CSEET · Business Communication · Communication
An employee passes a message about a policy change upward through five levels of hierarchy, and by the time it reaches the director it has been shortened and altered. This is best described as which organisational barrier?
The barrier is filtering of information across levels. When a message travels through many hierarchical levels, each intermediary may shorten, soften or change it, so the final receiver gets a distorted version. This is an organisational barrier caused by the length of the chain, not by noise or missing feedback.
- AFiltering of information across levelsCorrect
- BUse of the grapevine for informal chat
- CAbsence of any feedback
- DNoise in the telephone line
Explanation
When information passes through several levels, each person may omit, soften or change details, a distortion called filtering. The grapevine is an informal network, which is not described. Feedback and telephone noise are not the cause given. The multi-level alteration points to filtering.
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