Report: Organizational Communication

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Report: Organizational Communication

Module: EB4092

Module Leader: Dr. Andrea Taberner

Module Tutor: Shakeel Ahmed

 

 

 Report: Organizational Communication

            The workplace setting of multinational firms consists of employees from different cultures and backgrounds, which arises the issue of communication gap within the organizational structure. Businesses need to apply different communication strategies to overcome these issues effectively without breaking down the decorum of organizational structure. The main purpose of this report writing is to highlight those issues that arise within an organization that works with stakeholders from several different cultural backgrounds. The report will provide supporting evidence through relevant examples from different multinational companies that used different approaches to overcome organizational communication issues. Meanwhile, the report will provide recommendations to address these issues for organizational communication. Furthermore, the report will also provide detailed recommendations for external training providers to overcome communication-related issues.  

Organizational Communication and Issues

            International enterprises are under intense competitive pressure to create global communication networks in their own companies, and also with their partners, consumers, and external constituents like government entities and stakeholders. However, there come many issues for multinational corporations to successfully implement an effective communication model in their network because of diverse cultural backgrounds. Two differences are internal as well as external where communicational issues may arise. Given below is the list of some communicational issues that are being faced by an organization when it starts working or collaborating with stakeholders from different cultural backgrounds.

Communicational issues of stakeholders

Direct Vs Indirect

            Western civilizations communicate in a straightforward fashion, with the meaning appearing to be self-evident. According to Sudhiir and Sudhiir (2016), several civilizations such as South Asian or African countries have a more subtle approach to conveying their thoughts to that of western civilizations. This infers that employee engagement between a Westerner and a non-Westerner can lead to misunderstanding. Meanwhile, such communicational issues may arise in both facial expression and digital communication situations. Undoubtedly, the workers of various cultures interact with one another is a crucial determinant of a firm's cohesiveness. “is Choice 1 or Choice 2 less efficient?” could be the inquiry in an American or European civilization (Sudhiir & Sudhiir, 2016). Workers in a non-Western society may be required to infer or imply a specific choice without explicitly declaring it. These kinds of issues may be faced by all kinds of stakeholders within an organization. Mexican firm Cemex corporation also faced such kinds of issues in its organizational structure when it started expanding its company to other countries of the world (Lessard & Reavis, 2016). To avoid such communicational issues, the corporation started following international standards and changed the official language of the company to English (Lessard & Reavis, 2016). 

Fluency and Accent

            The communication barriers between workers, including dialects and proficiency, is a much more visible difficulty in a structurally diverse company. Even though English is the worldwide business communication dialect, several non-English speakers may experience being overlooked and undervalued in the firm due to their inability to express themselves in the non-native tongue (Wilczewski et al., 2018). Furthermore, Wilczewski et al. (2018), explains that most of the high profile Chinese people staying in the United States or Western countries experience difficulty in delivering their message due to language barriers and lack of fluency. Professionals who are subject matter specialists might well be forced to keep quiet or do not participate in group projects due to language barriers or accent or dialect issues in a second language (Brannen et al., 2017). Furthermore, such issues may sometimes lead to dissatisfaction and interpersonal conflict (Brannen et al., 2017). The statement suggests that as a group project member, such high-profile individuals may become less engaged and enthusiastic, posing a barrier to the group work overall. A firm's return on investment may suffer because of this unfavorable impact.

Hierarchy and Authority Attitudes

           Collaboration is critical to the growth and prosperity of any business. Workers in other cultures, however, are addressed differently depending on their position within the company. Negotiation methods among various cultures should be included in workplace coaching. Multicultural personnel, for example, have varied approaches to conveying suggestion management or the Director of the firm. According to Lagrosen and Abrahamsson (2021) workers should speak to higher-level staff and work their way up through the ranks before achieving the director position in certain companies. Furthermore, other firms have hierarchical systems that are very flat, with leaders and employees working as a single team (Lagrosen & Abrahamsson, 2021). This suggests that lack of cultural knowledge can lead to a disjointed workplace, with some workers feel excluded and unappreciated. The Hierarchical structure, as well as the diverse cultural environment in Apple Inc., may also sometimes puts issues on the employees of the firm especially in China to reach top-level management due to language barriers (Pun et al., 2016). This infers that the organizational structure of a certain organization and communicational issues may sometimes become a hurdle for employees to take their rightful position. 

Decision Making and Conflicting Norms

            Every culture possesses its unique ways of achieving a consensus and making executive decisions, which is unsurprising. Cultures vary in terms of how long it requires to make a choice, which actions must be taken on a priority basis, as well as how much work must be invested in.   According to Ivey Business Journal (2012), Americans are notorious for making quick judgments unlike other civilizations, which managed to hold information until after doing analysis and evaluations before making a decision. The Individuals of the United States of America prefer to deal by finding tradeoffs and compromises; The French, on the other hand, will agree on a set of fundamental rules to lead them all through negotiating phase (Dingwall et al., 2017). While corporate structure variety produces differing attitudes about hierarchy, it also is necessary to be mindful of contradictory decision-making standards (Dingwall et al., 2017). This infers that the attitude of employees in diverse cultural environments within an organization can be different in the process of decision-making. These different attitudes may uprise conflicts within an organizational setting simply because of communication issues. 

