Increasing Importance of Communication in Organisations: literature review
Increasing importance of communication in organisations has been discussed by a number of authors, the most notably in the works of Mangion (2011), Guffey and Loewy (2012), Zeng (2012) and DeVito (2012).
Mangion (2011) detects a direct link between the quality of management-employee communication and the level of achievement of organisational aims and objectives. Moreover, Mangion (2011) convincingly argues that increasing importance of communication in organisations is linked to shortening period of time associated with decision making.
The level of communication in organisations between management and employees also has implications on the level of trust of employees towards management (Guffey and Loewy, 2012, Zeng, 2012). According to the findings of Guffey and Loewy (2012), in organisations where management regularly communicates with workforce employees tend to have greater level of trust and confidence, and consequently loyalty to their management.
Similarly, DeVito (2012) finds positive correlation between the qualities of management-employee communication and the level of employee motivation. DeVito (2012) explains this finding in a way that a high quality of management-employee communication creates the feeling of involvement in organisational decision making in employees, and thus they become more empowered to perform their duties.
Moreover, DeVito (2012) argues that communication in organisations might have several directions and illustrates these directions as it is represented below
Directions of Organisational Communication
Source: DeVito (2012)
The most popular communication methods in organisations include e-mails, face-to-face meetings, group shifts meetings, scheduled and unscheduled meetings and others (Yates, 2007, Innis and Watson, 2008, Zeng, 2012).
Hargie (2012) links the increasing importance of communication in healthcare organisations in particular to regular technological innovations and technological breakthroughs within the same sector. Moreover, important attributes of private healthcare organisations have been specified by Guffey and Loewy (2012) and Zeng (2012) as increased level of power of external stakeholders, high level of scrutiny of organisational performance and a high level of accountability.
As literature review findings indicate, currently, there is a lack of literature that addresses the issues of employee-management communications within private healthcare organisations taking into account the implications of these differences. Reasoning from this perspective, this management project plays an important role in eliminating this gap in the literature and providing up-to-date data for the management of healthcare organisations in terms of improving the quality of management-employee communications.
A number of authors have proposed various ways of improving the quality of organisational communication. Moran et al (2011) recommend organisational managers to be conducting communications audit in a regular manner. Moreover, Moran et al (2011) argue that without such audits managers might not be able to detect any issues in management-employee communications.
DeVito (2012) and Hargie (2012) stress the importance of maintaining an open communication environment within organisations at all times. Hargie (2012) clarifies an open communication environment as employees feel free to initiate work-related communication with their colleagues at all levels.
References
DeVito, J.A. (2012) “50 Communication Strategies” iUniverse
Guffey, M.E. & Loewy, D. (2012) “Essentials of Business Communication” 9th edition, Cengage Learning
Hargie, O. (2012) “The Handbook of Communication Skills” Routledge
Mangion, C. (2011) “Philosophical Approaches to Communication” Intellect Books
Moran, R.T., Harris, P.R. & Moran S.V. (2011) “Managing Cultural Differences: Leadership Skills and Strategies for Working in a Global World” Routledge
Yates, V. (2007) “Communication” Heinemann Library
Zeng, D. (2012) “Advances in Control and Communication” Springer