The earliest models process of business communication described and presented communication as passing information or messages from the sender to the receiver within the business environment.
This model is linear because somebody is a permanent sender and another a permanent receiver of messages. Where this obtains, communication is autocratic without an opportunity for feedback or transaction between and among people in a relationship.
If this happens in a business organization, meaningful exchange of ideas, messages or information will not happen, and communication will be reduced to commands, decrees and official communication from the superior to the subordinate or from the subordinate to the superior without any opportunity for personal interpretation and understanding of the messages. This is not a very good model to be adopted by an organization.
If one cannot receive feedback regarding one’s communication, there exists no opportunity for finding out if messages are correctly received and interpreted. This can create conflict and help rumour to thrive in an organization. Both the internal and external stakeholders of an organization are expected to share information and by becoming creators and receptors of messages (transceivers). When they do, all stakeholders have the opportunity to send and receive messages and create meanings.
Therefore, the process of business communication is expected to be a transaction and a process where all internal and external participants have practical roles to play for business goals to be achieved. This understanding moves employees and other participants from being dormant receivers of messages and they become associates, partners, team members or consultants in a symbolic transaction.
Read Also: Importance of Communication in the Society
The Process of Business Communication
The process of business communication includes the process of creating, sharing, listening, and understanding messages between different groups of people through written and verbal formats within the business environment. The way that people communicate and operate within a business is very vital to how successful the company will be in the business world. Here are some the identified process of business communication:
1. Modern process
The focus of modern process of business communication is to search for general rules governing the communication process. The aim is that when participants in a communication encounter learn and apply these rules or principles, they become more effective communicators in a business environment.
Starting from the simplest for example, the permanent sender and receiver model of communication is applicable under the modernist process. If an organization is using this model, the rule says that the managers or leaders in a company must send messages to the subordinates, who must always take instructions from the superior officers.
The modern process of business communication gives rules, steps and practical ways of achieving effective communication in a business organization.
2. Postmodern process
Postmodernist process of business communication think about business communication as a web of interconnectivity among stakeholders involved in an organization. Individual communication objective or goal is a fragment of communication complexities with their varying values and norms.
3. Interpretive process
The interpretive process recognizes the place of setting, context and individual differences in achieving effective business communication.
This process of communication reveals the complexity and richness of organizational communication by offering a better understanding of communication practices, with the deep-seated values and norms.
Under this process, the meanings constructed by the receivers from the messages are also very much dependent on the performance of the sender.
This shows a working relationship and or collective responsibility, where the communicators help each-other to achieve a better understanding of the message. The two people involved in the communication process must first of all understand the peculiarities of each-other, respect these values and norms and package their messages to suit the workplace diversities.
4. Critical
This perspective seeks to criticize the influence of power relations in business or organizational communication. It tries to analyze various communication strategies that top-level managers adopt in exercising power over other stakeholders in a business organization.
