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

6.  Assumptions continued
 Homeostasis
 Equifinality

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

17. Explaining Theories of Organizational 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

34. Explaining Theories of Leadership

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