According to Gerald M. Goldhaber (1990), “organizational communication from a functional perspective is viewed as a dynamic process in which an organization interacts with its environment (around it) and parts of the organization [are] interacting with each other.” This interactive process helps to create and exchange messages among members of the organization and between members of the organization with members of other social groups.(5) This communication process helps reduce organizational and environmental uncertainty. The concept of “environment” that the author refers to includes both the internal and external environment surrounding the organization; therefore, the public communication activities include both the internal and external public. The authors also give and explain seven critical concepts related to communication content in organizations including process, message, network, interdependence, relationship, environment, and uncertainty.

The approach that views organizational communication as the communication management or public relations activity of the organization.

Scholars and researchers have long been interested in the field of organizational communication and have approached it with different perspectives. In fact, “external communication” and “internal communication” are two terms referring to commonly used forms of public relations. Therefore, there are many books, newspapers, and documents on public relations (or communication management) that discuss the term “organizational communication”. It should be noted that today scholars are using the terms “public relations” and “communication management” (of the organization) with the same understanding. In other words, authors use these two concepts interchangeably in many cases.

J.E. Grunig (1992) states that “Public relations and communications management describe the overall planning, execution, and evaluation of an organization’s communications with both external and internal publics that affect an organization’s ability to meet its purposes.”(6) This definition follows from an earlier definition by Grunig and Hunt (1984)(7) that public relations is “the management of communication between an organization and its public.”J. Johnston and C. Zawawi (2009)(8) also extensively discuss the organization’s internal communication activities as well as other external communication activities. In fact, internal communication activities mean relations and activities with the internal public, such as relations with officials and employees of the organization. Meanwhile, external communication is the relations and activities with the external public, including customer relations, government relations, and press relations, as well as issue and crisis management, event management, and sponsorship activities.Howard Nothaft (2010)(9) has pointed out the importance of communication in organizations. The author concludes that “communication management” is explained as a “second- level management function”; that is, not only a function of coordinating organizational implementation, planning, and control, but also a function that institutionalizes certain concerns within the organization.

J.E. Grunig (1992) systematized the theory of public relations, then summed it up by giving a general theory of public relations – the theory of excellence that integrates most of the ideas about practice and communication in organizations. The theory of excellence holds that communicators need to be in the organization’s management to map out an organization’s operating strategy. A communicator is not only a practitioner but also a person with strategic thinking and a managerial mind to forecast and manage problems for the organization.(10) In short, theories stated that organizational communication is the communication activity that takes place within the organization, while scholars believe that the communication activities of the organization also aim to external public groups. There is a shift in the concept of organizational communication that instead of seeing communication as only an executive function, organizational communication activities must have the function of “second-level management” (Howard Nothhaft, 2010; Grunig, J.E, 1992) and communicators need to be in the organization’s management to advise the organization’s leaders, and should have strategic thinking and a managerial mind to forecast and manage problems for the organization. These approaches also focus on seeing how the “closed-open” organizational model affects the organization’s exposure to the surrounding environment and the organization’s interaction with external objects.

2. Overview about the history of theoretical research on organizational communication

The study of communication theory was deeply entrenched in the oral rhetorical traditions of ancient Rome and Greece. Similar to many of the early concepts that shaped the discipline, some of the founding principles of organizational communication originated in the East. As early as the 4th century, Chinese scholars concentrated on “problems of communicating within the vast government bureaucracy as well as between the government and the people.” (Murphy, Hildebrandt & Thomas, 1997, p.4) Ancient Eastern scholars focused on information flow, message fidelity, and quality of information within their government bureaucracy (Krone, Garrett & Chen, 1992).(11) Like most specializations in the field, organizational communication began in the mid-20th century with the work of P. E. Lull and W. Charles Redding at Purdue University (Putnam & Cheney, 1985). Prior to this, individuals like Chester Barnard and Mary Parker Follett were setting the cornerstones for organizational communication by acknowledging the role of communication as key to organizational practices. In the industrial age, the focus of organizational communication was on worker productivity, organizational structure, and overall organizational effectiveness. The main outcomes to be achieved were higher profitability and managerial efficiency. Follett is often referred to as the first management consultant in the United States (Stohl, 1995). She focuses specifically on message complexity, appropriate channel choice, and worker participation in organizations. Barnard (1938) place communication at the heart of all organizational processes, arguing that people must be able to interact with each other for an organization to succeed.

As a specialization in the field, organizational communication can be traced back to Alexander R. Heron’s book Sharing Information with Employees, published in 1942, which discussed management-employee communication (Redding & Tompkins, 1988). Putnam and Cheney (1985) stated that the specialization of “organizational communication grew out of three main speech communication traditions: public address, persuasion, and social science research on interpersonal, small group, and mass communication.” (p. 131) Along with public-speaking training for corporate executives as early as the 1920s (Putnam & Cheney, 1985), early works such as How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (1936) focused on oral presentation and written communication skills for managers to succeed in the organizations.

