Communication Theories

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.” Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005)

When my professor of “Corporate communication” popped up “Communication theory” presentation in the class, first thing I came into my mind was “why do we have to learn these useless theories to be an MBA?” But after one hour the experience was completely different. It was really interesting to see that how a simple thing like communication (as I thought before) was actually was not so simple at all. There are so many factors we consider in our conscious or unconscious mind on order to communicate, to convey our message.
So, what is communication? According to Encyclopedia of Public Health:

“Communication is the production and exchange of information and meaning by use of signs and symbols. It involves encoding and sending messages, receiving and decoding them, and synthesizing information and meaning. Communication permeates all levels of human experience and it is central to understanding human behavior.”

Theories of communication are actually is not something new that came into picture in twentieth century. In the history of philosophy, Aristotle first addressed the problem of communication and attempted to work out a theory of it in The Rhetoric. Aristotle represented communication as might an orator who speaks to large audiences. Although His model incorporates few elements.

Aristotle’s Model of Communication

Mass communication research was always traditionally concerned with political influence over the mass press, and then over the influences of films and radio. The 1950s was fertile for model-building, accompanying the rise in sociology and psychology. It was in the USA that a science of communication was first discussed.

> The earliest model was a simple sender-channel-message-receiver model.
> Modifications added the concept of feedback, leading to a loop.
> The next development was that receivers normally selectively perceive, interpret and retain messages.

Lasswell’s Model
Political scientist Harold Laswell, writing in 1948, posed the question, “Who says what in which channel with what effect?”. His model includes considerations of a variety of factors being considered to determine the impact of a communication. But his model does not consider some important factors such as noise, field of experience etc. For example, what would happen if the speaker speaks some language that the audience does not understand? What if the audience does not have any knowledge about the subject the speaker is trying to convey?

Shannon & Weaver’s Model
It is interesting to see that a communication theory has come out from a telephone company- Bell Telephone Company. Shannon and Weaver’s (1949) model introduces three elements not found in Aristotle’s model: a transmitter, a receiver, and sources of noise. At first glance his model seems to be more focused on telecommunication; some of the elements may easily generalize into other fields of interest. Consider that in any face-to-face situation, there may be environmental or other sources of noise that interfere with the communication.

Schramm's Model
Wilbur Schramm (1954) began studying communication as an independent discipline. He developed several models for addressing different questions. One contribution Schramm made was to consider the fields of experience of the sender and receiver. The sender encodes the message, based upon the sender’s field of experience. The extent to which the signal is correctly decoded depends on the extent of the overlap of the two fields of experience. For instance, if I give a lecture on finance to an audience of sixth graders may result in little or no communication because he has no experience or knowledge about finance. The colored overlapping ovals in the figure represent the fields of experience of the sender.

Another one of Schramm’s models introduced the idea of feedback from the receiver to the sender. In this model, communication becomes a continuous process of messages and feedback. This model allows for interaction. The feedback not necessarily has to be verbal, it could be in any form. For instance, when someone is explaining something to me, I might node my head to give feedback to say that I understand what he or she has to say.

The Westley-MacLean model
This model accounted for both mass communication and interpersonal communication, as well as the relationship between the two. Also, it broadened and elaborated on the feedback concept. This model suggests that in a given situation some of the many signals in one's environment at any point in time were selected by an advocate and combined to form a new message -- a news story, advertisement, or speech, etc. If the audience had some firsthand knowledge, they might question the advocate, and their questioning would be classified as feedback.

Kincaids's Convergence
In the convergence model, "communication" is defined as a process in which participants create and share information with one another in order to reach a mutual understanding. Several cycles of information-sharing about a topic may increase mutual understanding but not complete it. Generally communication ceases when a sufficient level of mutual understanding has been reached for the task at hand. Mutual understanding is never perfect.

The convergence model represents human communication as a dynamic, cyclical process over time, characterized by:

• Mutual causation, rather than one-way mechanistic causation;
• Emphasizing the interdependent relationship of the participants, rather than a bias toward either the "source" or the "receiver" of a message.

Mutual understanding and mutual agreement are the primary goals of the communication process. They are the points toward which the participants either converge or diverge over time.

Just as no single behavioral theory explains and predicts all human behavior, no communication theory explains and predicts all communication outcomes. Some view this as a fragmentation in understanding the role of a communication in human affairs. Others view this as a productive theoretical diversity, conducive to the understanding of human activity in many complex dimensions.

Before I forget, all credit goes to Richard S. Croft for his wonderful article and illustrations.

Changing Environment of Business

Our environments are changing constantly. There is no exception in business world too. Globalization and information technology has changed the way companies do business. That is to say, business environment has become more complex and competitive. Major reasons for these changes are: Political changes, economic changes, social changes, and technological changes. A fundamental shift is occurring in world economy. National boundaries are becoming irrelevant for business. Gone those days when businesses were developed country centric. Developing countries such as China, India are rising as leader of world economy. According to FDI index 2005, in 2005, China, India and Eastern European countries reached new heights of attractiveness as destinations for FDI as they competed for higher value-added investments, including R&D. The United States dropped to 3rd place. For business this is the best of time. Globalization has the increased the opportunities for firms to go global and expand its revenue by selling around the world. But this has increased the complexity of business too. As the living condition of people increasing so is the demand. They are no longer satisfied with mass produced goods. They want choice, option of customization.

