Business Communication: Theories, Barriers, and Strategies

This report covers the concept of communication, theories of organizational communication, barriers to communication, and strategies to overcome them. It provides recommendations for effective communication in LearnEnglishUK.

BUSINESS
COMMUNICATION

ABSTRACT
This report covers the concept of communication which involves verbal and non verbal
communication. There are many theories to the communication which helps in making the
conversation effective. The application of theory within an organisation can prevent the barriers
to communication and built a medium which ensures effective communication. There are many
bariers to communication which the LearnEnglishUK is facing which involves physical,
cultyure, emotional, psychological and many other. In order to overcome it, there are many
strategies which can be adopted by the school which involves non verbal, verbal communication,
active listening strategy and many other. This report is done by using the secondary source which
includes books, journals and many other.

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
Theories of organisational communication.................................................................................4
Barriers to communication..........................................................................................................5
Strategies to overcome the barriers.............................................................................................6
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Business communication can be referred to as the process which involves sharing of the
information between the people outside and within the organisation. It is important that there
must be effective communication channel between the people so that purpose of the
communication is accomplished. For a company to grow and survive, it is important that it must
have clear and effective communication medium between employees and management and also
among the workforce so that organisational goals can be achieved (Dwyer and Hopwood, 2019).
This also helps in improving organisational practice and also helps in reducing errors. This report
shall cover the theories of organisational communication, barriers to it and strategies to
overcome these barriers.
MAIN BODY
Theories of organisational communication.
Communication is basically exchanging of the information, ideas or opinion so that there
is effective medium built between the people and their purpose of exchanging their information
is solved. Business communication is a process which involves delivering the information so that
organisational goals and objectives can be promoted and through effective communication, they
can also enhance their productivity (Escobar-Rodríguez and Bonsón-Fernández, 2017). In
context to LearnEnglishUK, the school can adopt any of the communication theories so that it
can built effective channel to exchange their vital information. The organisational theories is
discussed below- Communication accommodation theory- This is aimed to cover motivational result and
aspects of transference of the communication style among two or more people.
According to the theorist, there are two ways in which people transfer their style of
communication which is convergence and divergence. The divergence communication
style is adopted by the people who have strong ethnic background so that they can
highlight their identity in the group whereas the people who are helpless and powerless
transfer the communication style by convergence when they are in the need of social
acceptance. Dramatism theory- This theory is concerned with the comparison of the communication
with the drama. This theory demands the situation, script and actor same as the drama is

required. It is helpful to analyse the human relationship. It indicates that the successful
rhetorical critic can be one who gives meaningful communication to the rhetoric. This is
done by developing the sense of identity among them (Bannier, Pauls and Walter, 2019). Uncertainty reduction theory- Under this theory, whenever any strangers meet, they
want to remove their uncertainties of the different situations. Their thinking power and
behaviour expresses the level of uncertainty. The strangers are not clear about their acts
as they do not know how to act or behave in front of the people in the certain situation.
According to this theory, people tend to communicate so that they can reduce their
uncertainties.
 Organisational information theory- A successful company need all the relevant
information so that it can achieve its goals effectively. According to this theory,
communication may affect the productivity and behaviour of the people n an organisation
so the main aim of this theory is to reduce the doubts so that relevant information can be
extracted from the extra one (Oussii and Klibi, 2017).
The LearnEnglishUK must adopt nay one of the theory from this so that it can build effective
channel of communication in the school and teachers, staff and students can easily share their
views and opinion. The organisational information theory must be adopted by LearnEnglishUK
so that there is effective medium of communication.
Barriers to communication.
An ineffective communication is very common nowadays which results in decreasing the
productivity level of the employees and people who are associated with the business. The
process of communication have multiple barriers which leads to failure of communication and
misunderstanding. The LearnEnglishUK faces many barriers to effective communication which
results in decreasing the productivity level of the staff as well as the students. The barriers which
is faced by the LearnEnglishUK are discussed below- Linguistic barriers- The language barrier is the most common one which limit the
effective communication. It is because every region has different language of their own
which becomes the barrier in their effective conversation. The LearnEnglishUK faces the
linguistic barrier as students come from different background and culture and have their
own language which makes their communication difficult with each other. This has
become barrier in their effective conversation.

