• Schedule & reading assignments
  • 1. 1/17/00 No class: Martin Luther King Holiday
  • 2. 1/24/00 Conversational coordination
  • 3. 1/31/00 Communication and coordination
  • 4. 2/7/00 Social relationships
  • 5. 2/14/00 Social relationships online
  • 6. 2/21/00 Group structure and communication
  • 7. 2/28/00 Self-presentationn
  • 8. 3/6/00 Ethological approaches to communication
  • 9. 3/13/00 Group pressure and social influence
  • 10. 3/20/00 Communication in management
  • 11. 4/3/00 Leadership.
  • 12. 4/10/00 Communication boundaries
  • 13. 4/17/00 Communication and interpersonal differences
  • 14. 4/24/00 Organizational culture
  • 15. 5/1/00 Student presentations

Got to current week's topic

A computer conference for this course is available at http://basic.fluid.cs.cmu.edu:8080/~ComSeminar

You can send anonymous feedback about the course by clicking here.Students

Class will be held in: PH A19A, Monday 1:30-4:20
Office hours: R. Kraut, NSH 3515, 8-7694 by appointment
robert.kraut@cmu.edu

People in groups and organizations spend most of their time there communicating. Technology is expanding their communication options and their communication community. This seminar will survey research and theory about communication within and between groups, and within organizations. We will include such topics as coordination in conversation, nonverbal communication, facework, the development of working relationships, managerial communication, group decision making, influence and persuasion, structural influences on communication, organizational culture, communication to manage the organizational environment, communication channels, and electronic communication.

The course is intended primarily for graduate students who seek exposure to diverse approaches to studying how individuals and groups communicate. A major goal is to provide the broad background in theory and method that would allow students to identify topics for their own research in group or organizational communication. Readings were selected for diversity in both theory and method. Homework assignments will get students to sample several data collection or analysis techniques

The course also will identify the ways that new technologies are shaping organizational communication and are being shaped by it. Our belief is that theoretical and empirical knowledge of how communication works should drive the design of these new technologies. In many ways electronic communication is an new domain, requiring fresh theoretical ideas and new methods. Thus, the study of new communication technology challenges traditional theories about communication. Students will be expected to propose and pretest a research project, with the aim of eventual publication. Students also will take will need to complete assigned homework and readings, and will be expected to participate fully in class discussions.

Prerequisites: Graduate status or permission of the instructors.

Schedule & reading assignments

 There will be copying and permissions charge for individual readings, listed below.

1. 1/17/00 No class: Martin Luther King Holiday

2. 1/24/00 Conversational coordination

• Chapanis, A. (1975). Interactive human communication. Scientific American , 232, 36-42.
• Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness, and structural design. Management Science, 35, 554-571.
• Krauss, R. M. & Fussell, S. R. (1990) Mutual knowledge and communicative effectiveness. In J. Galegher, R. Kraut, & C. Egido (Eds.), Intellectual teamwork: Social and technological bases of cooperative work. (pp. 111-145). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Clark, H. H. & Brennan, S. E. (1991). Grounding in communication. In L. B. Resnick, R. M. Levine, & S. D. Teasley (eds.). Perspectives on socially shared cognition. (Pp. 127-149). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Karsenty, Laurent (1999). Computerative work and shared visual context: An empirical study of comprehension problems and in side-by-side and remote help dialogues. Human-Computer Interaction, 14(3), 283-316.

