Assignment Sample on External and Internal Communication with Stakeholders
Introduction
Organisational communication can be defined as a means of sending as well as receiving the messages or any other information related to business. This kind of communication happens between some interrelated personalities, within a specific environment with an aim to achieve a common goal (Dietrich and et. al., 2019). The communication that is pursued in an organisation is practically highly contextual in nature and is dependent upon the culture of the nation or the other host country. The individuals within an organisation mainly transfers messages in form of written or face to face communication or they also make the use of certain mediated channels as well.
Organisational Communication
Organisational communication can be referred to as the process of exchange of ideas as well as information, views and opinions within as well as outside the organization. Organisational communication is not only limited to the business, but it is also followed in the areas of the hospitals, government agencies or churches, military organisations and academic institutions as well (Karczewski and Karczewska, 2018). The organisations, whether it is a business or a non-business organisation, have certain specific goals and are related to certain stakeholders. In order to attain these goals, a successful communication pattern needs to be followed with all the respective groups of the stakeholders. Effective means of communication is one of the major keys, through which a long term success can be achieved in an organisation.
Organisational communication can be of various forms
Internal Communication: The communication that is mainly carried out within the organisation in order to process smooth operations in the organisation is known as internal communication. E.g.: Communication between the employees, workers and manager (Soukeník, 2018).
External Communication: Communication with the external parties is known as the external communication. E.g.: Communication with the customers, suppliers or the government agencies.
Personal communication: Communication which is used to express personal thoughts and feelings are known as personal communication. E.g.: Communication which is not related to business communication at all, but refers to all the personal communication which a person indulges himself into.
Importance of Organisational Communication
The importance of organisational communication can be traced in the following:
- Effective form of communication within the organisation will help to motivate the employees and this will in return increase the productivity of the company.
- When the employees are communicated what is actually expected from them, they are able to produce higher quality products and services (Ikiseh, 2020).
- There is an increased sense of greater level of commitment and trust within the work environment.
- Increases the amount of involvement and leads to higher employee engagement.
- Increases the amount of job satisfaction of the employees.
- There will be a reduction of staff turnover, decreasing the absenteeism rate and there will also be less amount of industrial unrest.
Issues that organisation faces regarding communication
Internal issues of communication in organisation:
When an organisation fails to follow the effective means of communication, they face certain challenges which are mentioned below:
When a communication is expected to move in just one direction, most probably from the top to the lower management, it would be expected that the discourse will soon become ineffective, due to the lack of feedback (O’Connor, Studholme, and Grant, 2017).
Apart from the communication received through the means of calls, messages or text chats, an average person can receive up to 120 emails in a day, within a business, and this would become a huge stress for the person. In such a scenario, sometimes, the important information shared is lost, deleted, ignored or even forgotten.
On the other hand, in most situations, the employees complain about the dissatisfied and incomplete forms of communication delivered by their managers, especially when the managers fail to communicate the entire information that is required to be delivered (Yeomans and FitzPatrick, 2017).
Some of the employees are not comfortable with the forms and types of the devices and technologies used in the organisation as a means of communication. In a world of globalisation, a person needs to maintain multiple devices and sometimes handling such devices may lead to a huge chaos.
Sometimes, language barriers also initiate communication problems within the organization.
External issues of communication in organisation
The external issues of communication within an organization can be traced in the following:
Psychological Barrier: This barrier refers to the process of interpretation of a particular message sent by one person and received by another person. The barrier mainly refers to comprehension issues related to a particular message when it is received by another person or party.
Language and Cultural differences: One of the most important barriers that an organisation faces when dealing with a global business, is the language and culture of the external stakeholders differs from one another (Ikiseh, 2020). There can be huge differences in terms of time, privacy and space and misinterpretation is common.
Demographic: The factors of demographics or gender can also hinder effective means of communication.
Environment: The environmental factors also affect the means of communication and the means of transfer of messages gets affected because of the environment in which it is transferred from one person to another.
