genuinetestbank.com · Web viewChapter 1. Establishing a Framework for . Business Communication. 1. Learning Objectives. Define communication and describe the value of communication

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CHAPTER 1Establishing a Framework for

Business Communication1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES1. Define communication and describe the value of

communication in business.2. Explain the communication process model and the ultimate

objective of the communication process.3. Discuss how information flows in an organization.4. Explain how legal and ethical constraints, diversity

challenges, changing technology, and team environment influence the process of business communication.

2. KEY TERMSChannel the medium used to send a message p. 4Chronemics the study of how a culture perceives time and its use p. 14Communication the process of exchanging information and meaning between or among individuals p. 2Decoding the process of interpreting a message p. 4Diversity skills the ability to communicate and work effectively with both men and women of all ages, sexual orientations, backgrounds, and cultures p. 14Downward communication communication that flows from supervisor to employee, from policy-makers to operating personnel, or from top to bottom on the organization chart p. 7Encoding the process of selecting and organizing a message p. 4

1 Copyright © 2013 by Nelson Education Ltd.

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Ethics the principles of right and wrong that guide one in making decisions that consider the impact of one’s actions on others as well as on the decision maker p. 10Ethnocentrism the assumption that one’s own beliefs and traditions are the “right” ones p. 14External messages messages directed to recipients outside an organization p. 9Feedback a receiver’s response to a sender’s message p. 5Formal communication channel a channel of communication characterized by the formal organization chart; dictated by the technical, political, and economic environment of the organization p. 5Grapevine the informal communication system within an organization p. 6Horizontal communication interactions between people, groups, or departments on the same hierarchical level p. 8Informal communication channel a channel of communication that continuously develops as people interact within the formal system to meet their social and psychological needs p. 6Interferences also called barriers; factors that hinder the communication process p. 5Internal messages messages intended for recipients within an organization p. 9Kinesics the study of body language p. 15Organizational communication the movement of information within the company structure p. 5Proxemics the study of cultural space requirements p. 15


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Stakeholders people inside and outside an organization who are affected by decisions p. 10Stereotypes preformed ideas about what people in a group or culture are like p. 14Synergy a situation in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts p. 16Team a small number of people with complementary skills who work together for a common purpose p. 16Telecommuting also called teleworking; working from home or other remote locations p. 15Upward communication communication that flows from lower-level employees to those higher on the organization chart p. 8


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3. KEY CONCEPTSUnderstanding what communication is and how it occurs is central to successful transactions in the workplace. Business communication does not take place in a vacuum but is impacted by various external forces, including legal and ethical constraints, diversity challenges, changing technology, and team environment.

4. STUDENT MOTIVATION: WHY SHOULD STUDENTS CARE?Good communication skills are an essential skill. Without them your job search will be severely limited. The top soft skill that managers look for is the ability to communicate well. Skilled communicators reflect well on themselves and their employers. If you can speak and write effectively, you are an asset to your employer. If you can express yourself well, you don’t waste people’s time, and you can handle difficult situations with customers and co-workers without costing the company money in dissatisfied clients and disgruntled employees. It’s estimated that managers spend nearly 80% of their time communicating in one way or another. If that’s how you are going to spend 80% of your working life, then now is the time to hone those skills that will make you stand out from your first interview to your retirement party.

5. BARRIERS TO LEARNINGRemind the students that this is not an English class. There are no essays and no Shakespeare. This is the place where they are going to learn how to communicate in situations that they will encounter in the workplace. The information is practical and applicable. Understanding that what they learn in this course actually reflects what they need to use in the workplace helps students overcome their often-usual reluctance to put a lot of effort into a “writing/English” class.

Throughout the course, it’s important to remind them of the practical use they will make of this information in the workplace. When they’re competing with other students for a job and they all have roughly the same marks and skills in their program, it is


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their ability to communicate those skills--write about them, talk about them--that will get them the job over the others, and that will help get them promoted once they are hired.

Bottom line: Communication is where the money is.


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6. LECTURE OUTLINE AND ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIESIce-breakers for the New SemesterGet your students acquainted with each other early as they will be working with partners and in small groups throughout the semester.

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Students find all other class members who share the same birth month. Once they are in their group, and meet each other, each person then introduces one of the persons to the other members of the group.

