Discussion # 1

In Chapter Nine of your textbook, the author discusses the concept of organizational development. Although organizational development can be an effective way for companies to remain competitive, only about two-thirds of change efforts are actually successful. Why do you believe organizational development is so difficult?

Think of a barrier to organizational development that you have personally experienced as an employee or that stands out to you as being common. Explain why you believe this barrier is challenging for organizations as well as what you would do to overcome it, if you were faced with change in your organization.

Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Support your claims with examples from required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts by Day 7.

Discussion #2

Mediated communication and social media (e.g., email, blogs, Facebook, Skype, and Twitter) have played a major role in changing the way that organizations engage in communication with their customers and with employees internally. As we have learned this week, communicating through electronic media is referred to as mediated communication. There are pros and cons to using mediated communication in the work environment. How do you believe mediated communication has improved organizational communication? How has it hurt organizational communication? Provide examples to illustrate your point.

Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Support your claims with examples from required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts by Day 7.

Assignment

Chapter Eight discusses the role of mediated communication in the workplace. Read the article entitled, Email etiquette: Tips for professional email, then write a paper about your thoughts on this article. In your paper, be sure to also address the following:

• Do you find these tips to be helpful or do you think that they are too obvious and should be common sense?
• Were there any tips that made you disagree with the author?
• Which tips will you adapt into your computer-mediated communication?

Please make sure to reference the article and at least one other article in your paper. This can be your textbook, one of the recommended articles, or another article that you have located.

The paper must be two pages in length and formatted according to APA style. Cite your resources in text and on the reference page. For information regarding APA samples and tutorials, visit the Ashford Writing Center, within the Learning Resources tab on the left navigation toolbar.