Communication Chapter 16
Which of the following has the most diffused power structure?
A group that meets monthly to knit clothing for charity.
Grapevine
A metaphor used to indicate that informal messages are often conveyed in upward, downward, and lateral directions simultaneously.
Transactional Approach
A model of organizational communication that makes no distinctions between senders and receivers of messages. According to this approach, everyone in an interaction is simultaneously encoding and decoding.
Which of the following has the most centralized power structure?
A national government run by a dictator.
Real Time
A simultaneous form of mediated communication in which messages are exchanged, interpreted, and responded to instantaneously, similar to a face-to-face conversation.
Which of the following are examples of organizations?
A university. A sports team. A corporation.
Organizational Communication
An area of study devoted to examining the interactions that occur in structured groups.
Centralized Power Structure
An organizational structure in which a small number of people- such as a company president and board of directors- holds the majority of the decision-making ability.
Diffused Power Structure
An organizational structure in which decision-making ability is spread evenly among the organization's members, with no one member or group holding excessive power.
Theory of Structuration
Anthony Giddens's theory that all human behavior, including communication behavior, is influenced by an ever-present tension between creativity (or agency) and constraint (structure).
Organizational Rites
Ceremonial acts and practices that convey characteristics of an organization's culture.
Burnout
Chronic sense of exhaustion or apathy that can come from long-term frustration and stress.
Informal Communication
Communication that is not sanctioned by an organization but arises from the social interactions of its members.
External Communication
Communication with people outside the organization.
One distinctive feature of Pixar Animation Studios is that, to promote more open communication, the company has built one giant bathroom for 700 employees to share. This is an example of how the company has built a unique organizational _____.
Culture.
Which of the following is true?
Explicit and implicit communication rules are not always consistent.
The transactional approach to organizational communication is similar to the information-transfer approach in interpersonal communication, true or false?
False.
Informal Roles
Functions that are adopted by specific people rather than dictated by the organization.
Which reason best explains why organizations have stories?
Humans are natural storytellers.
Strategic Ambiguity
Leaving parts of a message open to different interpretations intentionally to accomplish a specific goal.
Formal Communication
Messages that come from the organization and relate to its operations.
Upward Communication
Messages we send to people at higher levels of the organizational hierarchy than we occupy.
Downward Communication
Messages we send to people at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy, such as subordinates, interns, and staff members who report to us.
Lateral Communication
Messages we share with peers or anyone who occupies the same position in the organizational hierarchy as we do.
Information Transfer Model
Model of organizational communication in which communication is seen as a pipeline through which information flows from one source to another, and which assumes that receivers will assign the same meanings to a sender's words that the sender did.
Strategic Control Approach
Model of organizational communication that recognizes that people in an organization can use communication to control their environments and act in organized and mutually satisfying ways.
Open Systems
Organizations that communicate and share information with other people or groups, including government offices, media outlets, advertisers, and benefactors.
Closed Systems
Organizations that interact little with people or groups outside the organization.
Which of the following best describes the processes of organizational communication?
Organizations use different processes of communication, depending on the circumstances.
According to the scholars Michael Pacanowsky and Nick O'Donnell-Trujilo, which of the following are types of stories commonly found in organizational settings?
Personal Corporate Collegial
Organizational Rituals
Repeated behaviors that provide a familiar routine to an organization's experiences.
Formal Roles
Roles that involve functions prescribed by the organization itself.
Explicit Rules
Rules that have been clearly articulated.
Implicit Rules
Rules that have not been clearly articulated but are nonetheless understood.
Personal Stories
Stories in which people describe how they see themselves and how they want others to see them.
Corporate Stories
Stories that organizations tell about their histories, goals, and identities.
Collegial Stories
Stories that people tell about other people in their organization, often to comment on their positive and negative attributes.
A restaurant manager announces that March is "Excellence in Service" month, and then he observes the wait staff to see what service innovations they devise. This is an example of _____.
Strategic ambiguity.
A senator reminds other senators of the times she supported their legislation before asking them to vote in favor of her new bill. What approach to organizational communication does this illustrate?
Strategic control.
Hierarchy
The division of people into levels of authority.
Creativity
The freedom to make independent choices.
Globalization
The increasing interconnectedness of societies and their economies as a result of developments in transportation and communication.
Constraint
The limitations imposed on creativity by the context in which you are working.
Internal Communication
The messages people within the workplace convey to one another.
Work/Life Conflict
The pressure of balancing the demands of work with those of nonwork life.
Organizational Culture
The values, customs, and communication behaviors that organization members share and that reflect the organization's distinct identity.
In organizational communication _____.
There are four different models of communication.
Which of the following are purposes of corporate stories?
They add a human dimension to the organization. They socialize new members into the organization's culture. They help outsiders understand the organization.
Which approach to organizational communication emphasizes that everyone in an interaction is simultaneously encoding and decoding?
Transactional.
Sexual Harassment
Unsolicited, unwelcomed behavior of a sexual nature in the workplace.
