THE SEARCH FOR NEW MEASURES IN ORGANISATIONAL COMMUNICATION: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Purpose of the study: Communication is a central pillar in organisation, yet little genuine communication takes place in the organisation. The purpose of the paper is to craft communication model that promotes routine information availability and accessibility by simplifying the approach to organisational communication through the leadership level, functional level and operational level. Methodology: The study applied systematic literature review (SLR) or systematic research synthesis (SRS) as the approach to gather data, analyse to address the research query. The study method embraces the definition of SLR by Rousseau et al. (2008). The conditions for literature search electronically was done through multiple journal sites. The gathered published material dated between 1961-2018. Main Findings: The paper put forward three propositions to establish the argument for organisational communication. The findings show that there is no definitive agreement what constitute organisational communication as it is given many names like internal communication, employee communication, corporate communication etc. There is total lack of structural approach to organisational communication. Applications of this study: The paper refocuses organisational communication towards a three-tier approach and challenges leadership to communicate in tandem with managerial roles as purported by Mintzberg in order to give prominence to organisational communication. Novelty/Originality of this study: The paper introduces three new dimensions as measures of organisational communication with a new perspective on leadership communication, where Mintzberg’s managerial roles were used as reference for leadership communication responsibility which is missing in today’s organisation. The new measures of organisational communication are leadership level, functional and operational level.


Organisational climate
The more complex organisations become, the more communication is needed and the greater the likelihood of it being inappropriate, misinterpreted or even at breaking points (Gilley, Gilley & McMillan, 2009). Management is primarily responsible for creating a climate that responds to environment positively and benefits the organisation, service users and staff. Good communication cannot stand alone and cannot guarantee to ensure such climate, but it cannot be achieved without routine communication (Jablin, 1980). Climate is synonymous to atmosphere within a given environmental setting; "organisational climate is the aggregate of psychological climate which are perceptions of individuals about their work environment" (Field & Abelson, 1982). Employees' perception is strongly influenced by psychological and social benefits within the organisation.
Employee behaviour in organisations is a result of their personal characteristics as well as their environment in which they perform. Employees' job attitudes and behaviours are affected by a wide range of organisational characteristics and social relationships, which form the grounding for employees' perceptions of their working environment (Williams et al., 2018). According to organisational behavioural theorists, behaviour in the organisation is contained in individual, group and structure. Similarly, organisational communication also follows the same similar pattern to define individual, group and structural behaviour within the organisation.
1. The leadership level relates more to decision making and strategic goals of the organisation in positioning communication at the centre of efforts to achieve organisational success. At this level, information or communication is meant to define the vision, uplift spirit, morale and hopes of the stakeholders. 2. The functional level relates more to building good working relationship between the organisation and its constituents e.g. management-employee relationship, organisation-stakeholders or shareholder or investor relationship, organisation-partners relationship. It is responsible to enhance the image and reputation of the organisation by building collaborative strategic alliances and mutual working relationships. 3. The operational level is the most active and engaging to the employees. This level relates more to the employees compared to the leadership and functional levels. This level gives and defines the processing of the information given to employees to translate into reality. It is the input-throughput-output oriented conversation cycle within the organisation which requires more communicative interaction and attention involving employees. The operational level simply is linked to messaging or transfer of information but is also recognised as characterizing the attitude and behaviours of the employees. This level also deals with the disposal of organisational outcomes to the outside through marketing efforts.
Organisational communication is defined as the condition within the leadership, functional and operational level of the organisation that create a supportive or defensive communication atmosphere strategically placed in ways that powers and add value to the organisation.

