SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC RELATION AND STRATEGIC

COMMUNICATION

Title: Theories of organizational communication

Group Assignment

1. Henok Engida(GSR/4288/14)
2. Liya Kibrom(GSR/7430/14)
3. Tsion Hailu(GSR/4732/14)

Submitted to-Dr. Gashaye Belew

2014/2022
 Theory of x and y
McGregor (1960 cited in Daft, 1994) created theory X and Y which focusing on a manager’s
assumption towards their employees. The assumption is comprised of two kinds: assumption of
Theory X and assumption of Theory Y. The theory viewed human beings in two separate ways
as being either negative - which he called theory X or positive - which he called theory Y
(Robbins, Judge & Vohra, 2012).

According to (Gannon & Boguszak, 2013), Theory X is predicated on the idea that employees
tend to be passive or resistant to work, therefore management’s role should include organizing,
controlling, directing, and modifying employees’ behaviors, while Theory Y has a perspective
that people are not passive and management’s duty is to give their employees opportunities to
develop themselves and to create environments where they will use their own potentials at the
highest level

Theory X, the manger assumes that human beings dislike work and wish to avoid it if possible.
While the basis of theory X is premised on managers pushing employees by largely any means to
get the work done including force or coercion, it is interesting to note that McGregor (1960), On
the other hand, theory Y was viewed as having a contemporary style of management which
involved incorporation of employees, allowing freedom and self-control of workers in the
organization (McGregor, 1957). Ultimately, one can make a case that, the implementation of
each of these management styles has an impact on employees' job satisfaction, as observed by
Tepret and Tuna (2015). According to Robbins and Judge (2013), job satisfaction is a positive
feeling as a result of people’s evaluation of their job characteristics and the people with high
level of job satisfaction have positive feelings 5 about their jobs while the lower ones have
negative feelings.

To conclude, theory X and Y of McGregor talks about the assumption of managers towards their
subordinates. Theory X managers assume that their employees need to be controlled, coerced
and threaten to make them put extra effort to the assigned tasks. Alternatively, Theory Y
managers believe that their employees do not need to be directed or threaten to get them to work.
 Expectancy violation theory
Expectancy violations theory (Burgoon, 1993; Burgoon & Jones, 1976) is an interpersonal
communication theory that makes the counterintuitive claim that violations of expectations are
sometimes preferable to confirmations of expectations. It also distinguishes between positive and
negative violations. EVT was initially formulated to account for the communicative effects of
proxemics violations during interpersonal and group interaction. Proxemics refers to the
organization, use, and interpretation of space and distance. Hall (1959), an anthropologist, had
designated proxemics as one of the “hidden dimensions of culture,” a sort of “silent language”
that is used universally across cultures and expresses well-understood messages within a culture.
sometimes preferable to confirmations of expectations. Expectancy violation theory sees
communication as the exchange of information which is high in relations content and can be
used to violate the expectations of another which will be perceived as either positively or
negatively depending on the liking between the two people.

The theory is framed in the form of propositions (Burgoon, 1978). Propositions state an

empirical relationship between two or more variables and are pitched at high enough level of
abstraction to generate multiple testable hypotheses. Scaffolding these propositions are the first
key concept in the theory is expectations. As a communication theory, EVT is concerned
specifically with what people expect to do in interpersonal interactions. Expectations are
enduring cognitions about the behavior anticipated of others. They are a product of social norms
in a given situation and any individuating information that one actor has about the other
(Burgoon & Walther, 1990).assumptions that are widely accepted about human behavior and
interpersonal communication.

EV theory holds that positive violations produce more favorable communication outcomes than
conformity to expectations, while negative violations produce less favorable ones (Burgoon &
Hale, 1988).

In other words, violating, or breaking, what the receiver expects can work in favor of the
communicator, depending on how the violation is perceived (violation valence) and how the
communicator is viewed in terms of what they have to offer (communicator reward valence).
Communicators with a high reward valence can enhance their attractiveness, credibility, and
persuasiveness by doing the unexpected (Griffin, 2009).

Face negotiation theory

The researching of facework can be found in a wide range of disciplines such as anthropology,
psychology, sociology, linguistics, business management, international diplomacy, and human
communication studies, among others. The concept of face has been used to explain linguistic
politeness rituals, apology acts, embarrassment episodes, requesting behaviors, rapport-building,
and conflict interactions. The origin of the face negotiation theory stemmed from the author’s
dissatisfaction with the mainstream interpersonal conflict communication literature in the early
1980s.

In the mainstream Western-based interpersonal and workplace conflict research literature, the
twin ideologies of conflict confrontation and self-disclosure were strongly endorsed, and conflict
tactfulness, avoidance style, and silence strategy were minimized.

Thus, the author set out to incorporate a stronger Eastern or Asian cultural lens on conflict
negotiation in a variety of conflict contexts. Earlier versions of the conflict face-negotiation
(FN) theory can be found in the “Toward a Theory of Conflict and Communication” chapter
(Ting-Toomey 1985) and the “Intercultural Conflict Styles: A Face Negotiation Theory” chapter
(Ting-Toomey 1988) in which the first version of the FN theory became available. A second
rendition of the FN theory on “Intercultural Facework Competence” with seven assumptions and
32 propositions were made available in a subsequent journal article (Ting-Toomey and Kurogi
1998). The seven coreassumptions of the FN theory are as follows:

(1) people in all cultures try to maintain and negotiate face in all communication situations;

(2) the concept of face is especially problematic in emotionally threatening or identity-vulnerable

situations when the situated identities of the communicators are called into question;

(3) the cultural value spectrums of individualism-collectivism and small/large power distance
shape facework concerns and styles;
(4) individualism and collectivism value patterns shape members’ preferences for self-oriented
face concern (i.e., verbal direct tendency) versus other-oriented or mutual-oriented face concern
(verbal indirect-accommodating tendency);

(5) small and large power distance value patterns shape members’ preferences for horizontal-
based facework (i.e., informal interaction) versus vertical-based facework (i.e., formal
interaction);

(6) the value dimensions, in conjunction with individual, relational, topical, and situational
factors influence the use of particular facework behaviors in particular cultural conflict scenes;
and

(7) intercultural facework competence refers to the optimal integration of culture-sensitive

knowledge, mindfulness, and flexible communication skills in managing vulnerable identity-
based conflict situations appropriately, effectively, and adaptively.

Based on the results of several large, cross-cultural comparative research studies, a third version
of the FN theory appeared in the “The Matrix of Face” (Ting-Toomey 2005) and contained an
updated 24 FN theoretical propositions. Overall, empirical research evidence revealed that:

(1) individualists (e.g., German and U.S. respondents) tended to use more direct, self-face
conflict styles (i.e., dominating and competing), and collectivists (e.g., Chinese and Mexican
respondents) tended to use more indirect, other-face concern conflict styles (i.e., avoiding and
seeking third-party help) (Oetzel, Garcia, and Ting-Toomey 2008; Oetzel, Ting-Toomey, and
Masumoto 2001);
Reference
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violations. Human Communication Research, 2, 131– 146.

Burgoon, J. K., & Hale, J. L. (1988). Nonverbal expectancy violations: Model elaboration and application to
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Burgoon, J. K., & Walther, J. B. (1990). Nonverbal expectancies and the evaluative consequences of
violations. Human Communication Research, 17(2), 232–265.

Burgoon, J. K., & Le Poire, B. A. (1993). Effects of communication expectancies, actual communication, and
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Gannon Dave & Boguszak Anna, 2013. "Douglas Mcgregor’S Theory X And Theory Y," CRIS - Bulletin of
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