Chapter 5 in the text focuses on organizational identity. The authors defined organizational identification this way, "A person identifies with an organization when he or she seeks to select alternatives with the interests of the organization--as best they can be determined--uppermost in mind" (p. 114).As an employee in an organization, I've never been overly enthusiastic about identifying with the organization. Developing a sense of community is important, but I like having "me" at least somewhat separate from the organizations in which I'm embedded. Still, in a place like SJSU with commuter students, faculty, and staff, creating community and organizational identity can prove challenging. Recently the department embarked on an initiative to examine its curriculum. As part of interrogating the program, faculty also developed a tagline (Listen • Speak • Engage), a tagline image (aka, our logo), and revamped the department website. Although the outcome was important because we now have tangible representation of who were are as a department, what brought us together more, and encouraged identification with the organization, was the process. We worked as a group to come up with the tagline. For our tagline image, one of our graduate students (a graphic designer in a previous life) took us through 3 rounds of ideas until we identified an image we all liked. For the department website, we integrated that image along with our renewed commitment to making program information more accessible. And students have noticed this. Several have told me Listen • Speak • Engage is "everywhere" and they say it helps them articulate what it means to major in communication studies. I have no interest in assimilation, but I do want students, faculty, and staff to feel like they have a stake in the department.~ Professor Cyborg
Much of the work in organizational culture has taken an ethnographic approach, studying the culture of a particular organization. As Cheney et al. note, "ethnographers . . . study how social realities are constructed locally" (p. 81). The research involves observation or participant observation and detailed descriptions of organization members' everyday sensemaking.
Over 10 years ago, John Haas, Beverly Davenport Sypher, and I observed that although there are distinctions across organizations in cultural practices and other indicators, there are commonalities. We'd been involved in collecting data in several organizations on communication climate and information flow. What interested us was that in every organization, members wanted more information, no matter how much information they already received. With one exception, across all channels and sources, organization members wanted more communication. The only source they didn't want more information from was the grapevine--they didn't want more rumors. Yet, the grapevine was rated as both healthy and accurate in every organization. In the Journal of Business Communication article we published on our research, we identified this desire for more communication as a metamyth "whose basic tenet is that 'more communication is better'" (p. 196).
What also sets apart this research from more traditional organizational culture studies is the use of quantitative methods. Examining survey data from five different organizations allowed us to observe the metamyth trend that ethnographic data would not have revealed.
~ Professor Cyborg
Box 4.2 in Chapter 4 discusses the work of one of my colleagues at SJSU, Dr. Federico Varona. The article cited, Conceptualization and Management of Communication Satisfaction and Organization Commitment in Three Guatemalan Organizations, was published in the American Communication Journal when I was editor. This research is interested in the influence of the larger culture on the organizations studied. The two most important contributions of Dr. Varona's are understanding communication satisfaction as a more nuanced construct and recognizing the multidimensionality of organizational commitment.
But what I like best about the study is what Dr. Varona's cultural and professional background brought to the research. Summarizing his experiences living and working in Guatemala he says in a footnote: "During the fourteen years that I lived in Guatemala, I had the opportunity to interact with people of all social classes Indigenous and Ladinos, poor and rich, and professionals and workers from a great variety of organizations and institutions. This experiential knowledge along with my expertise as a scholar allowed me to get to know Guatemalan culture and Guatemalan organizations." As with Kay Meidlinger's extensive knowledge of the Catholic church and her research on parish staff members' stories, Dr. Varona's background provided a level of analysis and insight those unfamiliar with Guatemalan culture could not provide.
~ Professor Cyborg
In the section near the end of the chapter on overall research orientations, Cheney et al. observe: "Most analyses of communication content emphasize what is said or what is present in the 'text' . . . . In some cases, however, there might be important elements that are notable for their absence" (p. 465).
Several years ago one of my master's students, Shannon Waltrip-Sequiera, did her thesis research on how parents and teachers socially construct the notions of progression and regression in children with autism. She focused on the communication of two teachers and one parent about the parent's child with autism. As part of the program designed by the child's school, the teachers and parent wrote in a notebook that went to school and home with the child each day. The main focus of the notebook was addressing the child's needs, although topics varied. Shannon analyzed several years of the notebook's content and conducted in-depth interviews with the teachers and parent.
