Organizational Communication and Culture: An Overview

Josiah Blandin

COMM-144F

January 15, 2016

Organizational Communication

Overview of Course: The main idea of the course is to understand organizations by looking and thinking about them metaphorically. Through the examination of organizations, we understand the role of communication throughout the process of creating and maintaining organizations. Furthermore, we understand how culture dominates organization and shapes the way organizations communicate and handle various circumstances within an organization.

Theory Identification: The dominant theory underlying the coursera course is the organizational culture theory. The organizational culture theory represents the collective principles, values, beliefs, and ethics of the members of

The organizational culture theory is a theory that conceptualizes why an organization operates in the manner it does and how the way they operate differentiates them from other organizations. For instance, in the Metaphors & Culture Web Lecture, it is noted that “different people have different metaphors for the same word, highlighting different interpretations of that word,” which shows that culture can influence the way one views certain ideas through the use of different metaphors for the same word. An example of this used in the lecture are the metaphors “true love can drive you crazy” and “they’re crazy about each other.” These differences in metaphors influence how one communicates their ideas with other individuals. This concept goes back to the theory of organizational culture, in organizational culture an organization 's principles, beliefs, and ethics are shaped from the head of the organization; the way the head of the organization views an idea and communicates that idea shapes the way other members, who are of lower ranking, views that idea. Thus, creating a dominant culture within that

Also, organizational culture built on certain principles seen in the theory can be seen as effective because these principles have the ability to recreate the core ideology. In addition, this theory creates a view that communication is key to transforming and seeing a culture. This theory also motivates the importance of everyday communication in more than just words. Lastly, organizational culture creates meaning for routine organizational events, reducing the amount of cognitive thinking and energy members need to release throughout the