Here is the description about this course:
------
Explores the nature and function of communication in organizations; emphasis on theoretical concepts, tools, and skills for effective management of communication. My goal is to open your minds to the importance and centrality of the communicative processes within formal and informal organizations. We will explore numerous theories that help to explain the complex interactions that occur at numerous levels within modern organizations. In addition, each student will participate within a semester long “communication audit” of an organization to test the explanatory power of our theories in the working world.
Course Objectives
- To understand the historical changes in organizational structure since the industrial revolution and the effects of these structural changes upon the communication processes within organizations.
- To identify the practical implications of organizational communication theory within the everyday activities of the organization for both employees and management.
- To highlight the importance of negotiated power, dialogue, and adaptive abilities within the organization.
- To prepare students for success in the complex, global, and technologically sophisticated world of modern organizations.
--------
So how this course is related to technical communication? Have you used this organizational skill for your job? Can you elaborate?
I need three credits for rhetoric category under technical communication minor, so I searched rhetoric courses in the weekend, and I found this course that looked different than other courses. I think it's valuable for my organizational skills but I'm not sure.
What are some new culture model theories that emerged the past 10-15 years?
Systems Theory of Organizations
Main Themes
I don't know much about systems theory generally, but intuitively it seems like it'd be very useful. In my experience orgs function more in the way described, as contingent and dynamic, instead of as static machines.
-
Administration, internal
-
Broader Environment of the Organization
-
Organizational Structure
-
Processes/Work Flows
Relevance to Organizing
-
External to the org: every organization exists in relation to every other organization which is pursuing the same of similar kinds of work, and with businesses on which work is done. Whether the influence is direct (ex copying strategies/tactics) or indirect (ex general interest in labor organizing due to successful campaigns, increased repression due to same), the work of any organization changes, even if just a little, the environment in which every other organization is working and developing plans in response to it. Every organization has to respond to both the indirect and direct changes in the environment which are caused by the work of their or other orgs. This is where "boundary spanning units" are important.
-
Boundary spanning units- people, or functionally-grouped units of people, within the org which study and interpret the broader environment and translate that information into something which could be acted upon by the organization. ie people who's primary role/function in the organization is to find information about the environment (ex the work of other related orgs; the political climate; spontaneous labor activity; # of employees and types of work within a company; social division of labor within a city/community; repressive activity by state/business etc) and turn that information into something easily readable and actionable by the org as a whole.
-
Inputs-Throughputs-Outputs: Inputs=unorganized workplaces; Throughputs=processes used by the org to organize; Outputs=organized workplaces
-
Entropy: Orgs constantly tend to being less organized over time, so the work of internal organization is constantly necessary. Anyone who's ever had the experience of being the only one taking up and performing tasks necessary to a project, and/or having to hound people to pull their
First, let me just say that I have no idea what I'm talking about.
I guess my two separate points respectively here are as follows:
As much as I love critical theory, it's only 1 aspect of the overall project of actually improving the world. Within critique there's an ethos of one-upmanship, tradition about how things are done, and a whole bunch of other bullshit that can be really limiting. As naïve as it may sound (although I'm not the only one who wonders this), where exists a focus on perhaps what is going well for society, what could be built upon, or how life would look in one's desired radical alterity? This last one gets discussed all the time but only ever in a pathetic sort of self-justifying negation. It smacks of linearly determined all-or-nothingness. Take the Jameson/Zizek/Fisher thing about imaginging the end of the world being easier than the end of capitalism. No shit, dawg. Beyond rhetoric it's an inane point. I couldn't care less about which is easier to imagine especially when the end of the world is harder to not imagine than to. It doesn't detract from this being what the project is, in my eyes.
- The emphasis of theory in the information age (and before) is increasingly focussed on society's superstructure than than its base. I'd trace it maybe to the frankfurt school, gramsci, and more material reasons, like society's increasing hyperreality and proliferation of entertainment? Regardless, it seems that while the world is changing faster than ever, the idea of modifying the articulation of theory to match new nuance is completely lacking. That is unless you think both that the existing theory still describes modern society (it does but more crudely than ever), and the aesthetics and culture of movements based solidly on those ideas isn't hugely alienating to people.The best example I can conjure would be Empire by Hardt and Negro, but irrc even that is a very big-picture polemical sort of look at things which leaves a ton of room for more granular analysis of more focussed scope.
This question is the result of me hanging out with spatial statisticians at a stats conference. I wanted to float it to this sub and see if anyone had any ideas:
Do you know of a theory/paper/whatever that incorporates physical space into predicting some type of outcome? One simple example I thought of is job satisfaction. If you exist in some physical space (e.g. office) far away from your work friends / colleagues, you may experience lower job satisfaction than people who work right next to their friends.
Is there any other way that physical space could be or already is incorporated into the way we examine I/O variables of interest? The rise of wearable sensors and physiological measurement makes me think this is an important question, but I'm struggling to find any example that does this at the present moment (other than this recent Econ paper I posted here.)
The first class date/time will be Saturday 9/29/2012 @ 12:00 pm EST/ 9:00 am PST on Vokle.com (http://www.vokle.com/series/35645-intentional-change-theory)
Class Page - (http://ureddit.com/class/55747/how-to-implement-people-change-at-a-personal-level-to-an-organizational-level---intentional-change-theory)
The class would cover a particular model for change called Intentional Change Theory which is rooted in positive psychology. The theory is build by Richard Boyatzis and describes a frame work for creating change at an individual level all the way up to a global level. We'll cover all levels with focus around teams and organizations.
Looking for books on the theory of organization. What it is, why we do it, the benefits and such. Everything I come across is either business related or how-to usually with some system being pitched. Has anyone studied it in general?
