Note. This syllabus will be updated as the semester progresses. Updates are available at www.cs.cmu.edu/~kraut/orgcomm and will also be posted on the course announcement page on blackboard.

Student photographs

Course description

Most of management is communication. You communicate to get information that will be the basis of decisions, to provide a vision for the people who work for and with you, to coordinate activity, and to sell yourself and your work. The goal of this course is to identify communication challenges within work groups and organization and ways to overcome them. To do this requires that we know how communication normally works, what parts are difficult, and how to fix it when it goes wrong.

The focus of this course is on providing you with a broad understanding of the way communication operates within dyads, work groups, and organizations. The intent is to give you theoretical and empirical underpinnings for the communication you will undoubtedly participate in when you move to a work environment, and strategies for improving communication within your groups. Because technology is changing communication patterns and outcomes both in organizations and more broadly in society, the course examines these technological changes. Readings come primarily from the empirical research literature.

After completing this course you should be able to :

Better understand what makes communication within and between groups more or less effective.

Apply principles from research to make the groups you work in more effective.

Better evaluate claims about groups in terms of empirical evidence.

Apply data gathering and analysis techniques to diagnosing problems in workgroups.

Texts

Cialdini, Robert B. (2000) Influence: Science and practice (4rd Edition). Talman Co.

Snook, S. (2000). Friendly fire. Princeton NJ: University of Princeton Press.

Most articles are available as hyperlinks from the course syllabus. If there is an error, please let me know as soon as possible, so that I can correct the link. In addition, most are also available directly from the CMU Library's website. You will need to use the library's WevVPN service or CMU's Virtual Private Network.

1: go to the library web page (http://www.library.cmu.edu/

2: click on Cameo

3: click on the button on top marked course reserves.

4: Type in 88341 and click course

6: Click on "View" on any item you wish to access.

7: Click on the URL to download the PDF version of the article. 

Because the library will not have all the required articles available on e-reserve by the first day of class, some articles are contained in a stopgap website -- http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kraut/articles--until the library catches up. Articles are listed by first author's name and date.. This archive is password-protected. The userid and password will be distributed to registered students by email and is also available from the blackboard account associated with the course.

1. Aug 29: Course overview

• Richard Nixon and H.R. Haldeman. Watergate White House "Smoking Gun" tape

2. Aug 31: The social component in communication

A cooperative model of human communication proposes that speakers take into account what they expect their listeners to understand and update that information as they are speaking. Listeners have an obligation to indicate their state of knowledge and to cooperate with the speaker to produce an utterance.

Krauss, R. M. & Fussell, S. R. (1990). Mutual knowledge and communicative effectiveness. In J. Galegher & R. E. Kraut, et al. (Eds.), Intellectual teamwork: Social and technological foundations of cooperative work (pp. 111-145). Hillsdale, NJ, England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Clark, Herbert H. & Brennan, Susan 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.

3. Sept 5: The role of visual information in grounding

• Olson, G. M. & Olson, J. S. (2000). Distance matters. Human-Computer Interaction, 15(2-3), 139-178.
• Whittaker, S. & O'Conaill, B. (1997). The role of vision in face-to-face and mediated communication. In E. E. Finn, A. J. Sellen, & S. B. Wilbur. (Eds.) Video-mediated communication. (pp. 23-50) Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• You will use clips available at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kraut/articles/SVS-clips/ from the Kraut, Gergle and Fussell (2002) experiment, (see reference below), to formulate and test a hypothesis about the way people use a shared visual space to collaborate on a task. The table of contents for the CD is available here. The instructions for the assignment are here. The assignment is due Sept 12.
  
• Kraut, R. E., Gergle, D., & Fussell, S. R. (2002). The use of visual information in shared visual spaces: Informing the development of virtual co-presence. In Proceedings of the 2002 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (pp. 318-327). New York, NY: Association of Computing Machinery.

4. Sept 7: Catch-up session

5. Sept 12: Managerial communication

• Daft, R. & Lengel, R. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32(5), 554-571.
  
• Mintzberg, Henry (1990, March/April). The manager's job: Folklore and fact. Harvard Business Review, 68(2),163-176.

Technology and common ground assignment due.

6. Sept 14: Communication and time

• Perlow, L. A. (1999). The time famine: Toward a sociology of work time. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 57-81
• Dabbish, L., & Kraut, R. (2004). Controlling interruptions: Awareness displays and social motivation for coordination. CSCW'04: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work.

7. Sept 19: Catch-up session

8. Sept 21: Communication, familiarity and coordination

Having common beliefs and views of a situation should allow groups to communicate more efficiently. How does this work?

