Organizational Behavior Assignment: Communication and Dissonance

This assignment explores key aspects of organizational behavior, focusing on effective communication strategies and decision-making processes within corporate environments. The first answer examines the significance of communication channels, emphasizing the importance of both upward and downward information flow for strategic planning and employee well-being. It highlights the need for efficient information dissemination to avoid misunderstandings and maintain productivity. The second answer delves into cognitive dissonance in decision-making, particularly in business contexts, where conflicting opinions and the fear of less profitable outcomes can arise. It suggests seeking additional information and employing techniques like the Delphi Technique to mitigate cognitive dissonance and ensure sound decision-making. The assignment references relevant academic sources to support its arguments.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational Behavior
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Table of Contents
Answer 1..........................................................................................................................................2
Answer 2..........................................................................................................................................3
References........................................................................................................................................5

2ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Answer 1
In any organization, especially in the corporate enterprises, communication among the
employees and the employers hold the different types of effective communication methods,
which are used by them, facilitate immense relevance as proper dissemination of information. On
the other hand, the dissemination of relevant, adequate and right amount of information to the
employees in the different strata of a business organization is also of utmost importance
(Robbins and Judge 2013).
In this context, it is of immense significance for the management of any organization to
make sure that the communication channel among the different parts of the organization as well
as among the employees and the employers are efficient enough to disseminate important
information effectively and timely. The information flows, however, needs to be both-ways as no
productive and long term strategic planning or move on part of any organization cannot be
successfully designed or executed without taking into consideration the views, opinions and
grievances of the employees (Shockley-Zalabak 2014).
On the other hand, it is immensely important for the management of an organization to
keep track of the volume of information which are getting disseminated among its employees as
both insufficient as well as excessive information dissemination are harmful on part of the
company. In both the cases inefficiency in dissemination of information can lead to wrong
perceptions and speculations on part of the employees, which may decrease the productivity and
welfare of the company as well as the employees.
Thus, it is of top priority of the organizations to ensure proper and effective
communications within the organizations as well as to maintain proper dissemination of

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information and none of this is of less importance as there are cause and effect relationships
between them.
Answer 2
While making decisions, especially those related to business organizations, many times
cognitive dissonance occurs, which is nothing but lack of consistency among the various
opinions and cognitions, which occur in an individual’s process of taking decision. The primary
reasons behind the occurrence of such cognitive dissonances in decision-making are primarily
the presence of credible options, which makes trade off difficult, the financial and implicative
importance of the decisions and the fear of choosing the less profitable alternative. In businesses
these have immense implications as the profitability, productivity as well as the long term
sustainability of a commercial enterprise depends on the decisions taken (Antoniou, Doukas and
Subrahmanyam 2013).
In the cases of emergence of such cognitive dissonance, the problems can be solved
efficiently to a considerable extent by seeking for more information, which can act as evidential
support for the decision taken. This is one of the most efficient techniques to resolve the issues
regarding the emergence of cognitive dissonance because it rules out the possibility of confusion
between different types of alternatives and this measure proves to be successful in majority of
the cases (Harmon-Jones and Harmon-Jones 2012).
For ruling out cognitive dissonance in-group decisions in the corporate domain,
incorporation of Delphi Technique often proves to be efficient as it involves anonymous
opinions and judgments. The presence of anonymity rules out any kind of unfair biases and

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retains the views of all the participants, thereby helping in ruling out cognitive disseminations in
decision making to a considerable extent.

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References
Antoniou, C., Doukas, J.A. and Subrahmanyam, A., 2013. Cognitive dissonance, sentiment, and
momentum. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 48(1), pp.245-275.
Harmon-Jones, E. and Harmon-Jones, C., 2012. Cognitive dissonance theory. Handbook of
motivation science, 71.
Robbins, S.P. and Judge, T., 2013. Organizational behavior.
Shockley-Zalabak, P., 2014. Fundamentals of organizational communication. Pearson.