Question

One of the functions of communication is to persuade others so that they want to the established goals.

1. Describe the potentials barriers in organizational communication.
2. Discuss the role of accounting textbooks as propaganda for supporting capitalism.

Answer 1

1. The potentials barriers in organizational communication.

There is a set of factors that could have negative implications in facilitation of organizational communication. These barriers include choice of the wrong communication medium, incorrect use of language, and wrong type of message, inappropriate appearance of message, use of jargon, emotional barriers, and physical disabilities.

1. Choice of Wrong Communication Medium:

The choice of wrong communication medium is one of the most common communication barriers. The choice of communication medium need to correspond to the nature of the message.

2. Incorrect Use of Language:

Incorrect use of language can also be specified as one of the major barriers to effective communication and this may relate to grammar, punctuation, spelling and a range of other issues.

3. Wrong Type of Message

Another significant barrier to communication may relate to inappropriate choice of the type of message. Complex instructions to employees need to be communication in written forms, whereas interpersonal and other conflicts are best resolved with oral communication.

4. Inappropriate Appearance of Message

Ineffective appearance of the message can also prove to be a communication barrier in organizational settings. Inappropriate appearance of the message is usually caused by its poor expression associated with readability, light print, omissions, ineffective sentence structure and others. Ineffective organization of ideas and poor choice of words in verbal communication can be specified as additional reasons of inappropriate message appearance.

5. Use of Jargon

A range of occasions and reasons when jargons are used may relate to communicating with individuals within the same industry, unthinking use of jargons, attempts to impress the receiver(s) of message, altering the attention of receiver from certain facts and truths and others. Attempts to distract the receiver from the lack of knowledge of the sender about the contents of the message and the willingness to ‘fit’ in a specific group can be reasons for the use of jargons in communications.

6. Emotional Barriers :

The role of emotional barriers in communication is often underestimated by organizational managers. Emotional barriers may relate to specific emotional attachment in relation to communication topic, the choice of communication medium, or the sender or receiver of communication.

Emotional barriers can come into the play independent from the contents of message as well in a way that receiver can interpret the message differently according to his or her psychological state.

Emotional barriers in management-employee communications can be difficult to address due to two major reasons. Firstly, the emergence of emotional barriers is closely associated with temperament and personal traits and characteristics of individuals. Therefore, effective elimination of emotional barriers requires in-depth study of personalities.

Secondly, occasions of emotional barriers in management-employee communications is often unnoticed by other individuals and higher level managers within the organization, thus the employee may suffer in silence for a significant period of time with significant detrimental impacts both personally and professionally.

7.      Physical Disabilities

Hearing problems and speech difficulties as the most common disability related issues that tend to create communication barriers.

The scope of the issue associated with physical disabilities as a communication barrier in organizational settings might increase in the future in a global scale due to the increasing focus on providing equal opportunities to disabled people as an important organizational policy.

The proportion of this specific type of barrier as compared to others is insignificant, yet the topic of physical disability keeps emerging as agenda of the day due to the pressure from various government and non-government organizations.

Some other organizational barriers are;

1. Organizational policies should be clear to avoid misinterpretations. Expressly stated policies are better understood than implicit policies. As implicit policies are subject to interpretation of behavior of top managers, people may be subjective in interpretation. Different people can draw different meaning of behavioral gestures which obstructs the effective flow of communication.

2. Strict rules and regulations make observance to these rules also rigid. People lose creativity in transmitting messages. Choice of channels, medium and dimension of communication can be against the willingness of people and, thus, stand in the way of effective communication.

3. Too many levels in the organizational hierarchy can delay processing of information. Information can be filtered, particularly in case of upward communication as negative information is generally not transmitted.

2. Role of accounting textbooks as propaganda for supporting capitalism.

Capitalism is an economic system in which all or most of the means of production and distribution, as land, factories, communications, and transportation systems, are privately owned and operated in a relatively competitive environment through the investment of capital to produce profits and it has been characterized by a tendency toward the concentration of wealth, the growth of large corporations, etc. that has led to economic inequality, which has been dealt with usually by increased government action and control the principles, methods, interests, power, influence, etc. of capitalists, especially of those with large holdings.

                    Capitalist economy which should be the opposite of the accounting features necessary for the planned and centralized economy. Contrary to the economic transition observed in other former European communist countries, the economic transition process in China and Vietnam is qualified as a gradual one. Because the Communist Party has kept their control in both countries and these former planned and centralized economies have only partially and progressively experimented market rules.            

                   As accounting reforms have taken place in the first stage of the transition, they can be considered as the prerequisite to the transformation of the economic system whereas other aspects of the economic life can remain unchanged at least temporarily. Therefore, accounting reforms will help us detect what we call the capitalist economy “accounting features”.