Every organizational structure is based upon few important aspects like products, services, infrastructure, investors and employees and productive communication among them. AGCO Corporation is a significant example of successful organizational structure. The determination and vision of Robert Ratliff guided the company to grow as an internationally recognized brand with 14 product lines (Agcocorp.com, 2017). AGCO is one of the largest agricultural equipments manufacturing companies in the world. This multinational manufacturer operates in countries like Australia, Oman, Vietnam, India and Nigeria. The agricultural equipments produced by the company covers a large amount of local and global market. The company serves to 1 million consumers globally and there are 8000 employees working for the company. However the past organizational success has been greatly affected by various inter organizational communication challenges it has been experiencing recently.
The report tries to identify the challenges like the timely communication among the employees and the customers, the breakdown of front line communication and vice versa from the leadership to the employees. The management is also facing difficulties in receiving effective feedback from the customers and partners to improve the services and product quality, understanding and communicating in local languages, the cross cultural conflicts, implementing digital advancements in certain business areas and effectively using social media in the marketing. The identifying and analysis of the problems will help the management to find solution to prevent such issues and improve their productivity.
The following section will be focusing on various existing literature in order to identify and understand the need and success of effective communication in the organizational structure.
According to Shockley-Zalabak (2014) the organizational communication is a continuous process that works in various levels like the intra-individual level. The communication is expressing one’s ideas and makes others understand those. The organization works successfully if the communication among the various departments and employees are active and effective. In order to act the communication effectively the time matters.
Peter (2015) explains that effective communication works two ways. It is not just that the sender sends information and receiver receives it, it also includes the receiver’s giving feedback as the sender intended. If the receiver fails to decode the sender’s message within the information it results in an ineffective communication. The feedback helps the communication to achieve the expected result. The transaction of ideas between the sender and receiver in written or oral form and guides the communication in way that the receiver gets the message in a way that the sender intended (Guffey & Loewy, 2010).
Banihashemi (2011) states that the relationship, based on the effective communication is channeled from the top management to all departments. He believes that effective communication is a basic requirement for active organizational function. The organizations build coordination and integration in various parts of the organization through effective communication. The organizational communication can be of different forms, it can be horizontal, upward or downward.
The horizontal communication is based on flow of information in various functional areas of the same level (Kaul, 2014). The sharing of information, solving problems and conflict resolution becomes more efficient through horizontal communication as collaboration gets much importance here. It relates work units, divisions and tasks of various departments within the organizational structure. Zappos has broken the traditional upward communication and established a horizontal communication that results in generating more profit (Priestley, 2015).
The downward communication is the flow of information from the higher to lower levels. This is based on the authority line that acts between the superior subordinate relationships. This is effective in providing the job rationale and connecting various organizational tasks. The organizational practices and procedures are delivered by the downward communication (Spaho, 2013). In this process the leadership shares his or her feedback to his subordinates. This is especially effective in communicating to the employees about the organizational mission, vision and goals. In the upward communication the information flows from the lower level of employees to the higher level of the hierarchy (Voinea et ao., 2015). This is effective when the employees identify an ethical or legal breach that requires attention from the higher authority.
Kibe (2014) examines how certain organizational strategies affect or improve the organizational performance. He has conducted a study where 132 employees were given a questionnaire consisting communication related questions. The results demonstrated that for any organization to perform effectively it is important to build an open and free communication environment within the organizational structure (Ifeoma, Ngozi & Scholarstica, 2015). The successful building of an organizational environment encourages the employees to express their ideas, share criticism and feedback which eventually help to increase the organizational productivity.
According to Husain (2013) during any organizational change the communication plays a significant role. The management can not only plan a change and implement it successfully; the employees are the key drivers who can successfully materialize the planned changes.
Otieno et al. (2015) examined how effective communication influences the organizational productivity in the horticulture sector of Kenya. A flower farm was chosen for the study. The 14 organizations were chosen from the Kenya Flower Council in 2013 from Naivasha. 1888 employees responded to the study. The result highlights that effective organizational communication enhances the operational efficiency by facilitating opinion and information and finally improve the organizational performance. It showed that the organization prefers strong communication and believes that it is a significant determinant for organizational performance
According to Valeecha and Reza (2013) the impact of social media in Pakistan’s telecom industry is highly potential. They conducted a survey which included 8 social network media agencies, 5 big telecom companies of the country and 108 social network users (Valeecha & Reza, 2013). The result highlighted the need of social network in effective communication for the companies. The clients expect that the companies must increase their visibility by being present on various popular social media platforms. The telecom organizations implement online marketing strategies to engage with their customers successfully.
Bashar, Ahmad and Wasiq (2012) conducted an empirical study in thousands of consumers in Delhi, which focused on the use of social media as a marketing tool in various organizations. They NPS or non probability sampling method was applied by the authors (Ritchie, Lewis & Elam, 2013). The result highlighted that through social networking the organizations provide precise information to its customers in a timely manner. The gap between the customer’s expectation and his satisfaction always creates a problem for the companies to achieve more profit. Social media platforms help the companies to bridge the gap. The social relationship should be preferred by the company over their transactional relationship in order to achieve more productivity.
