TITLE:
Bridging Departmental Communication Gaps in Quasi-Institutions: A Case Study of ZESCO Limited
AUTHORS:
Joan Mumba, Jackson Phiri
KEYWORDS:
Communication, Conflict, Departments, Gaps, Model, Quasi-Institutions
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.7 No.4,
October
24,
2019
ABSTRACT: Communication is seen as the key factor in the success of any
organization but when it comes to effective communication, there are certain
barriers that every organization faces. Large organisations have deficiencies
in their decentralized departments especially when dealing with large volume of
clientele whose needs are divided amongst their personal and organizational obligations.
Hence communication gaps leading to conflicts and information breakdown among
employees in the organization. The ramifications of these conflicts and broken
information flow has been poor performance of team members, negative impact on
general productivity, inefficiencies in responding to clients’ demands, bad
publicity for the company and lose of million in service delay. It is against
this background that the aim of this study was to identify the major factors
leading to intra and inter departmental communication gaps in
Quasi-Institutions and come up with a model in order to address these communication
gaps. The study used a quantitative study approach based on a sample space of
150 self-administered survey questionnaires with 83% response from
Quasi-Government Institutions. Quantitative data was analysed using Chi-square
and P-value statistical analysis with Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences (SPSS) software tool. The study found that there are existing
communication gaps due to conflicts within and between departments. This was
validated by the results from chi-square test which yielded a chi-square value
of 4.419 and the p-value of 0.036. The difference was statistically significant
at 4.419, because p-value (0.036) was less than alpha level (α = 0.05).
Hence, the results suggested that respondents deal with conflict at their place
of work. Further results revealed that, personal conflicts are not always
sorted out quickly by supervisors and managers, poor inter-personal communication, and poor inter-departmental communications
are the causes of the existing communication gaps. The study therefore recommended
that management should provide conflict resolution training which gives
employees more assurance in their capability to resolve both personal and
professional conflicts.