Week 3 Learning Log - Exploration and References

Exploration

Communication is the life-blood of any organization and is generally the determinant in how effective a workforce is at accomplishing strategic goals in unison. Because communication is the conduit for informing a workforce on what they should be doing, how they should be doing it and when they should be doing it by - methods of communicating, both communicating to and gathering feedback from, are essential items to understand and execute. This is where the concept of Communication Audits come into the equation. These audit techniques allow for information to be gathered and disseminated, and allow for an organization to gauge how effective they are at communicating the information they deem critical to organizational success. The various types of audits allow for the auditor to consider a variety of factors, so that they can land on the most effective audit approach to measure within the realities of their circumstances.

Communication audit approaches include:

1. Interviews
2. Surveys
3. Critical Incident Review
4. Network Analysis
5. Observation
6. Document Review
7. Focus groups

Each of these audit types has an appropriate application for a given set of circumstances. The auditor must evaluate how much time they have, how much money they can spend, what the scope of their inquiry is and what kind of research results they'd like to produce. After those questions have been answered one of the above approaches will reveal itself to be the correct option to proceed with.

References

Hargie, O., Tourish, D., & Wilson, N. (2016). Communication audits and the effects of increased information: A follow-up study. International Journal of Business Communication, 39(4), 414-446.

• This article is a journey through the evidence collected on the effectiveness of communication audits over the past 50 years. Hargie, Tourish and Wilson conduct a literature review of the studies that measured how successful, or not, certain communication audits were and under what set of circumstances they were able to be executed in the most effective way possible. As part of their analysis, they draw some conclusions on the desirability of certain corporate communication initiatives and corporate communication philosophies. 

Quinn, D., & Hargie, O. (2004). Internal communication audits: A case study. Corporate Communications An International Journal, 9(2), 146-158.

• The United Kingdom wanted to improve the way that it's various police departments and agencies operated. To accomplish this they engaged in a series of various communication audits that were intended to document staff feedback. This feedback was then to be used as the foundation for overall organizational improvements, with the focus being on improving intradepartmental collaboration and cross-geography consistency in communications and execution. Quinn and Hargie review the various communication audits that were used in the study, and the relative success of each method adopted.