there are multiple ways to achieve the same goal (Von Bertalanffy,
1968)
C. Organizational communication theories tend to rely on a systems metaphor (and its
associated concepts) to describe the activities of organizations
III. Organizational Culture
A. There are at least two competing perspectives on organizational culture
B. The first approach is exemplified by Deal and Kennedy (1982), who argues that
organizations become high-performing when they have strong culture
1. There are four central elements to culture
b. Heroes are the people who best represent or personify these values
2. Deal and Kennedy (1982) identify four organizational cultures based on the
degree of risk the organization is willing to take (low versus high) and the type
of feedback and reward system it has (rapid versus slow)
a. The work hard play hard culture is one of action, fun, quick feedback, and
small risks
b. The tough-guy macho culture is one of high stakes, fast feedback, with the
C. The second approach to culture is described by Smircich (1983) focuses on the
process of communication that creates, sustains, and constrains interaction within the
organization
1. According to Schein (1992), culture refers to a pattern of shared assumptions that
2. This model includes three levels of culture
a. Level 1: Artifacts are observable evidence of culture. They may take the
forms of physical entities, but they also consist of patterns of behavior
b. Level 2: Values can be defined as preferences about how situations should be
IV. Organizational Assimilation Theory
Instructor Resource
Dainton, Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
A. Jablin (1987, 2001) created organizational assimilation theory to explain how
individuals become integrated into the culture of an organization
B. There are four stages that organizational newcomers go through before becoming
full members of an organization
2. Anticipatory socialization gather information about a specific vocation,
position, or organization
V. Organizational Identification and Control (OIC)
A. OIC theory centers on the way that an individual’s connection to the organization
influences behavior and decision making in team-based structures (Barker, 1999).
Three main concepts tie the theory together
B. Identification
1. Refers to the sense of oneness with or belongingness to an organization. When
2. Evidence of identification happens when you listen to organizational members
C. Control
1. An “organization needs control to get things done” (Miller, 2003, p. 210)
2. Three traditional methods
a. Simple control involves direct, authoritarian control
3. Tompkins and Cheney identified two additional types of control
Instructor Resource
Dainton, Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life 4e
D. Discipline
1. Discipline is achieved through a sense of responsibility to the work group
2. Norms for behavior generated by the organizational mission and values coupled
VI. Organizing Theory
A. Weick (1969) argues that organizations exist in an information environment
1. The massive amounts of information organizations have available to them, from
3. Weick argues that organizations are not containers in which communication
B. The term equivocality references the ambiguity of information available to
organizations
1. Messages are equivocal to the extent there may be multiple understandings of the
information
2. When individuals find a message to be equivocal, they do not need additional
3. One way to reduce equivocality is to rely on rules
a. Organizations have rules, or guidelines, for analyzing both the equivocality
4. Another way to reduce equivocality is the double interact
Instructor Resource
Dainton, Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
a. Double interacts require organizational members to develop interdependent
relationships in the process of communicating
b. Double interacts consist of an act, which is a communication behavior
C. Three-stage process of sociocultural evolution for organizations
2. The second stage is selection. In seeking to reduce equivocality, organizational
members must choose how to respond