Browsing by Subject "Organizational Communication"

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    A case study of community response to a health crisis from a communication perspective
    (2016-11) Goodin, Lisann; Parrish-Sprowl, John
    The city of Austin is a small community in Southern Indiana that experienced a large HIV/AIDS outbreak which infected over 180 people. Due to rapid spread of the disease from shared needles during intravenous drug use, a public health emergency was declared in March 2015. This epidemic was a symptom of the overall communal health issues within the area related to drugs, crime, prostitution and poverty. These problems affect residents’ physical and mental health, however, often go unaddressed due to limited resources, healthcare and education. Organizations within the area were affected by the epidemic, and many provided a response to help combat the issue. The purpose of this study is to examine how organizations respond to a health crisis from a communication perspective. Research question one is, what was the level of coordination between the seven organizations during the HIV/AIDS epidemic? Research question two is, what was the public’s response to the effort made by the seven organizations? This study interviewed seven participants and a thematic analysis was conducted that discovered four themes: coordinated response, uncoordinated activities, response time, and inadequate response. In response to research question one, the levels of coordination were infrequent with the seven agencies. Research question two found multiple areas that indicated the agencies approach ineffective in adequately informing the public. The agencies’ efforts displayed a lack of coordination and poor timely response to the crisis. These issues show it is imperative that we develop a resilient health system to operate systemically. By implementing communication for whole health, it would provide a resilient system for agencies to understand and develop coordination and collaboration between each other. With a sense of coordination, they would then be able to execute ways of promoting and living out better physical and mental health (Parrish-Sprowl and Parrish-Sprowl, 2016).
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    Coping with organizational change: a multidimensional perspective
    (2011-03-10) Bussell, Stephen L.; Goering, Elizabeth M.; Parrish-Sprowl, John; Sandwina, Ronald M.
    This paper introduces a unified model for organizational change that is designed to help change analysts think through the decision-making process. Most organizational leaders do not manage change effectively because they fail to acquire the minimum amount of information necessary to make a sound decision. In large part, this deficiency is a result of considering only a small part of the organization’s total change reality, which can be expressed in terms of the following four categories: 1) Environment creates change, 2) Organization responds to environmental change, 3) Organization initiates new changes, and 4) Organization changes environment. Through the principle of diagnostic communication, leaders can adjust to the incoming changes [categories 1 and 2]. Through the principle of rhetorical communication, they can create effective outgoing changes [categories 3 and 4]. Through the principle of dialogical communication, they can achieve a strategic balance between too much conformity, which results from diagnostic communication in isolation, and too much non-conformity, which results from communication in isolation. By understanding and communicating about change from this multi-dimensional perspective, organizational leaders, both designated and non-designated, can learn to appreciate the extent to which they influence and are influenced by the larger cultural environment of which they are a part.