Post-positivist, Interpretive and Critical perspective in organization communication.
Organizational communication is the exchange of information between persons within a business or a non-business environment to meet the objectives or goals of the organization (Baxter 2004). I want this course to provide me with the skills to accomplish different tasks on planning, motivating, organizing, and controlling an organization.
The knowledge of organizational communication can help me too;
- Carry out roles and responsibilities that relate to performing tasks on sales, services, and production in the organization.
- Complete activities by implementing rules, processes, or legislation that sustain the organization’s day-to-day and on-going operations.
- Build relationships through messages that are aimed at people within the company that boost their attitude, morale, and happiness.
At this point, the course has provided me with insights about communication strategies, and I want to understand much more profound concepts of qualitative and quantitative analyses to understand behaviors in the organization environment.
To understand organization communications, there are three perspectives that are used in research.
- Post-positivist perspective.
This is a more scientific approach to research. The purpose of the post-positivist perspective is to provide predictions about how to structure are linked with one another. From this perspective, a researcher should derive a testable hypothesis. The social penetration theory, which explains the procedures of self-disclosure of individual information as individuals get used to each other. This means we share fewer details early in the creation of a relationship and more in-depth communication later in the establishment of a relationship. For example,
“I’m a communication studies student” is a more likely response to a stranger, and “I’m the firstborn in a family of three children,” which is a more in-depth disclosure.
- Interpretive perspective.
This perspective views the social world as having multiple realities rather than a single objective reality, which depends on a person’s subjective position. Its purpose is to engage a theory in conversation with the new observations (Berger 2005). For example
A researcher can be focused on understanding how a member of a society, which is a middle-class and racially mixed, interact with each other. This research has a multiple reality.
- Critical perspective.
A researcher in this perspective would see identity work in general and occupation as a social construction in particular, which serves individual interests more than others. A researcher would rely on institutional or ideological theory to provide the analytical guide for silenced voices and to explain the process which they become dominant (miller 2002)
For example
Interests of f identifiable groups, such as women, people of color, or physically challenged, such as disabled people.
| Post-Positivist | Interpretive | Critical | |
| View of Organization (Image or Metaphor) | Objective reality discovered through appropriate research methods. | The social world with multiple realities. | A particular social set up that serves some interest more than others. |
| Purpose of Studying Communication | Predicts how variables are interdependent. | Converse a hypothesis with the current findings | Explains how the silent voices become dominant |
| Understanding of Communication | Disclosure of information takes time to be in-depth | Social realities produced and maintained in everyday communication | Particular social group. |
| Problematic Communication | Assumes in-depth disclosure can be measured. | It is challenging to get consistency. | Difficult to measure the quantitatively social status of a person. |
| View of Reality | Objective reality | Multiple realities | Multiple realities |
| Type of Research Questions | Causal research questions | Descriptive research questions. | Relational research questions. |
| Type of Data Collected or Analyzed. | Predictive analysis | Descriptive analysis | Diagnostic analysis. |
Works cited
Baxter, L A., and E R. Babbie. The basics of communication research. (2004)
Altman, I., & Taylor, D… Social penetration: The development of interpersonal relationships.
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. (1973)
Berger, C. R. ” Interpersonal communication” Journal of Communication. (2005) 55, 415–447.
Deetz, S. Conceptual foundations. In F. M. Jablin & L. L. Putnam (Eds.), The new
handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods. (2001).
(pp. 3–46)