Business Communication: Theories, Barriers, and Strategies

This report discusses the theories of organizational communication, evaluates the barriers of communication, and outlines government strategies to overcome them. It also explores the impact of Covid-19 on communication and how to overcome barriers. The report is relevant to the subject of Business Communication and includes course code, course name, and university.

Business
Communication

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
General theories of organisational communication.....................................................................3
Evaluate the barriers of communication.....................................................................................4
Outline government strategies to overcome barriers..................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERNCES:..................................................................................................................................7
Books and Journals:....................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The term communication can be understood as an act of sending, receiving and sharing
information. In other words, it can be reading or listening, talking or writing. It is very important
in the communication to speak or write clearly, listen carefully and respect diverse opinions. The
Covid-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the way of individuals communicate with each
other. In order to limit the spread of virus, many precautionary measures has been introduced
which affect the way of communication such as handshakes or greetings (Kou, Chiang and
Chiang, 2018). Due to the situation, people are required to adopt salutations that avoid physical
contact such as “peace sign”, “namaste”, “hand on chest”. Additionally, social distancing or
personal spaces markedly enhanced, with telecommunication witnessing a immense a rise. Also,
many business conferences, meetings or educational activities shifted to virtual communication
via social apps such as Skype, Zoom and so on. The report includes various topics such as
theories of communication, evaluation of barriers and strategies.
TASK
General theories of organisational communication.
Organisational communication can be understood as the type and channels of
communication that happen within the organisation. It may include any corporations,
governmental bodies or non-profit companies. It is consist with both public facing
communication and communication within the organization. People who are trained in
organisational communication can work in employee training and management, human
resources, marketing, public relations, media management, public affairs and many more.
Theories of Organisational Communication:
Social Marketing Theory: This is a theory of communication which signifies on how
socially valuable message can be promoted. This is a theory commonly used by social and
welfare companies to aid promote and discourage several attitudes. According to the target
audience, the information is pass on. Once it is done then information is communication in an
accessible manner to the target audience (Thussu, 2018). It is helpful to understand the
psychological and societal factors work to manipulate them successfully in order to enhance how
effective mass media information are. This is also help to understand the barriers that hinder the
flow of communication as well as provide different ideas to overcome such barriers.

Features of Social Marketing Theory-
 Creating audience awareness: It is important to create awareness before promoting any
idea, behaviour or person. It can be done with the use of various modes of
communication such as news media. Awareness can be produced with the help of
saturated television campaign. But one of the drawback is that it is cost ineffective.
 Reinforce the message: Generally, when people receives any message they tend to
forget easily so it is very important to reinforce the message in a repetitive manner
through different modes of channels. Reinforcement can be done through going door to
door, having debates on television, holding group discussions etc.
Organizational Control theory by Tompkins and Cheney: This theory reflects that one party
is try to influence the behaviour of another within a certain system (Abdullah, Muhammad and
Nasir, 2019). Organisational control can be understood as an inherently communicative activity
that includes verbal and physical actions planned to overcome the resistance and practising
authority over others. Top level authorities might rely on some verbal commands that is telling
someone what to do exactly, written directives can be understood as giving instructions to the
subordinates what to follow and many more.
Features of Organisational control:
 It controls quality: It helps to control costs which reflects less wastes and fewer defects,
increase satisfaction level and enhanced sales.
 Opportunity recognition: It supports managers to determine the sources of positive
surprises. It also supports in brand recognition.
Evaluate the barriers of communication.
Regardless of the type of communication, verbal, written, non-verbal, visual or listening,
communicate effectively is very important otherwise other people will face challenges and risks.
As the UK government wants to create awareness about the Covid-19 pandemic and makes
people to take the necessary steps to protect them from the virus because many people dies and
falls sick due to the virus. The following are the evaluation of communication barriers which is
discussed in project 1:
 Physical barriers: If the communication or information is not spread effectively then
people will face difficulties, they could unaware about the address of Covid-19 test
centres. They might think that the vaccination centre is far from their distance and

