Corporate & Interpersonal Communication - Essay Example

Introduction A majority of the activities within an organisation requires a considerable degree of active communication and cooperation among individual employees as well as teams. Individual members of teams need to communicate with each other to enable the accomplishment of their production and other functions. Moreover, within organisations, work teams also need to interact with other teams. When individuals communicate within a team or group, there is a need for clarity, accuracy, courteousness, and consideration for all sides to meaningfully send and receive messages. Information, which primarily supports the function of an organisation, has to freely flow for it to become effective. Successful management requires all kinds of communication from managers and their employees as well as among and within all teams, groups and divisions. Communication skills are extremely necessary to keep an organisation running, and allowing managers to obtain a clear view of each and every matter, thus ensuring constant support and stability. Corporate communication, on the other hand, entails a process in which stakeholders identify how the identity and image of an organisation is formed1 and with which there is a need for companies to maintain competitive advantage for their own team’s benefit. The importance of corporate identity and reputation has become the subject of many studies and research over the past ten years. Changes in internal communication is highly necessary to the process of corporate communication owing to the fact that the internal organisation eventually states what has to be externally communicated2. There are, however, barriers in the communication process that may complicate the whole process and such obstructions cannot be avoided though they can be minimized. Communication barriers come about as a result of the daily interaction which takes place within a large working unit3. For instance, as a message is transmitted from one organisational level to the next, it changes as it reflects the person who is passing it along and by the time it goes from bottom to top, it will probably not be recognized by the person who sent it. Although such communication barriers are unavoidable, effective managers are capable of understanding and learning how to adapt messages to lessen the effect of their impact. Additionally, as a sender, the experienced manager learns where these messages occur as well as how to deal with them. When the manager is the receiver, he or she has a similar and a more demanding duty. Findings from the study of Salem4 regarding communication and its role in organisational success show that common communication behaviours can result in failed efforts including a lack of interpersonal skills as well as opportunities for communication, distrust among members, and the absence of understanding between individuals. As a result, the organisation destabilizes and grows weak. Nonetheless, in a study by van Woerkum & Aarts5, their findings have shown that when organisations follow certain models and examples, these will provide managers with better understandings of their activities, particularly their planning and executive phases in which efforts can be weighed out and better distributed in a working environment. Haptic Senses and Paralanguage One form of communication that is existent in organisations and their working groups is haptic communication in which individuals communicate by means of touching. Nonverbal communication occurs when information is exchanged through the use of signs and not of language. Normally, the meaning of these nonverbal signs depend on an individual’s perception. Common examples of haptics within a work environment include a weak hand shake that could leave a poor impression or a pat on the back may be a sign that one is doing well. Touching has received different treatments from various countries while its level and social acceptance also differ from one culture to another. For example, the study by Remland & Jones covered several individual groups along with their communication methods and results have shown that the Netherlands (4%), France (5%) and England (8%) seldom made use of touching compared to Greece (12.5%) and Italy (14%). With the ever-changing human characteristics of workplace populations, there will be an increase in the diversity of gender, race, and language among workplaces and because each country and culture follows its own behavioural patterns, the chances for miscommunication within organisations will, therefore, increase6 (Jandt, 1995). Nonetheless, Heslin7 (1974) has put forth five categories in which the haptic senses are most associated with, such as functional/professional, social/polite, friendship, love, and arousal. When such categories are incorporated into organisational communication, managers should first become aware of the efficiency of using the sense of touch while communicating and interacting with other members. There is a need for them to be careful and to understand how haptic senses can sometimes be misunderstood. In working with others while using touch to initiate communication, managers should completely understand of how his or her subordinates are tolerable when it comes to touch. In Henley’s (1977) study, it was found out that a powerful individual who is in authority has a greater possibility of touching his or her subordinates; however, the subordinate does not have the freedom to touch back. Touch is known to be a powerful tool when it comes to nonverbal communication and the different standards that exist between the person who is control and his or her subordinate may possibly lead to confusion regardless of whether the touch is brought about by authority or close relationship8. On the contrary, Walton9 states that touching expresses a certain level of closeness or intimacy between two individuals and must not be often used in formal or business relations. Paralanguage, on the other hand, typically lies between both verbal and nonverbal communication which makes use of sounds and not words. It is known to be a nonverbal aspect of communication and is normally used to pass information and convey certain emotions using the voice tones, facial gestures, eye contacts, touching patterns, and other expressive moments. According to the study by O’Neill10 (2007), at least 70% of an ordinary individual’s