Weeks Seventeen and Eighteen: LAP Presentations

PRESENTATIONS: May 17th, 2006
Organizational Communication will conclude with presentations of individual projects. The presentation should be approximately ten minutes plus a five minute discussion to follow. Each presentation should cover the three areas of the OC project: research paper, communication audit and Life Arts Project (LAP). You will want to bring at least one visual aid or graphic organizer to display your audit data to the class.

Presentations will begin promptly at 6pm on Wednesday, May 17th.
Please come prepared and on time!

ALL ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE NO LATER THAN CLASS TIME ON MAY 17TH! LATE ASSIGNMENTS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
INCOMPLETES WILL NOT BE GRANTED FOR THIS COURSE.

CONCLUSION: May 24th, 2006
Tonight will end our explorations into the nature of how organizations communicate. Class will meet as usual and will relocate to a nearby restaurant for a final wrap-up discussion.

I will turn in a final attendance record at 6:30pm, so PLEASE arrive promptly to avoid an absence!

Week Sixteen: Conflict in the Organization

Communication is a crucial to resolving misunderstandings and conflicts, both of which can drastically hinder the functioning of a group, relationship or organization. While misunderstandings and conflicts may seem similar on the surface, they are in essence quite different. A misunderstanding can involve one or both parties and is predominately internal, meaning that the issue is not discussed openly. In contrast, a conflict is an external, social experience, which may begin as a misunderstanding but is then discussed openly to involve the entire organization or community.

Conflict occurs in many different ways. Modaff and DeWine outline the following conflict styles: avoiding, accommodating, competing, confronting and compromising (163). Once a conflict occurs between two or more members, an organization can respond in a number of ways. Aggressiveness, authoritativeness and observability are the most common stances an organization will take toward conflict.

Conflict styles and resolutions are intimately connected to the underlying metaphor around which the organization is formed. The three metaphors examined in this class include those of classical (machine), humanistic (emotion) and system (reason) theories. These correspond to three ways (or metaphors) of thinking about conflict: conflict-as-impotence; conflict-as-war; and conflict-as-rational-process (Modaff and DeWine 169).

- JOURNAL 16 -
For your final journal entry, please examine a conflict that you have been involved in; this can be a conflict at work, home, school or a social organization. Explain the conflict styles used, how the organization responded and the underlying metaphor
structuring the conflict.

Week Fifteen: Peer Communication and Organizational Teams

While most of the class thus far has focused on thinking about the underlying metaphors that structure organizations and organizational communication, this week's lesson examined the nature of communication between members within an organization. We came up with three primary communication relationships: superior-subordinate; peer; and teams or groups. A superior-subordinate relationship involves talk that takes place within a classical power structure, such as when one member has direct authority over the activities of another member. Peer talk may also involve power struggles; however, the main purpose of peer communication is to promote a sense of unity and community. Group communication is perhaps currently the strongest or most predominant form of organizational communication; it involves connections among groups of people within a larger organization. In this case, decisions, social exchange and world views are shaped by GroupThink. GroupThink promotes the idea that the group is a cohesive whole that is invulnerable, conformed, unanimous (Modaff and DeWine 217-218).

For next week, please read these two case studies: case study #1 and case study #2

- JOURNAL 15 -
Post an example of one of the three forms of communication relationships: superior-subordinate; peer; and groups.