Indian Journal of Business Management & Technology, ISSN 2319-5797, Volume 8, Number 1/2 (2021): 1 - 8
© Arya PG College (College with Potential for Excellence Status by UGC) & Business Press India Publication, Delhi
http://apcjournals.com, www.aryapgcollege.ac.in

Global Business Communication for Future Leaders

Alok Goyal1 and Meena Kapur
1Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce
2Assistant Professor, Department of Public Administration
Guru Nanak Khalsa College, Yamunanagar (Haryana), India
⃰ Email: alokgoyal1530@gmail.com

Abstract

Communication is an important aspect of business life. Every day, business people must communicate with people at different levels of the organization or people outside the organization. In this globalized environment, they must also communicate with people from different countries and different cultural backgrounds. Poor or inaccurate communication can lead to conflict and negative emotions at the workplace. It may even result in the cancellation of the transaction or the loss of the customer’s goodwill. In this competitive environment, companies cannot afford such losses

Keywords: Communication, Opinions, Information, Thoughts and Feelings.

Introduction

Communication is the most basic requirement of any organization. It is so basic that without it, no organization can exist, operate effectively and achieve its goals. Communication brings people together by building communities between people. Communication is the art of sharing meaningful ideas, information, knowledge, experiences and feelings. Communication is the basic requirement of any organization. It is so basic that no organization can exist, operate effectively or achieve its goals without it. Communication brings people together by establishing common ground between people. This is the social need of an individual and an organization. Seventy-five per cent of our work time is dedicated to communication and 90 per cent of the work time of an organization is dedicated to communication. If people communicate for personal purposes, then the communication in the organization is for business purposes, so the function of communication is to link all aspects of the business, such as manufacturers, employees, customers, suppliers, agents and distributors, etc. That is why it is important to understand the different levels of business communication.
Communication is the art of sharing meaningful ideas, information, knowledge, experiences and feelings. The word communication is derived from Latin word "communis", means "common" which shows the natural activities of all human beings to convey opinions, information, thoughts and feelings, and emotions to others through oral or written text, body language or gestures. Effective communication is the communication of ideas, resulting in intentional exchange of viable understanding and agreement between the sender and receiver of information.
Process of Communication
Communication is a bilateral approach mechanism in which the transfer of ideas links the sender along with the receiver towards a collectively accepted course. The transmission of the sender’s concepts to the receiver as well as the receiver’s feedback or acknowledgment to the sender compile the communication approach. In order to understand the appropriate as well as effective communication, either the sender or the receiver has to act in a common atmosphere or in other words, we can say that there should be bilateral parties for communication-one is the sender and on the other hand, the other is always the receiver.
The sender has his/her ideas, attentions and emotions which he/she can carry to the receiver by any medium of expression which is called a channel. The process of communication can be understood by the following steps:
Sender
The approach of communication commences with a sender, the person who acquires a concept and demands to convey it to the receiver. In other terms, we can say that the person with concepts to participate is called a sender. On account of communication, the mechanism commences with the sender.
Encoding
The alteration of the concept into the message by a syntactical or nonverbal mechanism is identified as encoding. While encoding a message, one expects to appraise what will be the analysis of the message. This mechanism of converting the analysis of the sender into the message is encoding.
Message
It is a crucial part of communication. Message is the content that the sender demands to deliver. A message could be syntactical or non-verbal. The conceived idea, emotion or anything that the sender desires to deliver is identified as a message.
Channel
The approach or the means of sending the message is designated as the channel. The desire of the medium is affected by the inter relationship between the sender and receiver. It moreover depends upon the quickness of the message. Medium or channel can be aloud, written or it can be non-structural.
Receiver
The acceptor is the person who acknowledges or abuts meaning to the dispatched message. In a better way, if it extends to the receiver, then there are no problems to the receiver in understanding the message correctly. In other words, we can say that the acceptor is the other group who receives the message of the sender.
Decoding It is a mechanism where the acquired message is changed into an easy to understand format. It is not compulsory that the message that reaches the acceptor will be known by the receiver, but analysis is a process which changes the message into a responsive act. There are chances of misinterpretation of the message.
Feedback
This is the final component of the communication process. After acquiring the message, the receiver acknowledges the sender. The answer can be based on the complete information of the message or it can be based on the misinterpretation or confusion of the message. This explanation from the receiver to the sender is identified as feedback. Feedback acquires its own criticalness as the achievement or downfall of communication is determined by the feedback only.
The approach of communication commences with a concept, which assigns to the development of the concept or choice of a message to be broadcast by the sender. The extent of the concept is normally disclosed by the sender’s information, competence along with capability. Encoding is the former step in communication. It is the procedure of altering the information into several forms appropriate as well as coded correspondence. It describes the alternatives for language, factor of communication as well as development of the communication.
Transmission assigns to the stream of message higher than the selected channel. It approves the means elected for encoding and furthermore, preserves the communication channel free from challenge or noise, and on account of that the message can reach the receiver without some exacerbation. Decoding is the approach of changing a message into calculations by analyzing it. It embodies the message, which will serve his/her concept sent by the sender too on the factor of this opinion; the receiver can give an answer that is known as a feedback. Thus, feedback is the last step in communication.
Types of Communication
Communication between members of a large corporate house is very necessary for its proper functioning. It may be upward, downward, diagonal or grapevine. It is also known as dimensions or channels of communication.
1) Downward Communication
Downward communication is generally found in all major organisations. Communication in the organization starts from the higher authority to the lower authority, for e.g. the board of directors--managers--assistant manager--purchase officer--executive--clerk etc. Communication passes in a downward manner i.e. it moves from the top to the bottom. This type of communication is called downward communication.
Objectives of Downward Communication
• To give specified directions about the job being entrusted to a subordinate.
• To explain policies and organizational procedures.
• To appraise the subordinates for their performance.
• To give information to the subordinates about the rationality of their job so that they understand the significance of their job in relation with the organizational goals.
Advantages of Downward Communication
• It is a convenient channel through which simple information can be spread easily.
• Major decisions are conveyed through this type of communication.
• It helps to assign specific duties to a newly appointed individual.
• Individual members can interact with those to whom they are accountable.
• Appreciation can be done through this type of communication.
Limitations of Downward Communication
• Downward communication is often found to be either under communicated or over communicated, i.e. the superior may either talk too little or too much about a job.
• Downward communication being a very long channel, transmitting information to the lowest worker is a time consuming process and in this process there is a chance of loss of information.
• Sometimes messages can reach beyond the time limit.
• In this process there is a chance of exaggeration, understatement, and twisting of matter due to its long time.
• Downward communication is an authoritarian process where subordinates do not get any opportunity to participate in the decision making process.
2) Upward Communication
The communication channel which starts from the bottom level to the top level is called upward communication. For example, a worker conveys a message to the production manager, who then conveys it to the director of the company etc. It is a channel which passes the information upward.