Addressing Intercultural Communication Issues within an Organization

            Among the most major concerns facing global project teams in a culturally diverse organization will be miscommunications. Effective communication is essential since it is the primary means of changing behavior, enacting shifts, acquiring and sharing knowledge, and achieving objectives (Masovic, 2018). According to Alkharusi (2018), one of the major issues being faced by the western workers that are currently working in Arabian or middle east countries is the language barrier as well as a difference in cultural values and norms. However, multinational organizations must have to address such issues so that everyone may feel comfortable in a culturally diverse environment. Stakeholders are the people that are mainly involved in the processes of an organization as well as in project management. Meanwhile, stakeholders are the ones that face communication issues within an organization. Given below is the strategic analysis that might help an organization in addressing the communication issues being faced by stakeholders of an organization within a diverse culture.

Communication Gaps and Lack of Trust

            The difference in communication behavior is one of the key communication issues being faced by stakeholders within a diverse cultural workplace setting due to communication gaps and trust issues. According to Caputo et al. (2018), there are key dimensions of intercultural differences in communication behavior that enable an organization to overcome communication issues in a diverse culture workplace setting. Creating clear lines of duty, adopting team efficiency, trust-building, promoting transparency, fostering an appreciation for others, bringing cultural empathy, and applying value management strategies are examples of these dimensions (Caputo et al., 2018). A multiorganization with diverse cultural differences have to utilize different strategies to overcome such issues that arise due to communication gaps. According to  Abugre (2018), an organization can utilize different dimensions such as trust-building, promoting transparency, and creating clear lines of duty to overcome communication gap issues within an organization.

Communication Strategies to overcome differences

            An organization can use different communication strategies and approaches to addressing communication issues within its workplace setting. According to the cultural difference theory of John Gumperz, which states that kids that are being raised in a different culture perceive or understand things differently (Gumperz & Ch, 2017). The theory infers the fact that people within a diverse organizational structure will understand or perceive things differently. So, the communication strategy that can be utilized to overcome this issue is to train both local and international employees to follow the Dweck Growth mindset approach, which will enable them to learn from the differences instead of raising arguments (Bernecker & Job, 2019). Meanwhile, The organizations that think globally and act domestically while taking the stakeholders in confidence manage to overcome communication-related issues (Galli et al., 2018). This implies that a diverse cultured organization must have some international standards and strategies to effectively manage all the stakeholder’s issues while also keeping the locals in confidence.

Cross Culture Awareness for stakeholders through Competence

            Organizations need to bring cross-cultural awareness to their stakeholders to avoid clashes and disputes within a workplace setting. Organizations can be cross-cultural awareness within their stakeholders through the utilization of cross-culture competence theory. As stated by Chiu et al. (2013), a collection of mindsets, information, and abilities that, once combined, produce a personality trait that allows for easy and effective interaction and consultation with persons from diverse linguistic and cultural and backgrounds. This theory implies that a combined set of common goals and aims can be taught to culturally diverse employees to bring them on a single platform. These common traits and values can help them in overcoming differences among them and work on common goals (Chiu et al., 2013). Secondly, multinational organizations have to train their domestic employees in such a way that they always show a positive and accepting attitude towards second-language speakers.

Second Language Training

            An organization should provide proper language training to its international employees to make them learn the basics of the official language being used in the firm. Meanwhile, learning a second language can also enhance the abilities of the employees to understand things even better. According to Abbott (2018), the employees who receive second language training from an organization are more likely to develop good memory, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills within them. This implies that second language training can even enhance the productivity of employees by adding value to their work. The world's well-known organization Microsoft provides its employees the training of a second language every year through the use of global training partners to make them even more valuable and overcome communication-related issues (Microsoft, 2021). This infers that second language training within a diverse organizational culture is of utmost importance.  

           

External Communication Training Providers and Communication Issues

            An external communication training provider establishes the personnel's understanding of cultural diversity and provides insight into the characteristics and customs of the given culture based on personal knowledge and insight (Fischer et al., 2019). External training providers can study thoroughly the cultural background of the employees of an organization through communication accommodation theory. Communication Accommodation Theory is a broad paradigm for understanding both interpersonal and social interaction. It aims to clarify and forecast how, where, and why individuals change their communicative behavior during social interactions, as well as what social repercussions these changes have (Momand & Dubrowski, 2020). This theory can provide an insight to the external training provider in providing proper second language training to the employees of an organization.

the external trainers that visit a multinational organization should take some proactive measures to effectively deliver their presentations within a cross-culture organization. In Short, external training providers must plan their group activities or meetings before head to provide insightful training to stakeholders. Meanwhile, an organization with diverse culture must be aware enough to analyze the issues being faced by its stakeholders before head. This could help the employees to build trust within their organization. Furthermore, trainers should also analyze the issues that are being faced by the stakeholders and act accordingly while keeping the presentation simple and easy to understand.

Conclusion

            The major goal of this report was to illustrate the challenges that arise while working with stakeholders from various cultural backgrounds. The report included supporting data in the form of case studies from various global corporations that used various strategies to address organizational communication difficulties. In the meanwhile, the report made recommendations for dealing with these difficulties in terms of organizational communication. In addition, the report included detailed advice for external training providers on how to resolve communication-related challenges. Communication issues arise due to differences in civilizations and cultural norms. Western culture is way different and uses different symbols to that of nonwestern culture which arises a sense of miscommunication in a diverse organization.

 

References

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