Administrative & Business Communication EC, FBE, Management Department

CHAPTER - ONE
COMMUNICATION-AN OVERVIEW
1.1 Introduction
The chapter of this course introduces you with the highlight of historical development and civilization of
communication. It gives little highlight when and how communication is emerged along with the human
being development. This chapter also deals with definition and characteristics of business communication.
Apart from this the importance of communication both in the personal life of individuals and in the
business, world is also another issue of the chapter.

1.2 Meaning of Communication

The term communication is derived from the Latin work “Communis”, which means common. Literally,
to communicate means to tell, show, spread and inform.
As communication is a much more complex factor in our present world, not surprisingly, the problem of
defining it as a subject of study has also become increasingly difficult. For our purposes, however, we can
define communication as: The process by which people attempt to share meaning (ideas, feeling, thought,
experience, knowledge, skill, etc) for some purpose through the transmission of symbolic messages.
Our working definition of communication calls attention to the following five essential points.
1) Communication is a process: Communication refers to a series of activities to be accomplished in a
sequence; it does not refer to incidental events and transactions among people.
2) Communication is purposeful: When senders - receivers communicate the sender originally should
have an objective to be checked at the end of the communication process. Communication is not just the
transfer of messages but purposeful transfer of messages between senders and receivers. Thus it does not
refer to incidental transactions between people.
3) Communication involves people: Communication shows the degree of understanding among
senders-receivers and how they relate to each other. Therefore, it refers to communication among people
only and the exchange of interpersonal behaviors among them.
4) Communication involves shared meaning: This suggests that in order for people to communicate,
they must agree on the definitions of the terms and symbols they are using. The symbols used by the
sender should be similarly interpreted by the receiver in order to ensure equal or similar understanding
between them.
5) Communication is symbolic: In communication symbols such as, letters, numbers, words, gestures,
sound, etc can only represent or approximate the ideas they are meant to communicate. In other words
symbols are not perfect representations of our ideas. Thus we have to take care in selecting symbols that
best approximate the sender’s ideas.

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Communication is vital to human existence. It is how we pass on to others our thoughts and feelings, tell
them what we want them to do, ask them to help us, share with them our knowledge and experience.
Without communication we would each live as if alone in the world.

1.3 Nature/Characteristics of Communication

As articulated by Gerald Miller, communication has three basic characteristics: dynamism, uniqueness and
transactional nature.
Dynamism: Every communication event stems from a series of past events and triggers a series of new
ones. Communication is affected by prior attitudes, planned thoughts and people to whom the message is
addressed. It is thus a dynamic phenomenon without beginning, without end, continually responding, and
continually changing.
Uniqueness: Evolving naturally from the notion of dynamism is the concept of uniqueness. No two
communication events are a like because of the change in the sender, the audience, delivery, time situation
etc.
Transactional Nature: Communication scholars Wenberg and Wilmot mentioned that in communication
all persons are engaged in sending (encoding) and receiving (decoding) messages simultaneously. Each
person is affecting the other. Each communication transaction involves reciprocal exchanges of feelings,
meanings, ideas and responses.
1.4 Significance of Communication
The ability to communicate with others is an essential attribute of human life and we are all of us
grappling with communication tasks most of the time we are awake. Only when we are alone and also not
reading or writing or listening, we stop receiving messages from the world of people outside ourselves,
stop trying to send out messages to the fellow human beings around us. Communication plays, then, a vital
part in our personal daily lives. Furthermore, communication has been characterized as the “life-blood” of
an organization. Every organization depends for its daily functioning on an intricate communication
network, which has grown up during the years and has proved it indispensable. “No person is an Island”;
today more than ever all the people of the world rely upon another for products, services, ideas, etc.
The above two paragraphs show that the importance of communication be viewed from two angles:
individual angle and organizational angle.
Man conflicts with himself, with his environment and with his fellow creatures. He is capable of
emotions, ideas and reasoning. He must learn the art of adjusting to himself, to his work, and to his
associates even as that self, that work, and those associates change. A person must learn and practice the
art of human relations, an art that enhances the individual person and the society of which he is a member.

Like all other people, you are a complex system of thoughts and feelings, of ideas and emotions. Although
similar to other human beings, you are a unique person. Yet you must live and work with others. You are

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 Administrative & Business Communication FBE, Management Department
a human being not an island. Multiply this complicated being you by the millions of other complicated and
unique people on this earth. Add the unpredictable influences of society and nature. Recognize that
today a person economically, is not an island; s/he cannot isolate herself/himself from her/his fellow men.
You will then discover that at the core of human relations is modern man’s obligation to fulfill himself
with in the requirements of nature and society.