• Kanki, B. G. & Foushee, H. C. (1989). Communication as group process mediator of aircrew performance. Aviation, Space, & Environmental Medicine, 60(5), 402-410.
• Ginnett, R. (1990). Airline cockpit crew. In R. Hackman (Ed.). Groups that work (and those that don't). pp. 427-448. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass, 1990.
  Argote, L. (1999). Organizational learning. Boston: Kluwer. Chapter 3. Organizational Memory. pp. 67-98.
• 
  
• Optional:
• Goodman, P. & Leyden, D. (1991). Familiarity and group productivity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(4), 578-586

9. Sept 26: Diversity in groups (I)

Many analysts stress the value of having demographically and intellectually diverse work groups, for reasons of fairness and performance. What are the benefits and costs of diversity of work groups? Can we identify techniques for getting value from diversity, while minimizing some of its known costs?

• Ideo (http://www.ideo.com/) is arguably the best product design firm in the United States. We'll be examining the innovation process that Ideo uses, through the Hargadon & Sutton article below and through an ABC News video, The Deep Dive. Come to class familiar with Ideo and its products, and be prepared to describe how it institutionalizes creativity.
• Hargadon, A. & Sutton, R. Technology brokering and innovation in a product development firm. (1997). Administrative Science Quarterly, 42, 716-749.

10. Sept 28: Diversity in groups (II)

• Williams, K. & O'Reilly, C.A. (1998). Demography and diversity in organizations: A review of 40 years of research. Research in Organizational Behavior, 20, 77-140.
• Polzer, J, Varga, I, & Elfenbein (2003). Henry Tam and the MGI Team. Harvard Business School Case 9-404-068.

Note: Class will focus on discussing the Henry Tam case.

11. Sept Oct 3: Group identity through goal conflict

• Cialdini, Robert B. (2000) Influence: Science and practice (4rd Edition). Talman Co. pp. 154-161.
• Aronson, E. The jigsaw classroom: Interdependence in the classroom. http://www.jigsaw.org/
• Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Banker, B. S., Houlette, M., Johnson, K. M., & McGlynn, E. A. (2000). Reducing intergroup conflict: From superordinate goals to decategorization, recategorization, and mutual differentiation. Group Dynamics, 4(1), 98-114.

12. Oct 5: Managing conflict in groups

• Thompson, L. L. (2003). Making the team: A guide for managers (2nd ed.). Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.. Chapter 7: Conflict in teams.
  
• Barker, J. R. (1997). Disciplining a teammate. In B. D. Syher (Ed.), Case studies in organizational communication (Vol. 2, pp. 97-109). New York: Guildford Press.

13. Oct 10: Problems in distributed groups

• Hinds, P. J., & Bailey, D. E. (2003). Out of sight, out of sync: Understanding conflict in distributed teams. Organization Science, 14(6), 615-632.
  
• Cramton, C. D. (2001). The mutual knowledge problem and its consequences for dispersed collaboration. Organization Science Special Issue, 12(3), 346-371.
• Self-reflection on a group conflict due.

14. Oct 12: Successful distributed groups

• Argyres, Nicholas S. (1999). The impact of information technology on coordination: Evidence from the B-2 'Stealth' bomber. Organizational Science, 10(2), 162-180.
• Malhotra, Arvind, Majchrzak, Ann, Carman, Robert & Lott, Vern (2001). Radical innovation without collocation: A case study at Boeing-Rocketdyne. MIS Quarterly, 25(2).

15: Oct 17: Negotiation

• Cialdini, R. (1984). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Morrow: New York. Chapter 3: Reciprocal Concessions Pp. 36-56
• Fisher, Roger, Ury, Wiliam, & Paten, Bruce (1991). Geting to yes: Negotiating agrement without giving in. Penguin: New York. Chapters 1 & 2: Don’t Bargain over Positions and Seperate the People from the Problem.

16 Oct 19: Negotiation

• Thompson, Leigh (2005). The mind and heart of the negotiator (3rd edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hal. Chapter 9: Multiple Parties, Coalitions, and Teams

17.Oct 24: Social loafing

• Karau, S. & Williams, K. (1993) Social loafing: A meta-analytic review and theoretical integration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(4), 681-706.
• Thompson, L. L. (2003). Making the team: A guide for managers. Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. (pp. 29-36).

20. Oct 26: Self-presentation (I)

• Goffman, Erving (selections from Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1956) Self-presentation & Social life as drama.

21. Oct 31: Self-presentation (II)

• Ibarra, H. (1999). Provisional selves: Experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(Dec), 764-791.
  
