COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Communication audit SCCA 3023 group A INDIVIDUal ASSIGNMENT Article review

PREPARED TO: Dr. Mohd khairie bin ahmad PREPARED BY: Lim mei ling 211597 SUBMITTED ON: 14th OCTOBER 2013
ARTICLE TOPIC

Evaluating the Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire as a Communication Audit Tool.

OVERVIEW
This study look over the merits and restrictions of Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) by comparing the result of CSQ with results gathered with the Critical Incident Technique (CIT). The authors trying to evaluate the effectiveness and quality of internal communication within three organizations by using this two methods. Both methods using different ways to focus on the commnication satisfaction of employees in the organization. At the end, the authors conclude that the CSQ method is not suitable to diagnosing particular communication issues but it can succeed to assess insight the overall way employees evaluate different aspect of the organizational communication.

ISSUE
According to Goldhaber, 1993; Goldhaber & Rogers, 1979; Hargie & Tourish, 2000, communication audits typically evaluate an organizations information about its communicative strengths and weaknesses. However, scholars nowadays have paid little attention to the methodological strengths and weaknesses of the specific datacollection techniques involved. Communication audit research focuses on communication satisfaction, which is considered to be an important barometer of organizational functioning (Downs & Adrian, 2004; Downs & Hazen, 1977). So, the authors seek out one of the most prominent audit methods, the CSQ which is compared with the CIT. The CSQ focuses on the holistic impression of the way employees determination to the communication process in their organizationand and the result of determination is a series of recurring communicative behaviors. By using this method, employees can answering a large number of question related to eight different communication topics to measure the communication satisfaction of employees. Example of communication topics such as communication climate, relationship to superiors, relationship with subordinates and so on. In other hand, the CIT producing a widely communicative behaviors which focuses on discrete positive or negative incidents in communication from the

employees. Employees overall level of communication satisfaction will be measured by the realistic communication process they have encountered in positive or negative feelings. They need to explain their experience in detail who has involved and what is the effects. In this article, the authors define the type and character of each incidents collected when using the CIT method. They conclude that this method are rich, qualitative character that enables to measure the in depth study of communication problems in the organization. In this study, total of 165 respondents is selected from all organizational within the schools (see Table 1). Two task is given to every respondents during the interview which is recall the critical incidents and fill out the CSQ. Some respondents background question is being ask before ask for critical incidents because it is counterproductive to ask for critical incidents in the very first part of the interview. In total, the CSQ consisted of 44 question which covered 10 communication factors (see table 2). Respondents can indicated their satisfaction level on a scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 7 (very satisfied).

Table 2

Critical Analysis

The authors analysis the CSQ data showed that the Relationship with Subordinated and Relationship with Superiors most positively while the Communication Climate was evaluated at least satisfactory. However, respondents were clearly less satisfied with Interdepartmental Communication and Top Management Communication. The CIT data showed that 525 (70%) of the incidents were negative from total 745 incidents. Almost 65% of the incidents had a direct relationship with one of the factors of the CSQ. The Horizontal and Informal Communication and the Relationship to Superiors is the most positively evaluated dimensions (see Table 3). Therefore, authors define that the results of CSQ and CIT show roughly the same.

Besides that, many of the incidents that respondents given were directly related to an exact item of the CSQ. Out of 745 incidents in CIT, 272 incidents do not have a relationship with a factor on the CSQ. The authors found four categories which together captured the essence of the incidents (see Table 4). From the analysis, authors define that these four categories contained many negative incidents which mean many respondents dissatisfaction with their organization in this aspect. Example of incidents such as enforced decisions, speed of reaction to request, communication without a response and unclear distribution of responsibilities. Table 4

Conclusion
As a conclusion, the CSQ is quantitative method while CIT is qualitative method. The strengths and weaknesses of the CSQ are evaluated by the authors by comparing its results with the CIT. They consider this CSQ method to be an appropriate tool to measure the satisfaction level of their employees in the organization. On my opinion, I will more prefer using CIT method as a communication audit tool compare with CSQ method. This is because CIT is an openended character that possible to shed light on important new of communication problems by using focus group or in-depth interviews.

References
Downs, C. W., & Adrian, A. D. (2004). Assessing organizational communication. London: Guilford. Downs, C. W., & Hazen, M. D. (1977). A factor analytic study of communication satisfaction. Journal of Business Communication, 14, 63-73. Goldhaber, G. M. (1993). Organizational communication. Dubuque, IA: Brown & Benchmark. Goldhaber, G. M., & Rogers, D. P. (1979). Auditing organizational communication systems: The ICA communication audit. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Hargie, O., & Tourish, D. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of communication audits for organisations. London: Routledge.