Even though all people including you are emotional-rational beings, still you are unique from others in that
you have geared your career to successful business management. Therefore you have assumed the
obligation of striving, ethically and efficiently, to use thoughts and feelings ideas and emotions, actions
and reactions in leading your life and conducting your work.
To be specific communication serves the following three purposes in personal or individual life.
Job Success:The two dimensions of management most often cited as the keys to individual and
organizational success are technical ability and understanding of people. Effective communication skills to
listen, speak, and write complement these two dimensions. Therefore enhance ones job success, a person
learn the art of human relations to effectively communicate her/his ideas, experiences, thoughts, skills and
feelings.
Personal Satisfaction: Mastery on a certain area goes beyond vocational success or promotion, i.e.
personal satisfaction. Thus communication skill can be a source of personal satisfaction, particularly in the
areas of art such as writing, painting, etc.
Meeting Social and Ethical obligations: A person may be in conflict with him/herself, with other people,
and/or with the community at large. With the help of communication people continue adjusting profitably
to themselves, to other people, to the environment in which they live and work. It is a means of winning
respect and confidence from other people or from the community at large.
As you attempt to fulfill yourself in business and in the private aspect of your life, your brain enables you
to identify, classify, relate and solve issues. But in responding to your environment, you generate both
emotions and ideas. You feel as well as think. Through such experiences you continue adjusting
profitably to yourself to other people, to the environment in which you and they live, cooperate and
compete. In brief, effective communication is a key to success in personal life and in business career.

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1.5 Communication in Management

Planning Organizing Staffing Directing Controlling

Communication

External Environment
Customers
Suppliers
Government
Community
Others

As a student or an employee, whatever you academic classification or job title may be, you participate in
the coordination of resources and objectives. In doing so, you participate in management, the continuing
process of achieving order efficiently through intelligent decisions that govern an organization.
Simultaneously, you participate in communication, the reciprocal process of sharing information through
symbols, principally words. Communication is essential to sound management; your success as a
manager- a person who is in charge of coordinating the human and non-human resources of an
organization- greatly depends upon your ability to communicate effectively.
Communication is essential to each of the five basic functions of management. In order to plan, organize,
staff, direct and control, managers must be able to communicate with other persons- and communicate
well. Information from others helps formulate plans; information provided to others defines job
assignments and helps organize work; information on standards, progress and personal factors fulfills the
directing function; while information in the form of written and oral progress reports is a fundamental
element in controlling. Communication is a linking process that enables each of the basic functions of
management to be carried. Effective communication is therefore the “life blood” of every organization.
We already have made the claim that communication is vital to the very existence of an organization. To
understand the validity of that claim, one must understand the role communication plays in an
organization’s life. The following figure tries to illustrate specific elements of that role.
Role of communication in an organization

Directives Productivity
Communication Employee Employee
Motivation job Quality
performance Quantity
Ability performance
and attitude Personnel
Resources
Related costs

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 Administrative & Business Communication FBE, Management Department
To the right of the figure are the elements comprising an organization’s productivity: the quality of the
work done in the organization, the quantity of the work done, the personnel related costs involved in
getting the work done (such as turnover or absenteeism among employees), and the non-personnel related
costs of getting work done (such as wasted materials, scrap, and so on). Naturally, organizations want to
improve productivity by maximizing the quality and quantity of work completed and minimizing the
personnel and non-personnel costs involved in work performance.
Just to the left is the primary factor that determines productivity in organizations the employee’s job
performance. What employees do in the workplace determines how much work gets done and how well it
is done, how costly their own behaviors are and to a large extent, how much is spent on materials and
equipment.
At the far left are the four major factors that ultimately shape an employee’s performance.
1. The employee’s motivation to do the job.
2. The directions the employee receives concerning what to do and how to do it.
3. The ability of the employee to do the job.
4. The resources with which the employee is provided to do the job.
What must occur then is the translation of these four factors into employee job performance. The key
elements translating motivation, direction, ability and resources into job performance are in the middle of
the figure: perceptions and attitudes. In short what employees do at work is determined largely by how
they perceive the work environment and how they feel about work. Often employees misunderstand
instructions given to them, and errors in their job performance are the predictable result. Just as often, the
organization fails to communicate expectations clearly to employees. Those employees in turn perform as
they think the organization wants them to relying on their perceptions (or just plain luck) to guide their
efforts. Finally, employees have attitudes toward all elements of their work lives their jobs, their working
conditions, their supervisors their coworkers, their promotional opportunities their pay and benefits, and so
on. Those attitudes influence their willingness to work effectively and their commitment to the
organization’s goals and objectives. For example, employees who feel they are not being paid a
competitive wage may not work very hard and employees who actively dislike their immediate supervisors
may even do things destructive to the company, such as sabotaging equipment or stealing supplies.
Employees’ job performances therefore stem directly from their attitudes and perceptions.
Where do those attitudes and perceptions come from? Communication, in the form of the things
employees hear from management, supervisors and their coworkers, the things employees hear about their
organization from outside sources, the written and oral guidelines with which employees are provided; the
instructions that employees receive. All this and more comprises the communication in which employees
participate every day. By shaping employee’s attitudes and perceptions communication serves to convert
external communication from the work environment into internal thoughts and feelings that in turn,
control, employee’s behaviors.