University of Kentucky
College Of Communications and Information Studies
WINTER 1998
COMMUNICATION 915
Research Assignment #1
300 points
Due Date on Syllabus I.
GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR ALL ASSIGNMENTS
A. Be sure to follow the organization provided for you in the handouts. Assignments are graded by section/topic headings, if the material related to that section is not where it is supposed to be, you may not get credit for it. It is usually best to clearly label which part of the assignment you are discussing at any one particular point. Generally, clear effective writing, of which organization is a part, is more likely to lead to understanding and effective grading.
B. Papers will be evaluated by how well you relate concepts and principles to the actual case. You should not merely regurgitate definitions; rather you should reveal by your application of concepts and principles to your discussion of a situation your understanding of them.
C. Additional instructions and discussion of the papers will occur in class, it is unlikely you will receive a good grade on the assignments without attending these sessions.
D. Papers should be typed.
E. General issues (e.g. plagiarism, page limits) covered in syllabus apply to all papers.
F. Where appropriate you should cite the sources of your ideas (e.g., lectures, text, readings, etc.).
G. Your paper should concentrate on communication issues and topics covered in your readings and in lectures in your answers.
H. Turn in all the computer printouts you used to complete the assignment with the assignment.
II. RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT #1 For this assignment you will analyze the production communication network of Dazzling Ltd. and relate it to their formal organizational chart (see attached).
A. Using Visio, generate an organizational chart. What does this organizational chart tell you about the plans for formal communication (e.g., differentiation) within Dazzling Ltd.(50 Points)
B. Using KRACKPLOT generate a communigram for Dazzling Ltd. Are there readily identifiable communication roles? What noteworthy features does this communigram have? Discuss any matters that may be relevant to productivity not explicitly covered in Part C (e.g., peripheral members), but do not repeat matters you are to specifically discuss in Part C. After you have completed the remainder of the assignment draw a more visually compelling version of this communigram with Visio or Krackplot. (50 points).
C. Generate STRUCTURE and UCINET network analysis program output for Dazzling Ltd
1. Specify the zone size of each manager (4, 5, 6, 7) and their ability to influence others throughout the organization? Also discuss their ability to influence the workers who are formally assigned to them in the organizational chart. (Structure printout). Generate centrality scores using UCINET for each managers discussing their implications for productivity. Are there others in the organization who have interesting centrality scores? (50 points)
2. Discuss implications of summary path distances as well as distribution of path distances for some selected individuals. Discuss prominence analysis especially power indices, particularly X2, X3, X4.(structure Printout)(50 points)
3. Describe the cohesion analysis, the clustering results, clique membership, and tree diagram results. What do these results tell you about the overall differentiation (and integration referring to Krackplot) of the communication structure of this organization (Structure printout)(50 points)
c. Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of KRACKPLOT, Visio, UCINET and Structure? (Which is easier to use? Which provides the most information? etc.) (50 points)
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