PERCEPTIONANDCOMMUNICATIONSINBUSINESSORGANIZATION

BY: OFELIA , JERICHO & GLENDA

PERCEPTION – (Pang-unawa) – is the (active) process of assessing information in your surroundings." It involves becoming aware of one's environment in a way that is unique to the individual and is strongly influence by communication. However, what we perceive can be substantially different from objective reality.

For example, all employees in a firm may view it as a great place to work—favorable working conditions, interesting job assignments, good pay, excellent benefits, understanding and responsible management—but, as most of us know, it’s very unusual to find such agreement.

Why is perception important in the study of OB? Simply because people’s behavior is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself. The world as it is perceived is the world that is behaviorally important.

Factors That Influence Perception

Factors in the perceiver Attitudes Motives Interests Experience Expectations

Factors in the situation Time Work Setting Social Setting

Factors in the target Novelty Motion Sounds Size Background Proximity Similarity

Perception

PERSON PERCEPTION: MAKING JUDGMENTS ABOUT OTHERS

Attribution Theory - tries to explain the ways in which we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we attribute to a given behavior. 1 It suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused.

Internally caused behaviors are those we believe to be under the personal control of the individual. EXAMPLE : If one of your employees is late for work, you might attribute that to his partying into the wee hours and then oversleeping.

Externally caused behavior is what we imagine the situation forced the individual to do. EXAMPLE : if you attribute lateness to an automobile accident that tied up traffic, you are making an external attribution.

That determination, however, depends largely on three factors:

Distinctiveness - refers to whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations. Is the employee who arrives late today also one who regularly “blows off” commitments? What we want to know is whether this behavior is unusual. If it is, we are likely to give it an external attribution. If it’s not, we will probably judge the behavior to be internal.

Consensus - If everyone who faces a similar situation responds in the same way. The behavior of our tardy employee meets this criterion if all employees who took the same route were also late. From an attribution perspective, if consensus is high, you would probably give an external attribution to the employee’s tardiness, whereas if other employees who took the same route made it to work on time, you would attribute his lateness to an internal cause.

Consistency - an observer looks in a person’s actions. Does the person respond the same way over time? Coming in 10 minutes late for work is not perceived in the same way for an employee who hasn’t been late for several months as it is for an employee who is late two or three times a week. The more consistent the behavior, the more we are inclined to attribute it to internal causes.

summarizes the key elements in attribution theory It tells us, for instance, that if an employee Kim, generally performs at about the same level on related tasks as she does on her current task (low distinctiveness), other employees frequently perform differently—better or worse— than Kim on that task (low consensus), and Kim’s performance on this current task is consistent over time (high consistency), anyone judging Kim’s work will likely hold her primarily responsible for her task performance (internal attribution).

Attribution Theory

Observation Interpretation Attribution of CauseExtenal

DistinctivenessInternalExternal

Individual Behavior ConsensusInternalExternal

ConsistencyInternal

High

High

High

Low

Low

Low

Fundamental Attribution Error - The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others.

This can explain why a sales manager is prone to attribute the poor performance of her sales agents to laziness rather than to the innovative product line introduced by a competitor.

Self-serving Bias - The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors and put the blame for failures on external factors.

Individuals and organizations also tend to attribute their own successes to internal factors such as ability or effort, while blaming failure on external factors such as bad luck or unproductive co-workers. People also tend to attribute ambiguous information as relatively flattering and accept positive feedback while rejecting negative feedback.

Common Shortcuts in Judging Others

Selective Perception - Any characteristic that makes a person, an object, or an event stand out will increase the probability we will perceive it. Why? Because it is impossible for us to assimilate everything we see; we can take in only certain stimuli. This explains why you’re more likely to notice cars like your own, or why a boss may reprimand some people and not others doing the same thing. Because we can’t observe everything going on about us, we engage in selective perception. A classic example shows how vested interests can significantly influence which problems we see.

Halo Effect – When we draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic, such as intelligence, sociability, or appearance, a halo effect is operating. 13 If you’re a critic of President Obama, try listing 10 things you admire about him. If you’re an admirer, try listing 10 things you dislike about him. No matter which group describes you, odds are you won’t find this an easy exercise! That’s the halo effect: our general views contaminate our specific ones.

Contrast Effects – An old adage among entertainers is “Never follow an act that has kids or animals in it.” Why? Audiences love children and animals so much that you’ll look bad in comparison. This example demonstrates how a contrast effect can distort perceptions. We don’t evaluate a person in isolation. Our reaction is influenced by other persons we have recently encountered.

Stereotyping – When we judge someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he or she belongs.

One problem of stereotypes is that they are widespread and often useful generalizations, though they may not contain a shred of truth when applied to a particular person or situation. So we constantly have to check ourselves to make sure we’re not unfairly or inaccurately applying a stereotype in our evaluations and decisions. Stereotypes are an example of the warning “The more useful, the more danger from misuse.”

