departmental influences on interdepartmental

1 downloads 0 Views 1MB Size Report
achieving their respective goals, the potential for conflict or cooperation exists. The typical ... to how to balance business with journalism,*^ But other industries recognize ... Sheriff defined "superordinate goals" as those goals compelling for ... managers have a lower level of agreement with other department heads than.
DEPARTMENTAL INFLUENCES ON INTERDEPARTMENTAL COOPEFIATION IN DAILY NEWSPAPERS By George Sylvie A survey of Ohio daily newspaper department heads shows that interdepartmental differences about cooperation exist. Managers do positively distinguish their depart me fits from others while agreeing on the role of goals in interdepartynental troubles. And how much cooperation a manager believes is needed - as well as the perception of which departments are or are not cooperative-depends on, to some degree, what department that manager manages. Still, departmental affiliation plays a negligible rote in determining existing levels of cooperation. News managers generally named advertising as the most difficult department, while advertising said the same about news. Circulation was named most cooperative department. When two departments in an organization depend on each other for achieving their respective goals, the potential for conflict or cooperation exists. The typical newspaper, while thriving on the mutual dependence of its departments, also has a long-standing history of deliberate divisiveness,^ For instance, the advertising and news departments - because of their varying content and competing values - often have an invisible, ideological barrier between them. Each department often operates as if a separate entity.^ But in the recent past, publishers and industry critics have targeted interdepartmental barriers for extinction in a push toward reaching greater understanding of readers and reading habits,"* and in response to declining readership and sales,* But there is concern that such ideas potentially place journalism in peril, that market-driven management may obscure or even eliminate the traditional watchdog role of the press,^ This push to merge journalistic and market interests has theoretical significance as well, since organizational dynamics can be analyzed from the standpoint of cooperation, differentiation, and group identity. The present study attempts to determine to what extent goals and departmental differences and/or social identity play a part in newspaper interdepartmental relationships. The study specifically examines whether newsrooms facilitate or inhibit interdepartmental cooperation.

Goals

l&MC Quarterly Vol. n, No. ] Spnngl9% 230-241

230

There is much apprehension and tension in the newspaper business as to how to balance business with journalism,*^ But other industries recognize the cooperation concept and scholars have not ignored it. As Tjosvold' observed, researchers could systematically use Deutsch's theory of cooperaGeorge Sylvie is an assistant professor in the Department of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.

)aiutNAUSM& MASS CoMMUMcmow QuAimxa

tion* to analyze organizational dynamics. Deutsch theorized that the difference between cooperative and competitive situations resided in their "goalregions." Put in context of departments or groups, this means groups compete or cooperate depending upon the similarity between their goals. Tjosvold has expanded and confirmed this notion through models and subsequent studies." Sheriff defined "superordinate goals" as those goals compelling for ail but unachievable without the efforts and resources of one group alone. Such goals require the coordinated efforts of the groups involved. This implies that those committed to such goals value cooperation more than those not so strongly committed. As Kochan, Huber, and Cummings'^ found and as Daft'^ deftly summarized, goals are the primary cause of intergroup conflict in organizations. If one department achieves its goal, that achievement often interferes with another department's goal. In her study of success factors for competing intracity newspapers, Brown'^ gathered data that showed newsroom managers have a lower level of agreement with other department heads than those heads have with one another. In the new economic climate for newspapers, editors have been told they cannot afford to ignore the bottom line, but that departments must focus on the customer, meet common challenges, and promote the total product." Such a strategy focuses on common, not competitive, goals. Another factor in interdepartmental relations stems from Lawrence's and Lorsch's theory of differentiation, which argues that each functional part of an organization deals with a different part of the environment and thus develops a viewpoint that reflects its adaptation to that environment. In short, members of a department develop a primary concern with coping with their own particular subenvironment.''' Such concern may foster a certain group cohesiveness, which Deutsch"" contended leads to more consensus among members on attitudes and beliefs that relate to group functioning. In the newspaper, for example, preliminary data'^indicate that ill will stems from the traditional division between news and other departments'** as well as traditional newspaper organizational structure that takes a functional approach, creating departments based on the work functions they perform.^'' Although the newsroom is often charged with having an uncooperative attitude, no data exist on whether nonnewsroom managers believe this is the case. One modification to differentiation theory draws on Festinger^'^ and posits that some group differentiation can be socially explained. TajfeP' theorized that social comparisons hetween highly dissimilar groups are based on the perceived legitimacy of the perceived relationships between them. His "social identity concept" stems from a group's need for a positive and distinctive self-image - in short, group identity. Tajfel and Tumer expanded this idea into three basic assumptions: (1) individuals strive to achieve or to maintain a positive social identity; (2) positive social identity is based largely on favorable comparisons between ingroup and relevant out-groups; and (3) when social identity is unsatisfactory, individuals will strive to either leave their existing group and join some more positively distinct group and/or to make their existing group more positively distinct.^^ Though these assumptions are at the individual level of analysis, they relate to the newspaper organization because individuals comprise groups and need only perceive themselves as psychologically D E B W I M E I V E U INFLUENCIS

