The Effect of Communication on Supervisor-Subordinate Relationship

Examining the impact of communication on supervisor-subordinate relationship in organizational context

Abstract

The aim of the present paper to give a review of studies and theory within organizational communication. In the first part of the paper four influential approaches used in the study of organizational communication are presented; the mechanistic perspective, the psychological perspective, the interpretive symbolic perspective and the systems interaction perspective. In the second part study examined the relationship of supervisor-subordinate communication to supervisor-subordinate relationship in terms of trust, fairness, friendliness and competence. Total 900 questionnaires with 74 supervisors and 800 subordinates were under analyzed. Results suggest that despite different nationalities between supervisors and subordinates, most subordinates perceived no language problem when communicating with supervisors. Besides, while subordinates generally perceived themselves very open in expressing their opinions to supervisors, the supervisors did not seem to be very willing in accepting different ideas from subordinates. The study of organizational communication is most often related to three different aspects of the organization: structure, context, and process.