Specific Applications of Shortcuts in Organizations

People in organizations are always judging each other. Managers must appraise their employees’ performances. We evaluate how much effort our co-workers are putting into their jobs. Team members immediately “size up” a new person. In many cases, our judgments have important consequences for the organization.

Employment Interview – Few people are hired without an interview. But interviewers make perceptual judgments that are often inaccurate and draw early impressions that quickly become entrenched.

Performance Expectations – People attempt to validate their perceptions of reality even when these are faulty. 23 The terms self-fulfilling prophecy and Pygmalion effect describe how an individual’s behavior is determined by others’ expectations.

Performance Evaluation – An employee’s future is closely tied to the appraisal—promotion, pay raises, and continuation of employment are among the most obvious outcomes.

Individuals in organizations make decisions , choices from among two or more alternatives. Top managers determine their organization’s goals, what products or services to offer, how best to finance operations, or where to locate a new manufacturing plant. Middle- and lower-level managers set production schedules, select new employees, and decide how to allocate pay raises. Nonmanagerial employees decide how much effort to put forth at work and whether to comply with a boss’s request. Organizations have begun empowering their nonmanagerial employees with decision-making authority historically reserved for managers alone. Individual decision making is thus an important part of organizational behavior. But the way individuals make decisions and the quality of their choices are largely influenced by their perceptions.

Decision making occurs as a reaction to a problem.

Every decision requires us to interpret and evaluate information. We typically receive data from multiple sources and need to screen, process, and interpret them. Which data are relevant to the decision, and which are not? Our perceptions will answer that question. We also need to develop alternatives and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

Communication – The transfer and understanding of meaning.- Serves four major functions within a group or organization: control,

motivation, emotional expression, and information.

- Acts to control member behavior in several ways. Organizations have authority hierarchies and formal guidelines employees are required to follow.

- Fosters motivation by clarifying to employees what they must do, how well they are doing it, and how they can improve if performance is subpar.

- Communication within the group is a fundamental mechanism by which members show their satisfaction and frustrations. Communication, therefore, provides for the emotional expression of feelings and fulfillment of social needs.

- The final function of communication is to facilitate decision making. Communication provides the information individuals and groups need to make decisions by transmitting the data needed to identify and evaluate choices.

Before communication can take place it needs a purpose, a message to be conveyed between a sender and a receiver. The sender encodes the message (converts it to a symbolic form) and passes it through a medium (channel) to the receiver, who decodes it. The result is transfer of meaning from one person to another.

sender initiates a message by encoding a thought, the message is the actual physical product of the sender’s encoding, channel is the medium through which the message travels. The sender selects it, determining whether to use a formal or informal channel. Formal channels are established by the organization and transmit messages related to the professional activities of members. They traditionally follow the authority chain within the organization. Other forms of messages, such as personal or social, follow informal channels , which are spontaneous and emerge as a response to individual choices. Receiver is the person(s) to whom the message is directed, who must first translate the symbols into understandable form. This step is the decoding of the message. Noise represents communication barriers that distort the clarity of the message, such as perceptual problems, information overload, semantic difficulties, or cultural differences. The final link in the communication process is a feedback loop. Feedback is the check on how successful we have been in transferring our messages as originally intended. It determines whether understanding has been achieved.

Communication can flow vertically or laterally. We further subdivide the vertical dimension into downward and upward directions.

Downward Communication - Communication that flows from one level of a group or organization to a lower level. Group leaders and managers use it to assign goals, provide job instructions, explain policies and procedures, point out problems that need attention, and offer feedback about performance.

Upward Communication - flows to a higher level in the group or organization. It’s used to provide feedback to higher-ups, inform them of progress toward goals, and relay current problems. Upward communication keeps managers aware of how employees feel about their jobs, co-workers, and the organization in general. Managers also rely on upward communication for ideas on how conditionscan be improved.

Lateral Communication - takes place among members of the same work group, members of work groups at the same level, managers at the same level, or any other horizontally equivalent workers

Oral Communication - is the process of verbally transmitting information and ideas from one individual or group to another.

informal oral communication include face-to-face conversations, telephone conversations, or discussions that take place at business meetings.

formal types of oral communication include presentations at business meetings, classroom lectures, or a commencement speech given at a graduation ceremony.

Written Communication - involves any type of message that makes use of the written word. Written communication is the most important and the most effective of any mode of business communication.

Types Of Written CommunicationSome of the various forms of written communication that are used

internally for business operations include memos, reports, bulletins, job descriptions, employee manuals, e-mail, and Instant Messages (IM).

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Written CommunicationSome advantages of written communication are:• No need for personal contact. You can tell an employee he or she has to work overtime through an email instead of face to face.• Saves money. You can send an email instead of calling long distance.• Written proof. Provides written proof in case of a dispute.Some disadvantages of written communication are:• Delay in Communication. It may take a while to get to the intended recipient.• Lack of Secrecy. Once it's on paper, anyone can read it.• Costly. If the sender and receiver are sitting next to each other, you still have to spend money on paper or Internet service.

