Communication within organizations is characterized by its multifunctional nature, which responds to different reasons both internally and externally. In times when value creation is one of the business objectives and work is characterized by the ability to transmit and receive information, as well as the language skills of employees, a shift from material production to immaterial.
For this reason, it can be considered that communication has become part of production. All in all, it is convenient to reflect on this relationship and on how the proper functions of communication and those of production are adjusted.
Communication and production
Fordist production, which takes its name from the Ford factory, is the characteristic production model of the industrial phase.
Broadly speaking, Fordism was based, on the consumption level, on the articulation of large audiences, and on the production level, mass production was also sought, since it was based on the relationship between supply and demand, according to the As a product increased or decreased its price if the supply was lower or higher than the demand. To this double production-consumption dimension, it is worth adding the decided intervention of the State in the economic sphere, through the so-called Welfare State.
The characteristic place of production was the factory and the relations within the company were clearly delimited and hierarchical, with the worker undertaking a series of mechanical tasks.
Communication acquires in this context a secondary and purely functional value, so that "communication problems are of little importance, although it is necessary to ensure that subordinates receive orders from superiors clearly and without interference." It is, in short, a highly hierarchical vertical model, where information flows unidirectionally.
Postfordist society involves a substantial change in the mode of production, which affects communication. Factors such as knowledge and information, Lash and Urry affirm, have become central questions that contribute to constitute a new type of accumulation, reflective accumulation.
In this sense, on the production level, non-material production predominates and communicational structures are developed -in the interior and in the final products- that allow adaptation to rapid changes; while, on the consumption level, individualization becomes the central axis, which implies a proliferation of styles associated with differentiation.
According to Christian Marazzi, we can highlight three features within the new post-Fordist model:
- flexible production (learn production): the objective is to reduce labor costs, considered excessive within the competitive and globalized context. outsourcing: entire productive segments are outsourced in order to lower social costs. production in real time (just on time): to avoid the accumulation of excessive stocks of stocks, internal work is organized in a flexible way.
The difficulty of scheduling production increases as market dependency increases. In this way, dependence on demand increases and production, as well as the identification and differentiation of organizations, tries to adapt to changes in demand.
The requirement of this adaptation and greater flexibility makes communication become part of production.
Likewise, the relationships between the people who make up any type of organization are fundamentally communicative.
Communication, as conceived by the Systematic School, begins to acquire an internal dimension, by having to contribute to the internal stability of the organization, and external, by having to adapt to the context. Both dimensions must be interrelated.
Communication as part of the production process contributes to the flow of information and the effective adaptation to the environment. Employees thus become linguistic machines, basing their work on the linguistic-communicative modulation of cooperation within and outside the organization and on the relevant role of intellectual capital and communication flows.
The functions of communication
Hardt and Negri distinguish two main forms of immaterial work:
- primarily intellectual or linguistic work, such as problem solving, symbolic and analytical tasks, and linguistic expressions, and affective work, which produces or manipulates affects such as feelings of well-being, satisfaction, excitement, or passion.
Linguistic work is clearly supported by communication, but so is the affective, by transmitting the affections, helping to create a sense of community, integrating its employees, creating trust in its audiences, etc.
This double linguistic-affective dimension runs through the production process through internal and external communication. To confirm the implications of this statement, it is convenient to list the functions that communication plays in the organization.
External communication serves to project the corporate identity of the organization, so that there is a correspondence and an adequacy between the projected identity and the image perceived by the recipients.
Communication generates value and trust in so-called interest groups or stakeholders, to whom the organization acquires responsibility and creates a common framework of understanding that favors the relevance of communication.
In the internal field of communication, as Robbins points out, four main functions can be distinguished:
- inform: provide the necessary data execute the plans and control their results: thus achieve the goals of the organization motivate the staff: through feedback and reinforcement of psychological needs express feelings and emotions, as a source of social integration of the employee and satisfaction of inclusion and relevance needs.
While the first two functions of internal communication have an instrumental role -as it happens with the function of projecting corporate identity- the last two functions –in parallel with the communicative responsibility towards stakeholders- carry an immaterial, affective dimension, that appeals to psychological factors and social cooperation.
Consequently, it is necessary to differentiate more clearly the instrumental and communicative actions, based on the objective pursued with such actions.
Instrumental action and communicative action
In Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action, the idea prevails that mutual understanding between interlocutors is the basis of communication.
Habermas denounces the conception of rationality dominant in Western societies, because, for example, a large part of the theories that grant the individual the ability to act and decide rationally makes the choice depend on the greater or lesser number of benefits that the individual expects. get.