2. Each student is assigned a partner and the students interview each other, finding out each student’s major, career plans, what city they’re from, and their favourite TV show or movie. Then each student introduces his or her partner to the class with this information.

3. Each student is given a list of 10 statements and must find 10 individual students to match them. Each student who matches a statement has to give the student his or her name to write beside the statement. Possible statements include

Played sports in high school Watches hockey/sports on TV Is on Facebook Likes lemon meringue pie Likes pizza Has seen an entire series of movies: Harry Potter, Star

Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. Watches Big Bang Theory Likes ice cream Reads magazines Texts more than 20 times a day Has more than 100 songs on his/her MP3 player


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LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1: Define communication and describe the value of communication in businessBefore looking at the communications model, have students begin looking at communication as it applies to them by doing the following:

1) Have students brainstorm about what communication means to them. Ask them whether they think business communication differs from everyday communication. In what ways? Or not? (from slide notes)

2) Have them contribute to a list of the many different ways to communicate. (from slide notes)

3) Ask students why good communication would be valuable in business for both them as employees and for the business as well.

Possible answers: make a good impression with management and customers; clear communication means no misunderstandings that can cause stress or cost money; can’t sell a product without communicating its benefits to a possible market; can’t persuade boss that you need a raise if you can’t communicate how you make a beneficial difference to the company; can’t get a job in the first place, if you don’t communicate well; makes the business and its employees appear professional and competent.

4) Clocking Your Own Communication Activities (page 3 of text) Prepare a record of your listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the next two days. Try to record in one-hour time blocks the time spent doing each activity, and then calculate the total time engaged in each. Did you see any patterns? Which communication activity did you spend the most and least time doing and why? Be prepared to share your distribution with the class.

This activity illustrates the enormous amount of time we spend communicating and how that time is distributed


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among various communication activities. A student’s time distribution of communication activities may reinforce studies showing that a manager’s time is distributed as follows: listening, 45 percent; speaking, 30 percent; reading, 15 percent; and writing, 10 percent.


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LEARNING OBJECTIVE 2: Explain the communication process model and the ultimate objective of the communication processThe Communication Process

Explain the various stages in the communication process. To illustrate the process, describe the flow of a typical message, for example, a request for a meeting. Use the diagram to show the decisions of the sender, how the message will be worded, how the message will be sent, hoped for feedback from the receiver, and what interferences could get in the way. Let the class help compose the message with the purpose of getting positive feedback.

Group Work - Interferences: Ask students to work in small groups to quickly list what can get in the way of the message getting the feedback the sender wants the first time. Assign each group one form of communication: email, face to face, phone, text, voicemail, snail mail.

Have groups report their answers as you go through each category. Have them add any suggestions from the class to their lists.

Examples of responses: Subject line isn’t clear, sender doesn’t ask for a response by a certain date, receiver’s email box is full, receiver needs more information, receiver has a headache, the room is noisy, the reader doesn’t understand the short forms the sender uses when texting, the voicemail box is full, the person leaving the message speaks to quickly or quietly.


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Communication Process Interferences

A summary of various interferences are on this slide and also on page 5 of the text. Review them with the students and check if there are some that the students missed.

The following are two further engagement strategies around the topic of interferences.

Group Work: Working in small groups students can create a 3-slide PowerPoint presentation describing a situation at work or at school in which there was a communication breakdown, analyzing the problem, and offering a solution. Slide 1 will briefly describe the situation. Slide 2 will indicate which barriers caused the problem. Slide 3 will show possible solutions. They can present their slides to the class, or print them for a quick evaluation/completion grade.

Group Work: In groups of three, develop a list of 10 to 12 annoying habits of yours or of others that create barriers (verbal and nonverbal) to effective communication. Classify each according to the portion of the communication process it affects. For each, give at least one suggestion for improvement. The lists will probably include items related to interrupting the speaker, ignoring the speaker, not looking at the speaker, fidgeting, exercising poor personal habits of cleanliness and mannerisms, passing the buck, getting too far ahead of the speaker, and failing to provide feedback.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 3: Discuss how information flows in an organization.