Political Changes. Since the collapse of communism at the end of 1980s, the world economy has moved toward free market. Regulations and government barriers to do business in foreign country have come down. But this did not reduce the problem, largely due to various government regulations. A very prominent example is foreign direct investment (FDI) policies in India. Indian government does not allow foreign companies to operate multi-brand retail stores. If any foreign company wants to operate retail chain in India they have to do so with a 51-49 percentage joint venture with an Indian company. Because government fears that this will seriously harm Indian unorganized retail stores (kirana store) and create unemployment.

Economic changes. Economic conditions of people increasing. Purchasing power of the consumers are increasing. They are spending more for better living. This has created an opportunities for companies to come up with new products and sell more. But consumers are no longer satisfied with mass produced goods. They want customized goods according to their preferences. This has increased the manufacturing complexities.

Social changes. Though globalization has increased business opportunity, differences in culture and preferences is a challenging issue. For example, McDonald use beef for various dishes in USA but in India they use chicken because of cultural differences. So it’s a challenge for a company to understand the cultural values in which it wants to operate. Failing to do so can have severe consequences for the company. Environmental issue has become a new major challenge for companies.

Technological changes. Technology has changed the way we see the world, communicate, and do business. Now days in this busy life people do not have time to stand a long queue and do shopping. They prefer to do online shopping. It is a challenge for a company to make well online presence. A major wave that changed the business environment and in fact made challenging is environmental issues and health consciousness among consumers. No wonder fast food companies such as McDonald, KFC are under pressure to offer healthier items in their menus.

Business consultant, lecturer, and author, Daniel Pink has written about the global economy and its effects on people worldwide in two well-received books, A Whole New Mind and Free Agent Nation. In an interview he said

“In my view, globalization is good, not perfect. And we can't let perfect be the enemy of good. Globalization in general has lifted living standards throughout the world. Now there have been obviously some dislocations from that. If you are an American worker and your manufacturing job goes to a country in the developing world where someone is going to get paid one-fifth of what you're earning, then you have been in some fashion harmed by globalization.”

Ultimately it’s the globalization and information technology which has changed the business environment and made it more complicated. Cut-throat competition has become more intense and international presence has become a necessity.

A very interesting study in changing business environment in Indian context is in Indian aviation industry. Indian Air was monopoly in Indian aviation industry. But when government lifted the regulations, many private operators jumped into the industry. Competition became intense. But it did not stop there. A new player “Air Deccan” came up with a new strategy – “no frill” airline. The competition became intense and cut-throat. This is a real world example showing how business world can be unpredictable and competitive.

In conclusion, we must all remember that the need to grow drives the decision to transform and change. A business needs to grow; otherwise, it will die or become marginal.

Strategic Communications

"The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred."
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright and essayist

I have often come across many situations where the supervisor fumes over the employee about a mistake that the employee has made. The supervisor claims that the employee did not follow his/her directions. But the truth is that almost all conflicts involve communication problem.

Rapid changes in business environment have affected the corporate communication strategy. Effective communication strategy has become a key strategic issue in corporate decision making. Whether an organization is trying to advertise its new product/services, to communicate its employees, stakeholders or to the clients, using an effective communication strategy is very crucial.

There are three basic elements of effective communication: setting an effective organization strategy, analyzing constituencies, and delivering messages appropriately.

The first step for an effective corporate communication strategy is to setting strategy such as determining objective, available resources, organization’s reputation in the society. Communication strategy differs depending on the objective. According to the objective organization must allocate resources such as money, human resources, time etc. Next step is to analyze constituencies to find out the target audiences, organization’s position in the target audience’s mind, and their attitude towards the subject of the communication. For example, if the company wants to advertise new product then it must select target audiences. Indian audiences prefer advertisements with song and dances rather than intellectual advertisements. The final step is to deliver the message. To do so the organization must select the appropriate communication channel (mass media, voice, written etc) structure the message carefully. Delivering message accurately is very important. If the message that is to be delivered is not properly conveyed than the result could be devastating. For example, Pesico India in an advertisement used Health and Family Welfare Minister of India for which the company had to apologize. Pepsico India Holdings Ltd. at that time had said the company meant no offence through the advertisement and had issued a statement stating

"we meant no offence with our advertisement. The directions of the Health Ministry are being complied with."

But major problem faced by organizations is in internal communication, mostly within employees leading to communication crisis. According to Perspective (a Sibson consulting publication): gaps in communication deliberate or not, are frequently a root cause of stagnant or poor performance. Three main challenges exist for companies seeking to resolve a communication crisis and boost performance:

1. To communicate effectively about company strategy below the top executive level.

2. To demonstrate the link between employee action and company performance.

3. To disseminate critical information consistently to all employee groups.

Implementing these fundamental communication strategies will help executives to mobilize their employees to achieve greater company performance.