Interpersonal Communication Within Organizational Communication

In Chinese universities,counsellors play an important role for undergraduates besides academic curriculum.Counsellors interact with students in various ways from the first day of their attendance on campus.However,misunderstandings towards their work by the students often make obstacles for this special group of college staff.This thesis explores how the college counsellors strategically communicate with students by conducting a case study of Xiamen University through participatory observation and depth interview.Taking organizational communication as the analytical framework and a qualitative research method,this thesis aimed to answer two research questions:(1)How do counsellors interact with students within the job of organizational communication?(2)What kind of difficulties would they meet in organizational communication?The findings showed that counsellors were very aware of that smooth communication with students could be achieved by various ways,including organizational communication ways,establishing matrix structure,directing laterallongitudinal information flow,applying face-to-face mode,shaping organizational culture in sense of ceremony and controlling the limit of information.In addition,counsellors could use interpersonal communication as supplement,such as impression management to reshape image,self-betrayal to shorten the distance,enhanced connection with students and specific treatment for various types of students.However,they still face difficulties,like organizational characteristics of non-broken identity,unreasonable organizational structure and huge information.Therefore,the counsellors’job is an organizational communication in the mode of interpersonal communication.This work explores the organizational and interpersonal communication by providing a new case study.The main findings has great significance for other domestic universities’ reference.The proposed solutions of dilemmas in the work could contribute to the institutional improvement and benefit counsellors’ professionalism.