Communication Theory Paper
Communication/310
Communication skills are important to any human endeavor. They way we communicate lets others know our true intentions, or does it? How many times have you communicated an important thought to someone, only to have it misunderstood? Most of the time this is a minor inconvenience and easily fixed by clarifying your intent. What if your communication competence meant the difference between life and death? Suddenly, every word that was uttered, or every word that was heard would be much more significant. As I take these thoughts and think about what I am learning in this class, the three communication theories that really stick out to me is organizational culture communication, Uncertainty reduction, and face- to face negotiation.
The first theory that I deal with everyday as I go out into the world is cultural communication.
Cultures can be made up of people from separate countries, different economic backgrounds, or age groups. Although cultures have to interact with each other each day, it may be from the high school student checking out a middle aged working woman at the grocery store to a man from India ordering food while an airplane layover in London. Each of these encounters may meet with a certain degree of uncertainty. The secret to make these meetings successful is to reduce the uncertainty felt by the communicators.
The Essay on Consumer Culture Theory (CCT): Twenty Years of Research
Past 20 years: Flurry of Research and studies abot aspects of consumption. CCT presents a non-exhaustive overview about consumption and marketplace behavior: A family of theoretical perspectives that address the dynamic relationships between consumer actions, the marketplace, and cultural meanings. Culture is not seen as a homogenous system of collective meanings, way of life and unified values ( ...
An example of cultural communication that I see daily is
I’ve been with my current employer since 2005. From 2005-Dec 2007, I was in the one branch before transferring to another branch. Company-wide the office hours are from 8:00am-5:30pm, M-F. In the first tax office , the only person required to be at the office at 8:00am was the receptionist. The motto was “the phone must be covered at all times”. Also, company-wide, there was specific dress code policy – i.e. no capris, no tank-tops, no exposed midriffs, no cut off sleeves for men, no sandals, no flip-flops, and no sneakers. Each employee is required to acknowledge the dress code policy upon hiring. Although, everyone in the first tax office that I worked in did so, they did not adhere to it. They wore what they wanted and worked the hours they wanted w/in the 8:00-5:30 span (we only had to work 7 hrs 45 min a day).
The head of the my first office allowed this “sub-culture” and leeway because she didn’t adhere to the policies either. They were very relaxed. Upon joining my second tax office, there was a different “sub-culture” in place. In my second tax office , employees are allowed to have a “flex-day”, meaning they work 4 days at 8 hrs 30 min, and the 5th day at 4 hrs 30 min. “Flexing” was not even an option in my first tax office , although it is apparently approved company-wide. Another difference with my second tax office is the dress code. The first office is much more aligned with the company’s policies than the second office. There are many other “sub-cultures” between those two offices as I am sure there are with the other offices.
Another example in my everyday life of organizational culture is the one time that I can think of is actually when I had to go to New York for a hands on class for my job. Now I am from Atlanta which is busy, but not like New York. So my organizational culture was totally different. We had a week there in training. The pace, setting, and communication was different, but the instructors that were there were very helpful and they help us adjust to the new surroundings. There were people from all over the country here in the same location as I was. I had to learn to adapt quickly in a week to work responsibly with the person I was grouped with. We both had to learn each other because we came from different branches in our work and we had to teach each other ideas of our project and how we were to work it out and together. Overall, I think it went smoothly the whole week. Better than what I first thought, because you never know exactly how it will be from your traditions to making new ones.
The Essay on History and Work Culture
Limited (TCS) is an Indian software services and consulting company. It is one of the world's largest providers of information technology and business process outsourcing services. As of 2007, it is Asia's largest information technology firm and has the largest number of employees among Indian IT companies with strength of over 116,308 employees in 47 countries. The company generated consolidated ...
The last example of organizational culture is going to my hair stylist. While I was in school I Valdosta, I went to Aveda Salon in the mall, it was my first time ever being in on of their franchises the customer service was excellent and I loved how my hair looked afterwards. While I was in school, I had a friend who had a cosmetology license and wanted to work there. My friend had been trained, worked in other salons and is qualified – from Aveda’s perspective, she isn’t qualified in their culture, yet.
Some might argue the corporation is employing a cookie-cutter mentality – but I would argue my hair stylist, while abiding by the Aveda standards, brought her unique personality to our professional relationship.
The second theory is Uncertainty Reduction
Why are we, as human beings, so determined to decrease uncertainty about new acquaintances? For instance, someone entering a college setting and knowing that they will all of a sudden have another human being to live with in close quarters illustrates this theory of uncertainty reduction. In addition to natural curiosity, Charles Berger believes that it is also natural to have doubts about the ability to predict the outcome of preliminary relations. This is attributed to the fact that the ability to predict and uncertainty share an inverse relationship. That is to say, as a person’s ability to predict decreases, that person’s uncertainty increases and vice versa. Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory focuses on how human communication is used to gain knowledge and create understanding, for example when I changed my PCP doctor and it seems like
The Term Paper on Uncertainty Reduction Theory “the Vow” And “Meet The Parents”
Uncertainty reduction theory is “the point of view that uncertainty motivates communication and that certainty reduces the motivation to communicate” (Wood, definition). This theory was first developed by Charles Berger. He believed that when people are to meet for the first time they have a high level of uncertainty and the only way for them to reduce it is to communicate with one another. “They ...
he wanted me to tell him everything about yourself and all your conditions. This was the first time I have seen this doctor and I was unsure of how much info to give this DR. even though I knew the more information the doctor had the better it would be for him, but it was the uncertainty of meeting him for the first time that made me hold back. Another example that reminds me of URT is making a good first impression because at a first impression throughout the conversation you are saying to yourself I hope I am making a good impression or I hope I am saying the right thing, so they will like me or want to talk to me again. The way that the two connect I think is you have to build a close relationship through time and during that time we use SPT to build trust and closeness while you are getting to know a person. While we are doing this URT kicks in because we want to reduce the other persons uncertainty to let them know it will be a good relationship.
The last theory that I can relate to personally is face to face. West defines face negotiation as being concerned with how people in individualistic and collectivistic cultures negotiate face in conflict situations. The theory is based on face management, which describes how people from different cultures manage conflict negotiation in order to maintain face. Self-face and other-face concerns explain the conflict negotiation between people from various cultures.
I think of war when I read this theory because each country has their own way of dealing with conflict and yet others may not agree due to there culture, yet we go to war because we want them to agree with what we believe to be true.
Communication is what makes the world go around, it is how we speak whether we speak the same language or not, even if it is verbal or non-verbal. The theories that I have learned so far, we use them in our everyday lives as we communicate with the people around us.
