Organizational communication is constantly evolving and as a result, the scope of organizations included in this field of research have also shifted over time.
Now both traditionally profitable companies, as well as NGO's and non-profit organizations, are points of interest for scholars focused on the field of organizational communication.
To effectively solve problems, seize opportunities, and achieve objectives, questions need to be asked by managers—these are the people responsible for the operation of the enterprise as a whole.
As Virginia Satir has pointed out, people cannot help but communicate symbolically (for example, through their clothing or possessions) or through some form of body language.
Physical capacities to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch vary between people, so that the image of reality may be distorted even before the mind goes to work.
Filters are present also in the receiver, creating a double complexity that once led Robert Louis Stevenson to say that human communication is "doubly relative".
[11] Physical and cognitive, including semantic filters (which decide the meaning of words) combine to form a part of our memory system that helps us respond to reality.
As this interactive system responds to new experiences, new learnings occur which feed back into memory and gradually change its content.
[12] The structure is typically top down, from leaders in various departments and senior staff in the organization, which funnel down to lower level employees.
[15] This encompasses power struggles, team building, conflict, decision making, compliance, and all other human aspects of an organization.
These messages can include items such as newsletters or handbooks for a specific organization, that individuals can read to learn the policies and expectations for a certain company.
These relationship functions are a key aspect to how individuals identify with a company and it helps them develop their sense of belonging which can greatly influence their quality of work.
Change messages occur in various choice making decisions, and they are essential to meet the employee's needs as well as have success with continual adaptations within the organization.
[18]: 38 Emerging out of the Industrial Revolution and the increased mechanization of work, classical approaches to organizing involve a vertical flow of communication that is highly formal and often written, mostly in a downward direction.
[20] The human relation approach is based on several different theorists such as: Elton Mayo, McGregors's Douglas, Abraham Maslow, Mary Parker Follett's and Argyris.
[citation needed] The main idea of the human relation approach of organizational communication is that the theory compares organizations to a family.
[21] The human relation approach emphasizes the importance of employee attitudes, and encourage organizations management team to focus on interpersonal relationships, group dynamics, and leadership styles in achieving organizational effectiveness.
For example, traditional ideas and institutions are eroding, cultural diversity and interdependence are increasing, and democratic participation in social reality is in high demand.
Critical theory is centered around the argument that power imbalances, and therefore oppression and domination, are innate parts of social structures and organizations.
[20] The critical approach seeks to identify organizational sources of power and control in order to empower groups of oppressed people.
[28] Similar to the critical approach, feminist theory highlights power relations in organizational structures and institutionalized male domination as an instrument of oppression against women.
[29] The underlying assumption in feminist organizational theory is that women generally adapt to male norms within the workplace but are still subject to female stereotypes.
Included in functional organizational communication research are statistical analyses (such as surveys, text indexing, network mapping and behavior modeling).
[35]: 45 The concurrent transformative design allows the researcher to be guided by their theoretical perspective, so their qualitative and quantitative data may have equal or unequal priority.
[35]: 45 Mixed methods capitalizes on maximizing the strengths of qualitative and quantitative research and minimizing their individual weaknesses by combining both data.
In its current state, the study of organizational communication is open methodologically, with research from post-positive, interpretive, critical, postmodern, and discursive paradigms being published regularly.
Currently, some topics of research and theory in the field are:[citation needed] Constitution, e.g., Narrative, e.g., Identity, e.g., Interrelatedness of organizational experiences, e.g., Power e.g.,
Research in this area covers a range of principles and practices aimed at fostering an inclusive organizational environment by leveraging effective communication strategies.
DEI in the workplace encompasses a variety of personal and social bases of identity, including race-ethnicity, gender, age, socioeconomic status, religion, sexual orientation, country of origin, etc.
The inclusion of DEI in organizational communications research because it can lead to significant improvement in the world by proposing viable solutions to difficult problems within important social contexts.