Case Study Charting the Changing Nature of Work

Overview

Case Study Assignments are self–administered, guided problems that follow each of the readings. The purpose is to walk you through the readings, emphasizing the points that will provide the foundation for understanding the overall importance of storytelling and touching narratives in communicating the benefits of an organization and/or its products and processes. The information sets emphasized in the Case Study Assignments follow the readings of each Module: Week and highlight the key parts of the chapters. Think of each exercise as Interactive Mental Highlights (IMH).

Instructions

You will read each case study and the corresponding questions in MindTap and submit your responses to the questions by uploading a Word.doc or similar format into Canvas.

  • Length of assignment – at least 1 paragraph per case study question (no specific word or page count)
  • Format of assignment – current APA
  • At least 1 citation from textbook
  • At least 1 integration of a Biblical principle
  • Acceptable sources – Textbook, Bible

 

 

In this final case study, we turn away from looking at fictional (or occasionally factual) organizations for information and inspiration. Instead, as we close our examination of organizational communication, we ask you to look at yourself and others close to you as a way of understanding how the work world—and communication within that world—has changed in recent years and will continue to change in the future.

Throughout this chapter, we have highlighted ways that society has been transformed in recent decades and the implications of those transformations for organizational communication. Our economy is now primarily a service economy. We live in a global village dominated by business conducted in the global marketplace. Many workers are “disposable,” moving in and out of organizations, as temporary and contract work become more common. These workers are sometimes (but certainly not always) disposable by choice. At a more macro level, companies merge and acquire with such frequency that the question of “what owns what” is often difficult to answer, and loyalties toward organizations are not at all straightforward. In short, we live in an organizational world that is far different from the one inhabited by workers one hundred, fifty, or even twenty years ago.

As you conclude this course in organizational communication, then, we would like you to first take a look at those who have worked in organizations for many years. Talk to your parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, or old family friends. Ask these people how the work world has changed in the years they have been employed. Here are some questions you might ask them:

  • Have they worked for one or two organizations throughout their lives or have they changed jobs frequently? What kind of loyalty do they feel to their organizations and occupations?
  • Has technology transformed the nature of their work? Do they feel these shifts are for the better or worse?
  • Do they feel the impact of globalization in their work? How do other nations and culturesinfluence their work lives and the flow of business in their organizations?
  • How have economic shifts affected them? Have they ever been laid off or downsized? Have they chosen alternative work arrangements like contract work or temporary work? Have they started their own businesses as a result of economics (or other factors)? And how have all these alternative work arrangements influenced the quality of their work and family lives?
  • Are the people you talk to happy with their work lives? Do they enjoy their work? Do they like the amount of time they spend working? If they could go back in time and make different choices about work, what would those choices be?

These questions—and the stories they spur in the people you talk with—will help you understand the changing nature of work in a very personal way. Consider the brief stories of Kathy’s family as an example. Her grandparents labored during the early part of the twentieth century in working-class jobs typical of the time. One grandfather was a printer, and the other was a bookkeeper. They worked to keep food on the table during the Great Depression and the time surrounding it, and they thought little about the intrinsic rewards of work. The question of whether work made them feel happy would seem quite ludicrous to them. Her grandmothers both cared at home for their families, although one grandmother was trained as a schoolteacher.

Kathy’s parents—born in the 1920s—both went to college and worked as journalists. Her father worked for a large daily newspaper for more than thirty years and felt a strong connection to the organization and to the union. And the corporation he worked for (with some prodding from the union) reciprocated through steady employment, a pension, and retirement benefits. Her mother was a journalist during World War II; in the decade after, she dropped out of the workforce to have her children. She returned to a newspaper job when the youngest was in school and continued to work for many years. Her career trajectory was typical of working women of her generation.

Kathy’s parents’ children (four girls) have had varied career paths, which are typical of late baby boomer children. One daughter is a college professor; one teaches music in a rural school district; another—originally trained as a computer engineer—returned to school to earn a teaching degree and has taken early retirement; and another also returned to school after her children entered elementary school, and after completing her education degree, she is now an elementary school teacher who has gone on for a graduate degree. None of these women feel tied to a particular organization as their parents did, although they all enjoy our workplaces and colleagues. These four sisters define themselves more in terms of their profession and family. Indeed, a few years ago Kathy shifted from a tenured position to one that afforded more flexibility for a variety of pursuits and she is now shifting again to a full-time writing career apart from the university setting. And then we can turn to the future and consider Kathy’s daughter who recently graduated from college and is exploring career options and Josh’s two young children who will be making these decisions far in the future. In short, you can see that the notion of there being a single way to work and communicate in organizations is as outdated as an eight-track tape player.

So, what are the stories of the people you know? And what do you think your own story will be? Will you stay in one career or explore various options throughout your life? Will your job take you to various parts of the globe or will others from worldwide cultures be an important part of your work life at your home base? Will you work in a manufacturing industry, a service industry, an information age industry, or perhaps an industry we have not yet dreamed of? How will you fit family into the mix of your work life? These questions will take many years to explore. Hence, these questions serve as a fitting end to our consideration of organizational communication.