The Meaning-Centered

Approach to Organizational
Communication
A Comprehensive Report by the Development Communication
Group
Dela Cruz, Glydell
Diuyan, Maidy
Forto, Tresha Anne
Huilar, Eliza
Jiyara, Christine
Malabad, Chelsee Gwen
Malazarte, Louise Lourfe
Mendoza, Jan Mayen
Millares, Jude Louis

January 2016

I.

Defining the Meaning-Centered approach

By definition, the Meaning-Centered approach (MCA) is a way of

understanding organizational communication through discovering how
organizational reality is generated or formed through human interaction.
The above definition implies that the MCA is a lens or perspective that can
be used by a communicator in order to analyze how the presence of human
interaction inside an organization leads to formation of an organizational reality.
II. Organizational communication through the eyes of the MCA
Through this lens, organizational communication is described as the
process for generating shared realities that become organizing, decision-making,
influence, and culture.
A. COMMUNICATION AS ORGANIZING
A. Organizing is the process of bringing order out of chaos with
organizations as the products of the organizing process. This is
described almost as synonymous with the communication process.
B. Ongoing interaction among human activities continually create and
shape events in the organization.
C. Organizational rules are the relatively stable procedures or known
processes that guide organizational behavior.
D. Human reactions enact organizational environments through the
following:
A. Information exchanges
B. The active creation of meanings
E. The creation or enactment of organizational environments differs
among individuals, resulting in the multiple and diverse meanings and
interpretations.
B. COMMUNICATION AS DECISION-MAKING
A. Decision-making is the process of choosing from among numerous
alternatives. This is the part of the organizing process necessary for
directing behaviors and resources toward organizational goals.

C. COMMUNICATION AS INFLUENCE
A. Influence is the organizational and individual attempts to persuade.
This is frequently seen in organizational identification, socialization,
communication rules, and power.
B. The MCA lens views influence as a necessary process for creating
and changing organizational events.
D. CULTURE
A. Lastly, shared realities become culture; culture is a unique sense of the
place that organizations make through ways of communicating about
the organization. This culture reflects the shared realities and practices
in the organization and how they create and shape organizational
events.
B. One can describe the culture of a certain organization by describing
how it does things and how it talks about how it does things, alongside
with its organizing, decision-making, and influence processes.
C. Culture/uniqueness is generated through the words, actions, artifacts,
routine practices, and texts being used among organizational
members.
E. IDENTIFICATION
A. IDENTITY Relatively stable characteristics, including core beliefs,
values, attitudes, preferences, decisional premises, and more that
make up the self.
B. IDENTIFICATION Dynamic social process by which identities are
constructed. This includes perceptions of a sense of belonging. This is
usually associated with the belief that individual and organizational
goals are compatible.
III. The key assumptions of the MCA
1. Every ongoing human interaction is communication in one form or
another.
This assumption supports Karl Weicks belief in 1979 that
organizations do not exist but rather are in the process of existing through
ongoing human interaction. Therefore, there is no such thing as an
organization there is only the ongoing interaction among human
activities.

2. Organizations exist because of human interaction. Structures and

technologies arise from the information to which individuals react.
This only means that organizations do not exist outside of human
interaction. Where there is no human interaction, there is no organization.
3. Shared organizational realities reflect the collective interpretations by the
organizational members of all organizational activities.
This means that the shared realities present in an organization are
based on how the members look at the activities that happen within the
organization.
4. Organizing and decision-making are essentially communication
phenomena.
5. Identification, socialization, communication rules, and power are
communication processes that reflect how organizational influence occurs.
The members sense of belonging (identification), attempts to help
member learn organizational behaviors, norms, and values (socialization),
and general prescriptions about appropriate and acceptable
communication behaviors in particular situations (communication rules) all
describe the dynamics of an organization.
6. Organizing, decision-making, and influence processes describe the
cultures of organizations by describing how organizations do things and
how they talk about how they do things.
7. Organizational cultures and subcultures reflect the shared realities in the
organization and how these realities create and shape organizational
events.
Culture is a unique sense of the place that organizations make
through ways of communicating about the organization. This culture
reflects the shared realities and practices in the organization and how they
create and shape organizational events.

8. Communication climate is the subjective, evaluative reaction of the

members to the organizations communication events or their reaction to
organizational culture.
A communication climate is the combination of all the collective
beliefs, expectations, and values regarding communication that are
generated/made as organizational members continually evaluate their
interactions with others.