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Explain to students that in a business, communication moves in particular ways through the company structure. This is a good time to remind them that whatever they communicate reflects back on them and their abilities. Poorly spelled, grammatically incorrect emails will tell co-workers and supervisors that the writer is lacking basic skills. They may wonder whether a person who can’t spell or bother to make sure an email is correct is someone they could trust with a project or a promotion. The reader just might think that the writer was lazy, which is not the message you want to send. There are formal channels of communication and informal. Even though some channels are more informal, it doesn’t mean that you forget you are in a business setting and act accordingly.

Have students consider how communication works at the places where they have had jobs. Is there an organizational chart for the company as a whole?

Ask the students if they speak to management in a different way than they speak to their co-workers. Can they think of situations where this might happen?

Introduce the concept that organizational communication can be both structured and unstructured. Next slide looks at Formal Channels and Informal.

Communication Flow in Organizations

This slide shows the students the differences between formal and informal channels.

Discussion: Using the model of a college, have the students discuss what information will be distributed or exchanged using formal and informal methods. Information regarding registration and student loans, course outlines, and student handbooks would be formal. Helping a fellow student with


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homework, cheering a team, participating in a student-led activity could be considered informal.

Dispelling Myths about the Grapevine

Ask the students what they think is meant by the word “networked.” How does networked communication differ from linear? The next three slides explain various linear forms of communication in a company.

In groups, have the students connect these three directions of communication to their own experience and create a list of examples for each which they can present to the class.

Levels of Communication

This diagram shows the various levels of communication that an employee could experience in the course of a day. It shows how important it is to be a good communicator, since the personal success of the worker and the success of his team and the organization as a whole depend upon the daily interaction of employees with each other and with the public. When poor communications causes misunderstandings at any of these levels, it can be costly.

Explain how someone employed at the college could experience all of the communication levels in the course of his or her job, or have the students brainstorm how this


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could work. Can they think of someone that they know that communicates at all of these levels?

Discussion: What levels do the students communicate at most frequently? How many communicate at all of these levels at one time or another? (If they are on Twitter, LinkedIn or have a website or post to YouTube, they have a public profile.)

The different directions of communication flow are outlined on the next three slides.


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Directions for Communication Flow: Downward

Downward communication involves both written and spoken methods.People at high levels in the organization usually have greater knowledge of the organization and its broader goals than do people at lower levels.Both spoken and written messages tend to become larger as they move downward through organizational levels. This expansion results from attempts to prevent distortion and is more noticeable in written messages.Spoken messages are subject to greater changes in meaning than are written messages.When a supervisor sends a message to a lower-level employee who then asks a question or nods in agreement, the question and the nod are signs of feedback.

Ask the students if they can think of any examples: policy changes, praise or criticism, job postings, plant closings (from slide notes)

Directions for Communication Flow: Upward

Upward communication is primarily feedback to requests and actions of supervisors.Upward communication can be misleading because lower-level employees often tell their superiors what they think their superiors want to hear. Therefore, their messages might


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contradict their true observations and feelings. What problems can result from this?Employees will reject superficial attempts by management to obtain feedback.Examples: department reports, sales figures, expense reports, requests for holidays, leave, etc. (from slide notes)

Directions for Communication Flow: Horizontal

Examples: team meetings, shift change meetings, training new employees

Ask students which form of communication is most common at their workplace. Which would they prefer?

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 4: Explain how legal and ethical constraints, diversity challenges, changing technology, and team environment act as strategic forces that influence the process of business communication.Key Factors Influencing Business Communication

Briefly review the four major factors and explain that you and the class are going to focus on ethics first.

You could also have the class do the following activity.


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Group Work: Looking at the slide, Key Factors Influencing Business Communication, divide the students into groups and assign each group one of the factors. Have them create one or two scenarios in which one of their factors would be an important influence on communication and present their information to the class. They can break their presentation down into three parts: the situation, the governing factor, and why it would be an important influence on communication in that situation.


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Causes of Illegal and Unethical Behaviour

To introduce the topic of ethics, initiate a class discussion to arrive at a definition of ethics, which should lead to the principles of right and wrong that guide individuals in making decisions that affect others. Discuss how compromises in personal values can affect a person’s value system. This discussion should lead naturally into a discussion of commonplace unethical behavior in a student’s academic life and in the workplace. Encourage students to contribute other examples from their own experiences.

