There is more to chapter 2 of Strategic Organizational Communication: In a Global Economy by Charles Conrad and Marshall Scott Poole than I hit in yesterday’s blog. The second part seems to center on organizational communication and diversity.
The authors talk about organizations hiring homogenous groups of employees to manage and reduce uncertainty.
This isn’t a point made by the authors, but the problem with making decisions based on diversity is, in order to celebrate it the way it is these days, you actually have to put people into similar groups, designate what they are and where they belong. You actually make people more alike by celebrating their diversity. It is the use of classification to divide and see people as members of groups rather than as unique individuals. The diverse person is less an individual than the non-diverse person.
A key quote from the section talks about assumptions: “As people internalize the values and assumptions of their societies they also internalize its class-, race-, gender-, and ethnicity-based hierarchies.” They followed this with lots of example of how women were seen as less capable workers, more docile, etc. They also quote the information about gender inequality in pay, that women earn roughly 77 cents for each dollar men earn. The fact that men as a group have more years seniority and experience than women as a group is totally ignored. The fact that pay is statistically comparable once such factors are included isn’t to be considered.
They discuss the pressures of globalization, and here they present a more equitable discussion. Globalization is bringing cultures together very closely in ways there weren’t before. What impact does it have? They present three options:
- Cultural homogenization — the whole world will be come one bland, uniform culture
- Polarization — the cultures find themselves in opposition to each other and resist assimilation
- Hybridization — the cultures maintain themselves while picking up elements of each other
For my perspective, hybridization is probably the net result most of the time. I think we see polarization from the Muslim world, and homogenization from some of the smaller indigenous groups who are unable to maintain themselves. But against the larger cultures, an absorption of some traits while still being themselves seems the most probable outcome.
They also feature the impact of information and communication technologies. They discuss how ICTs open communication and increase people’s access within organizations. ICTs don’t substitute for other communication channels, but increase the number of channels, both lateral and vertical. This point leads into Unit Two, Strategies of Organizing, which begins with chapter thee: Traditional Strategies of Organizing. Chapter three spends a lot of time on ICTs and the traditional organizational model.
I seem to read the book by key quote. The first one in chapter 3 was pointed out to me be Betsy as she glanced over my shoulder:
“People’s memories often omit or redefine their failures and overemphasize their successes, so experience is often not a reliable guide (Feldman and Feldman, 2006)” — Betsy saw that line over my shoulder and noted it was often the opposite way as well — people who downplay their successes and overemphasize their failures. Either method doesn’t lead to reliable analysis.
Another quick quote is: “all organizations experience structural distortion in information flow.” Something rather obvious, yet food for thought in its many implications. It goes with the discussion on traditional strategies using formal communication through hierarchies to achieve their goals, and how that hierarchy constrains information flow.
Organizations use specialization to achieve their goals, the authors pointed out. One effect of specialization is trained incapacity, where becoming skilled at one thing actually makes you less skilled for other tasks, and less able to see things from the generalists perspective, or the perspective of a different specialist.
But perhaps the most interesting quote, to me, is the following one, which wasn’t meant to be one of the main points:
“Most US residents believe that government regulations and regulatory agencies were created to protect consumers or workers from organizations. This is sometimes true, but historically it has been much more common for regulatory systems to be created in order to protect existing organizations from competitors (see Conrad, 2011; and Wilson, 1974)”
This is an interesting quote when put in the context of their laissez-faire comments of the previous chapter. It seems that once organizations become established, they seek ways to get the government to encourage them via monopoly building legislation, things that protect them from new competition. That organizations do not want or really encourage laissez-faire. Regulations are not the friend of the little man, the individual. These regulations make us much more akin to that “command capitalism” model of the Chinese.If my history serves me correctly, that sort of collaboration of business and government was what formed the basis of fascist governments.
At The Rainbow 