The History Of Business Communications

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

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Part A

Communication structure and information flow

List three internal stakeholders of Micro-Ware Ltd and give:

Their personal agenda.

The influence they are currently having on the organisation.

The three stakeholders of Micro-Ware Ltd and their personal agenda’s are:

Ralph Yung: The CEO of the company and has been working in the company for the past 10 years. Ralph relies heavily on Manu for the day-to-day management of the company.

Jeff: General Manager. Jeff’s personal agenda is to change the standard guidelines of the organisations database to meet better marketing standards. He also likes to hold meetings.

Sally: Runs the administrative team of the company. Sally maintains the communication lines in the company by liaising with team leaders and senior staff using a range of communication methods preferred by them.

The influence of these three stakeholders on the organisation is:

Jeff is a big fan of meetings, which he holds to discuss new marketing strategies with the staff.

Ralph Yung is not a fan of meeting but he rather has a quite word with the relevant team leaders who then convey the message to the other staff.

Sally liaises with all the team leaders and senior staff daily in regards to the communication issues of the company.

Outline the business demographics of the three key teams and the three individuals; Jeff, Ralph and Sally in the software company.

The demographics of the three key teams and individuals in the software company are:

Teams:

Production Department

Production department is led by Manu, which consists of young technologists who collaborate in a loose team with autonomy to complete their own particular aspects of the current projects.

Marketing Department

Jeff leads the marketing department whose staffs are familiar with electronic communication and social networking.

Administrative Department

The administration team is lead by Sally and consists of a number of older women and one man whose near retirement. These team members prefer communicating face to face or over the telephone.

Individuals

Jeff is a young man who is a graduate in Marketing. He leads the marketing department that was recently established. Jeff takes over the position of a General Manager’s role when the existing general manager (Manu) leaves the company.

Ralph is in his early 40’s and he is the CEO of the software company. He has been in the company for more than 10 years. Jeff does not believe in meetings but prefers talking to the relevant team leaders instead.

Sally is in her late 30’s and has been in the company for some years. She runs the administrative team and is responsible for communicating with the leaders of other team members and senior staff.

The meeting Ralph called was not very successful. Outline a structured four part procedure for organising and managing meetings that Micro-Ware Ltd can adopt.

The four-part procedures for organising and managing meetings are:

Identifying the purpose.

The purpose of the meeting should be identified such as if the meetings is only for information or whether the meeting is to make a decision which involves persuasion, analysis and problem solving that includes debating with each other.

Establishing the size of the group and selecting the participants.

The purpose of the meeting helps to identify the participants of the meeting. It is important that all the key decision makers be invited in the meeting. In an information meeting, all workers needs to be invited but in a decision-making meeting only those who are in direct position to make decision needs to be invited.

Writing the notice of the meeting.

A prior notice of the meeting needs to be circulated so that the participants are aware of the meetings:

Date and time of the meeting

Purpose of the meeting

Who should attend the meeting

Venue of the meeting

Agenda of the meeting.

An agenda is also known as the orders of the day. The agenda is distributed to the participants of a meeting before the meeting, so that they will be aware of the subjects that needs to be discussed, and they are able to prepare for the meeting accordingly. The agenda also provides focus on the outcomes of the meeting.

Explain six ways in which the principles of group dynamics could be used to help solve the problems within the software company.

Six ways in which the principles of group dynamics can be used to solve problems within the software company is:

Cohesiveness

The extent to which group members hang together and need to have a sense of belonging to the group.

Norms

Norms that evolve from behavioural patterns of the group members such as no private when someone is speaking to rules such as voting when required.

Roles

Each member in the group has certain rules that determines his/her function in the group for example, leader.

Conformity

Conformity is defined as adjusting one's behaviour or thinking to match those of other people in a group. One of reasons why people conform is the desire or need to fit in or be accepted by others in a group.

Groupthink

Tendency of the members of a group to come to the desire for consensus or unanimity at the cost of considering alternative courses of action. In the groupthink, the group members try to reduce conflicts and reach a consensus decision without criticizing other member’s ideas and viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.