Students’ responses might include the following: using answers from another student’s test paper or to achieve

a certain grade point average not contributing a fair share to a group project plagiarizing on a term paper copying a computer software program so class assignments

can be completed on one’s own computer rather than in a computer lab

not reporting a student witnessed cheating on an exam listing false qualifications to increase chances of getting a job,

scholarship, internship, and so on.

Discussion: Have the class create a list of examples of unethical behaviour that they know of from the news of personal experience. This could include items such as the revelations about Tiger Woods, the use of drugs in professional sports or the Olympics, the behaviour of banks and investment companies that caused serious economic problems for a vast number of people and governments, cheating on exams, copying projects, illegally downloading music or videos, etc. Looking at the slide Causes of Illegal and Unethical Behaviour, what causes do they think are behind the unethical actions that they have listed? How do they think people justify their unethical actions? How convincing do they think those justifications are?


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Four Dimensions of Business Behaviour

Remind students of the expectations of their employer (and their school) that they behave in an ethical manner. “Determining whether an action is ethical can be difficult. Learning to analyze a dilemma from both legal and ethical perspectives will help you find a solution that conforms to your own personal values. Figure 1.4 on the slide shows the four conclusions you might reach when considering a particular behaviour.” (p. 12) Consider how hard it is to make decisions when a circumstance falls into each of the 4 dimensions. Looking at both the legal and ethical perspectives of a decision can help you find a solution.1 – Decisions about behaviour here are pretty obvious, as are the consequences for making the wrong decision. 2 – The example from the text refers to gifts to doctors from pharmaceutical companies promoting new drugs. Though it is legal in Vermont to accept these gifts, how would you feel about your doctor’s ethics if he accepted the gift and then changed your prescription to the new drug? 3 – Consider the bankers who acted legally in allowing sub-prime mortgages, but knew that the products would, the moment that the mortgages were required to go back to the prime rate, cripple their clients financially.4 – These decisions are easy to make. Review the 6 questions in the Pagano Model.

Diversity Challenges


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Emphasize that people will have to work in, supervise, and manage businesses in a culturally diverse environment.

Have students consider the expectations of communication from the point of view of a 50 or 60-year-old with many years in the workplace that may differ from the expectations of their friends or co-workers who are younger and new to the workplace. Consider the level of formality, the level of the use of short forms, lack of capital letters, emoticons ….”

Ask them to think about how educational level can affect the choices they might make when decoding and choosing a channel for communication.

Do they think that gender makes a difference in communication? Why or why not?

Group Work: In your class, locate other students to form a “diverse” group; your diversity may include age (more than five years difference), gender, race, culture, geographic origin, etc. Discuss your areas of diversity; then identify three things the group members all have in common, excluding your school experience. Share your group experiences with the class.

Barriers to Intercultural Communication

Explain the meaning of the different terms using pages 14-15 in the text.

Group Work: In small groups, conduct an online search to locate examples of intercultural communication mistakes made by North American companies doing business in another country. How can an organization improve its diversity awareness to avoid such problems? Be prepared to share your ideas with the class. This application encourages students to explore current new ideas and analyze diversity issues. Articles might focus


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on problems in marketing campaigns, contract negotiations, etc. Improving diversity awareness involves researching the appropriate culture and determining ways to communicate effectively.

One of the reasons why adapting to cultural diversity is key to business success it that it is so easy to do business on a world-wide basis and with a wide-range of clients and suppliers because of the ease of communication provided by new technology.


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Changing Technology

This slide lists some of the advantages that technology has brought to the workplace and to society.

What legal and ethical issues can the students think of that are a result of new technology?

What actions have they seen on the part of governments to control technology and information?

Students could work in small groups to research a legal or ethical issue related to new technology or social media and present the issue to the class.

Have students also consider the downsides of technology. What dangers are present when using current technology? (Consider lack of privacy, consumption of time, less personal contact) How have they made sure that their “Internet face” is appropriate for business? They need to consider that increasing numbers of employers and schools check them out on the Internet before they get the chance for an interview or are offered admission. http://www.macworld.com/article/145719/2010/01/facebook_jobs.html This is covered again in the chapters on job searches and interviews.