Issues of communication to work with stakeholders from different cultures
Causes of the Issues
Missing out on important stakeholder requirements: The organisations sometimes fail to address the actual needs of the stakeholders because they are unable to understand the values and beliefs of the diverse cultural backgrounds and often misinterpret the information provided to them (Soukeník, 2018).
Conflicts between different stakeholders: Sometimes, conflicts arise between two or more stakeholders belonging to different cultures as they may perceive the goals and visions of the company differently.
Challenges in communication management: It may happen that certain challenges may arise in the execution as well as the operational aspects of two projects belonging to two different cultural backgrounds where language also plays an important barrier to the management of the project.
Differences in the mind-set: Different people perceive the same thing in multiple different ways, and sometimes these differences in the mind-set of the people can be a huge barrier in the business forms of communication and can create misunderstandings (De Clercq et al., 2019).
Differences in semantics: There may also be certain confusion related to the non-verbal communication that is generated from the different cultures as the non-verbal communication signs differ from region to region.
Behaviour and Beliefs: Sometimes, there can also be differences between the body language, thinking capacity, mannerisms and other norms which can sometimes lead to miscommunication.
Effects of communication issues
The lack of communication can have an adverse effects on the business and may lead to the following effects:
Misunderstandings: It is an obvious fact that whenever the communication is not distinct, misunderstandings will arise at every step. The lack of proper communication can pose some serious issues within the workplace as well as with the external stakeholders as well (Pawirosumarto, Sarjana, and Gunawan, 2017). When the employees are not clear of the expectations that are dedicated to them by the stakeholders, they will feel directionless as they will not be sure of their daily responsibilities.
Missed Opportunities: The lack of proper communication will lead the company to lose some important opportunities such as the company may lose the important projects that are offered to them at some point of time. The stakeholders will feel that their demands are not adequately fulfilled by the company and hence they will not be willing to provide the projects to the company.
Unnecessary conflict: The lack of communication or improper communication can lead to unnecessary conflicts within and external to the organisation. The language barriers and the different cultural aspects can be the major reason behind the unnecessary conflict which can arise within the workplace (Hardiyono, Hamid and Yusuf, 2018).
Mistrust: There will always be a sense of mistrust among the internal as well as external stakeholders when the means of communication is incomplete or when the expectations of the clients are not properly delivered to the internal employees.
Low Morale: The lack of effective communication can lead to a low morale both within and external to the organisation. The external stakeholders will get frustrated with the work delivered by the company when it does not match with their demands and expectations.
Broken culture of the company: The lack of communication can also hurt the reputation of the company and can result in losing its client, when the company fails to understand the demands of the stakeholders and they may even lose some of the future important projects which can be beneficial for the company (Mandala, and Astika, 2019).
Development of stress within the workplace: When there will be certain doubts about the communicated information, there will be high levels of stress within the organisation and the external stakeholders will doubt investing into the company in near future.
Power Distance: The lack of communication can also be due to the aspect of power distance. The term “power” can be defined as an aspect which a person uses to influence another person or a group of people. The power distance can also refer to the basic degree to which a person is willing to accept the power as well as the status of the members (Travaglino and Moon, 2020). For example: the people belonging to the low power distance as well as cultures mainly believe in the concept of equality and other principles. The power distance is important because it plays an important role in the decision making process. Hence the people belonging to the higher power hierarchy in an organisation, are expected to provide a clear form of communication regarding the operational aspects and the goals of the organisation. The power distance is necessary to build up and maintain the proper structure of the organisation and they could lead to the achievement towards a shared goal. According to Kaczmarek-Śliwińska (2019), the aspects of organisational communication in the period of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is termed as an opportunity but at the same time it has its own challenges as well. But special credit needs to be given to the automatic nature of the work by the means of technology, which has increased the influence as well as distribution of the communication content. The ethics of communication needs to be maintained in order to pursue a smooth form of business, especially when dealing with the external stakeholders. This project will deal with the importance and issues related to organisational communication especially when it is related to the external stakeholders.