It is an instrumental rationality, which only pursues the achievement of an end. In the case of organizations, the instrumental reason would mean increasing performance, which would become the only objective.
Contrary to this reductionist use of rationality, the German philosopher suggests a communicative rationality. Unlike the merely instrumental, communicative rationality leaves the individual sphere and places the focus of action on cooperation between subjects.
The actors, moved by the communicative action, do not pursue the achievement of a selfish end but they aspire to coordinate through acts of understanding. In other words, actions can be oriented towards success, according to instrumental logic, or towards communication, according to communicative logic.
The question that we are interested in asking regarding this terminology revolves around the relationship between production and communication. In principle, it seems logical that an organization tries to increase its productivity and is guided by instrumental action - greater or lesser depending on the acceptance of its social responsibility. However, if communication –whose concept of rationality is based on understanding– is currently part of production, how does this phenomenon affect the relationship between instrumental and communicative actions?
According to Marazzi, there has been a short circuit between instrumental action and communicative action, since it is difficult to find "a level of supra-individual mediation, a plane in which to consolidate lasting commitments and consensus."
It is not only that communication is reduced to transmitting messages and ensuring that the recipients have assimilated them, as Rojas (155) maintains, but, once the productive objective to be achieved has been decided, the ends and the means to achieve it they can be modified on the fly. Communication, as part of production, assumes the same instrumental mechanisms aimed at achieving profit.
Faced with the general agreement of communication models on aspects such as that the sender encodes a message or that the message starts from the sender's intention, considering communication from post-Fordist organizations inverts this model. And not only because the issuer has to adapt or self-regulate its text depending on the context or the receiver, but also because the purpose of communication is to better link production to market fluctuations.
The just-in-time circulation of information privileges the role of communication so that the producer -or communicating organization- receives just-in-time information about the recipient's tastes or interests.
The sphere of reception, through communication, has the ability to modify the message before it is broadcast or, in fact, the message is produced at the same time that the sender receives information about the consumer's intent. The communication must be relevant, that is, the receiver must consider that the information issued is relevant and process it accordingly.
The following figure shows the inclusion of communicative action within instrumental action in organizations:
Communication satisfaction
Communication loses its social function and vital aspects such as mutual understanding, sense of relevance, individual satisfaction through participation and integration, etc. they are subject to the instrumental function.
External communication creates value and trust with stakeholders, but in order to increase performance - productivity - without increasing the amount of goods produced - instead giving rise to an immaterial accumulation. Internal communication aims, above all, to make productivity effective: “if there is excellent communication with which an employee does not feel relegated or discriminated, but on the contrary, who feels an integral and important part of a company, their satisfaction will be reflected successful for the entire organization. ”
The satisfaction of the individual is achieved through communication, which guarantees their integration and increases their motivation. However, organizations exploit this communication function, since employee satisfaction must be guaranteed to achieve the organization's success.
Planning and communication strategies respond equally to the success of the organization, when, in fact, as Forester indicates, planning should be considered as a shaper of attention - communicative action - and not only as a mere orientation towards a particular purpose - instrumental action.
Only in this way can we understand that communication is part of the post-Fordist mode of production, helping to modify its objectives, and not, as is currently the case, that communication can be absorbed by the instrumental logic of production. In this dilemma, it is up to organizations, as a socially responsible actor, to assume the dialogical, comprehensive and understanding-oriented dimension inherent in communicative action.
Lipietz, Alain (1992): Towards a New Economic Order. Postfordism, Ecology and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 11-13.
Lucas Marín, Antonio (1997): Communication in the company and in organizations. Barcelona: Bosch, p. 64.
Marazzi, Christian (2003): The site of the socks. The linguistic turn of the economy and its effects on politics, Madrid: Akal.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri (2004): Multitud. War and democracy in the Empire era. Debate: Madrid, pp. 136-137.
Aguirre, Alfredo A. et alii (1999): Organization administration. Fundamentals and applications. Pyramid: Madrid.
Habermas, Jürgen (1987): Theory of communicative action. I.- Rationality of action and social rationality: Taurus: Madrid.
Marazzi, Christian (2003): Op. Cit., P. 29.
Rojas, Eduardo (1999): "The theory of communicative action applied to the organization of work", in The worker knowledge and innovation in the company: skills and job qualifications. Montevideo: CITERFOR, pp. 151-178.
Salinas, Óscar Javier (2004) Organize communication successfully, a challenge for companies in the new century, at www.gestipolis.com/canales/derrrh/articulos.
Alvesson, Mats, and Hugh Willmott (1996): Making Sense of Management. A Critical Introduction. London: SAGE, p. 191.
