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Organizational Information Theory
Organizational Information Theory (OIT) is a communication theory, developed by Karl Weick, offering systemic insight into the processing and exchange of information within organizations and among its members. Unlike the past structure-centered theory, OIT focuses on the process of organizing in dynamic, information-rich environments. Given that, it contends that the main activity of organizations is the process of making sense of equivocal information. Organizational members are instrumental to reduce equivocality and achieve sensemaking through some strategies — enactment, selection, and retention of information. With a framework that is interdisciplinary in nature, organizational information theory's desire to eliminate both ambiguity and complexity from workplace messaging builds upon earlier findings from general systems theory and phenomenology. Inspiration and influence of pre-existing theories 1. General Systems Theory The General Systems Theory, on its most basic prem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communication Theory
Communication theory is a proposed description of communication phenomena, the relationships among them, a storyline describing these relationships, and an argument for these three elements. Communication theory provides a way of talking about and analyzing key events, processes, and commitments that together form communication. Theory can be seen as a way to map the world and make it navigable; communication theory gives us tools to answer empirical, conceptual, or practical communication questions. Communication is defined in both commonsense and specialized ways. Communication theory emphasizes its symbolic and social process aspects as seen from two perspectives—as exchange of information (the transmission perspective), and as work done to connect and thus enable that exchange (the ritual perspective). Sociolinguistic research in the 1950s and 1960s demonstrated that the level to which people change their formality of their language depending on the social context that the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Communication
Health communication is the study and practice of communicating promotional health information, such as in public health campaigns, health education, and between doctor and patient. The purpose of disseminating health information is to influence personal health choices by improving health literacy. Health communication is a unique niche in healthcare that allows professionals to use communication strategies to inform and influence decisions and actions of the public to improve health. Because effective health communication must be tailored for the audience and the situation, research into health communication seeks to refine communication strategies to inform people about ways to enhance health or to avoid specific health risks. Academically, health communication is a discipline within communication studies. Health communication may variously seek to: * increase audience knowledge and awareness of a health issue * influence behaviors and attitudes toward a health issue * demonstr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mechanism (sociology)
The term social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations of social phenomena originate from the philosophy of science. The core thinking behind the mechanism approach has been expressed as follows by Elster (1989: 3-4): “To explain an event is to give an account of why it happened. Usually… this takes the form of citing an earlier event as the cause of the event we want to explain…. utto cite the cause is not enough: the causal mechanism must also be provided, or at least suggested.” Existing definitions differ a great deal from one another, but underlying them all is an emphasis on making intelligible the regularities being observed by specifying in detail how they were brought about. The currently most satisfactory discussion of the mechanism concept is found in Machamer, Darden and Craver (2000). Following them, mechanisms can be said to consist of entities (with their properties) and the activities that these entities engage in, either by themselves or in concert w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cultural Cognition
The cultural cognition of risk, sometimes called simply cultural cognition, is the hypothesized tendency to perceive risks and related facts in relation to personal values. Research examining this phenomenon draws on a variety of social science disciplines including psychology, anthropology, political science, sociology, and communications. The stated objectives of this research are both to understand how values shape political conflict over facts (like whether climate change exists, whether gun control increases crime, whether vaccination of school girls for HPV threatens their health) and to promote effective deliberative strategies for resolving such conflicts consistent with sound empirical data. Theory and evidence The ''cultural cognition hypothesis'' holds that individuals are motivated by a variety of psychological processes to form beliefs about putatively dangerous activities that match their cultural evaluations of them. Persons who subscribe to relatively individualisti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institutional Theory
In sociology and organizational studies, institutional theory is a theory on the deeper and more resilient aspects of social structure. It considers the processes by which structures, including schemes, rules, norms, and routines, become established as authoritative guidelines for social behavior. Different components of institutional theory explain how these elements are created, diffused, adopted, and adapted over space and time; and how they fall into decline and disuse. Overview In defining institutions, according to William Richard Scott (1995, 235), there is "no single and universally agreed definition of an 'institution' in the institutional school of thought." Scott (1995:33, 2001:48) asserts that: According to Scott (2008), institutional theory is "a widely accepted theoretical posture that emphasizes productivity, ethics, and legitimacy." Researchers building on this perspective emphasize that a key insight of institutional theory is ethics: rather than necessarily o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Conflict
