Information Flow

Research with business professionals reveals that effective communication ranks high among the skills necessary to succeed in business. Businesses must have effective internal and external communication in order to succeed. Effective communication enables the effective flow of information and this involves both the sender and the receiver to take their own responsibilities in creating satisfied communication climate that allows information flow across all organization levels (Biesmeijer & Slaa, 2004).

The communication process in organizations is a complicated one, complicated by the fact that we as individuals have our idiosyncrasies, biases, and abilities, and complicated by organizational characteristics such as hierarchy or specialization. Most material dealing with effective organizational communication assumes that one individual is the sole receiver of that communication ("Organizational information flow," n.d.).In actual practice, much organizational communication involves communication aimed at groups. This communication often takes place in meetings. Therefore, organization communication directed towards groups and transmitted within meetings needs study and attention. Groups or teams are made up of individuals; thus much of what applies to communicating with individuals would apply also to communicating with groups. Groups also have characteristics; depend on the composites of the group. Groups or teams in organizations can be classified many ways; one way in which group may be classified is formal and informal. Formal groups are groups designated by the organization, such as sales department, accounting staffs, managers, executives (Pal, Wang, & McCallum, n.d.). These groups usually do not form by themselves, but their members are appointed by the organization. Formal groups are usually designated in given places in the organization chart. These groups must function properly and in harmony with other formal groups for organization