Managers' and employees' perceptions of communication in a service culture: a case study

Organisational culture is largely the result of the interaction between the people of an organisation over time and communication plays a major role in such intra-organisational interaction. The prevailing organisational culture will reciprocally determine the communication of the organisation, not only internally, but also externally with all of its stakeholder groups, and particularly with its customers. This external communication is particularly relevant to an organisation's ability to render service to its customers. This article investigates differences in the way in which managers and employees perceive the role of communication in an organisation in the automotive industry. The results indicate that managers consistently evaluate prevailing service-related communication contexts more positively than employees. It is concluded that progress in service quality can be seriously inhibited by a false sense of security about prevailing service related communication procedures and practices among the managers of an organisation.