COMMUNICATION CLIMATE AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

In my view, this topic examines the relationships between climate, culture and organizational communication. Climate and culture are powerful forces affecting organizational communication. At the same time, daily routine communication behaviour affects what emerges as the organizational culture and climate. The climate of the organization is more crucial than are communication skills or techniques in creating an effective organization. The organization’s culture can determine, or at least affect, the nature of the climate. Redding identifies five characteristics of an ideal supportive climate which are ‘SCOPE’ -Supportiveness, Credibility, confidence and trust, Openness, Participatory decision making, and Emphasis on high performance goals. Organizational culture is an elusive concept. The culture of an organization is concerned with the belief and value system of that organization. Schein has identified several mechanisms that affect how culture is embedded in organizations which are formal statements of organizational philosophy, responses to crises, organizational structure, and focus of attention, storytelling and legends, design of physical spaces, deliberate coaching and modelling by leaders, also promotion and salary increment criteria. It is far easier to prescribe the ingredients for a supportive climate than it is to create the climate. Similarly, it is easy to identify desirable cultural traits of an organization and far more difficult to embed those traits in an organization. Assimilation theory explains how individuals within organizations are socialized and the role of communication in that socialization process. Credibility, leadership, and the extent of a human resource orientation, are important planks in the floorboard of an organization’s culture.