A Critique of the Proposed National Education Policy Reform
COM310-Week 3 Lecture Slides
1. Week 3: Getting Together
Explaining Theories of Group Communication
2. Groups versus Teams
Group: a system of three or more individuals focused
on achieving a common purpose and who influence
each other
Team: in an organizational setting, a team is an
ongoing, coordinated group of people working
together
3. Systems Perspective
Interaction Process Analysis/SYMLOG
Symbolic Convergence Theory
Functional Theory
4. Watzlawick, Bavelas, & Jackson
Premise: in order to understand group behavior, one
must examine the interdependence that develops
between members
5. Assumptions
System defined: a group of individuals who interrelate to
form a whole
Subsystem
Suprasystem
Communication creates and sustains systems
Nonsummativity
Positive synergy
Negative synergy
Interdependence
7. Five axioms of communication
1. Impossibility of not communicating
2. Content and relationship levels
3. The problem of punctuation
4. Digital and analogic communication
5. Complementary and symmetrical communication
8. Bales
Premise: explains patterns of group discussion,
particularly in terms of leadership. Led to the
development of SYMLOG
9. Groups seek to achieve two goals:
1. Task goals
2. Relationship maintenance goals
Dual Leadership
IPA suggests that the same group can have two different
leaders
Task leader and Relationship leader
Group communication can be coded into one of 12
categories (see figure 5.1 in text)
10. Using IPA principles, Bales developed SYMLOG
(System for the Multiple Level Observations of Groups)
SYMLOG is simultaneously a theory of group
dynamics and a practical method for measuring and
changing group behavior
11. Group members evaluate themselves and other members
based on three dimensions:
Forward—Backward
(accepting authority—rejecting authority)
Positive—Negative
(friendly behavior—unfriendly behavior)
Upward—Downward
(dominance—submissive)
Scores for each member are plotted on a field diagram and
analyzed
Field diagram can identify: group coalitions and networks;
perceptual barriers that impede group effectiveness
12. Bormann
Premise: Symbolic convergence theory is founded on
the idea that group members cooperatively create and
sustain shared consciousness, including shared
meaning, through interaction
13. Central Concepts
Fantasy theme: a creative understanding of events that
fulfills a psychological or rhetorical need
1. Dramatizing message
2. Fantasy chain
3. Group cohesion (symbolic convergence)
4. Rhetorical vision
14. Gouran & Hirokawa
Premise: explains the four requisite functions for
optimal group decision making.
Function: refers to what communication does
15. Functional model explains why groups make certain
decisions
Effective decision making relies on the group’s
successful completion of four functions, called
requisite functions
1. Problem analysis
2. Goal setting
3. Identify alternatives
4. Evaluate and select
16. Three types of communication exist in small groups
These types either support or inhibit the group’s ability
to realize the requisite functions
1. Promotive discussion
2. Disruptive communication
3. Counteractive communication
18. Organization: group of people who coordinate
activities to achieve individual and collective goals
Communication within organizations serves three
functions:
Relationship function
Organizing function
Change function
19. Organizational Culture
Organizational Assimilation Theory
Organizational Identification & Control
Organizing Theory
20. Perspective 1
Deal & Kennedy
Premise: organizations become high-performing when
they have strong culture; managers can develop these
qualities
21. Deal & Kennedy continued
Four central elements to culture:
1. Values
2. Heroes
3. Rites and rituals
4. Cultural network
22. Deal & Kennedy’s Four Organizational Cultures
Risk
Low High
Feedback & Reward
Rapid Work hard—play Tough-guy macho
hard culture culture
Low Process culture Bet the company
culture
23. Perspective 2
Schein
Premise: understanding the processes of
communication that create, sustain, and constrain
interaction within the organization
24. Schein continued
Culture: pattern of shared assumptions
invented, discovered, or developed by a given group
and are taught to new members as the correct way to
perceive, think, and behave
May be conscious or subconscious
25. Schein continued
Three levels of culture:
1. Artifacts
2. Values
3. Assumptions
26. Schein’s Levels of Culture
• Identified though: architecture; technology; dress; forms of
address; decision-making; communication patterns
Artifacts
• Identified through everyday practice and behavior:
e.g., innovation/change v. stable/rigid
Values
• Implicit beliefs about the “right” way to do things
Assumptions
27. Jablin
Premise: explains how individuals become integrated
into the culture of an organization
Socialization process is complex and occurs over years
Can be planned or unplanned
28. Four stages of assimilation
1. Vocational anticipatory socialization
2. Anticipatory socialization
3. Encounter
4. Metamorphasis
Socialization: internalize values and behaviors to
accomplish org expectations
Individualization: member wants to have an impact on
her/his role and work environment
29. Tompkins & Cheney
Premise: OIC explains how an individual’s connection
to the organization influences behavior and decision
making in team-based structures
30. Three types of organizational control
1. Identification
2. Control
Simple control
Technological control
Bureaucratic control
Traditional control
Unobtrusive
Concertive
3. Discipline Team-based control
31. Weick
Premise: organizing theory assumes that organizations
exist in an information environment; communication
is what constitutes an organization; focus on
organizing information
32. Organizations must deal with equivocality
Rules
Double interacts
act
response
adjustment
33. If organizations can’t adapt to changes and new
challenges, they won’t survive
Sociocultural evolution
1. Enactment
2. Selection
3. Retention
See figure 6.1
35. Management: formal position in organizational
hierarchy
Leadership: not based on a structural position
Major challenge of leadership is to cope with change
(Kotter, 1990)
Leaders must demonstrate vision, motivate people, and
empower people
36. Likert
Premise: Explains four different systems, or
approaches, to leadership and the resulting
consequences
37. System 1: Exploitive authoritative system
Leaders motivate through threats and fear
Communication is downward
All decision making made at upper levels
Leaders pass down orders issued by the highest levels of the
organization.
