Reference no: EM133174797

Informal Communication Networks

Learning Objective 1: Understand Mishra's (1990) eight reasons for the existence of grapevines in organizations.

Learning Objective 2: Differentiate among Davis's (1969) four informal communication networks.

Learning Objective 3: Explain the relationship between social capital and communication networks.

Learning Objective 4: Understand Brass's (1995) typology for the measurement of ties.

Learning Objective 5: Understand Brass's (1995) typology for the measures assigned to individual actors.

Learning Objective 6: Understand Brass's (1995) typology for the measures assigned to networks.

Question 1. Think of a time when you've tuned in to the grapevine at your workplace. How accurate was the information you received? Would you still trust the grapevine in your workplace today? Has social media made grapevine communication better or worse?

Question 2. Do an analysis of your own social capital. The Canadian Government put together a document describing how to analyze one's social capital. Use one of the 15 different methods for analyzing social capital described in this document (Appendix 1-15) to analyze your own social capital.

Question 3. Conduct a simple network analysis of an organization you belong to currently. If your organization is very large, you may want to only analyze one division of the organization.