Organizational Communication

Catalog description

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. COURSE OVERVIEW. Examines the study of communication within organizational contexts, with attention to how messages, relationships and structures constitute organizations and shape organizational life. Surveys foundational theories and contemporary perspectives on how communication influences organizing, including attention to practices associated with collective identity-building, leadership, decision-making, culture, power, technology use and/or change. Examines how communication enables coordination across teams and influences how people experience belonging, authority or conflict in organizational life. RELEVANCE AND APPLICATION. Builds workforce preparation for professional contexts where collaboration, leadership and organizational activities depend on communication across roles, departments and demographic or cultural differences. Promotes effective practices relevant to management, consulting, training, human resources, organizational development, corporate and nonprofit communication. Strengthens communication foundations in coordination, adaptation and problem-solving that are relevant to effectiveness in civic, professional and community organizations. DEEPENING UNDERSTANDINGS. Investigates how organizational structures are created, changed and sustained through communication. Considers ways assumptions about authority, participation or efficiency may be complicated through theoretical and analytical study. Encourages recognition of communication as both a tool and a site of influence, constraint and negotiation in organizational settings. TOPICS AND THEMES. May include study of communication systems and networks; analysis of organizational cultures and practices of socialization; consideration of power, leadership and decision-making; exploration of conflict, collaboration and change; examination of technology, identity and structure in organizational life; attention to communication challenges that emerge in diverse or multi-level organizations. Examples or case discussions may draw from corporate, governmental, nonprofit, academic and/or community contexts. Prerequisite: Junior or senior classification.