Optional:
Clark, H. H.; Wilkes Gibbs, D. (1986). Referring as a collaborative process. Cognition;, 22(1) 1-39

3. 1/31/00 Communication, mental models and coordination

• Goodman, Paul & Leyden, Dennis (1991). Familiarity and group productivity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(4), 578-586
• Cannon-Bowers, J. A., Salas, E., & Converse, S. A. (1993). Shared mental models in expert decision-making teams. In N. J. Castellan, Jr. (Ed.), Current issues in individual and group decision making (pp. 221-246). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
• Liang, D., Moreland, R. & Argote, L. (1995). Group versus individual training and group performance: The mediating role of transactive memory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21
• Cramtom, C. D. (Under review). The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences in geographically dispersed teams. George Mason University School of Management.
• Fussell, S., Kraut, R., Lerch, J. & Espinosa, A. (Under review). Coordination in Teams: Evidence from Simulated Management Teams
  

Optional

• Hackman, J.R. (1987). The design of work teams (pp. 315-342). In J. Lorsch (Ed.), Handbook of organizational behavior , Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
  

4. 2/7/00 Social relationships

• Allan, Graham. (1979). A sociology of friendship and kinship. London: George Allen & Unwin. (Chapter 4, The nature of friendship and kinship, Pp. 30-46) & (Chapter 7, Sociability with kin, Pp. 92-116)
  or
• Fischer, Claude S. (1987). To dwell among friends: Personal networks in town and city. Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press. (Part III, The social context of personal relationships. Pp 79-122.)
• Wellman, B. and Wortley, S. (1990). Different strokes from different folks: Community ties and social support. American Journal of Sociology, 96(3), 558-588.
• Duck, S., Turr,D. J., Hurst, M., Strejc, H. (1991). Some evident truths about conversations in everyday relationships: All communications are not created equal. Human Communication Rsearch, 18(2), 228-267.
• Goldsmith, D., & Baxtyer, L. (1996). Constituting relationships in talk: A taxonomy of speech events in social and personal relationship. Human Communication Research, 23(1), 87-114
• Gabarro, J. J. (1987). The development of working relationships. In J. W. Lorsch (ed.), Handbook of organizational behavior, 172-189. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• McAllister, D. J. (1995), Affect-based and cognitiion-based trust as foundations for interpersonal cooperation in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 3824-59).

5. 2/14/00 Social relationships online

• Bayam, N. (1993). Interpreting soap operas and creating community: Inside a computer-meditated fan culture. Journal of Folklore Research, 30 (2/3), 143-176. Abridged version reprinted in S. Kiesler, (1997).Culture of the Internet, Mahwah: NJ: Erlbaum.
• Parks, M. R. & Floyd, K. (1996). Making friends in cyberspace. Journal of Communication, 46(1), 80-97. Also appearing concurrently on-line in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Available at http://jcmc.huji.ac.il/vol1/issue4/vol1no4.html
• Kraut, R. Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S, Mukophadhyay,T & Scherlis, W. (1998). Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist. 53 (9), 1017-1031.
• Iacono, C. S. & Weisband, S. (1997). Developing trust in virtual teams. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
• Wilson, J.M., Straus, S.G. & McEvily, W. (Under review). All in due time: The development of trust in electronic and face-to-face groups.
• Postmes, Tom; Spears, Russell; Lea, Martin (1998). Breaching or building social boundaries? SIDE-effects of computer-mediated communication. Communication Research, 25(6), 689-715.

Note: There are many interesting articles about electronic communication in the on-line Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication,: http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/jcmcindex.html. Also see Sproull, L. & Kiesler, S. (1991). Connections: New ways of working in networked organizations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

6. 2/21/00 Group structure and communication

• Leavitt, H. J. (1951). Some effects of certain communication patterns on group performance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46, 38-50.
• Moreland, R.L. (1985). Social categorization and the assimilation of "new" group members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1173-90.
• Linde, C. (1988). The quantitative study of communicative success: Politeness and accidents in aviation discourse. Language and Society, 17, 375-399.
• Carletta, J. Garrod, S. & Fraser-Krauss, H. (1998). Placement of authority and communication patterns in workplace groups. Small Group Research, 29(5), 531-559.
• Larson, J. R., Christensen, C., Abbott, A. S., & Franz, R. M. (1996). Diagnosing groups: Charting the flow of information in medical decision-making teams. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 315-330.

