Part 1.Within an organization or large association communication in these settings is vital to making the organization work. Communication is defined as conveying information from one person or department to another. In a large corporate organization, communication is essential if all departments within the organization want to work together to form one successful unit. The chart that I am examining for this network analysis involves the Hi-Fli company. At the top of the organization is the President (1). The President is in charge of the company and has the most power. Under the President are three Vice Presidents (2, 4, 30) and according to this chart they have direct communication with the President. Under the Vice Presidents there are various departments who give the Vice Presidents information, and with that information the Vice Presidents has the ability to send it directly to the President. From the communigram, you can see that the three Vice Presidents do a good job of communicating with each other; however, Vice President 4 does not communicate effectively with the other Vice Presidents. This could be due to the President trusting him and him having gained a lot of experience within the organization. It must say a lot about a Vice President for a President to allow him to be more independent.
Under the Vice Presidents there are different departments who work to get information to send to the Vice Presidents. All of the members of these departments have the ability to directly communicate with the Vice President that they are under. In the communigram, the members that make up the different departments are 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 32, and 34. Within these different departments members work to get information through to the Vice President and the Vice President can then take that information and communicate with the President. Vice Presidents must have trust in these departments if they are willing to pass on information from the departments to the President. According to the communigram, group members (1, 2, 16, 21, and 30) are directly connected to the liaison (3). Those members in order to be directly connected to the liaison have to be some of the most trustworthy people in the organization.
There are people in the organization that take on roles that are different from the rest of the organization, and you can refer to these people as isolates. In the communigram, there is an isolate type 1 (11) who is shown on the graph as being separated from all the other members of the organization. This person in the organization communicates least with all the other members. This person’s lack of communication could be due to working at a location different from the other members or this person was given the permission to work more independently than the others members. Isolate type 2 consists of two members (28 and 29). Both of these members communicate to member 31 who is more than likely their supervisor. Member 31 then takes the information from members 28 and 29 to report it to member 8, who is the manager over members 28, 29, and 31. All the way across the other side of the chart is the isolated dyads (25 and 26) who appear to only communicate with each other. Members 25 and 26 are grouped this way probably because they are located in a different location than the rest of the organization, more than likely in a different country.
Part 2:
1. The differentiation (communication groups perform in various functions) and integration (intergroup linkages revealed and bridge in liaison linkages) of the communication groups in the overall system all depend on the effectiveness of the liaison. The liaison works very hard to make sure that the company is cohesive by making sure everyone receives all the appropriate information. There are four departments that make up the majority of the Hi-Fli’s organization. Those departments are the administrative, manufacturing, marketing, and supply