ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION: Advances Made During the Period From World War II Through the 1950s

THE DEVELOPMENTS in organizational communication which were reported in the literature during the period from World War II through the 1950s reflected wide-ranging and somewhat fragmented efforts. On the one hand, there were researchers who sought to de-fine more clearly the nature of such basic concepts as communication, information, and meaning, as well as develop theories depicting how these concepts might be operationalized in communicative processes. On the other extreme were practitioners asserting the significance and importance of organizational communication, simultaneously noting a number of problem areas to be overcome through adherence to certain suggested guidelines or &dquo;principles&dquo; of organizational com-munication. In general, it may be noted that much of the study and progress could be characterized as methodology-oriented rather than content-oriented. The major developments achieved during this period may be class