Organizational Communication

Overview

The study of organizational communication is characterized by a progression of theoretical foundations reflecting the evolving nature of organizations over time. The various approaches to studying organizational communication generally fit into one of several categories exploring the naturally occurring phenomena of organizations. These categories include organizational structures, the ways in which organizations are embedded within surrounding environments, the coordination of activities and behaviors, the setting and achieving of individual and organizational goals, and the development of a social collective.

The first theoretical contributions focused on understanding the first organizations, primarily factories, which began to pop up around the country during the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution introduced the steam-powered machines that changed the way the world worked and would eventually lead to the modern organizations of present day. Over time, scholars moved from focusing on the structure of an organization to considering the organizational members themselves and the interdependence between organizations and their surrounding environments. Human relations and human resources approaches emphasized the importance of focusing on individual employee needs and contributions and moved forward the original representations of organizations. Theorists viewed early formal organizations as containers, specifically defined and delineated entities within which all communication occurred.

The idea that organizations were containers, closed to the outside world, had some critical flaws. The systems approach recognized that organizations, much like living organisms, needed to communicate with surrounding environments and thus could not be entirely contained. A constant exchange of information and resources suggested that organizations were instead constituted by communication and created and sustained by its people and its culture. More critical looks at organizations focused on understanding the patriarchal foundations of organizing and the resulting hierarchal power that both naturally and intentionally form in the organization of people. As organizations became modern, theorists contributed numerous approaches for understanding both the changes and the expectations of the way people communicated when they organized.

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