The Lesser-known Factor of Success in the International Theatre : How Business Communication Practices Influence Firm Performance and the Outcome of Business Meetings

Absztrakt (kivonat)

Why business communications are regarded as one of the lesser known factors of success in business, one might ask? When contemplating about which aspect or issue of international business would be most ideal to research for the dissertation, it became clear that while a great deal of attention focuses on tangible practices, for example, devising a professional marketing plan, many employees do not consider a crucial factor behind such well-performing concepts, communication. It is fair to say that in business, with very few exceptions, nothing can perform effectively if the communication with which those processes are conveyed, are improper. Thus, it became the topic of my dissertation. The goal of my dissertation is to analyze each type of business communication and find the most important type which contributes the most to a firm’s success and possible solutions that could improve that kind of communication. The paper starts with the theoretical background where the three main types of business communication is elaborated. Downward communication, where managers communicate with their subordinates, upward communication, where employees relay information to their superiors and horizontal communication where the colleagues share information between themselves. During the theoretical section, I elaborated the findings regarding the communication types, however it became apparent that there is a rank of importance between them. With the help of academic sources, I discovered that downward communication has the strongest influence on a firm’s communication. It is true that the participative theory suggests that upward communication relies on the willingness of subordinates to speak up about their issues and ideas, however this theory largely omits other variables. Numerous sources stated that the behavior of managers towards employees and the power of managers such as referent, legitimate and reward power, heavily influence how often do employees disclose information to their superiors. Meanwhile, upward communication has less influence on how the top management communicates with the subordinates. The second most crucial type was horizontal communication due to the magnitude of reach being larger than upward communication. After organizing the theoretical findings, I created a methodological framework, where the following research question was created: Are downward and horizontal communication the most influential communication channels in a company and if yes, how could the firm improve these communication channels? Due to the interrelatedness of communication, a sub-question was necessary aiming at the importance of non-verbal communication for complete analysis. For the methodology, the in-depth interview was chosen, in order to receive expert opinions and to discover the stories and motivations behind the perspectives. During the problem analysis part, I involved six interviewees. They work in different levels of the hierarchy; therefore, their perspectives greatly vary, and the analysis is able to reach all chains of communication. All interviewees were in line with the theoretical chapter with saying that downward communication is being more important than upward, as downward reaches more people if it works efficiently. In addition to this, traits of managers such as being understanding and open to new ideas, while also keeping a healthy measure of authority all lead to motivating employees to share their ideas or to talk about their issues better. Horizontal communication was also mentioned as becoming more and more important due to the digital communication affecting it in a positive way for example work processes between colleagues have become faster and more efficient. One of the main differences occurred with the influence of non-verbal communication. Four out of six interviewee agreed with the theoretical results that non-verbal communication is more essential than verbal due to the notion that body language, tone and speed of voice are regarded as the truth serum in a meeting. Nevertheless, two participants disagreed, stating that people have compulsive behaviours which they do unconsciously and if someone is giving too much credit for signals of non-verbal communication, they might misunderstand the participant. Secondly, they added, those people who are conscious of such occurrences and are very extroverted, could circumvent this and pretend that their non-verbal communication is aligned with what they are saying, therefore they can hide dishonesty better. Having found the most prevalent elements, the paper ends with suggesting different solutions such as management taking more responsibility and positive behavior in factors that affect communication and participants using a balanced approach between verbal and non-verbal communication to avoid misunderstandings. If business communication practices are properly understood and used in the appropriate manner, they can be one of the most powerful factors of success in a firm.