Advantages of Upward Communication
• Upward communication provides the management with necessary feedback.
• It also provides valuable information on what the employees think of the organization and its policies.
• It gives an opportunity to the workers to voice their problems and complaints.
• Upward communication is also important for workers’ suggestions for the welfare of an organization.
• The process provides a chance to workers to take part in the decision making process which creates harmony between the workers and the management.
Limitations of Upward Communication
• Upward communication is difficult as it moves upward against the force of ‘gravity’ – meaning that the workers hesitate to initiate upward communication.
• Workers cannot enter easily in the area of management since they are afraid of the reaction from the management.
• At the bottom level people have less power; it is very difficult for them to give their views, suggestions, and complaints to the top level.
• In this, there is no surety of complete communication as there are so many barriers in its path.
• With this, workers at the lowest level are not efficient communicators so their communication, be it oral or written may not be accurate and may not be welcomed by superiors.
3) Diagonal / Horizontal Communication
Communication between departments or employees in the same organization without any hierarchy is called diagonal communication. It is the most used channel of communication. Workers communicate with other workers, clerks sharing information with one another, managers discuss some organizational problems with their colleagues, and each of these are engaged in diagonal communication.
Diagonal communication is extremely important for promoting, understanding and co-ordination among various departments. It can take place among any employees of the organization. In this type of communication anybody without any hesitation can enter into this process for discussion. It is most effectively carried on through oral communication. Group discussion, face to face exchange of views or a brief conversation are examples of diagonal communication.
Levels of Communication
The levels of communication can be described as follows :
1) Intrapersonal Communication
This communication occurs within the individual’s brain in the form of internal dialogue, as one cannot stop communicating with himself. In fact when we communicate with another person, internal dialogue with oneself continues - verifying the truth, using logical reasoning etc. For example, when one gets injured, the brain gets information and then sends the feedback that he should consult a doctor or take medicine. This is nothing but intrapersonal communication.
2) Interpersonal Communication
This level of communication includes ideas or information shared by people. This can assume the form of face to face conversation, video conferencing, and telephonic talk and so on. It takes place in our day to day life. This level of communication is beneficial as doubts can be clarified instantly and immediate feedback is possible. Interpersonal communication depends on the chemistry between the two parties involved. The environment and cultural context also play their vital role. Besides it can be formal and informal.
3) Extra Personal Communication
Extra personal communication occurs between human beings and non-human beings in which sign language is used to transmit information or to respond. For example when a pet dog feels hungry, it comes to its keeper wagging its tail, it is nothing but extra personal communication.
4) Organizational Communication
Communication between members of a big organization is organizational communication. It may be upward, downward, diagonal and grapevine. This type of communication is extremely necessary for the smooth functioning of any organization.
5) Mass Communication
In this level of communication, information is transmitted to the public at large through media such as television, radio, internet, text materials, journals and newspapers. Information in the oral form requires equipment such as microphones, amplifiers and information in the written form requires electronic or print media. It plays an important role in boosting the image of the organization and attracting customers.
6) Technical and General Communication
In the age of specialization, technocrats belonging to different fields need to be effective technical communicators and it is also quite necessary for them to understand the different stages of technical communication. Technical communication is an exchange of technical ideas and information, knowledge and experience. It includes simple definitions and descriptions of tools and machines and interpretation of principles which they follow scientifically.
The following are the characteristic features of technical communication that makes it different from general communication:
• Conveys a particular message to a particular audience.
• Contains professional information related to tools and machines.
• Requires specialized words and phrases to make the things clear.
• Involves understanding and analysis of graphical information.
• Adequate knowledge of the subject which is based on facts is absolutely necessary.
• First-hand knowledge of all the four skills of language - listening, speaking, reading and writing is needed.
• Always formal in style, organization and structure.
• Requires complex exposition techniques. In the absence of effective technical communication skills, one cannot be a successful technical student or an engineer or an executive in a multinational company or a counsellor in a call centre because it is the very life blood of any organization.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that communication is the basis of any organization and should be effectively developed in all the employees of an organization for its smooth functioning.
References
Lawrence T (2015) Global Leadership Communication: A Strategic Proposal. Creighton Journal of Interdisciplinary Leadership 1 (1) : 51 – 59.
Luthra A and Dahiya R (2015) Effective Leadership is all About Communicating Effectively: Connecting Leadership and Communication. International Journal of Management & Business Studies 5 (3) : 43 - 48.
Maznevski M and Chudoba K (2000) Bridging Space Over Time: Global Virtual Team Dynamics and Effectiveness. Organization Science 11 (5) : 473 - 492.
https://www.global-business.