Organizational Communication, Discipline of

Organizational communication is a subfield of the larger discipline of communication studies. Organizational communication is the consideration, analysis, and criticism of the role of communication in organizational contexts. It is a major component of effective management in a workplace environment and provides crucial insight into the [Page 1087]activities, processes, relationships, and structures of both individuals and the collective group operating in an organization. Organizational communication, as a discipline, examines all types of institutions in which “work” gets done, including nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations, corporations, blue-collar industries, and so on.

Charles Redding is often credited as being the “father of organizational communication,” having led the charge in developing it into a distinct discipline at universities in the early 1950s. In this postwar era, managers, academics, and military officials ...