ON iNTtHDEmKIMENT/U. CoOPEXAnOKI IN

Differentiation and Social Identity

231

intertwined with the group's fate in order to socially identify with that group." Social identity theory implies that group identity relies on positive distinction. Social comparisons often facilitate this search by emphasizing differences between groups.^'' Further, Oaker and Brown found - contrary to their prediction - that the more a person identified with his/her own group, the more he/she tended to favor the outgroup in question.^ Despite heightened interest in organizational theory, noticeable adaptations of such theories to mass media systems have only recently begun. Elliott and Chaney-'' found that a television production facility's subdepartments each brought its own agenda to the product, thus supporting differentiation theory, Allen, Seibert, Haas, and Zimmerman^-' later discovered that a television station employee's departmental membership affects perception of conflict and station morale. A somewhat related study of one newspaper conglomerate reinforced the differentiation concept in finding little communication among departments as well as "distinct perceptual differences."^^ This study attempts to determine whether newsroom behavior is a function of such differentiation, or whether, as one case study^" suggested newsrooms constitute a negative, resistant factor in efforts at interdepartmental cooperation. The following set of research questions address the role of social identity, goals, and departmental differentiation on interdepartmental relationships. Social Identity. 1. Will newspaper managers positively distinguish their departments from others? Goals. 2. Will newspaper managers say goals are the primary obstacles in dealing with difficult departments? Will newsroom managers agree with other department heads on this point? 3. Is awareness of common goals related to perceived need for cooperation? Differentiation. 4. Do newspaper managers agree about what is important when dealing with difficult departments? 5. Does departmental affiliation play a role in how much existing cooperation newspaper managers report and in whether they say more cooperation is needed? 6. Does departmental affiliation play a role as to which department is seen by newspaper managers as the most difficult or the most cooperative? \/lt>fUnti

232

Sample and Response. The author mailed surveys in February 1991 to editors, advertising department managers, and circulation department managers of 86 daily newspapers in Ohio, whose newspaper demographics closely paralleled national norms in many categories.-**'The response rate was 48%. Of the 86 newspapers, there was at least one response from 70 (81%). In total, 33 respondents were newsroom managers, 44 were advertising managers, and 42 were circulation managers. The rest worked in two or more departments. Only 12 of the 86 had all three managers respond to the survey. JowlNAUSM&MASSCOMMUNICAnONQUARrElUX

Measurement. Social Identity. To determine whether managers positively distinguished their departments from others, they were asked to name their departments and to rank the following thirteen factors important to newspaper success. The factors were grouped as team-related, addressing factors that deal with the success of the organization as a whole (enthusiastic, talented personnel throughout; a good reputation; net profits desired by management); circulation-related (customer satisfaction: giving the customers what they want when they want it; the price of the paper; and an enthusiastic, skilled circulation group); news-related (skilled, accurate, and complete reporting and writing; an editorial stance tbat reflects the city's mood; and being first with the news); and advertising-related (good - skilled, motivated advertising people; favorable demographics: your readers are the market that advertisers want; and a good selection of ads). Managers who consistently ranked their own departments higher on the success factors than other departments were regarded as positively distinguishing their groups. Goals. To determine whether newspaper managers view goals as primary obstacles in dealing with difficult departments, the survey asked respondents to name the most "difficult" department to work with. Respondents were asked not to mark their own departments. Then they were asked to rank twelve items "according to their role in dealing with" the most difficult department. These factors were ranked in the following order: lack of understanding between the two departments; differing nature of the goals of each department; the problem department is motivated differently; the problem department's personnel are difficult to deal with; external problems (outside the paper) affect the problem department; the problem department is just negative to my department in any possible way; the problem department has significant internal structure problems; the character or personality of that department's boss is a problem; the department lacks clear planning; the department doesn't understand the customer; our departments are in constant contact, so naturally we have our problems; and the problem department doesn't run smoothly. in evaluating the relationship between awareness of common goals and perceived need for cooperation, managers were asked if there were a need for more cooperation among departments at their own newspapers. Those ranking team-related success factors higher than circulation-, news-, or advertising-related, were characterized as teamers. Those whose teamrelated group ranking was lower than tbat of any of the other categories were categorized as nonteamers. Differentiation. Whether managers agreed on important items in dealing with difficult departments was also measured by managers' rankings of factors involved in dealing with difficult departments. Managers were categorized according to their departments and their rankings compared.^' TTie relationship of departmental affiliation and reporting styles and an expression of need for cooperation was measured by asking respondents to quantify the existing cooperation level as a great deal, a good amount, a fair amount, or little and none. And, as stated earlier, managers were asked to indicate whether there was a need for more cooperation among departments at the respondents' newspapers. The answers to these two questions were then cross-tabulated with managers categorized by their departments. The role of departmental affiliation and perceived difficulty or cooperation was assessed by categorizing managers by their department and DEPAKIMLtnAL INFLUENCES 0 \ iNIERDEmgrMEHIAL COOPERATION IN DAOy

