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沟通的重要性不在公共网络或私人企业需要重点（Shrivastava，2012:7）因为个人的沟通能力对个人和组织的有效性产生深远的影响，是不恰当的和不充分的通信会导致挫折和异化，对通信过程中的每一个元素的考虑是必要的组织（佩廷格，2010:150）。因此，以真实的案例在组织沟通效率分析是至关重要的，它可以帮助消除沟通障碍，强调良好的关系，提高工作质量。
因此，本文将首先说明沟通过程的简单模型，然后提供在三个不同的机构存在一个关于沟通障碍的讨论（伯纳德马休斯农场，NHS，地计算机），其次是评估的决议来解决这些问题。最后，得出结论是。
在通讯方面，它是一个过程，它可以被定义为“信息的传递和共同的理解从一个人到另一个过程”（卢嫩堡，：）。具体说来，这个定义包括以下要素：发送者、编码、信息、通道、解码、接收机噪声，反馈如图1由罗宾斯等人描绘。（2010:290）。The importance of communication does not need any emphasis in eitherpublic networking or private business (Shrivastava, 2012:7) because individuals’ communication skills have profound impact on personal and organisational effectiveness (Lunenburg, 2010:1).As inappropriate and inadequate communications can result in frustration and alienation, consideration of every element of communication process is necessary for organisations (Pettinger, 2010:150). Therefore, it is vital to analyse real cases about communication efficiency in organisation, which can assist in eliminating communication obstacles, underlining good relations, and enhancing work quality.
Therefore, this essay will first illustrate the model of communication process briefly, then providing a discussion about communication barriers existed in three different organisations (Bernard Matthews farms, NHS, and Redstart Computers), followed by an evaluation about resolutions to tackle these problems. Finally, aconclusion will be drawn.
In terms of communication, it is a process, which can be defined as “the process of transmitting information and common understanding from one person to another”(Lunenburg, 2010:1).To be specific, this definition involves following elements: the sender, encoding, the message, the channel, decoding, the receiver, noise, and feedback as depicted in Figure 1 by Robbins et al. (2010:290).
Source: Robbins et al. (2010:290)
Figure 1: The communication process
Any inadequacy or inappropriateness in this process can result in communication ineffectiveness or message misrepresentation, thus producing barriers in communication process (Shrivastava, 2012:8). Such communication barriers can be classified as process barriers, personal barriers, physical barriers, and semantic barriers (Waldstrom et al., 2011, cited by Antony and MacVicae, 2011:109) by their occurrences in different parts of the communication process. In addition, the communication process can be affected by physical, technical, cultural, power, gender and linguistic barriers (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010:210) As a result, decision makers in organisations should consider the factors in practice and address relevant communication barriers in order to ensure the organisation operate efficiently and effectively.
Bernard Matthews farms伯纳德马修斯农场 BernardMatthewsfarms, the largest turkey producer in UK, confronted a communication crisis which undermined both reputation and sales of the enterprise (sales decreased by 35% in UK). This crisis resulted from slow and inappropriate feedback towards inaccurate press coverage in 2005 and 2007， which are turkey classified as unhealthy food and Bernard Matthews’ importation of turkey related to the outbreak of bird flu respectively. In detail, this feedback barrier (one of process barrier) is derived by no timely and correct measures to sudden events. As a result, the company lost its credibility to media and trust to consumers (The Times 100, 2013).
In order to turn this situation around, relevant resolutions have been proposed: the company seeks to communicate with internal (employee, managers, directors, and owners or shareholders) and external stakeholders (consumers, government and regulatory bodies) to rebuild their trust and understand customers’ needs. Firstly, company considered following actions to cope with internal stakeholders. To be specific, to deal with the earlier negative press, which is direct noise in communication process, the company provides newsletter weekly to all employees and news on company’s intranet site to remind them about company’s business developments. These written communications, indicated by Robbins et al. (2009:293), can be more alert to message receivers (employees and staffs) thus they can understand and think more deeply and thoroughly. In addition, face-to-face meetings are in place to communicate directly with managers about progress and initiatives about the company.
Then, for its external stakeholders, in order to improve public awareness of the brand, which is the message received barrier, the company utilised advertising on television to emphasis its characteristics of its products (versatile, taste, and low-fat). Besides that, the company built up four websites targeted at different stakeholders. For example, a consumer site for introducing its product categories to all consumers and a Foodservice website for providing information for catering trade.Consequently, message sent to consumers can be well understood. In other words, message received barriers can be overcome.Besides indirect communications above, direct methods have been adopted. For instance, regular press released by the company and meeting with journalists for the purpose of ensuring media understand and report accurately.Furthermore, ‘celebrity status’ has been utilised in its campaign to convey its healthy food impression to consumers by non-verbal approach. In particular, face-to-face sampling has been distributed to customers directly. Pettinger (2010:160) suggests that non-verbal communications usually convey the real message in a stronger way compared with verbal communications. Several projects have been established to build the relationship with the local communities to build its responsible image to public. Consequently, this measure corrected consumers’ misconception that turkey was unhealthy food and re-established its brand reputation and sales revenue in the competitive market (turkey sales increased by 9% per year from then on).
