Davis A. Foulger, Ph. D.

Visiting
Professor
Fall, 2005-Spring, 2006
and Fall 2001-Spring 2003

COM 365: Organizational Communication

Semester Syllabus - Fall, 2003

Monday/Wednesday 4:10pm-5:30pm Lanigan 104

Semester SyllabusLecture Notes

Grading Criteria

Course BibliographyApproved Department Course Syllabus

Course Overview

Organizational Communication is the study of human communication, including interaction, presentation, and management, within organizations. There are a wide variety of organizations, including corporations, governments, non-profit organizations, religious groups, social movements, political parties, universities, sororities, communities, and families. All are built with people and their communication with each other.

The origins of organizational communication go back before the dawn of human history and the tribes that formed the first real human organizations to pack behavior in a variety of primates and hive behavior in bees, ants, and other organizms. Human organizations have evolved considerably from the first human tribes, however, and they continue to evolve in response to new human needs, and and new ways of communicating.

We all participate in a variety of different organizations over the course of our lives. To the extent that we spend long periods of times in organizations, it is likely that our relationship to those organizations is likely to change. We will take on new roles. We will inherit new rights and responsibilities. These changes will change the ways in which we communicate in organizations. Even if we make a career in public relations or in the mass media as journalists, broadcasters, our participation with others in organizations will shape our careers and career opportunities.

This course will examine the process of organizational communication as a means through which we work, build relationships, and make the world just a little bit better place to live through effective communication. It will treat organizations as ecologies in which multiple communication media and other systems are used in complementary ways to achieve organizational goals.

Texts

Eisenberg, Eric M. and H. L. Goodall, Jr. Organizational Communication: Balancing Creativity and Constraint: Third Edition. Bedford/St. Martins Press; 2001.

Nichols, Ralph G., Leonard A. Stevens, Fernando Bartolome, Argyris, and George M. Prince (editors). Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication. Harvard Business School Pr; ISBN: 1578511437; 1st edition (September 1999).

Taylor, James R., Carole Groleau, Lorna Heaton, and Elizabeth Van Every. The Computerization of Work: A Communication Perspective. Sage; 2001.

Note that I had planned to use a different text (Miller, Katherine. Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes. Thomson Wadsworth, 2003) as the central text in the course, but returned to Eisenberg and Goodall (which I used last year) when the Miller text proved to be unavailable.