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Organizational Communication

A Critical Perspective

College of Charleston

Using a critical theoretical approach, this article analyzes conceptualizations of organizational communication failures. Perhaps because interpretations of communication failures have been dominated by a social psychological perspective, these reveal an unargued acceptance of communication failures as a consequence of hierarchical design with no alternatives presented or analyzed. This essay adapts the concept of communicative competence developed by Jurgen Habermas in a radically different way than most previous interpretations, certainly those most extant in public administration. As articulated here, the model of communicative competence suggests the need to confront organizational structure and consider more symmetrical relationships in order to enhance the possibilities of nondistorted organizational communication. Specifically, the model moves beyond the widely accepted factor of interpersonal trust as facilitating nondistorted communication and suggests a new way of viewing such research. Minimally, the model provides theoretical support for modern management theories that emphasize flatter organization structures, or nonhierarchical arrangements and those that focus on developing reciprocal relations between managers and subordinates.

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