National Health Service (NHS) in UK国民健康服务（NHS）英国 National Health Service (NHS), founded in 1948, provides comprehensive series of health services to public in UK.In 1994, Audit Commission and Officer for Public Management concluded that poor performance of NHS Trusts is mainly because of poor communication within a complex hierachicalmultifunctional organisation. The survey pointed out that only 35% of staff felt they understood the objective of the department or unit they worked.In addition, only 25% of respondents agreed that two-way communications (eg., face-to-face communications) was a key element of effective communication strategies (Hargieand Tourish, 1998:60) even though the form of communication is considered the best way of delivering new information. Instead of adopting effective communication channel, NHS applied one-way, top down communication strategy to send messages to staff and result in less involvement of these staff.In other words, this is a power barrier in communication. Consequently, there was a breakdown in the communication process as important information was ignored by staffie. a barrier between sender and receiver had been established with the receiver not encoding the information.
As a public organisation, which is not profit-seeking but providing services to public, measures taken to address communication problems are different in NHS. The most effective way to address the NHS is to conduct a communication audit approach (Hargieand Tourish, 1993, cited byHargieand Tourish, 1998:61).In this way the barrier within the communication process will be addressed. This approach was to overcome the feedback barrier to allow staff to comment and make suggestions about the internal communications.As a result, situation-specific attention can be raised (Hargieand Tourish, 1996, cited by Hargieand Tourish, 1998:62). Moreover, ambiguity about the objective, which is a message encoding barrier, should be overcome. Lloyd (1994:5) demonstrated that the most common target within an organisation was to keep employees informed about important developments about the organisation and express their opinions in order to contributing to final decisions, i.e, quicker top down communication. Multiple approaches can assist to get this goal achieved. For instance, in order to overcome message-encoding barriers, leaflets and brochures about objectives of NHS can be distributed to employees as verbal communications can be more specifically focused (keytonet al., 2013:153).Long-term communication channels need to be built to accept further feedback from employees to clean channel barriers between senders and receivers.
Redstart Computers计算机鸫 Redstart Computers, located in England, is a multinational computer manufacturer and supplier with 1500 staff in US and Europe (Mullins, 2007: 682).As a technology company, Redstart Computers relied more on technology than other mass production companies.The internal communication is based on an intranet implementation, which designed to share information and knowledge within an organisation by allowing employers to link to employees and employees connect each other(Zeidner, 2005:99). For example, departmental homepage, individual homepage etc., thus allowing both vertical and horizontal communication channels.#p#分页标题#e#
Although the intranet is a modern and popular way for communicating within a high technology organisation, ineffectiveness existed in Redstart Computers does provide barriers. According to an interview, one secretary pointed out that emails were received and sent still in a personal way rather than be posted on the web page for sharing. This is technical barrier as not everyone knew how to post information in a proper way on intranet.The “Intranet Best Practices” are not well explained to the employees thus they actually did not know how to use the intranet properly. Others stated that they didn't find any contribution the intranet brought to them.This is a semantic barrier as the understanding and interpretations towards intranet and its functions are not fully understood and communicated in the process (Waldstromet al., 2011, cited by Antony and MacVicae, 2011:109).To be specific, written method of communicating (manual “Intranet Best Practices”) is a one-way communication process as no feedbackie. a feedback barrier exists can be gathered immediately, which is more likely to trigger flaws and misunderstanding in daily operations.
There are twoapproaches to tackle this problem: firstly, Redstart Computers shall make employees aware of the usefulness of the intranet to a multinational technology company because mass of information need to be shared and communicated in a timely basis. In this way, barriers in message decoding have been addressed.For example, as one line managers stated, readily available information on the functional and departmental home pages make it clear to understand (Mullins, 2007: 682). Thus, process barriers between senders and receivers were removed as clear message was transmitted between them. Moreover, direct face-to-face communication towards the content of the manual seems to provide an opportunity to learners (employees) to ask questions about what they cannot figure out. Hanke (2009:25) stated that it is important to check listeners and learners’ feedbacks about message conveyed, which can be monitored by asking if they have any questions, which can reduce process barriers as feedback systems were introduced to verify the correct transmission of the message encoded by the receiver.This method usually has positive consequence, avoids misinterpretation effectively, and establishes a stronger relationship.In addition, technical barriers were removed as staff were well understood how to use intranet in an appropriate and efficient method.
In conclusion, this essay has implemented three cases to identify various communication barriers in different types of organisations and proposed relevant solutions to address the barriers to achieve effective communication process. It is worth noting that ways of communications should be consistent with the objective of the organisations. For example, Bernard Matthews farm and Redstart Computers are private companies which are intended to profit-making and customer satisfaction while NHS is social networking which targeted at cost-controlling and providing services to public. However, it is widely acknowledged that effective communication process is a key factor to success for an organisation. Thus, timely response to communications barriers should be prioritised. As technology developed, new communication barriers and equipment will emerge. Consequently, new challenges and opportunities exist at the same time and organisations should seek more effective communication approaches to better future development and success.
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