Mark Alfino, Department of Philosophy, Gonzaga University

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Organizational Communication Workshop, October 31, 1997

based on the course, Organizational Communication, Fall 1997

Goals of Today's Workshop:

Overview of New Developments in Communication Theory, Management Theory & Information Technology
Work with Tools for "Mapping Your Information Environment" & "Analyzing Constituent Relationships"
Redesigning Communication Structures with Information Technology

A Graphic Model of the Goal of Organizational Communication Studies:

New Developments in Communication Theory, Management Theory & Information Technology

What's a philosopher doing studying communication theory?

How information technology is changing my "management" practices:

Dissemination of course information
Email discussion
Relational database to allow negotiated course workloads
Wide range of student learning experiences
Advanced distribution of information and preliminary discussion enhances face-face communication.

Traditional professors, traditional managers vs. New Organization thinking.

How are the fields of communication theory, management theory and information technology changing in relationship to each other?

Information technology is no longer a novelty topic in communication theory. All communication is technological. Electronic technology is just a sub-group of the larger class of communication techniques.
Management theory used to treat communication issues as marginal. Now organizations understand that communication is part of the "production system" for their services.
Information Technology has been the special province of a class of technical workers whoose expertise was primarily technical. Now organizational leaders are realizing that technical change is part of a larger picture of change.

Modelling the New Thinking on Communication and Information Technology

How These Topics and Issues are Handled in The New Organization. . .

Use Information Technology to Improve Basic Communication Skills:

Distributed documents invite feedback from co-workers and professional peers.
Web based information allows more benchmarking of business practices.

Example: real estate, education.

Feedback loops can be created efficiently using new information technologies.

Example: Intra-organizational, community-based, and professional email discussion groups.
Example of technology without feedback: PBX menu systems.

Rethink traditional management questions in light of new technology and environmental uncertainty:

Greater awareness of how my management style is linked to control of information. Reconsideration of the need to withold information (even traditional proprietary information).
Explore possibilities of autonomous work groups using information technology for monitoring and reporting. Achieve the flat organization by rethinking the managerial functions in light of new technology.

To what extent does traditional thinking about management depend upon an old way of thinking about the possibility of distributing information?
Can you really distribute information without reconfiguring power?

Revise Communication habits and patterns to reflect new expectations for employee autonomy and competence with new technology

Does networked information technology allow me to change the flow of information and reporting in my organization?
Can technology increase both employee availability to clients and the "work space" needed to actually get background work accomplished. ("Background work" here means the kind of work that needs to be accomplished so that client relationships can be productive or profitable.)
How does the physical configuration of our workplace send messages to employees and customers about what is important, how and where work is accomplished?

"Mapping Your Information Environment" & "Analyzing Constituent Relationships"

Creating a visual "map" of your information environment helps you to focus on more particular relationships with constituents within that environment (clients, coworkers, colleagues, competitors, suppliers, ...etc.). With some background tools on how communication relationship are established and improved, we can then redesign specific communication processes in our work environment.

Here's one example of an Information Environment Map. As you will find when you begin to work on yours, there are many different ways to visualize the information environment. Your approach to mapping may ultimately tell you as much about yourself as the map tells you about others!

As time permits, we will begin a critical discussion of how to take information from this kind of map and the associated constitutent analysis and begin to "redesign" specific communication relationships.

Putting it All Together. . .

Redesigning Communication Structures with Information Technology

For this exercise, I would like us to work together to choose items from the following lists and then describe a progression of sophisticated communication behaviors which increasingly take advantage of the possiblities of advanced information technology to work better.