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Lateral Communication

Lateral communication involves spreading messages across organizations or organisms on the same level rather than through a hierarchy. It allows communities to collectively store and share knowledge and helps compensate for errors in hierarchical systems. Lateral communication permits direct communication between individuals, departments, or organisms without needing to pass through higher levels. This flexibility enhances information sharing, problem solving, and coordination across groups.

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876 views1 page

Lateral Communication

Lateral communication involves spreading messages across organizations or organisms on the same level rather than through a hierarchy. It allows communities to collectively store and share knowledge and helps compensate for errors in hierarchical systems. Lateral communication permits direct communication between individuals, departments, or organisms without needing to pass through higher levels. This flexibility enhances information sharing, problem solving, and coordination across groups.

Uploaded by

Nanushambarbvrrr
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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In organizations and organisms, lateral communication works in contrast to traditional top-down, bottomup or hierarchic communication and involves the

spreading of messages from individuals across the base


of a pyramid.
It is argued that communities communicate and store collective knowledge through lateral
communication, and that it is an essential ingredient to make hierarchies work, by compensating for
errors in hierarchies' information flows.
Lateral communication is communication between different individuals and, departments, or organisms
[1][2]
on the same organizational level.
The term lateral communication can be used interchangeably as horizontal communication. With this
system people at the same level are permitted to communicate directly without going through several
levels of organization .Given this elasticity, members within an organization have an easier time with
problem solving, information sharing across different work groups, and task coordination between
departments or project teams. The use of lateral or horizontal communication in the workplace can also
enhance morale and afford a means for resolving conflicts.
EXAMPLES

A coordinated flock of birds or a shoal of fish all maintain their relative positions, or alter direction
simultaneously due to lateral communication amongst members; this is achieved due to tiny pressure
variations.

An ants, termites, bees nest is not coordinated by messages sent by the queen ant / bee / termite but
by the lateral communication, mediated by scent trails of the ants. Its physical structure is an
emergent property of the individual entities.

Bacterial colonies communicate with each other, coordinating for example an attack, or the
production of slime using lateral communication based on chemical messengers so that as a group
they can detect how many colleagues there are, and if they are likely to overwhelm a target.

The pacemaker cells in the heart, Cardiac pacemaker is a very small group of cells, where lateral
communications sweeps through the cells, much like a Mexican wave as a three dimensional
circulating wave, which relays contraction signals to the whole heart.

With Slime mold millions of individual amoeba like creatures can spread out and graze the surface of
a leaf. When conditions change, the amoeba all concentrate and form a slug like creature which can
actually move off somewhere else before forming a spore body and releasing millions of individual
spores.

The positions of human cells, and which type of cell is mediated by lateral communication.

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