Synopses & Reviews
Organizational Communication for Survival: Making Work, Work, 4/e
Virginia Peck Richmond, University of Alabama at Birmingham
James C. McCroskey, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Organizational Communication for Survival focuses on how to communicate with managers and peers to survive, thrive and prosper in different organizational environments. Mastering the study guide objectives in this book will prepare you to function in real organizational situations. As a “survival guide for employees,” this text centers on understanding how and why managers communicate the way they do and how you, as an employee, can adapt your own communication skills to be more effective.
Features of the New Edition:
- Includes a new chapter on discrimination and pseudodiscrimination, which distinguishes between the two concepts and provides you with strategies for dealing with both in organizations.
- Combines chapters on approaches to management and management communication style, streamlining the discussion, so you can better understand the interrelatedness between the two topics.
- References new scholarship and social scientific research on communication in organizations, and includes new examples, illustrating concepts that are relevant to you.
Synopsis
Assuming a unique perspective for an organizational communication text, Organizational Communication for Survival focuses students on how to communicate with managers and peers to survive, thrive and prosper in organizational environments. Taking a subordinate approach, this survival guide for employees centers on understanding how and why managers communicate the ways they do and how employees can adapt their own communication skills to be more effective in the organizational environment. Students who master the study guide objectives in this book will be better prepared to function in real organizational situations. In fifteen simple chapters, this text provides clear and concise guidelines, along with a foundation of theory and scholarship, to help students learn to become more effective communicators in today's workforce.
What's New to This Edition
- Includes only the most critical aspects of communication, making the book more manageable for students by avoiding irrelevant aspects of organizations or management procedures.
- Features a new chapter on communication traits (Chapter 7), helping students gain a better understanding of their role in organizations and why individuals communicate the way they do.
- An expanded explanation of organizational orientations includes the latest research on this key area.
- Important new references to social scientific research on communication in organizations have been added in text and bibliographical materials.
- Text is now accompanied by an extensive instructor's manual.
Synopsis
Assuming a unique perspective for an organizational communication text, this “handbook” focuses the reader on how to communicate with managers and peers to survive, thrive and prosper in organizational environments. Taking a “subordinate” approach, this “survival guide for employees” centers on understanding how and why managers communicate the ways they do and how employees can adapt their own communication skills to be more effective in the organizational environment. In fifteen straightforward chapters, this book provides clear and concise guidelines, along with a foundation of theory and scholarship, to help readers become more effective communicators in today's workforce.
Table of Contents
Preface.
1. The Nature of Organizations.
Types of Organizations.
Common Characteristics of All Organizations.
Organizational Environments.
Preliminary Principles for Peons.
Viewing Organizations
2. The Nature of Communication in Organizations.
Myths and Misconceptions about Communication in Organizations.
Organizational Communication Defined.
Components of Communication.
Functions of Communication in Organizations.
Organizational Communication Networks.
Formal Communication Flow and Impact.
3. Nonverbal Behavior and Communication.
Significance of Nonverbal Communication in Organizations.
Functions of Nonverbal Messages.
Categories of Nonverbal Messages.
Immediacy and Organizational Communication.
4. Administration, Supervision, and Communication.
Supervisors' Duties: Subordinates' Views.
Why Aren't Managers Doing Their Jobs?
To Supervise or to Administer? That Is the Question.
What Kind of Manager Do You Have?
5. Barriers to Effective Communication.
Climate Control.
Status.
Communication Overload.
Handling Overload
Defensiveness.
6. Personality, Temperament, and Communication Traits.
Personality and Temperament
Temperamentality/Personality and Communication
Communication Traits
Sociocommunication Orientations and Styles
7. Organizational Orientations and Communication Traits.
Organizational Orientations
Personality Types
Organizational Orientations and Temperament
Organizational Orientations, Temperament, and Organizational Outcomes
8. Perceptions of People in Organizations.
Source Credibility.
Interpersonal Attractiveness.
Homophily.
9. Approaches to Management.
Early Orientations.
Leadership Approaches.
The Ideal Leader?
10. Management Communication Styles and Decision-Making.
Decision-Making and Communication
Why Managers Select One MCS over Another.
Identifying the MCS.
11. Power and Status.
Nature of Status.
Status Symbols.
Communication and Status.
Power.
From the Peon's Perspective.
12. Organizational Culture.
Defining Culture.
Culture and Communication.
Cultural Terminology.
Organizations and Cultures.
Ethnocentrism.
13. Communication and Change.
Why People Resist Change in Organizations.
Informal Communication Network Roles.
Innovativeness: The Willingness to Adopt.
Introducing Change
Stages of the Adoption Process
Characteristics or Attributes of Innovations
Six Conditions Necessary for Successful Change.
14. Disagreement, Conflict, and Groupthink.
Disagreement and Conflict.
Tolerance for Disagreement.
Conflict Prevention.
Conflict Management.
Groupthink: Too Much Agreement for the Good of the Organization.
15. Effective Supervisory and Subordinate Relationships.
Why Some Do Not Survive: Ten Common Communication Mistakes.
How to Survive: Common Communication Strategies for Survival.
Index.