Communication in Organizations

Communication serves a constitutive force in making organizations what they are. While communication can be viewed as merely occurring “within” the organization, communication itself is essential to the creation and maintenance of organizations. Modern research in organizational communication explores this constitutive force of communication as well as the ways downward, upward, and lateral communication patterns determine positive and negative outcomes for both organizations and their members. Supportive, adaptive, and ethical downward communication from organizational leadership enhances members’ productivity and satisfaction while reducing turnover. In addition, candid upward communication from members to management is crucial for detecting and correcting troubles while they remain small and resolvable. Lateral communication through which members make sense of organizational events is key to understanding members’ perceptions, decisions, and behaviors. Finally, new information communication technologies both enable distributed work but also create new and troubling issues for modern work life.

The Influence of Internal Communication on Job Performance: Controlling for Key Worker Characteristics

This study assessed the influence of internal communication on job performance, with relevant lurking variables controlled for as a new way of contributing to academic debate. This study was a correlational design that drew data from employees of University of Education Winneba (UEW). All 274 employees who met some selection criteria participated in this study. A self-reported questionnaire was used to gather data. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation test, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to present findings of the study. The study found that downward, upward, and lateral communication in the university made a positive effect on job performance after controlling for job tenure, education, income, and employee level. Downward communication makes the strongest effect on job performance. It is therefore concluded that increasing the level of effectiveness in terms of downward, upward, and lateral communication in the university can increase the level of job performance.

Social Media and Civil Society Organizations (CSOS)

This qualitative case study describes and analyzes the use of social media by Amnesty International Norway (AIN), a medium-sized human rights organization. Specifically, the case looks at how and to what extent AIN fulfilled its aims of enhancing information, public debate, and mobilization for campaigns through the use of Facebook and the organization's own website blog. While AIN saw great potentials in using social media, a core question was whether opening up for more lateral communication would lead to a loss of trustworthiness and organizational identity. Although AIN experienced an initial lack of success in using social media to generate response and mobilization in 2011, it was able to develop a powerful social media strategy resulting in high degrees of activity and exchange in 2014. Findings indicated that this change seemed to rely both on the ability of AIN to reflect upon its own governance structures and on the organization's ability to learn from experience.

When fat becomes an ally of the enemy: adipose tissue as collaborator in human breast cancer

Since the discovery of leptin in 1994, our vision of adipose tissue as a static organ regulating mainly lipid storage and release has been completely overthrown, and adipose tissue is now seen as an active and integral organ in human physiology. In the past years, extensive research has tremendously given us more insights in the mechanisms and pathways involved not only in normal but also in ‘sick’ adipose tissue, for example, in obesity and lipodystrophy. With growing evidence of a link between obesity and several types of cancer, research focusing on the interaction between adipose tissue and cancer has begun to unravel the interesting but complex multi-lateral communication between the different players. With breast cancer as one of the first cancer types where a positive correlation between obesity and breast cancer incidence and prognosis in post-menopausal women was found, we have focused this review on the paracrine and endocrine role of adipose tissue in breast cancer initiation and progression. As important inter-species differences in adipose tissue occur, we mainly selected human adipose tissue- and breast cancer-based studies with a short reflection on therapeutic possibilities. This review is part of the special issue on “Adiposopathy in Cancer and (Cardio)Metabolic Diseases”.

Redistribution Layers (RDLs) for 2.5D/3D IC Integration

Redistribution layer (RDL) is an integral part of 3D IC integration, especially for 2.5D IC integration with a passive interposer. The RDL allows for circuitry fan-outs of and allows for lateral communication between the chips attached to the interposer. There are at least two ways to fabricate the RDL, namely (1) polymers to make the passivation and Cu-plating to make the metal layer, and (2) semiconductor back-end-of-line Cu damascene. In this study, the materials and processes of these methods are presented. Emphasis is placed on the Cu damascene method.

Redistribution Layers (RDLs) for 2.5D/3D IC Integration

Redistribution layer (RDL) is an integral part of 3D IC integration, especially for 2.5D IC integration with a passive interposer. The RDL allows for fans out of the circuitries and allows the lateral communication between the chips attached to the interposer. There are at least two ways to fabricate the RDL, namely (a) polymers to make the passivation and Cu-plating to make the metal layer, and (b) semiconductor back-end-of-line Cu damascene. In this study, the materials and processes of these methods are presented. Emphasis is placed on the Cu damascene method.