ORGANISATIONAL COMMUNICATION

Communication is the sharing of information for a variety of purposes including informing, persuading, motivating or influencing. There are two general ways of delivering the information: formal and informal communication channels.

Formal communication is organized and managed information that is shared with relevant individuals in order to secure coordinated action throughout the organization. Formal communication channels are based on an individual’s role in the organization and distributed in an organized way according to the established chain in organizational charts.

Examples of formal communication within an organisation would be meetings, conferences, reporting and presentations.

On the other hand, informal communication in the workplace satisfies a variety of social and emotional needs, and are not based on the positions individuals occupy within the organisations.

Informal communication is casual and spontaneous in which does not follow the organisation’s chain of command. Examples of informal communication would be e-mail, phone calls, office talk, or gossip.

An effective and efficient communication system requires managerial proficiency in delivering and receiving messages. A manager must discover various barriers to communication, analyze the reasons for their occurrence and take preventive steps to avoid those barriers. Thus, the primary responsibility of a manager is to develop and maintain an effective communication system in the organisation.

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

Organisational Culture is a set of shared values, often seen as the unwritten rules that guide employees towards acceptable and rewardable behavior.

Roger Harrison’s four-culture typology theory describes four types of organsiational culture and are as follows:

A Power Culture is when an organisation concentrates managerial power among a few. Power Cultures have few rules and little bureaucracy, decisions are centralized around one key individual.

In a Role Culture, people have clearly delegated authorities within a highly defined structure. Typically, these organizations form hierarchical bureaucracies. Power derives from a person's position and little scope exists for expert power.

A Task Culture, teams are formed to solve particular problems. Power derives from expertise as long as a team requires expertise. These cultures often feature the multiple reporting lines of a matrix structure.

And Atomistic (Power) Culture exists where all individuals believe themselves superior to the organization. This is not a favorable approach and could hinder a firm, because the concept of an organization suggests that a group of like-minded individuals pursue the organizational goals.

The type of culture that the NSW Rugby Union employs would be that of a Role Culture. In each function or department, individuals are assigned a specific role or job. My colleagues and I have a job description listing the tasks each of us is responsible for. Role culture enables large organisations like the NSW Rugby Union to spread tasks among their employees and ensure key tasks are covered without unnecessary duplication. This is particularly useful for in the NSW Rugby as they have specialist departments. E.g. sales, marketing, development, operations, media, etc. Specialist roles should increase productivity as employees are completing tasks they are fully trained and experienced to do.