 Psychological barrier- The communication may include various issues like
psychological or mental. Some people tend to have speech disorder, stage fear or
depression or phobia which makes difficult to manage and also limit the easiness to the
communication. These conditions makes the communication difficult as the mental peace
is lost which results in ineffective communication (Ponomarenko and Parshutina, 2016).
The LearnEnglishUK faces this barrier as students have stage fear and some students
also have speech disorder which lower their confidence and morale to speak effectively
which becomes barrier in their communication. Physical barrier- these include the noise, faulty equipments, closed doors and etc. which
are easily removable. The LearnEnglishUK have poor infrastructure which makes their
environment hard to study for the students as they have faulty windows and noise of the
traffic which become barrier in their active listening and ultimately result in ineffective
communication.
 Cultural barrier- There are many different cultures which have different meaning for the
many basic value of the society. Culture may include different dressing style, religion
which changes from one culture to another. This also makes the communication difficult
as different culture have different values attached to it which may become hurdle in the
communication process. The LearnEnglishUK school have students and staff from
different culture which makes their conversation different as every culture have different
meaning to their values which makes conversation difficult as it involves different
meaning to all.
Strategies to overcome the barriers.
There are different strategies attached to barriers which helps in overcoming it. These
strategies help in preventing the challenges to communication also. In context to
LearnEnglishUK, the following strategy can be adopted by it so that it can over the barriers- Non verbal communication strategy- It involves using the non verbal communication s
like understanding the body language, posture or tone of the other person in order to
identify the meaning behind its words. The tone in the conversation have a significant
impact on the interpretation of words so it is important that the individual must pay
attention to the tone of other and try to match it with the words in order to figure out what
the person is trying to speak or deliver (Mayfield and Mayfield, 2017). This strategy shall

staff members and teachers to know what students wants to convey them so that they can
they bring the solution for their problems. Active listening strategy- It involves paying attention to what other is trying to speak and
this can be done by requesting them to provide feedback and encourage them to give
small comments between the conversation so that the speaker get confidence to speak as
there is active listening to what he/she is speaking. Another thing which is important in
this strategy is to not interrupt in between so that a respect is shown to the speaker and a
focus must be maintained to what other is trying to convey. The LearnEnglishUK must
ensure that its students actively listen to the teachers as to what they are trying to convey
and on the other hand, the staff must also allow students to speak and then actively listen
to what they are trying to tell. This will help in overcoming the barrier to communication.
 Verbal communication strategy- This involves limiting the distractions which may
prohibit the conversation and allow the participation of public speaking so that there is
two way communication between the people. The LearnEnglishUK must arrange some
means to solve the problem of noise from outside so that students do not get distracted
from the traffic noise and allow them to participate in public speaking so that they can
clear their doubts and effective communication is built.
Recommendations
It is recommended to LearnEnglishUK school that it must adopt the active listening and
verbal communication strategy in order to overcome the barriers to communication like culture,
physical and many other. Also the school must adopt the organisational information theory so
that it can communicate relevant information to all and work on to reduce their doubts.

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from this report that there are two types of communication which involves
verbal and non verbal communication. The former involves communication in the form of
written and oral and the later engages in reading body language and posture and many other.
There are different theories to effective communication like organisational information theory,
uncertainty reduction, communication accommodation theory and many other which helps in
making the smooth communication. Further there are many barriers to it which includes
linguistic, culture, psychological, physical and many other which affect their effective
communication. Also the strategies like non verbal, active listening and verbal communication
strategies help in overcoming these barriers.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bannier, C., Pauls, T. and Walter, A., 2019. Content analysis of business communication:
introducing a German dictionary. Journal of Business Economics. 89(1). pp.79-123.
Dwyer, J. and Hopwood, N., 2019. The business communication handbook. Cengage AU.
Escobar-Rodríguez, T. and Bonsón-Fernández, R., 2017. Facebook practices for business
communication among fashion retailers. Journal of Fashion Marketing and
Management: An International Journal.
Mayfield, J. and Mayfield, M., 2017. Leadership communication: Reflecting, engaging, and
innovating.
Oussii, A.A. and Klibi, M.F., 2017. Accounting students’ perceptions of important business
communication skills for career success. Journal of Financial Reporting and
Accounting.
Ponomarenko, E.V. and Parshutina, G., 2016. BUSINESS INTERACTION AND
COMMUNICATION VERBS: FUNCTIONAL EFFECTIVENESS REVISITED.
In Академическая наука-проблемы и достижения (pp. 125-131).