unable to get their vaccination done. Also, if the details of instructions to book a
vaccination is not proper then it will also result in lack of communication.
 Emotional barriers: As the Covid-19 virus is new and the vaccination for this also
new and people are getting this for the first time so there are many perceptions that it is
ineffective or what will happen to the health after getting vaccination and so on (Carrillo
Vera and Aguado Terrón, 2019). Most of the people ask their relatives or friends about
the after effects of vaccination, their reviews set a mind set that they surely fall sick and
they do not want to take such risks.
 Information barriers: There are two types of vaccination found to limit the effect of
virus that are Covishield and Covaccine. It is important to communicate the form of
vaccination and create awareness that people should take the same vaccine at the time of
their second dose.
 Attitudinal barriers: It is found that mostly people do not accept changes very easily,
somewhere their mind set is block and they can not think beyond that. They have an
attitude or perception that if they have a strong immune system the virus do not attack
them or fall sick or if they use only home remedies then it would be safe to use and have
no side effects too.
 Cultural barriers: Diverse culture is also impacted on the communication. It includes
race, colour, gender, religion, culture, languages and so on. In UK, common language
they use is English only. Misinterpretations can be lead by languages differences. The
activity of labelling people can form a mental blocks. Hence, different culture at
different places can lead to strong barrier of communication.
Outline government strategies to overcome barriers.
The following are the communication strategics that helps to prevent communication
challenges and overcome barriers at the pro-vaccination camp:
 Request and provide feedback: It is important to overcome the barrier and ask or offer
public for the reviews and feedback which signifies that their opinion matters about what
other people is saying as well as their opinion on the idea of vaccination campaign. It
helps to work on the things which are ineffective and helps to find ways to deliver best
services.

 Improved facial communication: Facial expressions plays a very significant role in
communication as it relays of sentiments across individuals (Hasibović and Tanović,
2019). People understands facial expressions of one another which helps to develop
responses to them, or helps to forecast situations and events. In context to Covid-19, the
government takes various precautionary steps to keep their public away from the virus.
They use mass media communication, creating effective content to communicate in the
form of video which includes expressions, emotions, words, body languages and many
more as it will direct affect their sentiments and know the importance of vaccination.
 Use of appropriate languages: As discussed above, in UK the most common language
is English but everybody is not familiar with that language. So, in order to remove the
communication barrier, government should also spread information in different languages
or may use expressions which can be understood by the common man (Moellers and
Et.al., 2019). It may include signs of wearing masks, illustrating the social distancing,
quarantine, lock down and many more.
 Proper media selection: It is also very effective to select proper mode of
communication. Messages or information must be communicated in a simple way, most
probably audio-visual which can understood by seeing or listening. Hence, right
communication strategies and leveraging technologies is a very significant strategy to
deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Also, the government should create awareness about
the green zones and orange zones which allows certain activities to conduct (Sanborn and
Harris, 2019). There are various platforms that can be used for the communication such
as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and many more.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded that Covid-19 is a very dangerous disease which takes many lives
over the past two years. It is important to take precautionary actions to limit the spread of the
virus. The UK government organized a pro-vaccination camp in the town to get everyone
vaccinated. But it is found that they are some communication barriers and challenges such as
physical, emotional or cultural due to which communication is not that effective and people
themselves protect from the vaccination. In order to make communication effective, there are
some strategies mentioned above which helps to create awareness amongst people about Covid-
19 and its vaccination.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Kou, T. C., Chiang, C. T. and Chiang, A. H., 2018. Effects of IT-based supply chains on new
product development activities and the performance of computer and communication
electronics manufacturers. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.
Thussu, D. K., 2018. International communication: Continuity and change. Bloomsbury
Publishing.
Abdullah, A. R., Muhammad, M. Z. and Nasir, N. A. M., 2019. The role of soft skills on business
graduates employability. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Business, 7(2), pp.83-94.
Carrillo Vera, J. A. and Aguado Terrón, J. M., 2019. The eSports ecosystem: Stakeholders and
trends in a new show business. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural
Studies, 11(1), pp.3-22.
Hasibović, A. Ć. and Tanović, A., 2019. PRINCE2 vs Scrum in digital business transformation.
In 2019 42nd International Convention on Information and Communication
Technology. Electronics and Microelectronics(MIPRO), 1514-1518. IEEE. https://doi.
org/10.23919/MIPRO.
Moellers, T. and Et.al., 2019. System dynamics for corporate business model
innovation. Electronic Markets, 29(3), pp.387-406.
Sanborn, F. W. and Harris, R. J., 2019. A cognitive psychology of mass communication.
Routledge.