face-to-face communication with others is done by means of paralanguage. O’Neill asserts that expression carries a greater deal of significance than what is actually said. For example, the paralanguage messages which can be observed using face-to-face contact makes it more difficult to tell lies or hide one’s emotions. Nonverbal forms of communication are not conventionally taught in school though it is especially relevant for effectively interacting with others. Growing up and living with the society, people eventually learn informally how to use such gestures, changes in voice tones, and other secondary communication means to put an emphasis on what they are saying or doing. In short, we learn such techniques which are bound to our culture over the years mainly through the observation and imitation of the people around us. In international workplaces, communication with people who come from other ethnic groups or societies can be weighed down with the possibility of misinterpretation, if their culture as well as their paralanguage are overlooked or ignored11. Empirical Studies on Non-verbal Communication Ratcheva & Vyakarnam12 studied the communication processes of virtual teams as well as the role of communication in the overall performance of these groups. Virtual teams are known to have numerous strong advantages and virtual teams that are created, implemented and managed effectively can utilize all potential all over the globe to solve business problems as well as meet the increasing demands of global customers13. On the other hand, their weaknesses must be addressed which include a number of communication and interaction-related issues. A disadvantage that comes when working with virtual teams is a decrease in the efficiency of their exchange of information and messages. Because of a lack or absence of nonverbal language, failures and inefficiencies are common among virtual teams. These situations are also evident in Ratcheva & Vyakarnam’s study as they carried out surveys among 125 members of Singaporean virtual teams with results implying that organisational teams who do not work face-to-face. The study does confirm that such teams are not aware of special development patterns which, van Woerkum & Aarts assert, can enhance all internal and external activities and further improve organisational performance. In another study by Piccoli, Powell & Ives14 which sought to identify the impact that managerial controls have on the virtual teams, the researchers made use of an experimental design to compare virtual teams that are self-directed to other groups in which behavioural controls are used as means of managerial control. Haptics, particularly control touches, have become a part of behavioural control in organisations with such gestures serving to direct the attitude or the behaviour of the recipient. Such touches may attempt to influence the attitudes of the recipient, direct his or her focus to something else, emphasizes the fact that the initiator has more control and power over the recipient. Collecting data from 51 student teams with three or four members each coming from three different countries, it has been found out that team members with the highest level of satisfaction belonged to virtual teams who have effective communication and involvement (Piccoli, Powell & Ives, 2004). Those coming from self-directed teams were reported to have a higher level of individual satisfaction regarding their team and their tasks, while the control touches and other structures did not have a positive impact on the general performance of virtual teams. This study suggests that virtual teams can still work and communicate effectively even without the use of nonverbal language and communication. When Enriquez, Maclean & Chita15 (2006) conducted a study concerning haptic senses and its impact on overall communication, they gathered 12 participants (6 males and 6 females) who have recently graduated from universities and studied Computer Science. Using the self-guided learning and enforced learning in their trial phases, results showed that the participants attained an average of 76% correct responses in the enforced learning of speech sounds and haptic signals. There were a number of confusing patterns which could lead to wrong associations; however, strong associations of haptic signals to the correct messages were prevalent among all. Findings overall show that when these participants were trained for about 25 minutes, they were able to show that they learned the proper and correct associations for haptic signals and the messages that they wanted to convey. Therefore, this will open the future possibility of the creation and design of interfaces that can utilise and take advantage of the sense of touch as a way of communication and exchanging information (Enriquez, Maclean & Chita, 2006). If random associations are learned, this will make it easier for haptic interfaces to be designed for a more meaningful communication with the users. Intuitive associations which are solely based on instinct can even be probably learned easily. An important consideration, though, is whether such haptic senses and possible haptic interfaces can be used in the navigation of cars, for example, or in the identifying features of cell phones in busy locations. Nonetheless, the overall concept of designing haptic interfaces for larger workloads still promises a great future ahead. Conclusion Though many individuals have grown accustomed to focusing merely on verbal language, the use of nonverbal communication such as haptics and paralanguage has become an international issue in organisations and workplaces. This form of communication has allowed working groups to send messages and exchange information effectively while its absence has resulted to less effectiveness in interacting with others. However, such gestures can also be misunderstood which people having authority over others must be aware of, particularly in multicultural and international teams. Therefore, though there is not formal education as to how such forms of nonverbal communication can be used, there ought to be comprehensive knowledge and understanding particularly those who are have control in working groups. This is to avoid any negative communication issues and encourage positive communication behaviours; ultimately bringing about increased functioning and productivity as individuals and as a team. Read More