The Team Environment

Work teams are seen as a way to help businesses remain globally competitive. Decentralized decision making enables teams of people to communicate in a peer-to-peer fashion, and


http://www.macworld.com/article/145719/2010/01/facebook_jobs.html

http://www.macworld.com/article/145719/2010/01/facebook_jobs.html

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new technologies give employees the ability to communicate easily and openly with one another and with those outside the company. (p. 16)

synergy: defined as a situation in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Since the students have worked in groups and teams before, ask them what they believe the advantages and challenges are or working in teams. Draw a pro and con list on the board.

What are their strategies for making groups work? How have students solved problems in a group or work

team that they’ve participated in?

Skills for Work Team Effectiveness

Ask the students if they can see that when group members and leaders apply some of the skills on this list that many of the items on the ‘con’ list would be eliminated.

To determine their own ‘team orientation’ ask the students to complete the following:


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Writing Activity: Writing About Your Team Orientation (page 18 text) Effective teamwork is important to many career paths. Access the following link to find out whether you are a team player: www.quintcareers.com/team_player_quiz.html Write a brief paragraph about your results.

In a small group, discuss what makes an effective team player and how being a team player may affect your career success. Have the students keep this paragraph and any notes from the discussion as a resource for preparing their resumés.

What leadership style do they prefer in a group or team situation? What are the characteristics of an effective leader? Can they think of any examples they can share from work, politics, or school?


http://www.quintcareers.com/team_player_quiz.html

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7. TRY IT OUT! SOLUTIONS

Try It Out! 1 - Clocking Your Own Communication Activities (pg. 3) Prepare a record of your listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the next two days. Try to record in one-hour time blocks the time spent doing each activity, and then calculate the total time engaged in each. Did you see any patterns? Which communication activity did you spend the most and least time doing and why?

This activity illustrates the enormous amount of time we spend communicating and how that time is distributed among various communication activities. A student’s time distribution of communication activities may reinforce studies showing that a manager’s time is distributed as follows: listening, 45 percent; speaking, 30 percent; reading, 15 percent; and writing, 10 percent.

Try It Out! 2 - Writing about Your Team Orientation (pg. 18)Effective teamwork is important to many career paths. Access the following link to find out whether you are a team player: www.quintcareers.com/team_player_quiz.html. Write a brief paragraph about your results. Discuss what makes an effective team player and how being a team player may affect your career success.

Student scores for the team player quiz will vary, but papers (or class discussion) should focus on team collaboration, self-directiveness, mutual respect, team achievements, complementary skills, and empowerment.


http://www.quintcareers.com/team_player_quiz.html

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8. CHAPTER IN REVIEW SOLUTIONSChapter Review

1. What are the three purposes for which people communicate? Give examples of the ways business people communicate. (Obj. 1)

The three purposes of communication are to inform, to persuade, and to entertain. Managers spend approximately 60 to 80 percent of their time involved in some form of communication, including attending meetings, writing reports, presenting information to groups, explaining and clarifying procedures and work assignments, evaluating and counseling employees, and promoting company products, services, and image.

Communication activities in which managers are typically engaged include attending meetings and writing reports related to strategic plans and company policy; presenting information to large and small groups; explaining and clarifying management procedures and work assignments; coordinating the work of various employees, departments, and other work groups; evaluating and counseling employees; and promoting the company’s products/services and image.

2. Describe the five stages in the communication process using the following terms: (a) sender, (b) encode, (c) channel, (d) receiver, (e) decode, (f) feedback, and (g) interferences or barriers. (Obj. 2)

The five stages of the communication model follow.a. The sender encodes a message.b. The sender selects an appropriate channel and transmits

the message.c. The receiver decodes the message.d. The receiver encodes the message (feedback) to clarify any

part of the message not understood.e. Sender and receiver give feedback until the message is

understood.


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f. The sender and receiver remove or minimize interferences that hinder the communication process.

3. What is the difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal communication? (Obj. 3)

Intrapersonal is the communication that occurs within a person as the person processes information; interpersonal communication occurs between or among people.

4. How is the formal flow of communication different from the informal flow of communication? (Obj. 4)

The formal flow follows obvious organizational lines. The informal flow is sometimes referred to as the grapevine because it does not follow predictable lines of flow.

5. Describe several ways that communication technology can assist individuals and organizations. (Obj. 4)

Communication technology can assist individuals and organizations in collecting and analyzing data, shaping messages to be clearer and more effective, and communicating quickly and efficiently over long distances.