One interesting finding was the near absence of the parent's voice. The teachers dominated the communication in the notebook; the parent generally followed their lead in defining the child's progression and regression. In this case, as Cheney et al. suggest, the absence of the parent's communication was noteworthy, particularly when it was replaced by a grandparent's contributions to the notebook.
~ Professor Cyborg
In Chapter 15, Cheney et al. observe, "To understand organizational communication, it's often important not to focus on a single message but rather to look at a broad pattern" (p. 440). This quote reminded me of my dissertation work. My committee included an interpersonal communication scholar, a qualitative methods media studies scholar, a quantitative health communication scholar, and two sociologists, one a critical theorist and the other a specialist in complex organizations. Quite a mix of perspectives for my project on person-centered communication in hospice interdisciplinary health care teams.
For my dissertation, I used observation, focus groups, individual interviews, and a questionnaire to gather data. My primary focus was on the messages team members exchanged when comforting and persuading each other. By examining a large body of messages, I was able to tease out patterns of person-centered communication. Still, that provided a fairly micro view of organizational communication. The sociologists on my committee encouraged me to consider the broader environment in which the teams functioned, including the larger organizational structures and the realities of the U.S. health care system. For example, the critical theorist pointed out that these hospices, which were not-for-profit, functioned in a for-profit world, interfacing with hospitals and insurance companies. As I blogged about previously, interacting with these highly bureaucratic organizations influenced the hospices' internal structures.
When Cheney et al. emphasize the need to go beyond a single message and examine patterns, they're also suggesting that organizational communication researchers place their work within the larger contexts in which such communication takes place.
~ Professor Cyborg
I really enjoy reading the Voices from the Field boxes, so you may notice that I blog about them often. In Box 15.2, the authors feature Jill McMillan discussing native organizational communication research in which scholars study the organizations in which they're embedded. Several years ago one of my master's students, Kay Meidlinger, studies the stories of the organization where she worked, the office of her local Catholic church. Kay had attended Catholic church all her life and at the time of her study had worked as a member of the parish staff for some time. She collected stories during the regular staff lunches. Because of her extensive knowledge of her own parish and the larger organization in which the parish functioned, she could provide insight into the stories not possible from an outsider's viewpoint. After she completed her thesis, we collaborated on two articles. The first, published in the American Communication Journal focused on the types of interpersonal stories the participants told. In the second, published in Management Communication Quarterly we took a critical view in examining how the stories supported (or didn't support) the status quo. Having both an insider's and outsider's view provided greater depth of analysis as we discussed our interpretations of the data.
~ Professor Cyborg
In Box 15.1 the authors of the text report on Connie Bullis's work in environmental communication. Bullis argues, "our greatest challenge maybe to change our personal choices while also looking to innovative organizational approaches" in addressing environmental issues. So cycling to the grocery store instead of driving, not buying products with excess packaging, and raking up the leaves in the yard rather than using a leaf blower.
Going green at the organization can prove challenging. When I was acting chair this past spring and summer, I decided the department would no longer buy water in 16 or 20 ounce containers. We already had a water cooler in the copy room (old pipes in HGH make the tap water suspect), so I ordered one for the COMM Lab as well (old pipes an issue in the Clark Building as well). Then I set about trying to find a "green" reusable water bottle that the department would purchase and sell at cost to students, faculty, and staff (with the department's new tagline stamped on it). First I thought we could use bottles made out of recycled plastics. But there were concerns about chemicals leaching into the water. Then I checked out the popular naglene bottles, but similar issues with those. I finally settled on a stainless steel bottle. More expensive, but no leaching issues. Now I'm trying to find out if it's made in the U.S. (lower carbon footprint).
Of greatest concern in Bullis's comments is the symbolism associated with going green. It's become the "in thing" to do, so companies use language associated with sound environmental practices but may not actually be implementing such practices at all. "Green" is used because it sells, not because the organization is concerned about the Earth's future. I found when searching for water bottles that "eco-friendly" and similar terms were associated with products that didn't seem to be good for the environment at all.
~ Professor Cyborg