Redding and Thompkins (1988) identified three stages in the development of organizational communication. During the Era of Preparation (1900-1940), groundworks were laid for this discipline that people know today. Scholars emphasized the importance of communication in organizations. The primary focus during this time was on public address, business writing, managerial communication, and persuasion. The Era of Identification and Consolidation

(1940-1970) saw the beginnings of business and industrial communication, with certain group and organizational relationships being recognized as important. During the Era of Maturity and Innovation (1970-present), empirical research increased, “accompanied by innovative efforts to develop concepts, theoretical premises, and philosophical critiques.” (Redding & Thompkins, 1988, p. 7)As with other specializations, over the past century, organizational communication has evolved significantly as a result of the ongoing dialogue between business and academia. Redding and Thompkins (1988) conclude that “by 1967 or 1968, organizational communication had finally achieved at least a moderate degree of success in two respects: breaking from its “business and industrial” shackles, and gaining a reasonable measure of recognition as an entity worthy of serious academic study.” (p. 18)(12).

3. Organizational communication theory from management, structure, and systems perspective

As communication evolves, research continues to develop, and the specialization of organizational communication continues to redefine itself. In the early stages, the emphasis was on the organizational leaders giving public presentations. Recent research has focused on all levels of interaction in organizations. Because interpersonal relationships are a large part of organizational communication, it makes sense that a great deal of research focuses on how interpersonal relationships are conducted within the framework of an organization hierarchy. Therefore, communication in superior-subordinate relationships is a focal point for many organizational researchers (Stohl & Redding, 1987; Putnam & Cheney, 1985).

Putnam and Cheney (1985) summarized modern organizational communication research by identifying four primary domains of this specialization: 1) Communication channels, 2) Communication climate, 3) Network analysis, and 4) Superior-subordinate communication. Since the 1980s, this specialization has expanded to include work on organizational culture, power and conflict management, and organizational rhetoric. In a recent analysis of 23 introductory organizational communication textbooks (Aust, Limon, & Lippert, 2002), commonalities occurred in the coverage of multiple approaches and topics. The 9 topics that appeared most frequently include: 1) leadership, 2) conflict and conflict management, 3) communication networks, 4) decision making and problem solving, 5) morals, ethics, or values, 6) communication technology, 7) human resources perspective, 8) human relations perspective, and 9) classic management theory.

Deetz’s managerialism theory

The evolution of organizational structure and models over the years has spawned theories that reflect the changing organizational norms. Stanley Deetz’s managerialism theory is one such attempt to define how organizational communication and organizational control happens in the companies where classical notions are replaced with an acknowledgement of the political and economic interests as well as the need to represent and give voice to these diverse interests.

The highlight of this theory is that Deetz goes beyond fixed notions of organizations and instead posits a view of organizations that consider the democratic aspirations of the people and the power centers in the organization. This combination of recognizing the fact that meaning lies in people and not their words and to find out the interests behind these meanings is indeed a progression from the faceless and nameless bureaucratic model of Weber and the slightly improved control theory of Tompkins and Cheney.

The point here is that Deetz’s theory arose out of the need to recognize the preeminence of the managerial class as a force to reckon with in organizations in the latter part of the 20th century and hence represents the natural evolution of organizational theory of control and communication.

The point to note about these theories is that they are representations of reality as seen by the proponents and also reflect the idealistic aspirations of these theorists. There is nothing to say that such structures alone exist or that they are not valid. Instead, a nuanced view of organizational theory that has emerged in recent years with the systems view of organizations is something that is contemporary and relevant to the agile and nimble organizations of the 21st century.

System theory by Grunig and Hunt (1984), Cutlip (2000), and Theaker (2001). Alison Theaker (2001) emphasized that many communication scholars like Cutlip (2000) or Grunig and Hunt (1984)(13) have based their work on system theory to explain the structure and operation of organizations, as well as interactions between the organization and the environment. The book Public Relations in Vietnam by Dinh Thi Thuy Hang also synthesizes theories about the role and types of communication in organizations. Accordingly, conservative organizations are those with “uncrossable borders” that have little or no communication with their environment. This is called a “closed” organization. Organizations with “crossable borders” that have a lot of exchanges with the external environment are called “open” organizations.(14) In fact, the three above theorists are pioneers of their time, similar to management experts who are taking the theorists’ point of view to the next level. In conclusion, all management theorists acknowledge the natural evolution of organizational models and thus their contribution to the specialization of organizational control and communication is like waving on the shoulders of the giants (15, 16).