6. How does communication in work teams differ from that of traditional organizations? (Obj. 4)

Communication in work teams differs from that in traditional organizations in that communication patterns are different; trust is a primary factor; open meetings are the norm; shared leadership exists; and listening, problem solving, conflict resolution, and negotiation are important factors.

7. Why has communication been identified as perhaps the single most important aspect of team work? (Obj. 4)

Communication has been identified as perhaps the most important aspect of team work because open lines of communication are essential to increasing interaction between employees and management as well as horizontally among team members, with other teams, and with supervisors.


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Digging Deeper1. What aspect of cultural diversity do you feel will affect you

most in your career: international, intercultural, intergenerational, or gender? Explain your answer, including how you plan to deal with the challenge.

Answers will vary, but student responses should focus on one of the three listed here, using concepts from the chapter to defend their answers. For example, if intergenerational issues arise, students could talk with relatives of the same generation as co-workers to obtain suggestions about how to communicate more effectively.

2. Considering the four factors influencing business communication, how is business communication today different from that of 30 years ago? In what ways is it easier? In what ways is it more difficult?

More communication is conducted through electronic channels than 30 years ago, which makes some communication easier. But changing technology presents a new set of issues, including privacy, ownership and copyright, and access. A more diverse workforce has provided corporations with additional viewpoints that can reach a more diverse audience, but this diversity has raised issues in communicating across cultural differences. Team environments have made the workforce more productive by providing a channel for communicating with supervisors more directly and on a more personal level.


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9. FEATURE ASSIGNMENTS1. Legal and Ethical Constraints: Read The Power of

Ethical Management by Kenneth Blanchard and Norman Vincent Peale, a short, engaging story of a sales manager's attempt to make an ethical decision. Write a brief report summarizing the ethical principles presented in the book.

2. Analyzing an Ethical Dilemma: Research a scandal in the business or popular press using campus resources. Read the article and respond to the following questions:

Who are the stakeholders in the case? What does each stand to gain or lose, depending on your decision?

How does the situation described in the case relate to the four-dimension model shown in Figure 1-4?

What factors might influence your decision as the manager in the case?

3. Intercultural Interview: Assemble a group of three and interview an international student at your institution. Generate a list of English words that have no equivalents in his or her language. You should also find out about nonverbal communication that may differ from that used in Canadian culture. Be prepared to share your findings in a short presentation to the class.

4. Communication Failure: Assemble a group and discuss experiences where "communication failure" was blamed for problems that occurred in your work, academic, or personal interactions. Generate three to five additional ways communication can fail, with suggestions for correcting them. Your instructor may ask you to share your results in a short presentation.

5. Changing Technology: Discuss the role that changing technology has upon one's ability to communicate in the business world. Do electronic tools eliminate the need for basic communication skills? Defend your argument.


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10. ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS1. Communication Challenges in the Future Workplace:

Locate the following article through the Internet or an online database at your library:

Kaplan-Leiserson, E. (2004, February). 2004 forecast. T & D, 58(2), 12(3).

In small groups, discuss the following: What communication trends are predicted in the workplace?

Are any of these surprising? Why? Which trends are likely to impact your chosen career field

most significantly? In what ways? How do the predicted trends relate to the chapter?

2. Miscommunication Cause and Solution: Identify and describe a miscommunication that you have had with a fellow college student, friend, family member, co-worker, or representative of a company with which you have dealt. Explain the source or cause of the communication. Was it due to some type of interference? Or was it a problem with encoding? What feedback might you have given to eliminate the problem?

3. Formal Network Flows: Identify an organization with which you are part. This organization can be your workplace, or a church, sports, or post-secondary organization in which you participate. Try to identify the formal network flows that are dominant in the organization. Does organization primarily flow upward, horizontally, or downward? Based upon this observation, can you see ways that network flow might be improved and its benefits to the organization?

4. History and Development of Your Career Field: Research the history and development of your chosen career field as well as some of the companies and organizations that offer employment in that area. How have their business practices changed over the years? What has been the effect of technology on the organization(s)? What has been the effect


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of globalization? Has the legal environment changed in such a way as to affect its practices and communication?

5. Methods of Communication within Your Career Field: List examples of ways in which you may communicate within your chosen career field.


