INFORMAL NETWORKS: THE COMPANY BEHIND THE CHART
This research critiques the article identified below this paragraph. The critique considers the relevance of the article to the changing role of managerial communication, the author's qualifications, the strengths and weaknesses of the article, and the reviewer's agreement or disagreement with the key points stated in the article.
Krackhardt, David, & Hanson, Jeffrey R. (1993, July August). Informal networks: The company behind the chart. Harvard Business Review, 71(4), 104 111.
The relevance of this article to the changing role of managerial communication is illustrated by the authors' development and explanation of the network structures both formal and informal found in organizations, together with the key role fulfilled by informal networks in both the dissemination of information and the pursuit of organizational objectives (Krackhardt and Hanson, 1993, pp. 104 111). This conception of how organizations and organizational communications work is supported by the literature relevant to managerial communication.
Scott (1987, pp. 27 28) perceives organizations within the context of systems. The "broadest possible definition of a system is that it is 'anything' that is not chaos" (Boulding, 1985, p. 9). Conversely, a system could be defined as "any structure that exhibits order and pattern" (Boulding, 1985, p. 9). The common definition of a system is that a system is "an
aggregate of elements considered together with the relationships holding among them" (Angyal, 1991, p. 20). In this sense, a system any be considered "as any entity, conceptual or physical, which consists of independent parts" (Ackoff, 1991, p. 332).
Scott (1987, pp. 29 94) classifies organizational systems as either rational, natural, or open. Structures have parts, and "an important aspect of the systematic structure of things is that the relationship among its parts...