7. 2/28/00 Self-presentation

• Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction Ritual . Chapter 1: On Facework (pp. 7- 45). NY: Anchor.
• Word, C. H., Zanna, M.P. & Cooper, J. (1974). The nonverbal mediation of self-fulfilling prophecies in interracial interaction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 109-120.
• Barley, S. (1985). Semiotics and the study of occupational and organizational culture. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23, 393-413. Excerpts reprinted in P. Frost, L. F. Moore, M. R. Louis, C. C. Lundberg, & J. Martin. Reframing Organizational Culture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
• Sutton, R. I. (1991). Maintaining norms about expressed emotions: A case of bill collectors. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 245-268.
• Tracey, K. & Tracy, S. (1998). Rudeness at 911: Reconceptualizing face and face attack. Human Communication Research, 25(2), 225-251.

8. 3/6/00 Ethological approaches to communication

• Darwin, C. (1872/1965). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. New York: Appleton. (Selections)
• Hinde, R.. (1974). Human non-verbal communication (pp. 117-146). In Biological bases of human social behavior. NY: McGraw Hill.
• Buss. D. M. (1994). The strategies of human mating. American Scientist, 82, 238-249.
• Kraut, R. E. & Johnston, R. E. (1979). Social and emotional messages of smiling: An ethological approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1539-1553.
• Ridgeway, C.L., Reid, R.L. (1987). Nonverbal behavior, dominance, and the basis of status in task groups. American Sociological Review, 52, 683-694
  or
• Ridgeway Cl, Johnson C, Diekema D (1994). External Status, Legitimacy, And Compliance In Male And Female Groups. Social Forces, 72: (4) 1051-1077

9. 3/13/00 Group pressure and social influence

• Kipnis, David, Schmidt, Stuart, and Wilkinson, Ian. (1980). Intraorganizatinal influence tactics: Explorations in getting one's way. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 440-452.
• Katz, R. (1982). The effects of group longevity on project communication and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 27, 81-104.
  one's way. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 440-452.
• Cialdini, Robert B. (1993) Influence: Science and Practice , 3rd. Edition Paperback. NY: Harper Collins. (selections)
• Ouchi, W. G. (1980), Markets, bureaucracies, and clans, Administrative Science Quarterly, 25, 129-140.
• Colvaleski, M., Dirsmith, M. Heian, J. & Samuel, S. (1998). The calculated and the avowed: Techniques of discipline and struggles over identify in big six public accounting firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43, 293-327.

10. 3/20/00 Communication in management

• Mintzberg, H. (1973). Chapters 3 & 4 (pp. 28-99). In Mintzberg, H. The nature of managerial work. New York: Harper and Row.
• Reder, S. & Schwab, R. (1990). The temporal structure of cooperative activities (p. 303-316).Proceedings of the 1988 conference on computer-supported cooperative work. New York: ACM Press.
• Perlow, L. A. (1999). The time famine: Toward a sociology of work time. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 57-81
• D'Aveni, R., & MacMillan, I. C. (1990). Crisis and the content of managerial communications: A study of the focus of attention of top managers in surviving and failing firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 634-657.
• Smith, K. G., Smith, K. A., Olian, J. D., Sims, Jr., H. P., O'Bannon, D. P., & Scully, J. A. (1994). Top management team demography and process: The role of social integration and communication, Administrative Science Quarterly, 39, 412-435.

