Business Management Class Discussion Board Assignment

Grapevine
Name:
Institutional affiliation
Grapevine
Abstract
Grapevine is an informal type of communication which is passed as gossip throughout the organization. Grapevine can either be communicated from the managers to the employees or from the employees aimed at reaching the managers. Generally, it is found at all levels of the organization. This type of communication is more effective compared to the formal form of communication since it travels quickly and it is more direct. As any type of communication, a grapevine can have positive outcomes or negative outcomes depending on the nature of the information being passed. Managers use grapevine to make the lower level employees understand some of the difficulties that the managers are facing. After getting the incite of the challenges hat the managers are facing, the employees provide solutions through getting involved. Similarly, the employees use grapevine to express how they feel about the organization or those managing it. It is worth noting that, although a large percentage of information travelling as grapevine is true, there might be some information which is not true.
Grapevine in the organization
In the organization, there were rumours that the head of our department was being promoted to general branch manager. According to some colleagues in the organization, the rumour started after an advertisement of the empty post of the branch general manager. The rumours said that some few days after the vacancy advertisement, our department manager was seen in a hotel with a member of the board and the chief executive officer of the company (Papa et al.

, 2008). The individual said that he overheard the conversation of the three talking about how he was going to be given the position without any form of recruitment or vetting.
After this news reached the entire organization, people started résistance group demanding for fair and equal opportunities. They demanded that the board member and the CEO be removed from their offices (Papa et al., 2008). After some few days of slow resistance, the people finally started boycotting and demonstrating outside the company building, accusing the leadership of being corrupt and discriminating. Further, some of them applied to the court for more investigations into the affairs of the company.
After a two week investigation, the investigating team found that the rumour originated from an employee who was a supervisor in one of the departments. The employee claimed to have seen the three in the hotel that particular day (Papa et al., 2008). However, the supervisor had not actually left his house the day he claimed to have seen them. Furthermore, the investigation team found that the CEO was outside the country for any official business. It was concluded that the supervisor wanted to get rid of his only competitor in the post of general branch manager.
I learned that grapevine can not only be used to pass positive news, it can also be destructive if not controlled. Additionally, it is important for the employees to be very cautious of the type of information that they are communicating.
Virtual offices
A virtual office is one that allows employees of an organization to work at home or any other place which is outside the premises of the organization. The mobile offices offer a high job satisfaction to an individual in the short term (Bateman, 2013). However, in the long-term, mobile offices pose a challenge on the performance of the employees since he or she works alone. For maximum performance to take place, the employees need to engage in teamwork with other employees. Teamwork helps employees to gain new experiences from colleagues. Further, it helps them create synergy, therefore, maximizing the performance.
If I were a manager, I would come with strategies that allow employees to work partly within the organization and partly in the virtual offices (Bateman, 2013). If I worked in this type of environment, I would create a network of employees that would help me solve some of the problems I experience during my work. In this case, I would be in a position to consult them either in or outside the organization’s premises.
References
BIBLIOGRAPHY Bateman. (2013). Management. McGraw-Hill.
Papa, M., Daniels, T. & Spiker, B. (2008). Organizational communication: perspectives and trends. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.