Individual Report: Business Communication Analysis at Arden University

This report provides a comprehensive overview of business communication, delving into its core principles and practical applications. It begins with an introduction to communication and business communication, emphasizing their significance in organizational contexts. The main body explores various theories of organizational communication, including the accommodation theory, general systems theory, Theory X & Y, the theory of symbolic interaction, and dramatize theory, offering insights into how these theories shape communication dynamics within businesses. The report then examines barriers to effective communication, particularly focusing on the challenges faced by students at Arden University, such as physical, financial, listening, emotional, and hesitation barriers. Furthermore, it outlines strategies that Arden University is implementing to overcome these barriers, including spreading awareness, providing transportation facilities and scholarships, understanding student needs, ensuring health and safety, and creating a better learning environment. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and reiterating the importance of effective communication in fostering a supportive and productive learning environment. The report also includes a list of references to support the findings.

Business
Communication

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Theories of organisational communication.................................................................................3
Barriers........................................................................................................................................5
Strategies.....................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Communication refers to how people interact to each other. It is a kind of way of
conversation which involves flowing information from one source to another source or between
the people. Communication plays significant role to understand the people's views. Simply it is a
process which involves transferring and sharing the information & thoughts among group of
people (Sapkota and Vander Putten, 2018). Similarly, business communication defined as the
process of communication which involves within the company or business. Business
communication is described as the flow of thoughts and information between the people of the
organisation either outside or inside of the company. The primary motive of business
communication is to increase the process involved in the business such as marketing strategy,
business plans, business ideas, relationship among the employer & employees, new policy
development, company meetings and many more to enhance the organisation operation
effectively and efficiently. Business communication also used to promote the products and
services of the company in which message is transferred with the help of various communication
channels. This report contains the brief introduction about the communication and business
communication (Knight, 2018). It includes the various theories involved in the business
communication and the barriers that preventing students from going back to campus in reference
with Arden University, it is in Coventry, United Kingdom and founded in 1990. There are also
some strategies outlined by the university to overcome such barriers and conclusion is provided
at the end.
MAIN BODY
Theories of organisational communication
There are various types of theory involved in the organisational communication in which
some of them is mentioned below as:
 Accommodation theory of communication: In this theory of organisational
communication, it includes the different aspects of motivation and communication style
among the people. This theory determines that people in the organisation have two
different communication styles as convergence style and divergence style of
communication. In case of convergence style, helpless and less powerful people seeking
social acceptance whereas people with strong background tries to indicate the style

through divergence to maintain their importance (Falkheimer and Heide, 2018). These
two style of business communication defines the communication style of the people in
the company that either convergence or divergence.
 General systems theory: This theory of organisational communication is given by
Ludwig von Bertalanffly in the year of 1937 that it is extended by scholars Talcott
Parsons and Erwin Laszlo. This theory helps to determine the organisational functions &
relations. Theory consider the organisation as a system combination of many different
subsystem in which inter dependents & interlinking part is hold together with the help of
communication. This theory also describes that similar type of communications
interchanges that occurred in the boundary of the company. It also transfer among the
entities and external environment that involves the transfer of money, transfer of labour,
transfer of energy and information. This theory came from the System School to
organisational communication. It is essential for business communication due to that it
highlights the importance of feedback as well as it influences the researchers to look
beyond the entities boundary for good communication exchanges into the organisation.
 Theory X & Theory Y: This is a kind of motivational theory in the organisational
communication. It was first developed by Douglas McGregor. This theory of business
communication is based on the opposed assumption of human natures. Theory X and
Theory Y specifies the developments of self control nature, promotion of creativity and
recognising peoples as the asset of the organisation (Kačerauskas and Mickūnas, 2020). It
also postulates that workers or employees in the organisation must be recognised and
awarded according to their performance and dedication towards the process of
accomplishment of objectives defined by the organisation. This theory comes into
picture from Human Resource School. It plays important role to defining the
communication & motivation.
 Theory of symbolic interaction: In this theory of organisational communication, people
in the company communicate through symbols and signs. This theory defined by
American pragmatism.
 Dramatise theory: This theory of organisational communication defines communication
through drama that involves scripts, situations and actors. This theory is given by
Kenneth Burke as a method of identifying the human relationship.