NEWSMPERS

cross-tabulating results with responses to the questions asking managers to name the most difficult and the most cooperative departments.^^ Agreement again was measured using Kendall's W and r. ^ — ' Kesults

Social Identity. Research Question 1 asked whether newspaper managers positively distinguish their departments from other departments. Table 1 illustrates that newspaper managers generally, but not always, try to distinguish their own departments from others in a positive way. Factors were ranked on a scale of 1 (highest) to 13 (lowest); news department managers ranked circulation factors (6.84) ahead of their departments' related factors (6.91) and ahead of advertising factors (7.57). Meanwhile, managers from ad departments and from circulation units ranked their respective unit-related factors ahead of all others. Goals. Managers ranked goals high as primary obstacles in dealing with difficult departments. Table 2 shows a fairly high level of agreement between newsroom managers and their counterparts on this point. Both teamers and nonteamers reported existing cooperation at healthy levels. Teamers were not significantly more likely than nonteamers to say more cooperation was needed. Differentiation. In response to whether managers agree as to what's important when dealing with difficult departments, the concordance among all three managerial groups on all items was 77.1% (r = .750). Table 2 shows newsroom managers had lower agreement with the other two departments head-to-head than those departments had with each other. The news-ads concordance was 77.5% (r-.755) and the news-circulation concordance was 83.2% (r-.816) but the circulation-ads agreement reached 87.7% (r^.866). Meanwhile, when newsroom managers discussed the most difficult department, they also placed a lower ranking (10) on understanding the customer, a factor highly ranked by ad managers (3). Differences also occurred on news and advertising heads' rankings of smooth operations (5 by news heads, 11 by ad managers) and the lack of clear planning (4 vs.9, respectively). The only noticeable difference between circulahon and news managers was that news managers ranked "understanding the customer" as 10, while circulation managers ranked it 4 (see Table 2).

TABLE 1 Managers' Ranking of Success Factors by Department Department

News

Factors

Advertising Factors

Circulation Factors

Team Factors

News (32)*

6.91**

7.57

6.84

5.85

Ads (42)

7.06

sm

7.41

6.15

Circ. (42)

6.80

5.46

6.07

'(N) ** ranked 1 to 13, with 1 highest Factors computed by taking average ranking on factors as defined in text.

234

jouRNAUSM & MASS CoMMUNiumoN

TABLE 2 Differentiation and Goals in Lack of Cooperation Rankings of Factors Concerning "The Most Difficult Department" By Department (n in parentheses) Ads (44)

News (33)

Factor two depts. lack understand. two depts' goals different different motivation

2 1 3

difficult personnel external problems negative toward my dept.

7 12 6

internal problems dept. boss character

4 10 8 5



1

OveraU 2 1 3

1 2 73

2 3 S'

7.5 12

11 12 6

8 10 12 5

9

11

6 10

11

planning lacking doesn't understand customer constant contact no smooth operation

4

Circ. (42)

9

7

6

3 5 11

4

4 7 9

10 8

Note: a. for ad and news groups, r=.755; degree of concordance W=.775 b. for ad and circulation groups, r=.866; degree of concordance W=.877 c. for news and circulation groups, r=.816; degree of concordance W-.832 Departmental differences were not significant in reporting existing cooperation, although news managers were more likely to report lower levels of cooperation than were ad or circulation managers. Still, when managers were asked if more cooperation were needed, departmental differences became evident as newsroom managers exhibited the greater tendency (87.5% to 81.8% for ad managers to 64.1 % for circulation managers) to say more cooperation is needed. Circulation managers showed a lesser tendency to say more cooperation is needed. The results were statistically significant (p N

well-structured; the character or personality of that department's boss is a plus; that department knows what it wants to do; that department knows the customer; we don't have much contact with that department; and that department runs itself well. 33. George Sylvie, "Influence of Selected Market Factors in Interdepartmental Relationships in Daily Newspapers," in Readings in Media Management, ed. Stephen Lacy, Ardyth B. Sohn, and Robert H. Giles (Columbia, SC: Media Management and Economics Division of AEJMC, 1992), 181-200. 34. Allen et al., "Broadcasting Departmental Impact." 35. Elliot Aronson, The Social Animal (NY: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1984), 13-53. 36. Underwood and Stamm, "Balancing Business with Journalism."

CES ON ImERDEmitTMEt^AL CooPERAnoN IN DAILY NEWSMFERS

241