Influence of the structure on communication
Business is a coolective phenomenon: every individual in business has to cooperate with other people. Any organisation’s success or failure depends on smooth cooperation among its members. In the previous chapters we focused on the communication barriers caused by personalities. Let us now consider other challenges that appear inside organizations or among them.
Failures of organizational communications are always personalized. They are often explained by the difficult character of an individual or a group. Yet the primary cause lies as a rule in a structural malfunction. If symptoms are caused by the circumstances and can be explained by certain concepts of the organizational behaviour, communication can be improved significantly.
Let us now see to which extent the structure of the company promotes communications within and outside the organization? As you remember from you management course, every organization has the following typical features:
- structure
- culture
- leadership.
Every business organization needs a certain structure and a set of procedures to be able to do business. It helps managers distribute tasks and responsibilities and determines the chain for giving orders.
There exist many alternative structures. The choice of the structure is influenced by
- size of the organization,
- type of activity and technologies applied,
- mission and objectives set, and
- competition
The basic principle of the management under 'unforeseen circumstances' states that the structure must correspond to the functions of the organization and to its environment. This principle leads to two main ways of structuring business: those based on its functions (i.e. internal operations) or on its production (i.e. external environment).
Functional structures are usually more effective in organizing ways of production and production engineering, yet they are less flexible to react on the market fluctuations. And on the contrary, product-oriented structures (see Figure 2) can be more effective in meeting the clients' needs, while they are less convenient for internal coordination. As a result, any structure chosen is a compromise.
Businesspeople try to overcome the flaws of each of the structures mentioned and create ‘hybrid’ structures similar to the regional offices scheme shown in Figure 3.
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Figure 3. Hybrid Structure of the Organisation.
Communication problems in organizations are mainly caused by the hierarchy, culture clash, constant mutability (changeability), and grapevine.
Influence of hierarchy on communication. However complicated a compromise this hybrid structure finally represents, it does not solve one of the most burning problems of communication in hierarchical organizations, namely the distance caused by the layers of hierarchy. While going through hierarchy 5 % of information may be lost. The vertical distance within an organization is measured by the number of layers in the organization structure. Since 1980s the corporate business tries to cut the layers of the hierarchy in order to cut communication expenses and to improve the information flows (see Figure 4). Yet cutting layers too aggressively may lead to losing significant knowledge and professionalism, or to overloading some managers significantly. Horisontal or lateral distance implies the existence of some groups on the same level of the hierarchy.
For instance, the government service in the UK is quite a ‘tall’ hierarchical structure, while Roman Catholic Church is a surprisingly flat organization, with very few layers between the Pope and a priest.
Geographical distance can cause communication problems even when departments are located on both sides of the same road. This difficulty can be overcome with the new technologies, while cultural differences are much more complicated to deal with.
Communication in any organization is characterized by the structured information, which is accessible and fast for the purpose of running business, and if organized properly it harmonizes the working collective. However, this character of communication makes it limited, stratified and liable to distortion.
The communication opportunities of a hierarchical structure, such as functional or product-oriented comprise well defined information flows, definite information sent to the people concerned and the high extent of centralization of the information flows that makes management easier. At the same time, communications in this type of the organization have to go through complicated channels, are functionally restricted and, thus, prove to be not flexible and not mission-oriented.
Barriers to effective upward communication may include physical distance, too many layers of organization, absence of upward communication traditions in the company culture, distrust to the boss, disbelief in one’s opportunity to influence the bosses, wish to be associated with good news only in order to get the promotion, etc.
The main downward communication barrier is impersonal relations between bosses and workers. Robert Half International carried out the research involving 150 top managers who mentioned among the main reasons of leaving to company: absence of appraisal - 34%; low payment - 29%; lack of respect - 13%; interpersonal conflicts - 8%.
The Matrix structure, another management and communicational compromise, looks twice more complicated than the hierarchical structure in terms of communication opportunities. The information in this type of organization is more expanded and accessible to all the group members, and the information flows are fast. Yet the wprkers in this type of the organization tend to be overloaded with non coordinated information, which creates specific challenges for the management.
Figure 4. Matrix Structure communication opportunities
virtual structure
+ -
1. Global 1. No personal contact
2.timewise unrestricted 2. $ + technology
3. Universal 3. Info security
Informal structure; grapevine
+ -
1.fast/ speed up/cheap 1. Distorton/splitting of info
2. Internal PR 2. Biased/selective
3.cohesion of the collective 3. Stratification
Influence of culture on communications. As soon as people form a group, they create its own culture demonstrated by its customs, procedures, symbols, etc. Corporate cultures differ from each other: the culture of IBM is absolutely unlike those of other computer firms such as Dell or Сотраq. People who operate within a group tend to associate themselves with it, develop a strong feeling of belonging, especially when they are united by common experience, interests and goals. It is the real challenge for communicators to create interface among the cultures: national, corporate, group.
Cross-cultural communication confronts us with limits to our perceptions, our interpretations, and our evaluations. Cross-cultural perspectives tend to render everything relative and slightly uncertain. Entering a foreign culture is tantamount to knowing the words without knowing the music, or knowing the music without knowing the beat. Our natural tendencies lead us back to our prior experience: our default option becomes the familiarity of our own culture, thus prevent our accurate understanding of others' cultures.
Strategies to overcome our natural parochial tendencies exist: with care, the default option can be avoided. We can learn to see, understand, and control our own cultural conditioning. In facing foreign cultures, we can emphasize description rather than interpretation or evaluation, and thus minimize self-fulfilling stereotypes and premature closure. We can recognize and use our stereotypes as guides rather than rejecting them as unsophisticated simplifications. Effective cross-cultural communication presupposes the interplay of alternative realities: it rejects the actual or potential domination of one reality over another.
The quality of communication in the organisation is strongly influenced by such dimensions as power distance, individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and other, considered in the course “Cross-cultural management”.