21st Century Communication Trends

This posting deals with the 21st century key organizational trends identified by Stephen P. Borgatti. The trends are called Globalization, diversity, flexibility, flat, and networked. In trhe following sections I will briefly describe each of those trends.

Globalization
An increasing number of companies operate globally. In order to be close the emerging markets, many companies decide to move from direct exports to having departments (sales, manufacturing, research, and so forth) spread across the whole world. This trend leads to the phenomenon that even companies which have only domestic operations have to care about global competition because their competitors operate globally. Thus, each and every of today’s company is affected by the globalization of markets.
Globalization is not limited to sales, manufacturing, marketing, or research markets. Also, the labor market is subject to the changes brought about by globalization. Today, organizations search for talented employees all around the globe.
The trend of globalization is a reality of today’s world. However, an interesting question is: What are the reasons why globalization occurs? First of all, we have witnessed significant cost reductions and quality improvements of international transportation and communication. Furthermore, companies, which are based in the western world, search for unsaturated markets. Moreover, those companies strive to exploit regional cost advantages and expertise differences.

Diversity
The next key organizational trend is diversity. Borgatti describes the observation that the workforce is getting more heterogeneous sexually, racially, culturally, individually, etc. This trend can be the source of innovation, but it can also cause conflict and communication problems. Challenges that go along with this trend are the need to cope with different styles of interaction, dress, presentation, physical appearance, and so forth.
The trend of diversity occurs because of changing demographics and the globalization of the labor markets.

Flexibility
The trend of flexibility is characterized by the emerging of organizational systems and processes and people that can respond differently to different situations. On the one hand, this trend is associated with fewer detailed rules and procedures. On the other hand it leads to greater autonomy and encouragement for initiative. For employees, increasing flexibility can mean greater uncertainty.
Reasons for the occurrence of the trend of flexibility are differentiated customer needs, increasing diversity in the workplace, and increased pace of change in technology and markets.

Flat
In order to be competitive, most of today’s companies decrease their levels of management, empower workers to make decisions, and fewer differences in responsibility across levels. This flattening trend arose because of the need for speed, which makes it helpful to empower employees to make decisions, which means fewer managers are needed. Additionally, changes in information technology mean lees need for the communication and control functions of middle managers. Moreover, the flattening of corporations provides the opportunity to cut cost, which is becoming increasingly important due to the intensified competition caused by globalization.

Networked
Finally, the world is becoming increasingly networked. Direct communication across units and corporate boundaries, ignoring the chain of command, is important. Companies build cross-unit team structures and decentralize their organizational structure. Outsourcing, downsizing, and strategic alliances are employed to focus on core competences. In the new business world, firms are closely coordinated to share information through open computer systems. The whole organization becomes focused on customers, who are allowed to specify their orders to their individual needs (customization).
The networked global business became possible because of the advance of new information technology, especially groupware, client-server, and distributed computing. This new technology helps to handle fast changing customer needs and competitor offerings and makes it possible to produce more complicated products that require better integration of manufacturing, design, and marketing functions.

Class Discussion (02/21/08)
We were divided into several teams, each consisting of three team members, to create and hold a presentation on Borgatti`s organizational trends. My group worked on the trend diversity. In order to find information, we looked at the web pages of the companies Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Dell. We chose those companies because we knew that they have a diverse workforce and many locations of operations around the globe. We learned that diversity is an issue of increasing importance. Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Dell, for example, set up programs to manage the diversity concerning several corporate areas. The most important area of diversity is the workforce. We learned that it is crucial to understand that a diverse workforce can foster innovation but can also cause conflicts and communication problems.
In class, we listened to several other presentations on the other Borgatti trends. It was interesting to get information about how the trends described by Bogatti affect not only the business world but also the lives of the people worldwide.

Examples/ Personal Experiences
Everybody who reads this posting has experienced at least one characteristic of globalization: the internet, or more general, the advance of modern communication tools. Twenty years ago, it would have been very cumbersome and costly for me to communicate with my family or friends backs in Germany when I am in the USA. Today, that is no problem. Via internet it is even for free. This example indicates the significant change that took place during the recent decades. Distances vanish and communication across the globe becomes feasible. Perhaps, this trend could lead to the development of a world community.
The perfect example of diversity is our communications class. International students from almost all regions of the world sit in one classroom to study organizational communication. Twenty years ago, there would have been some international students from the Western part of the world but hardly any from Asia or Africa. This has changed. Today, young people from all over the world come to the USA to study so that many classrooms are as divers as our organizational communications classroom.

Links:

http://www.analytictech.com/mb021/trendsin.htm

http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/worldisflat.htm

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/globalization/

http://www1.worldbank.org/economicpolicy/globalization/