METHODOLOGY
This study applied the systematic literature review (SLR) or systematic research synthesis (SRS) as the approach to gather data to make sense for the paper. The study embraced the definition of Rousseau et al., (2008) "a research synthesis is the systematic accumulation, analysis and reflective interpretation of the full body of relevant empirical evidence related to a question". Accordingly, "the motives for undertaking a research synthesis include scientific discovery and explanation to improve management practice guidelines and for making public policy".
The objective of the research investigation is to gather data that examine communication in organisational setting. Since the goal of the paper is to invoke flexibility in the organisation to reduce ambiguity in communication. The approach of the synthesis entailed extensive, general and open-ended searches of relevant databases appropriate to focus on the research question (i.e. how to invoke flexibility in the organisation to reduce ambiguity in communication?). the conditions for data collection searches were limited to the following; the individual's personality. The individual's personality is the total of who he/she is, in terms of manifestation. Personality is built upon the individual from different sources that to a large extent help the person in relating to others different in different situations. The five big traits are the perfect characteristics that a leader in interpersonal communication needs on board his/ her DNA to succeed. According to Barrick & Mount, (1991), big five personality traits include extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience.
The interpersonal role of a leader expects the leader to have visibility among many to be recognised to have clout and influence. Interpersonal communication is the only way leaders can remain visible and tall among many people with star qualities unmatched by any. Interpersonal communication is difficult because it requires positive emotions and often challenged by peoples' difference rather than what binds them together in any given situation. It is mostly infested with misunderstanding rather than lack of understanding. It is only through effective interpersonal communication, leadership can work with or through people to achieve organisational goals. It is a face-to-face interaction, two-way communication that strongly endorsed the leader especially when handling sensitive issues, managing a large-scale change in the organisation.

Informational Role
Informational role which consists of monitor role, disseminator role, and spokesperson role hailed the leader as a container of data and information that needs to be shared with others who needs the information more to enable them to do their part of the work to enhance organisational performance. Information is a source of data and the act of sharing data becomes communicative, so communication is loaded with wisdom from those who access and share the information to those who receive to interpret it. The wisdom in information communication lies in the way the information is communicated, explained and put into context to serve the needs of the organisation and its people. This is only possible in an open climate, but closed climate tends to hoard the information as a source of power for some.
The leader as a spokesperson makes him/her a buffer or a bridge in engaging the diverse stakeholder interests in organisation both inside and outside. As a spokesperson, he has a wealth of institutional memory and knowledge. People would always want to hear from the leader ("horse's mouth") which carries much weight in the eyes of many compared to when such leadership responsibility is delegated. The leadership as a key spokesperson for the organisation especially in moments of dramatic changes, the leader's communication goes with policy and carries weight for implementation.

Decisional Role
This role completes the leader-employee interaction relationship communicatively. Decision making is a distinguishing factor to differentiate managers and non-managers and the quality of decisions managers or leaders make determines their effectiveness.
The decisional role is a factor of change for the leader, employees and the entirety of the organisation. The entrepreneurial role of the leader challenges the leader to take responsibility for bringing about change in the organisation (Mintzberg, 1971). The entrepreneurial role requires critical thinking and a wealth of creativity to think outside the extraordinary to look for problems or opportunities and then take a measured move to initiate projects or programs to take the better of it. Leader's decision-making framework is based on either to address problems or to take advantage of an opportunity. Therefore, the leader is challenged by both within and outside forces that may serve as detractors to make fail in pursuit of the main goals. But the leader must stand firm and unshakeable to handle disturbances as detractors to the process of change effort to exert maximum control.
As part of the decisional role, the leader allocates resources for the implementation of all the decisions made to the parties who have a stake in the decision. Deciding who gets what, who does what and under which context for both internal and external constituents of the organisation. The leader plays a negotiator role, where he resides over and takes charge whenever the organisation enters crucial negotiation both within and outside the organisation. The presence of the leader is required because he/she has the information and the authority to make the 'real time' decisions that difficult negotiation demands (Mintzberg, 1971). This has everything to do with credibility and extend to which employees will trust, commit to and follow leaders, as Maguire & Pitceathly, (2002) said, "Actions lie louder than words".