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11. HANDOUT ASSIGNMENTSACTIVITY 1 - CHANGING TECHNOLOGYIndicate which of the following communication mediums would be most appropriate for sending the following messages: email, fax, telephone, or face-to-face communication. Justify your answer.

a. The company is expecting a visit from members of a committee evaluating your bid for this year’s Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. All employees must be notified of the visit.

b. After careful deliberation, the management of a mid-sized pharmaceutical company is convinced the only way to continue its current level of research is to sell the company to a larger one. The employees must be informed of this decision.

c. Lincoln Enterprises is eager to receive the results of a drug test on a certain employee. The drug-testing company has been asked to send the results as quickly as possible.

d. The shipping department has located the common carrier currently holding a customer’s shipment that should have been delivered yesterday. Inform the customer that the carrier has promised delivery by tomorrow morning.

e. An employee in another division office has requested you send a spreadsheet you have prepared so he can manipulate the data to produce a report.


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12. CASESCASE ASSIGNMENT: Roots Canada: Establishing a Standard of Excellence in Business CommunicationRoots Canada, more commonly known as Roots, is a Canadian company that was founded in 1973 by partners Michael Budman and Don Green. Interestingly enough, Michale Budman has a B.A. in Communications! The Roots concept was developed based upon Budman and Green’s childhood experiences at an Algonquin Park summer camp named Camp Tamakwa. As their website states, “Roots was also based on a keen sense of aesthetics and certain values shared by Don and Michael.” Roots has, since its inception, become known as Canada’s leading lifestyle brand, and, more recently, Roots has become even more popular, outfitting our Olympic athletes as they participate around the world. Some of these world-famous Canadian athletes include Adam van Koeverden, Kurt Browning, Catriona Le May Doan, and Razor Ruddock.

What simply began as an idea and concept to make comfortable outdoor footwear has now morphed into a successful international company that manufactures quality leather jackets, bags, accessories, home furnishings, and natural-fibre clothing. The Roots company headquarters is found in Toronto, Ontario, and Roots employs over 2000 people, with over 120 Canadian and American stores, and 40 stores in Asia. Currently Roots makes all of its leather goods at its factory in Toronto, and, whenever it is possible, it makes other products here at home as well. However, Roots conducts business all around the world and as such, business communication is extremely essential to Roots’s success.

The colour green has significance to Roots. Not only is it the official colour that is used on the iconic beaver logo but the colour green illustrates the company’s long-time commitment to the environment. Roots uses recycled, reclaimed, and non-toxic materials when building stores, and makes sustainable products. In addition, Roots is known for supporting numerous environmental organizations and related products.

As stated on its website, “Roots is an independently-owned Canadian company that is proud of its Canadian identity and


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heritage. It is forever thankful of the tremendous loyalty and support that Canadians have always demonstrated for Roots, making it one of the country’s most celebrated brands.”

Sources: Shaw, H. (2011). Sinking Roots in Canada. The Financial Post. Retrieved from http://business.financialpost.com/2011/06/10/sinking-roots-in-canada/; Sarner, R. (2011). Roots brings Canadian touch to Asia. Canada Newswire. Retrieved from http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/833897/roots-brings-canadian-touch-to-asia; http://canadaroots.com/.

ACTIVITIESTo assist with answering the questions for this case, please go to the Roots website at http://canadaroots.com/ as well as the above-mentioned sources, or search an online database for additional information.

1. Examine Roots’s Workplace Code of Conduct. Is this document an effective model for communication with Roots’s stakeholders? Why or why not?

2. How does Roots communicate effectively with its employees, suppliers, and customers? What types of information are available on the website that provide the aforementioned stakeholders with necessary information?

3. Read the “How We Do Business” letter found on the Roots website. In what ways does this letter explain the importance of the following aspects of Roots’ business communication?

a) Legal and ethical constraintsb) Diversity challengesc) Changing technologyd) Team environment


http://canadaroots.com/

http://canadaroots.com/

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/833897/roots-brings-canadian-touch-to-asia

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/833897/roots-brings-canadian-touch-to-asia

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/06/10/sinking-roots-in-canada/

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/06/10/sinking-roots-in-canada/

Documents

genuinetestbank.com · Web viewChapter 1. Establishing a Framework for . Business Communication. 1. Learning Objectives. Define communication and describe the value of communication