Barriers of business communication
As we know that due to Covid outbreak, it adversely affected the world in every sector.
Similarly, in education sector universities and schools started online teaching for their students
due to lockdown. In case of Arden University, students become used to it and they are facing
various barriers to going back to campus as following:
 Physical barrier: There are many students in United Kingdom lives far away from the
university. Many of them spend long time in travelling to campus (Liu and et. al., 2020).
Due to this physical barrier or transportation issues students are seeking to complete their
further study virtually. Students wants to complete their study being at their home only at
their own pace. They do not want spend their time and energy in travelling.
 Financial barrier: This barrier defines that inability of students to pay for travelling and
living in the city. It is due to that many students of Arden University were living in the
city on rent which is expensive in cities of United Kingdom. Many students cannot afford
it so that to overcome from such expenses of living and travelling, students are preferring
to study at their residence only.
 Listening barrier: In case of listening barrier, student finds out that study at home
creates less distraction as compared to classroom teaching. Because in classroom there is
whispering noise, cell phone ringing and other distraction activity. They cannot focus
properly due to this barrier whereas in the zoom environment they find easier to focus
because there is mute facility in virtual environment.
 Emotional barrier: There are many young children in the Arden University where their
parents do not want leave their child for whole day due to this pandemic. There are also
many new students feels less pressure on online classes as compared to offline learning.
They want to start their higher education through online mode. Hence this emotional
barrier stopping them to going back to campus.
 Hesitation barrier: There are many introvert students in the university. They are feeling
nervous about going back to large classes. Many students are from different cultural
background and age gap. They face bullying and discrimination in the university. Hence,
students feel hesitation to going back to campus. They want to continue their study
through virtually.

Strategies to overcome the barrier of business communication
In order to encourage the students for coming back to campus, Arden University
implementing various strategies to overcome such barriers to coming back to campus as follows:
 Spreading awareness: It is the foremost strategy adopting by the university to encourage
students to come to campus. University spreading the awareness about the benefits of
offline learning with the help of banners and ads in the city.
 Providing transportation facility & scholarship: University is providing the
transportation facility to those students who lives far away so that they can reach on time.
It is also giving scholarship to financial weak background students so that they can easily
maintain their expenses.
 Understanding student’s needs: University is focusing on students to understand their
needs and wants. It is asking students for their feedback and problems(Yen and et. al.,
2018). There are many students feeling pressure and nervous to sitting in large classes so
that guiding & encouraging them towards the classroom teaching. University providing
better learning environment to students that how they can socialize and learn. And also
creating hybrid learning environment to motivate the new students.
 Health & safety: There are many young students in the university and their parents are
concern about their health. University is defining health and safety precaution to every
student to create safe and healthy learning environment. University is organising various
events that guides students about their health and how they can be safe. University is also
following Covid guidelines and providing mask and sanitizer to their students to feel safe.
 Better learning environment: In this there are some students finds difficulty to
understand the topic due to switching learning environment from online to offline and
they feel hesitation to ask questions in large classroom. University is encouraging them to
ask questions in the classroom or after the class as well. It helps students to learning
efficiently.
CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned report it is concluded that about the communication and the
business communication. It tells that business communication is a process of transferring or
sharing information and thoughts among the people of organisation either inside or outside. It
includes the various theories involved in the business communication and the barriers that

preventing students from going back to campus such as physical barrier, emotional barrier,
listening barrier, hesitation barrier and financial barrier in reference with Arden University. It
also describes that how university is encouraging students to coming back to campus using
various strategies such as providing better learning environment, spreading awareness,
maintaining health & safety standard, providing students transportation facility and scholarship
program and also understanding the students needs etc.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Falkheimer, J. and Heide, M., 2018. Strategic communication: An introduction. Routledge.
Kačerauskas, T. and Mickūnas, A., 2020. In Between Communication Theories Through One
Hundred Questions. Springer International Publishing.
Knight, M., 2018. Accessibility and disability: Absent keywords in business and professional
communication. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 81(1), pp.20-33.
Liu, C.H. and et. al., 2020. Priorities for addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on
college student mental health. Journal of American College Health, pp.1-3.
Sapkota, K.N. and Vander Putten, J., 2018. Social media acceptance and usage by business
communication faculty. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 81(3),
pp.328-350.
Yen, S.C. and et. al., 2018. Learning online, offline, and in-between: comparing student
academic outcomes and course satisfaction in face-to-face, online, and blended teaching
modalities. Education and Information Technologies, 23(5), pp.2141-2153.