Grapevine in Work Places

"Corporate Communication"

          What is the grapevine, and why should managers know how it works?

Nancy Borkowski, 2010 defined grapevine as an unstructured and informal network founded on social relationship rather than organizational. While Mc Shane and Van Glinow, 2003 defined it as an informal chat between people, seen as a network through which the information is reliably spread. Then, Newstrom and Davis, 1993 defined grapevine as a medium that transmit info very rapidly in all direction. According to Prof. Keith Davis, Grapevine arises from social interaction, it is as fickle, dynamic and varied as people are. It is the exercise of their freedom of speech and is a natural and normal activity.

Grapevine communication system is the most informal communication of an organization. According to Prof. J.W Newstrom and others, grapevine has three main characteristics. First, it is not controlled by management. Second, it is perceived by most employees as being more believable and reliable. Third, it is also largely used to serve the self-interest of those people with in it.

Grapevine are synonyms with rumour, unconfirmed reports, hearsay, gossip, talk, scandal, chat, whisper, buzz, noise and word of mouth. For example, suppose the profit amount of a company is known. Rumour is spread that this much profit is there and on that bonus is declared. CEO may be in relation to the Production Manager and may friendly relation with each other. Then the rumour spread from one person to another person. In half day, all people in the company will get know about it. During coffee time, or lunch hour the whole company will get know about that info. It is fastest than we expected.

There are four types of grapevine chains. That is gossip chain, probability chain, single strand chain, and clust chain. Single stand chains flow like a chain. For example Mr A tell something to B, then B will tells the same thing to C and C continue tell to the D and so on. The longer the strand the more distortion and filtering effects. While, gossip chain is the chain that passes a message regarding a ‘not-on-job’ nature, which is generally considered to be slow in passing the information. 

Then probability chain, where information may move from anybody to anybody. This chain is found when the information somewhat interesting but not really significant. Only some people in the organization will get know the information. Next, cluster chain. Individuals communicates with only those individuals he/she trust. It more about private news or about their member personal thing. Most informal communication flows through this chain. For example, ‘A’ tell to her friend ‘B’ that she was divorced, because she want to share the burden or her problem to her trusted friend. But in same time, her friend did not keep the secret and tell again about it to their friend in privately. Sometimes it will cause quarrelling between teamwork because of bad gossip. 

Grapevine has positive and negative impact in the organization. The company should not try to eliminate grapevine communication. It is because grapevine channel carry information rapidly, creates a sense of unity among the employees, and feedback obtained is quick. Besides that, grapevine also as a supplement and serves as an emotional supportive value. Grapevine channels carry information rapidly. As soon as an employees get know some confidential information, he become in inquisitive and passed the details or info to his closest friend. Then his friend passes that info to the others. Thus, it is spread hastily. The grapevine creates a sense of unity among the employees who share and discuss their views with each other. The feedback obtained is quick compared to formal communication.

Grapevine give a negative impacts to the company where it carries partial information at times as it is more based on rumours. Thus, it does not clearly depicts the complete state of affairs. Besides, it also not trustworthy, whereas it does not follow official path of communication and it spread more by gossips and unconfirmed report.  It may give a negative effect to the company where the productivity of employees maybe decrease due to they spend more time in gossip rather than working.

Manager should preventing rumours because it give a negative effect to the company by providing information through the formal system of communication on the issues important to the employees and supply employees with a steady flow of clear, accurate and timely information. Besides, manager also need to keep formal communication lines open and the process as short as possible.

Moreover, managers should find out about what and why that information is being communicated. The grapevine cannot be abolished, rubbed out, hidden under a basket, chopped down, tie up or stopped. It is because, the grapevine are the medium that where the news are spread in very fast rather than used email. And it may help in achieve the firm objectives. So the manager does not need to try to control or restrict it but use it as a supplement formal channels. 

In conclusion, the organization should not eliminate the grapevine communication because it can help employees in doing their work. Besides, grapevine communication among the employees and employers cannot be stopped even though upper level of management put an effort on it.