COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS
COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS

Summary/Abstract: There is a gap between the practice and the science of communication, a differentiation that makes them seem like very different fields. Both try to cope with the accelerated changes induced by the development of the postmodern world; both seek new perspectives and new attitudes to provide solutions to the problems they face. Theoretical research is increasingly aimed at immediate application to demonstrate the validity of theories, while practice is receptive to new ideas that bring benefits to the activity. However, the pressure of time makes experts in departments and companies less and less apply the theories and methods learned during the study cycles and resort to recipes already tested and verified, or to develop communication programs based more on intuition than on objective data. At the same time, the rigor of the methods and the access to the programs of social statistics push the researchers from the social sciences towards a language that seems sophisticated for the communication specialists; also, the strongly analytical and critical perspectives seem to offer too few concrete tools for practice. The result is isolation in different communities, which communicate, each of them, only inside. Regarding the narrower field of communication in organizations, the phenomenon is extremely visible. There is a lot of research lately, with indisputable results, and theories that have already proven their functionality in practice. But specialists in the communication and human resources departments are asked to solve concrete problems of the organization as soon as possible, problems that have become increasingly complex with globalization, the explosion of new media and the development of the information society.

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