Social conflict is the Conflict (process), struggle for Agency (sociology), agency or Power (sociology), power in society. Social conflict occurs when two or more people oppose each other in social interaction, and each exerts social power with reciprocity in an effort to achieve incompatible goals but prevent the other from attaining their own. It is a social relationship in which action is intentionally oriented to carry out the actor's own will despite the resistance of others. Conflict theory Conflict theory emphasizes interests, rather than norm (sociology), norms and values, in conflict. The pursuit of interests generates various types of conflict, which is thus seen as a normal aspect of social life, rather than an abnormal occurrence. Competition over resources is often the cause of conflict. The theory has three tenets: * Society is composed of different groups, which compete for resources. * Society, Societies may portray a sense of co-operation, but there is a contin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Command Hierarchy
A command hierarchy is a group of people who carry out orders based on others' authority within the group. It can be viewed as part of a power structure, in which it is usually seen as the most vulnerable and also the most powerful part. Military chain of command In a military context, the chain of command is the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed within a military unit and between different units. In simpler terms, the chain of command is the succession of leaders through which command is exercised and executed. Orders are transmitted down the chain of command, from a responsible superior, such as a commissioned officer, to lower-ranked subordinate(s) who either execute the order personally or transmit it down the chain as appropriate, until it is received by those expected to execute it. "Command is exercised by virtue of office and the special assignment of members of the Armed Forces holding military rank who are eligible to exercise command ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institutionalisation
In sociology, institutionalisation (or institutionalization) is the process of embedding some conception (for example a belief, norm, social role, particular value or mode of behavior) within an organization, social system, or society as a whole. The term may also be used to refer to committing a particular individual or group to an institution, such as a mental or welfare institution. The term may also be used in a political sense to apply to the creation or organization of governmental institutions or particular bodies responsible for overseeing or implementing policy, for example in welfare or development. During the period of the industrial revolution in Europe many countries went through a period of "institutionalization", which saw a large expansion and development of the role of government within society, particularly into areas seen previously as the private sphere. Institutionalization is also seen as an important part of the process of modernization in developing count ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared with other types of figurative language, such as antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the "All the world's a stage" monologue from '' As You Like It'': All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts, His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant... :—William Shakespeare, '' As You Like It'', 2/7 This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, and most humans are not literally actors and actresses playing roles. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conflict Management
Conflict management is the process of limiting the negative aspects of conflict while increasing the positive aspects of conflict. The aim of conflict management is to enhance learning and group outcomes, including effectiveness or performance in an organizational setting. Properly managed conflict can improve group outcomes. Conflict resolution Conflict resolution involves the process of the reducing, eliminating, or terminating of all forms and types of conflict. Five styles for conflict management, as identified by Thomas and Kilmann, are: competing, compromising, collaborating, avoiding, and accommodating. Businesses can benefit from appropriate types and levels of conflict. That is the aim of conflict management, and not the aim of conflict rejection. Conflict management does not imply conflict resolution. Conflict management minimizes the negative outcomes of conflict and promotes the positive outcomes of conflict with the goal of improving learning in an organization.Rah ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microblogging
Microblogging is a form of social network that permits only short posts. They "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links",. Retrieved June 5, 2014 which may be the major reason for their popularity. These small messages are sometimes called ''micro posts''. As with traditional blogging, users post about topics ranging from the simple, such as "what I'm doing right now," to the thematic, such as "sports cars." Commercial microblogs also exist to promote websites, services, and products and to promote collaboration within an organization. Some microblogging services offer privacy settings, which allow users to control who can read their microblogs or alternative ways of publishing entries besides the web-based interface. These may include text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, digital audio, or digital video. Origin The first micro-blogs were known as ''tumblelogs''. The term was coined by why the lucky stiff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