Satisfaction and productivity typically are not high; high
turnover rate
38. System 2: Benevolent authoritative system
Classical approach to organizations, but leaders tend to
be less controlling
Communication tends to be downward
Decision making at top levels
Lower level employees may attempt upward
communication, but messages tend to be distorted
Leaders tend to “sell” their point of view rather than tell
employees what to do
Motivation through rewards and punishments
Satisfaction and turnover slightly better than System
1, although productivity is fair to good
39. System 3: Consultative system
Leaders use rewards to motivate workers; occasional
punishment
Leadership characterized by involving lower level
employees in some decision making and goal setting
Workers are empowered to make lower level decisions that
affect their specific realm of work.
Leaders set goals after discussing problems and plans with
subordinates (“Consulting”)
Communication moves both upward and downward
Productivity is good in this system, as are satisfaction
and employee turnover rates.
40. System 4: Participative system
Incorporates genuine participation among all levels in
decision making and goal setting
Communication is extensive, regardless of rank; all
employees are encouraged to interact with each other.
Motivation through compensation systems, and by
valuing all workers’ skills and performance
Hierarchy may exist, but all organizational members are
respected and have a say in operations
Highest productivity and satisfaction and the least
employee turnover
41. Bass
Premise: global economy has shifted the type of
leadership needed in today’s organizations. Explains
two leadership styles, arguing that, although both can
assist organizations in achieving
goals, transformational leadership is superior.
42. Two types of leaders
1. Transactional leaders
Seek solid, consistent performance from subordinates
Use bilateral exchange to achieve goals
Work with subordinates to develop clear and specific
objectives
Exchange rewards and promises of rewards for
employee effort
Responsive to immediate self-interests of workers,
particularly if needs can be met while getting job done
43. 2. Transformational leadership
Founded on particular attitudes and behaviors that
support organizational change
Seeks to inspire exceptional performance
Idealized influence
Inspirational motivation
Intellectual stimulation
Individualized consideration
44. Goleman
Premise: counters traditional notions of intelligence,
which privilege knowledge, training, and expertise in a
particular field; instead, leadership is about how well
one works with and motivates others
45. Five Qualities of EQ
1. Self-awareness
2. Self-regulation
3. Motivation
4. Empathy
5. Social skill
46. Fiedler
Premise: Contingency theory (model) explains
situational factors in leadership effectiveness; there are
two distinct approaches to leadership—task and
relational. Neither is better than the other.
47. Task leader: focuses primarily on accomplishing
particular organizational goals
Relationship leader: emphasizes positive relations
between all members of the group
48. Three Situational Constraints
1. Leader-member relations
2. Task structure (four dimensions):
1. Clarity of goals
2. Path multiplicity
3. Effect verifiability
4. Specificity of decisions to made
3. Leader’s position power
49. Combination of three constraints leads to prediction
of control over the situation
Eight possible combinations of three variables
See Table 8.3
In conditions of high control over the situation, task
leadership style is more effective
In conditions of moderate control, relational leadership is
more effective
50. Graen & Associates
Premise: leadership consists of an interpersonal
relationship between a superior and a subordinate; not
all relationships are created equally.
51. The LMX Continuum
Leader Member Supervisory
Exchange (LMX) Exchange (SX)
Leadership Leadership
Middle Group
High trust, mutual Leadership Low trust, formal
influence, high authority, low
rewards, high rewards, low
support, latitude in support, tasks based
task development on job description
52. Managers respond to employees in different ways
Develop strong interpersonal ties with some employees
(LMX relationships)
Simple interpersonal liking is a big factor
LMX relationships associated with positive outcomes
Other employees are out-group members; supervisor’s
relationship is strictly based on organizational rules and
roles