Workforce diversity, personality frameworks, and organizational communication

Workforce diversity or the demographic mix of different genders, races ethnicities, ages, and able-bodiediness in the workforce, is becoming increasingly important, as the use of demographic differences in employment is covered by a series of federal, state/provincial, and local laws outlawing discrimination. However, both mental and physical aptitudes and abilities are still used in matching individuals to organizations and jobs in terms of personality and capacity. The 'Big Five' personality framework consists of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. A useful personality framework consists of social traits, personal conceptions, emotional adjustment, and personality dynamics, where each category represents one or more personality dimensions.

Chapter 5

The perceptual process involves the perceiver, the setting, and the perceived. Common perceptual distortions include stereotypes or prototypes. Halo effects, selective perception, projection, contrast effects, and expectancy. Managing the perceptual process involves the management of impressions, management of the self and others and managing the information attention and selection stages of perception. Managing the information organizing stage, the information interpretation stage, the information storage and retrieval stage, and being sensitive to effects of the common perceptual distortions are all key to an effective perceptual process. Attribution theory involves emphasis on the interpretation stage of the perceptual process and consideration of whether individuals' behaviors result primarily from external causes or from causes internal to the individuals.

Chapter 16

Communication is the process of sending and receiving messages with attached meanings. The communication process involves encoding an intended meaning into a message, sending the message through a channel, and receiving and decoding the message into perceived meaning. Communication is effective when both sender and receiver interpret a message in the same way. Communication is efficient when messages are transferred at a low cost. Organizational communication is the specific process through which information moves and is exchanged within an organization.