Chefen och kommunikationsklimatet - en kvalitativ studie med strategiska chefer

Sammanfattning: This study aims at increasing knowledge about top managers' views on the climate of communication in an organizational context. The main question is "How do strategic managers describe the communication climate?" The study also concerns how the managers describe a communicative action that strives for voice and communicative action that strives for silence. The study also explore the influence of power on the communication climate. The study has a qualitative approach and builds on in-depth interviews with eleven experienced and senior executives. Through the sociologist Goffman's (2009) dramaturgic perspective and through theories of voice and silence, the study tries to interpret the respondents' views. The result shows that respondents describe the communication climate from opposition openness and silence. In an open climate there are open doors, creativity and focus on the business. In a quiet climate, the doors are closed. The focus is on tactics, policies and hidden personal agendas. Although the communication climate is not an established concept among the respondents, everyone strives for an open communication climate and they work differently to reach for it. The study's conclusions confirm previous research that the communication climate is a critical resource for the function and effectiveness of the workplace. The study's conclusions are also that managers should get support, for example from communication departments to learn to read the communication climate in their device and also get tools to develop the communication environment. Not least, managers need help to increase their self-awareness to understand how they personally contribute to an open or closed climate.