The Culture Of An Organisation Based Of Utterances And Responses (Thesis Proposal Sample)

Chapter I. Introduction
Background of the Study
An organization is “a stable system of individuals who work common together to achieve, through a hierarchy of ranks and division of labor, common goals” (Hanson, 1991). Expounded, within an organization there is a variety of individuals which possess different backgrounds and personalities. These personalities might mesh or contradict each other depending on situations within the organization. However, these individuals need to function as one in order to achieve a common goal.
In an organization, exists a hierarchy of ranks that tends to make individuals within the agency to distort information upward to please their superiors. This is called the vertical communication as explained by Hanson, most types of organizations, including advertising agencies, information varies as it goes up and down. As the information line goes up, the employees of the organization encounters “directives” such as policies, job requirements, and mandatory chores. As the information line goes up, the employees will encounter “feedback-type” information such as reports, liquidation of assets, and evaluations (Hanson, 1991). This is called the upward communication. As summarized by Krinovos, upward communication flows from top to bottom where the bottom favors the ones on the top. Subordinates are more than willing to serve their superiors as they become cautious and conscious of how they work and how their superiors will respond leading them to serve their superiors to acquire their desired response (Hanson, 1991).
As the members of an organization communicate, it is unavoidable that they produce utterances. As they speak with each other, each members of the organization can interpret these utterances differently. According to Wittgenstein, utterances are speeches that do not only convey a designated meaning; they are also “forms of action designed to get things done.” (Littlejohn et al, 2009).
Red Chair Advertising (RCA) is an advertising agency, which is an organization. This agency also has members or employees that work together to achieve a common goal, in the agency’s case to get clients avail the agency’s services. Hierarchy is also present in the agency as it consists of job positions from managing director to company driver, which also has their own way of treating other employees depending on their position within the company.
Statement of the Problem
General:
This research will be attempting to find evidences of hierarchy being an influence towards the attitude and interaction of the employees of Red Chair Advertising. More specifically the study aims to answer the following questions:
1 What kind of hierarchy does RCA have?
2 How does this hierarchy influence the utterances of RCA’s employees?
3 How does this hierarchy influence the responses of RCA’s employees to the utterances?
Significance of the study
Red Chair Advertising consists of employees who interact with each other every workday. As they work, they tend to interact to request for each other’s help, to talk as friends, and to express themselves. When they interact, utterances will be present and reactions and responses will follow. This study will aim to observe the daily interactions of the individuals inside the agency and determine their utterances and response to utterances based on who utters and who responds. In this manner, the study will be able to determine how hierarchy influences utterances within an organization.
Objectives of the Study
General objective: To identify the hierarchy within the advertising agency and analyze how it influences the employees’ utterances and responses.
Specific objectives:
* To identify the positions within the agency
* To determine the utterances of the employees based on their position within the agency
* To determine the response of the employees to utterances based on their position within the agency
Scope and Delimitations
This study will be conducted anytime between January 2018 and May 2018. It will be limited inside the office of the Red Chair Advertising. Fieldworks, company outings, and travel from and to the office will not be included. The study will be conducted for four (4) consecutive Mondays and during working holidays. The duration of how long the research will be conducted within a single day will only be limited to office hours of 9:00 am until 6:00 pm. Lunchtime will be included. The subjects of this research will only be limited to employees of the agency. Clients, applicants, former employees, and daily hired contracts will be excluded.
Chapter II.Research Frameworks
Review of Related Literature
Organization
An organization is formed when two or more people work together to achieve a group result (Montana & Charnov, 1993). Defined in the dictionary, an organization is (1) the act of organizing or the state of being organized; (2) an organized structure or
whole; (3) a business or administrative concern united and constructed for a particular end (4) a body of administrative officials, as of a political party, a government department, etc. In a general business level of definition, an organization is “a Body of individuals working under a defined system of rules, assignments procedures, and relationships designed to achieve identifiable objectives and goals” (Greenwald 2008 as cited in An Introduction to Organizational Communication, 2017). In an organization individuals are assigned to perform specific tasks, which leads to the achievement of the organization’s goal. When individuals of an organization are grouped together and are given a division of specific labor, this is a process called departmentalization (Montana & Charnov, 1993).
According to Montana and Charnov (1993) departmentalization is “grouping related functions into manageable units to achieve the objectives of the enterprise in the most efficient and effective manner.” Each group has its own function where in individuals were assigned in these due to their capabilities assessed to be helpful in their specific departments. In a case study of six different situations compiled by Chartered Power of Institute and Development (2011) different individuals from different organizations, offices, and departments were grouped together and were challenged to accomplish specific tasks. Two of these cases were directly related to an individual’s fitness to an organization.
The first one group was Arts Council England (ACE), a group established in 1946. ACE was formed to get great art works to everyone by championing, developing, and investing in artistic experiences that enrich people’s lives. In 2003 however, nine different regional and independent arts board each with their own departments were merged together. The challenge was to create a new organization after being asked by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to find a 15% savings in their budget. Clear organizational challenges were difficulty in decision-makings, poor communication between newly created offices and regions, inconsistent processes, and the arising of solo mentalities. Overall connectivity was poor. In the newly established organization, newly assigned individuals found difficulty in functioning in their assigned tasks, as it was not in their field of expertise. As in the result of the pulse survey that the organization conducts, less than 70% of the organization understood what they needed to make the new organization function.
The second case was about the London Borough of Barnet Housing Department. In 2008, Pam Wharfe joined the council as the new Assistant Director of Housing and Environmental Health. At the same time, the organization launched “Future Shape”, which was an organization-wide, community involved initiative that focuses on how the council can continue to provide high-quality and joined-up services. Pam Wharfe brought with her considerable experience and brought about three months of sessions and discussions of how housing services must be delivered. Within the span of the time span of the sessions and discussions conducted, many staff expressed frustration on Wharfe that she does neither listen nor tend to consider their views on how to improve services.
These two cases show that there is an obvious existence of problems when assigning people to a department of an organization where they cannot function efficiently. In the first study, the emergence of “solo mentalities” provides the existence of doing the thing their own way in which they see the organization will need to succeed on achieving their set goal. “Who will lead the organization” was clearly an issue between the individual groups. In the second case, Pam Wharfe exercised an act of having a one word in which what she says is the correct and the only right option to improve their housing services. In both cases, seemingly, it is not power that was being exerted by the issues that the organization presents. It is well within the structure in the positions of the organization.
Hierarchy
Hierarchy means “control of the higher over the lower” (Chikasa and Marume, 2016). Similar as how the term is defined in the dictionary, it is “a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.” Hierarchy is present in all organizations as stated in the definition of an organization; an organization is a body of individuals defined by system of rules and assignments. As per Gladden (Cited by Chikasa and Marume, 2016) both in the simple unit organization and the complex large-scale organization where division of labor exists, demonstrates the existence of hierarchy because this means that individuals ar...