The report by The World Business culture states that there are 300 Nigerian ethnic groups with their own dialects and languages (Udegbe et al., 2012). The organizations often faces communication gap in the regions where Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa dominate. In the country, the citizens prefer to call others by specific terms or sir but not by first names. The employees tend to involve personal issues in the professional business communication. From firm handshake to other certain communication plays significant role in effective business communication (Karin Andreassi et al., 2014). The companies are successfully implementing English as an official common language that can be used by all ethnic Nigerian communities (Yamao & Sekiguchi, 2015).
The Cybernetics Theory for communication breakdown and timely communication
‘The Cybernetics Theory’ can be implemented by the company in order to address and resolve issues related to communication through feedback (Ruesch, 2017). Norbert Wiener and Ross Ashby developed this theory is focused on communication based on mathematics theory and regulatory feedback based control system (Adamson et al., 2015). The organization can experience various feedbacks from the employees or from the customers. If the desired result is achieved the management will receive positive feedback, if it is not then negative. There can be instantaneous feedback or feedback that is delayed. Feedback highlights the effective exchange of the information between two or multiple parties. The Cybernetics study of communication works in organizations, organisms and machines (Schwaninger, 2015). The theory demonstrates how biological, mechanical or digital aspects control the individual behavior and issues related to information and how changes can be achieved for better performance. AGCO should apply this theory in order to receive useful feedback from the customers and the employees. This will help the company to communicate effectively among the various departments and the responsible people. The management of AGCO should not just limit itself by sending instructions, messages or memos but also encourage the employees to give feedback. The employees should be informed personally about the new innovations or policies so that they can inform the company about their concerns. The Cybernetics theory is effective in the organizational feedback mechanism that is capable of improving the employees’ attitude towards work that enhances the productivity.
The ‘Source-message-channel-receiver’ model or SMCR model can be effective for the company in building a productive organizational communication (Reddy, 2014). David Berlo this model of communication is based on the mathematical model by Warron Weaver and Claude Shannon. He focused on the channel through which the information is delivered and the eye of the receiver as the source of the perception.
(Source: Communicationtheory.org, 2017)
The SMCR model highlights the sender-receiver relationship as a significant variable in organizational communication and gives importance to individual characteristics. The top management must possess great communication skills to have an impact on the subordinates. However he should not continue speaking for a longer period, he checks whether his messages are getting delivered effectively. He should take care of his accent during the communication. His knowledge and attitude towards the subordinates also play important role in the communication. The message the management delivers should comprise clear content and they should be able to serve the purpose successfully. According to Berlo the communication becomes effective if the speaker and the receiver are on the same level (Turaga, 2016). AGCO can apply SMCR theory in order to build a close relationship with the employees. The top management can learn and apply the strategies related to communication breakdown and timely communication to express the company’s principles to the employees in an easy and understandable way.
The constructivist management of conflicts is essential for the organization to achieve maximum profitability. If the cultural conflicts are not managed properly the organizational performance will get affected greatly. The conflicts in the management and inter personal communication influenced by cultural identities develops the cross cultural conflicts. The cultural theory proposed by Dominic Busch can be applied to manage the cross cultural conflicts within the organization (Busch, 2015). He developed a synoptic model which is analytical and offers various ranges of forms. He used empirical data to understand individual’s subjective perception of culture within the organizational structure. AGCO works in multiple countries so cultural conflict management could be challenging for the company. However by applying theories developed by Busch can help the company with necessary tools to identify cultural conflicts within the organization and come up with effective solutions.
Socio-Linguistic Theory can be helpful to identify the language barrier within the organizational and to resolve those immediately (Brannen, Piekkari & Tietze, 2014). Though in western countries a language is seen as just a tool of communication but in Europe or Asia it related to the nation’s national identity. The ‘Anxiety and Uncertainty Management Theory’ highlights that language competency is related to uncertainty of inter personal communication and this uncertainty results in trusts issues which influences them not to interact with other members (Nishida, 2016). AGCO’s organizational structure depends on multilingual group performances, so language barrier can prove to be harmful for the company.
AGCO can profit a lot from integrating social media integration theory. Implementation of this theory involves high activity on the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and engage with the customers more directly and easily (Moreno-Munoz et al., 2016). The company will offer direct assistance to its customers and help them to understand the company services in depth. They will engage in word of mouth publicity caused by the social network activity by the company. This strategy does not cost much for the company and it can reach to its global partners and clients easily. Social media can prove to be greatly effective in building the company’s brand and communicate its mission, vision and principles to its customers effectively and will result in sustainable customer efficiency (Cornelissen & Cornelissen, 2017).
Conclusion and Implication
Business communication has proved to be significant determinant for many successful organizations. For any company, the communication must have to be effective in order to bring the desired success. The management must establish a close relationship among the employees and its partners. The management must evaluate the organizational practice and address the key issues in the communication. The communication is more than just delivering information is the subordinates but also receiving feedback from the receivers. The company must engage in a communication that is proactive.
The detailed analysis of communication strategies and theories in the report highlights that effective communication is necessary for a company AGCO in order to improve its productivity. Effective communication ensures efficiency and success in the organizational workforce. The company must implement certain communication programs within the organizational structure to make the employees perform better. The company can achieve its organizational goal by integrating communication strategy as part of the management strategies. The theoretical approaches are effective in order to understand and examine the practical scenario. The Cybernetics theory, socio linguistic theory or SMCR model is highly influential in developing an effective organizational communication culture. However the theoretical approaches must be transformed into practical methods which involve active participation from the consumers and employees. Open environment of understanding and cooperation is created by certain communication techniques. By effective strategies based on such theories and models help the employees to get informed and perform better.
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