Synergy

Group members working together to reach and achieve a certain goal that cannot be achieved individually. Synergy can be achieved by setting goals that motivates team members to make high quality decisions and d reach desired goals.

Outline three ways a comprehensive intranet could improve internal communications at the software company.

Three ways in which an intranet can improve internal communications in the software company is:

Internal intranet can improve internal communication by reducing inefficiencies in daily operations performed by employees. Intranet provides employees to find information more quickly; it also reduces the reliance on email and reduces the training time for new employees.

Making employees’ part of an internal information network results in empowering them to work better and makes employees work effectively towards higher profits.

Intranet is a powerful source of communication, which unifies the whole team, providing them with information that increases productivity.

Organisational goals and policies

Where there are communication problem in a company they can deflect the company from following internal policies and from achieving its organisational goals.

Identify six ways in which any company can be deflected from its goal by communication problems.

Six ways in which a company can deflect from its goal are:

Perceptual Barrier – this is where by you think that the person you are talking to is not going to be interested or understand you then you may subconsciously end up making an effort to come to a point.

Emotional Barrier- it is important to put ones emotions aside when communicating because emotions can prevent us from effective communication. You should always believe in yourself and what you say because it helps in communicating clearly without becoming involved in emotions.

Cultural Barrier- Culture affects the way we communicate. Different cultures of people coming together in a workplace can hinder developed communication because their thinks will be different from each other.

Semantic Barrier- A semantic barrier is one where there is difficultly in expressing one's self to another. Semantic barriers always relate to a conversational barrier in which the meaning of the words, phrases, signs, and symbols are difficult to make out. For example, when a listener is not familiar with the accent of the speaker then they may have difficulty in communicating.

Psychological Barrier- Different fields of experience can be a barrier because each one has experienced life in a different way and formed perception, attitude and beliefs accordingly. So it is important that one listens to others values.

Lack of feedback – Feedback is crucial in effective communication and it is believed that communication is incomplete without feedback. That is why it is always important to have feedback after meetings.

Outline two ways in which Jeff may be deflecting Micro-ware from its goals by communication problems.

Two ways in which Jeff is deflecting Micro-ware from its goals are:

Jeff prefers to have meetings where as the staffs are not very happy because they think that the time taken up to hold the meeting can be used to complete the project. The barrier that is present here can be said as a psychological barrier.

Jeff wants to change the standard guidelines of the organisations database to make it meet better marketing standards. The staffs think that Jeff is taking up a lot of their time with regular meetings about the marketing standards. It can be said that there is a lack of feedback barrier.

Explain two things he could do to refocus and get everyone working on achieving the key goals.

Two things that Jeff can do to refocus and get everyone working on achieving the key goals are:

Jeff should not have any unnecessary meetings for the time being which will let the staff have ample time to meet the deadlines and reach goals that are set out.

Jeff should not implement any new marketing strategies or change any guidelines of the organisational database. Bringing new things or procedures will make the performance level drop because staff will have to concentrate more on learning the new procedures rather than spending that time in meeting deadlines.

Organisational culture and ethics.

From the case study outline how any three different aspects of Micro-ware Ltd’s organisational culture(s) and ethical behaviours ( e.g. range of cultures within the company,rituals,and routines, power structures, stories) impact on effective communication and its management?

One of the ethical issues that are present in the case study is of honesty even if it is for one’s personal gain. For example, Rob downloading the report that was typed by Sally and emailing to the board of directors thinking that by doing this he will become the team leader.

The ethical behaviour that arises in the Micro-ware Ltd is that Jennifer breaches the organisations code of conduct by downloading X rated images and software from the internet to her computer. The impact of this on effective communication and its management is that the staffs are not made aware of the consequences if they are caught stealing or breaching the policy of the organisation. It shows that there is a lack of communication between the management and staff.

The cultural behaviour that is present in the organisation is that the marketing and production staff prefers communicating using electronic communications methods and social networking, while not all the other staff are comfortable with these system. For example, the administrative team is a bit preserved and prefers using face to face or over the phone communication. The impact of this on the organisation is that it slows down the communication process.

