Social Networking Sites for Communication - Term Paper Example

?Introduction All organisations aim at maximizing their resources. An organization’ resources will include capital, labour force and even the management. However, one organisation will employ a labour force of different personalities and cultures. Hence, there is a need of incorporating the different cultures to one organisational culture for purposes of uniformity and coherence. An organisation culture is the set of all shared set of beliefs, values, expectations, and work routines that govern the way of doing things in an organisation (Champoux, 2010). There are three levels of culture. The behavior and artifacts level are the dominant level that defines the observable behavior patterns and outward manifestations in an organisation (National Defense University, 2012).  Organisation culture explicitly defines an organization from others. The uniqueness of a culture contributes to the success of the organisation. They influence the mode of interaction, communication and the pursuit of the organisation goals. It forms the framework of evaluating organisation communication and the avenue for embracing individual and collective actions in the organisation. Organisation culture has a direct link with organisation communication. The way an individual communicates with others in an organisation influence the organisation's culture. It becomes more important when employees and managers need to communicate on the organization's culture. A clear understanding of the role of communication in organisational culture helps one to maximize his skills and hence the attainment of the organization’s goals (Champoux, 2010). Social networking sites are an example of communications that can effectively relay information. Organisation cultures equally adapt general characteristics that aid in the running of an organisation. The organisation culture characteristics directly affect the performance of stakeholders and thus the productivity of an organisation (Towers, 2006). Productivity is the act of utilizing the available resources to generate significant outcomes. Productivity aims at maximum profits and depends on factors like motivation, participation, and training. Communication plays a very significant role in an organisation. This paper will address will analyze how social networking sites help employers to communicate organisation cultures to the employees. The paper will also discuss four organisational culture characteristics that may motivate or de-motivate an employee’s productivity. The organisation culture characteristics definition depends on many aspects. From a communicative point of view, this paper will define four distinct characteristics of organisation culture. They include dynamic, competing assumptions and values, inextricable link, and foreground and background for an organization’s communication. The social networking sites that may help in communicating these characteristics include Face book, twitter, yahoo, and blogs. There must be an inextricable link between an organisation culture and the organizations’ members. One individual does not create an organisations culture. Everybody who symbolically, physically or even socially participates in the activities of an organisation has a significant impact in the creation, development, reaction, and maintenance of its culture. Hence, every individual must be part of the culture. The coded languages and procedures used in a company is a culture that passes conveniently to new employees who have a chance of improving or altering it. Therefore, an organisations culture incorporates new and old employees. Hence, the culture cannot exist in isolation with the organisation members who created and maintains it. Therefore, all employees own the culture and will thus be motivated to perform as it directs. This helps in attaining the organisations goals as well as improving productivity. According to Trice and Beyer, an organisation culture is dynamic and not static (Keyton, 2010). This is so because an organisational culture relies on all interactions but not an interaction between only two people in an organisation. Additionally, a lot of information flows in an organisation culture. This information is dynamic. In fact, employees are at liberty to refuse, accept, or modify any culture direction from the management. Similarly, the membership of an organisation also changes with time as people are hired, transfer, retire, or face dismissal. This consequently changes the culture of the organisation. Culture can also change because of change of employee’s beliefs and norms, or because of the management’s response to a problem. Alvesson observes that organisation culture also changes because of individual changes in age, attitude, new ideas, gender, and ethnic relations (Keyton, 2010). Hence, organisation cultures are dynamic and their level of change varies with the causes and the communication. These changes can however be motivational or de-motivational to the employees depending on their nature. In all cases such changes should be well communicated and be included in the process. There are competing values and assumptions within an organisation culture. According to Kuhn and Nelson, organisations are likely to develop various networks depending on information and functions where individual members will consequently align themselves in more than one network (Keyton, 2010). This overlapping in networks allows members to pass their influence to the different networks. A change in organisation culture will generate different views from the distinct departments in an organisation. In fact, one employee can identify with groups that harbor different interests and beliefs. As such, an inward competition manifests as you try to satisfy all the networks. Hence, there is competition of assumptions and values within an organisational culture because of the diverse interactions prior to the creation of the culture. Where an employee indentifies with a group that promotes productivity, high productivity is eminent. The reverse is also true. Organisation culture cannot exist in absence of communication. It is the strategic interactions, debates, and observations between organizations’ members that create an organisation culture. They both exist simultaneously (Keyton, 2010). These interactions can be symbolic, verbal or inform of messages. Whichever way, they form part of communication. The management informs the employees on the culture details. It also receives and informs any culture changes through a mode of communication. Changes to culture lead to changes in communication and communication allows culture to develop. Additionally, organisation member respond to culture by communicating. Different interpretations arise from a given communication. Hence, the organisation should derive an efficient mode of communication to ensure the right information flows in an organisational culture. Social networking sites can enhance the mode of communication between the employers and employees in an organisation culture. Employers can communicate the organisation culture to new employees via the social sites like yahoo and face book. Messages can pass directly to the employees via Email accounts. Employers can also communicate to the employees through their face book walls or tweets in their twitter accounts (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). Additionally, the employers can create blogs with sufficient information on organisations culture. Employees can subscribe to these blogs to get the information. The social sites will also allow employees to discuss the organisations culture as they interact. One employee will considerably pass the information to another who subscribes to the social site. In fact, where the employers subscribe to the social sites, organisation interactions can take place online. This method is very efficient because it allows the employees to get the information in a more casual manner hence encouraging his participation. Social sites are friendlier than the formal modes of communication. Hence, this mode builds a friendly relationship within an organisation. Moreover, the information goes to the exact person within the least time possible. In conclusion, I observe that almost everybody in the world subscribes to the social networking sites. An organisation is also at liberty to create an organisation profile in the social sites that will help in relying information pertaining to the organization (Wheeldon, 2010). Thus, the efficiency of the social networking sites in communicating organisation culture. References Boyd, D and Ellison, N. (2007) Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Retrieved from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html. Champoux, J. (2010) Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups, and Organizations. London: Taylor & Francis. Keyton, J. (2010) Communication and Organizational Culture: A Key to Understanding Work Experiences New York: SAGE. National Defense University (2012) Organizational Culture. National Defense University Retrieved from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/strat-ldr-dm/pt4ch16.html Towers, D. (2006). An investigation into whether organisational culture is directly linked to motivation and performance. Through looking at Google Inc University of Birmingham Retrieved from http://www.towers.fr/essays/culture%20performance%20and%20motivation%20review%20and%20the%20google%20case%20study%20success.pdf Wheeldon, E. (2010) A Social Society: The Positive Effects of Communicating through Social Networking Sites Curtin University of Technology. Retrieved from http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/a-social-society-the-positive-effects-of-communicating-through-social-networking-sites/ Read More