A lot of people do not provide the strict distinction between their career and their personal life because the workplace often becomes the analogue of the person’s home. From this point, it is important for people to work within the comfortable environments based on the principles of cooperation and support.
Many Americans spend the biggest part of their life at their workplaces; that is why the particular features of the organizational communication within the concrete company can be discussed as influential factors for forming the person’s positive attitude to the work and increasing the average performance.
KCTS Public Television is the organization which tries to correlate the effective internal structure with the positive development of the external interactions because of the company’s specialization. In spite of the fact KCTS Public Television as an organization reflects the norms of the bureaucratic model developed by Max Weber, the company combines the features of the Weber’s authority types with the peculiarities of Mary Parker Follett’s theory of organization and with the principles of the horizontal communication.
Although the bureaucratic theory, humanistic approach, and the principles of horizontal communication have few similarities in their character, KCTS Public Television develops its organizational communication orienting to the best strategies’ features. Thus, it is necessary to examine the application of the mentioned theories and approaches to KCTS Public Television’s organizational practice in detail.
The organizational activities of KCTS Public Television are based on the idea to create the positive environment for employees in order to achieve the higher results and perform effectively. This approach is also relevant for the company’s strategy in working with clients. The friendly and supportive atmosphere is the characteristic feature of the organization.
However, the high performance of employees at all the stages of the company’s hierarchy is possible when this hierarchy is organized and controlled effectively. KCTS Public Television is a rather unique example of the strongly organized hierarchy where the accents are made more on the horizontal communication than on downward or upward communication styles.
The reasons for the fact can be explained from the point of the company’s specialization. To complete the purposes and achieve the definite corporate goals, the functions should differentiated and results should be controlled, but paying attention to the creative component of the work, the cooperation is also significant in the company.
The theories which can be applied to KCTS Public Television are Max Weber’s bureaucratic model based on the sociologist’s types of authority and the bridging theory of organization based on the humanistic origins in managing people and their behaviour (Mumby, 2012).
Furthermore, the concept of the organizational communication in relation to the structure of KCTS Public Television should be discussed with references to the idea of horizontal communication according to which employees are inclined to cooperate with each other than to follow the supervisors’ directions. At first sight, all the mentioned theories and approaches differ significantly, but they are appropriate to analyze the approach of KCTS Public Television to the organizational communication.
In spite of the fact the general strategy of KCTS Public Television is to be the employee-oriented organization, in their work, the managers from different departments are inclined to follow various types of the bureaucratic model according to the definite authority type. Thus, charismatic authority within the company is typical for top-managers (Mumby, 2012). The heads of definite departments follow the pattern of charismatic authority or traditional authority.
The principles of the rational-legal authority are typical for managers only in the situation of decision making (Bruun, 2012). KCTS Public Television can be discussed as the bureaucratic organization also with references to the main features characteristic for this type of organization. KCTS Public Television is the developed hierarchy where the differentiation of tasks and functions among the employees is observed, and top-positions control and regulate the task performance.
Furthermore, the friendly interactions between employees, their cooperation, and the supportive role of the supervisors are based on the ideological background (Rajhans, 2012). In spite of the developed hierarchy in the company, the employees of KCTS Public Television feel as the part of the team.
They follow the ideology of orienting to the company’s success, which depends on the performance of an individual. That is why, the control mechanisms used within the company should be also discussed as rather ideological. From this perspective, the organizational communication in KCTS Public Television can be discussed from the point of Max Weber’s theory.
Nevertheless, the strong hierarchy is only the frame used within the company to achieve the corporate goals effectively. To find the balance between the strong hierarchy and friendly and productive atmosphere at the workplace, KCTS Public Television refers to the rather humanistic approach in solving the problems of interactions between the supervisors and employees.
The success and competitive potential of the company within the market depends on the distribution of the responsibilities, control, and support (Mumby, 2012). Supervisors are very attentive to the subordinates and their professional needs because they are oriented to the cooperative result.
That is why, personal needs of the employees are met till they correspond to the professional needs and interests and such situations as the impact of the personal informal communication on the work are often prevented or controlled by the supervisor because KCTS Public Television is a ‘family’, but it is a professional ‘family’ with the strong hierarchical structure, definite ideology, certain goals, and ethics.
Much attention is paid to the interdependence of parts with the same stage of the hierarchy (Baker, 2002). Thus, horizontal communication is more developed within the organization to support the employees’’ cooperation.
Being rather democratic in resolving the controversial issues associated with the organizational communication, the company’s management is oriented to improving the downward and upward communication along with the horizontal one. Today, the company’s managers try to combine three approaches effectively in order to achieve the positive balance in the organizational communication (Werder & Holtzhausen, 2011).
Nevertheless, employees’ reports and supervisors’ instructions are only the small part of the communication developed in the company because the management stresses the teamwork, which is based on the effective horizontal communication.
KCTS Public Television is the great example of the organization where the principles of the strong hierarchical structure are effectively combined with the humanistic approaches and orientation toward the employee and his or her interests.
The success of the organizational communication is based on the ideological background according to which the corporate goals are priorities which determine the specifics of the work, communication, and cooperation within the company. The friendly working environments also contribute to the company’s progress.
References
Baker, K. (2002). Organizational communication. Web.
Bruun, H. (2012). Max Weber: Collected methodological writings. New York, NY: Routledge.
Mumby, D. (2012). Organizational communication: A critical approach. USA: SAGE Publications.
Rajhans, K. (2012). Effective organizational communication: A key to employee motivation and performance. Interscience Management Review, 2(2), 81-85.
Werder, K., & Holtzhausen, D. (2011). Organizational structures and their relationship with communication management practices: A Public Relations Perspective from the United States. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 5(2), 118-142.