Nonverbal Communication - is the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless (mostly visual) cues between people. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as body language (kinesics), but nonverbal communication encompasses much more, such as use of voice (paralanguage), touch (haptics), distance (proxemics), and physical environments/appearance.

Organizational Communication is a sub field of the larger discipline of communication studies. Organizational communication, as a field, is the consideration, analysis, and criticism of the role of communication in organizational contexts.

Organizational Communication

Formal Small-Group Networks - Formal organizational networks can be very complicated, including hundreds of people and a half- dozen or more hierarchical levels.

The Grapevine - The informal communication network in a group or organization.

Electronic Communications - An indispensable—and in about 71 percent of cases, the primary—medium of communication in today’s organizations is electronic. Electronic communications include e-mail, text messaging, networking software, blogs, and video conferencing.

E-mail – uses the Internet to transmit and receive computer-generated text and documents. E-mail is not without drawbacks. The following are some of its most significant limitations and what organizations should do to reduce or eliminate them:

Instant Messaging and Text Messaging – Like e-mail, instant messaging (IM) and text messaging (TM) use electronic media. Unlike e-mail, though, IM and TM either occur in real time (IM) or use portable communication devices (TM).

Social Networking – Nowhere has communication been more transformed than in the rise of social networking. You are doubtless familiar with and perhaps a user of social networking platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Video Conferencing – Video conferencing permits employees in an organization to have real-time meetings with people at different locations. Live audio and video images let participants see, hear, and talk with each other without being physically in the same location.

blog (Web log) – A Web site where entries are written, and generally displayed in reverse chronological order, about news, events, and personal diary entries.

Twitter – A free blogging and networking service where users send and read messages known as tweets, many of which concern OB issues.

Information Overload – A condition in which information inflow exceeds an individual’s processing capacity

Threats to Information SecurityMost companies actively monitor employee Internet use and e-mail

records, and some even use video surveillance and record phone conversations. Necessary though they may be, such practices can seem invasive to employees. An organization can relieve employee concerns by engaging them in the creation of information-security policies and giving them some control over how their personal information is used.

Channels differ in their capacity to convey information. Some are rich in that they can (1) handle multiple cues simultaneously, (2) facilitate rapid feedback, and (3) be very personal. Others are lean in that they score low on these factors. As Exhibit 11-6 illustrates, face-to-face conversation scores highest in channel richness because it transmits the most information per communication episode—multiple information cues (words, postures, facial expressions, gestures, intonations), immediate feedback (both verbal and nonverbal), and the personal touch of being present. Impersonal written media such as formal reports and bulletins rate lowest in richness.

functions of communication and the features that might make messages more or less persuasive to an audience.

Automatic and Controlled Processing – A relatively superficial consideration of evidence and information making use of heuristics.

Controlled Processing – A detailed consideration of evidence andinformation relying on facts, figures, and logic.

Rules of thumb for determining what types of processing an audience will use.

Interest Level Prior Knowledge PersonalityMessage Characteristics Filtering Selective PerceptionInformation Overload Emotions LanguageSilence Communication ApprehensionLying

Global Implications - Effective communication is difficult under the best of conditions. Cross-cultural factors clearly create the potential for increased communication problems. A gesture that is well understood and acceptable in one culture can be meaningless or lewd in another.

Cultural Barriers - Researchers have identified a number of problems related to language difficulties in cross-cultural communications.

Cultural Context - Cultures tend to differ in the degree to which context influences the meaning individuals take from communication.

high-context cultures Cultures that rely heavily on nonverbal and subtle situational cues in communication.

low-context cultures Cultures that rely heavily on words to convey meaning in communication.

link between communication and employee• The less distortion, the more employees will receive goals, feedback, and other management messages as intended. 65 This, in turn, should reduce ambiguities and clarify the group’s task.• Extensive use of vertical, lateral, and informal channels also increases communication flow, reduces uncertainty, and improves group performance and satisfaction.• Perfect communication is unattainable. Yet a positive relationship exists between effective communication and worker productivity. 66 Choosing the correct channel, being an effective listener, and using feedback can make for more effective communication.• Whatever the sender’s expectations, the message as decoded in the receiver’s mind represents his or her reality. And this reality will determine performance, along with the individual’s level of motivation and degree of satisfaction.• Because we gather so much meaning from the way a message is communicated, the potential for misunderstanding in electronic communication is great despite its advantages .• We sometimes process messages relatively automatically, while at other times we use a more effortful, controlled process. Make sure you use communication strategies appropriate to your audience and the type of message you’re sending.• Finally, by keeping in mind communication barriers such as gender and culture, we can overcome them and increase our communication effectiveness.