Role of communication training providers to address the communication issues
- The communication training providers help the trainees to develop the listening skills and help them to learn to interpret the messages in an appropriate way.
- They try to create a sense of empathy within the employees.
- They help the trainees to speak precisely.
- They train the employees in the process of dealing with the clients and the customers by the usage of effective means of communication (Hu and Judge, 2017).
- They help in developing the interpersonal and skills related to the team work.
- They try to train students to adapt to the different cultural backgrounds and be flexible to any environment.
Conclusion
Thus we can conclude by saying that it is imperative for a company to follow the effective means of communication, whether the business is operating within the nation or it is operating outside the country. The aspects of globalisation have led all businesses to perform business on a global level. Hence, it is important that every company which aims to enter the global markets, is well aware of the demands of the markets of the host country and conducts a thorough research of all the things that are expected from them. The project dealt with the definition of organisational communication along with its different challenges and mainly focused upon the effects of bad communication on the external stakeholders of the company. Hence every company must be aware of these challenges and focus on the process of reducing the barriers of communication between the external as well as internal stakeholders (Graham, Dust and Ziegert, 2018). In order to maintain a smooth corridor for communication, regular feedback is needed to be taken from the concerned people regarding their doubts and the process of the business. Taking regular feedback and working towards the shared goals by addressing the issues faced by all the stakeholders can develop mutual trust and respect within the organisation.
References
- Graham, K.A., Dust, S.B. and Ziegert, J.C., 2018. Supervisor-employee power distance incompatibility, gender similarity, and relationship conflict: A test of interpersonal interaction theory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(3), p.334.
- Hardiyono, H., Hamid, N. and Yusuf, R., 2017, October. The Effect Of Work Environment And Organizational Culture On Employees’ Performance Through Job Satisfaction As Intervening Variable At State Electriciy Company (Pln) Of South Makassar Area. In 2nd International Conference on Accounting, Management, and Economics 2017 (ICAME 2017). Atlantis Press.
- Hu, J. and Judge, T.A., 2017. Leader–team complementarity: Exploring the interactive effects of leader personality traits and team power distance values on team processes and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(6), p.935.
- Ikiseh, B.N., 2020. The Internal Communication Barriers: A Communication Audit Report of a Nonprofit Organisation. Global Journal of Management And Business Research.
- Kaczmarek-Śliwińska, M., 2019. Organisational communication in the age of artificial intelligence development. Opportunities and threats. Social Communication. Online Journal, (2 (20)), pp.62-68.
- Karczewski, L. and Karczewska, K., 2018. Intrapersonal Communication as a Basis of Communication in Organisation. Przegląd Nauk StoSowaNych Nr 18, p.9. De Clercq, K., Dietrich, A., Núñez Velasco, J.P., De Winter, J. and Happee, R., 2019. External human-machine interfaces on automated vehicles: effects on pedestrian crossing decisions. Human factors, 61(8), pp.1353-1370.
- Mandala, I.G.N.A.K. and Astika, I.B.P., 2019. Effect of work environment, quality of system and work culture on satisfaction of accounting information system user. International Research Journal of Management, IT and Social Sciences, 6(4), pp.37-43.
- O’Connor, S.A., Studholme, I. and Grant, A.M., 2017. Group coaching in a large complex organisation: Lessons learnt from experience. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 15(2), pp.1-16.
- Pawirosumarto, S., Sarjana, P.K. and Gunawan, R., 2017. The effect of work environment, leadership style, and organizational culture towards job satisfaction and its implication towards employee performance in Parador Hotels and Resorts, Indonesia. International Journal of Law and Management.
- Soukeník, Š., 2018. Government Communication in the Czech Republic: Organisation, Perception, and New Theoretical Model.
- Travaglino, G.A. and Moon, C., 2020. Power distance orientation as an antecedent of individuals’ intentions to engage in radical political action. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations.
- Yeomans, L. and FitzPatrick, L., 2017. Internal communication.