• Gabarro, J. J. (1978). The development of trust, influence, and expectation. In A. G. Athos & J. J. Gabarro (Eds.), Interpersonal behavior: Communication and understanding in relationships (pp. 290-303). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hal

22. Nov 2: Organizational self-presentation

• Van Maanen, J. (1991). The smile factory: Work at Disneyland. In P. Frost, L. Moore, M. Luis, C. Lundberg, & J. Martin (Eds.), Reframing organizational culture (pp. 58-76). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. (also available here.)
  
• Sutton, R. I. (1991). Maintaining norms about expressed emotions: A case of bill collectors. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 245-268
• Barley, S. (1993). Codes of the dead: The semiotics of funeral work. Urban Life, 10(4), 54-61.

23. Nov 7: Attitudes and persuasion

• Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1977). Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. Psychological Bulletin, 84(5), 888-918. (excepts)
• Cialdini: Influence: Science and practice. Social Proof, pp. 94-135.

24. Nov 9: Persuasion and liking

• Cialdini, Robert B. (2000) Influence: Science and practice (4rd Edition). Talman Co. Chapter 5: Liking. 136-170.
• Lynn, M. (1996). Seven ways to increase your servers' tips. Cornell HRA Quarterly, 37(June), 24-29.
• Zajonc, R. B. (2001). Mere exposure: A gateway to the subliminal. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10(6), 224-226.
• Optional: Other Cialdini chapters: Reciprocity, Chapter 2; Consistency, Chapter 3; & Scarcity, Chapter 6. (Note: these will be very useful in writing your analysis of charity appeals.)
• Self-presentation assignment due

25 Nov 14: Persuasion and social pressure

• Cialdini, Robert B. (2000) Influence: Science and practice (4rd Edition). Talman Co. Authority. pp.171-193.
• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment

• Review some of the news and analysis about the Abu Ghraib prison abuses.
  • Washington Post photos
  • Schlesinger, James (Ed.) Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operation (2004, August)
  • Army investigation of the 800th Miltary Police Brigade
  • Fay, George (2004, Aug). Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade

18. Nov 16: Persuasion make-up

19. Nov 21: Friendly fire (I)

Snook's book Friendly Fire describes an incident following the war in the Persian Gulf when two US F-16 fighters shot down two US Blackhawk helicopters ferrying UN diplomats around the area, resulting in the death of 26 peacekeepers. In some sense, this incident represents a failure of communication, at multiple levels. We'll treat the book as a case study in the types of actions that can go wrong in communication within and between groups.

• Snook, S. (2000). Friendly fire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chapters 2-3, pp. 26-98.

Nov 24: Thanksgiving (No class)

26. Nov 28: Friendly fire (II)

• Snook, S. (2000). Friendly fire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chapters 4-6, pp. 98-201.
• optional: Leveson, N. G., Allen, P., & Storey, M.-A. (2002). The analysis of a friendly fire accident using a systems model of accidents. Paper presented at the International Conference of the System Safety Society, Denver, CO.
  

Charity appeals analysis n due.

27 Nov 30:  Friendly Fire (III)

• Debate on who is responsible for the breakdowns revealed in Friendly Fire. You will be assigned to defend one of the groups involved in the shootdown -- AWAC crew, F-15 pilots, Blackhawk crew, or senior management -- using ideas from theories and empirical articles covered in this class.

28. Dec 5: Social networks/Communication boundaries (I)

People are important sources for information and other resources. Interpersonal networking is important to gain these resources, but getting to new pockets of information is what is crucial.

• Allen, T. (1977). Managing the flow of technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 141-181. The technological gatekeepers.
• Krackhart, D. (1993, Jul/Aug). Informal networks: The company behind the chart. Harvard Business Review. 104-111.
• Swift, Sam (2003). Social Network Assignment for 88-341. Sam did a good network analysis of project teams in one CMU class a couple of years ago
• Resources: (Note: There will be no social network assignment due)

Download UCINet to do your own network analyses.

Handout giving the basics of social network analysis and how to use UCINet are available here.

Everton's Guide for the Visually Perplexed is a good introduction to visualizing social networks in UCINet.

29. Dec 7: Social networks and outcomes

• Cross, R & Cummings, J. (2004) Tie and network correlates of individual performance in knowledge intensive work Academy of Management Journal, 47(6), 928.
  
• Milgram, S. (1967). The small-world problem. Psychology Today, 1(1), 60-67.
  
• Milgram's small world experiments.

Final Exam: Thurs, Dec 14th, 5:30-8:30PM,