3/27/00 Spring break

11. 4/3/00 Leadership

• Fiedler, Fred (1964). A contingency model of leadership effectiveness. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 1. NY: Academic Press
• Kotter, John P. (1990). What leaders really do. Harvard Business Review. 103-111.
• Bass, B.M. (1988). Evolving perspectives on charismatic leadership. In J. A. Conger & R. N. Kanungo (Eds.), Charismatic leadership: The elusive factor in organizational effectiveness (pp. 40-77). San Franscisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Leavitt, Harold. J. (1996). The old days, hot groups, and manager's lib. Administrative Sience Quarterly, 41, 288-300.
• Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance, National Research Council. Research Enhancing Organizational Performance. (Developing Organizational Leaders, pp 97-119) Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997

11b. 4/3/00 Communication boundaries

• Allen, T. (1977). Managing the flow of technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chapter 8.
• Ancona, D. G. and D. F. Caldwell (1992), Bridging the boundary: External activity and performance in organizational teams. Administrative  Science Quarterly, 37, 634-665.
• Constant, D., Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S. (1996). The kindness of strangers: On the usefulness of weak ties for technical advice. Organization Science, 7, 119-135. Reprinted in S. Kiesler, Culture of the Internet, Mahwah: NJ: Erlbaum
• Hargadon, A. & Sutton, R. I. (1997). Technology brokering and innovation in a product development firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42, 716-749.
• Hansen, M. T. (1999). The search-transfer problem: The role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organization subunits. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 82-111.

12. 4/10/00 Interorganizational communication

• Coleman, J., Katz, E., & Menzel, H. (1957). The diffusion of an innovation among physicians. Sociometry, 20, 253-270.
• Burt, R. S. (1992). Social contagion and innovation: Cohesion versus structural equivalence. American Journal of Sociology, 92, 1287-1335
• Westphal, J. D., Gulati, R. & Shortell, S. M. (1997). Customization or conformity? An institutional and network perspective on the content and consequences of TQM adoption. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42, 366-394.
• Zucker, LG., Darby, M. R., Brewer, M. B. & Peng, Y. (1996). Collaboraiton structure and information dilemmas in diotechnology: Organizational boundaries as trust production. InT. M. Kramer & T. R. Tyler. Trust in Organizatons. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
  

13. 4/17/00 Communication and interpersonal differences

• Tannen, D. (1990). You Just Don't Understand. NY: Ballantine. (pp 48-95).
• Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S. (1991). Chapter 4. Electronic group dynamics (pp. 37-77). In L. Sproull and S. Kiesler, Connections: New ways of working in the networked organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Ancona, Deborah G.; Caldwell, David F. Demography and design: Predictors of new product team performance. Organization Science, Vol 3(3), Aug 1992, 321-341
• Pelled, L. H. & Eisenhardt, K. M. & Zin, K. R. (1999). Exploring the black box: An analysis of work group diversity, conflict, and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 1-28.
• Gruenfeld, D. H., Manniz, E. A., Williams, K. Y. & Neale, M. A. (1996). Group composition and decision making: How member familiarity and information distribution affect process and performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67(1), 1-15.

14. 4/24/00 Organizational culture

• Schien, E. H. (1985). The role of the founder in the creation of organizational culture. Excerpts from E. H. Schein. Organizational Culture. Chapter 9. Reprinted in P. Frost, L. F. Moore, M. R. Louis, C. C. Lundberg, &J. Martin. Reframing Organizational Culture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
• VanMadden, J. The smile factory (pp. 58-76). In Reprinted in P. Frost, L. F. Moore, M. R. Louis, C. C. Lundberg, & J. Martin. Van Maanen, J. & Schien, E.., (Eds.). Reframing Organizational Culture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. 1991.
• King, J. L., Grinter, R. E. & Pickering, J. M. (1997). The rise and fall of Netville: Institution, infrastructure, and the saga of a cyberspace construction boomtown in the Great Divide (pp. 3-33). In S. Kiesler (Ed.) Research Milestones on the Information Highway. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Martin, Joanne, Knopoff, K., & Beckman, C. (1998). An alternate approach to bureaucratic impersonality and emotional labor: Bounded emotionality at the Body Shop. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 429-469.
• Golden-Biddle, K. & Rao, H. (1997). Breaches in the boardroom: Organizational identity and conflicts of commitment in a nonprofit organization. Organizational Science, 8(6), 593-611.

15. 5/1/00 Student presentations