Ralph always depends on Sally to do most of his tasks and duties, which leaves Sally not being able to do her job properly, and on time. It also makes Sally feel undervalued because she feels that there is no value of her in the company.

Ralph is more concerned about getting his 10% performance based bonus at the end of the quarter year. Being a CEO, he should be more concerned about the employees and try to solve the issues that they have rather than only thinking about himself and leaving his staff in a mess.

A cultural behaviour that is present in Micro-ware Ltd is the change of position. When Manu leaves the company, Jeff takes over the position of the general manager, which most of the staff are not happy about and they have also complained about him to the CEO – Ralph. The main reason for the complain was due to the changes that Jeff wanted to bring in the organisation which the employees thought is just a distraction to their performance.

What are two breaches of privacy can you determine from the information in the case study?

The two breaches of privacy that happened in the case study are:

The first breach of privacy that happened was by Soma who after an argument with Margaret emails a photo of Margaret drinking with a male colleague with a message that says "Margaret’s New Affair." This photo of Margaret was taken by Soma without her permission and knowledge.

Another breach of privacy that happened was when Rob downloads the report, which Sally had typed with staff names on it that he later sends a copy to the board of directors and secretly mails on copy to the chairperson of the board. All this was done without Sally’s concern.

Beyond the case study, provide two other possible ways in which privacy can be breached in business environment.

Two examples of breach of privacy in business settings can be:

One example of breach of privacy can be when two people are talking about a third person’s personal life who is not present during the conversation. It is a breach because you are discussing a person’s personal matters without that person’s concern.

Another example of privacy breach includes placing microphones or cameras in someone's bedroom or hacking into their computer to get their personal details of see what they are doing.

What copyright infringements can you determine from the information in the case study?

The copyright infringement that can be determined from the case study is that Jeff is trying to use information’s from a powerful USA company without taking their permission and assumes that the company will not come to know about what he is going to do.

What are the implications of these infringements for the company?

The implications of infringement on Micro-ware ltd when the USA Company finds out can be that Jeff can be ordered to give monetary fines and can lose employment. Sometimes a penalty of criminal punishment and civil punishment can also be given to the people who have broken the copyright law.

Current and emerging communication technology

Name five types of mediated and/or face-to-face organisation communication strategies used in this case study.

The five types of organisational communication used in the case study are:

Email

Meetings

Phone Conversation

Social Networking

Mobile and Text messages

Describe the purpose of each strategy.

Email – The purpose of email is simplest form of sharing information within an organisation and making communication effective.

Meetings – The purpose of meetings is to realise what each team members are doing , what problems they have and how to rectify the problems and the most important of all it keeps all the team members informed of the progress of the company.

Phone conversation – The purpose of phone is communication between two employees. Phone is a device that makes two people who are at two different locations to converse with each.

Social Networking – The purpose of social networking is to interact and communicate with each other and businesses use social networking sites to promote products and provide information to its customers.

Mobiles and Texting – The purpose of mobile phones is so that people can talk to or send text messages and communicate with each other in emergencies.

Give an example of how each type of strategy is used.

Email – Sally emails everybody a memo with the time and subject of the meeting. Jeff emails Ralph some detailed information about the new promotion aimed at some big companies.

Meetings – A meeting is called by Ralph to discuss the issues that the staff s are having about Jeff and his distractions on the staff performance.

Phone Conversation – Sally talks to the internet security officer over the phone regarding Jennifer downloading x rated images and software.

Social Networking – Is used by the marketing and production team to communicate with each other.

Mobiles and Texting – After sending the memo of the meeting Sally asks the employees to text back to confirm their availability. While in the meeting, Ralph receives an urgent call on his mobile, which states that he needs to be in Wellington.

Give examples of four emerging communication technologies the software company could use to improve their internal and external communication.

The four emerging technologies that the software company can use to improve its internal and external communication are:

Video conferencing

Smart Mobile phones

Instant Messaging

Wireless Telecommunication