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CMA Foundation · Fundamentals of Business Laws and Business Communication · Types of Business Communication

The production manager of Kaveri Textiles directly emails the finance department's accounts executive, who is at a lower level in a different department, to clarify a payment query without going through either department head. This is an example of:

It is diagonal or crosswise communication, because the message passes between persons in different departments and at different hierarchical levels, bypassing the normal chain of command. Horizontal communication would involve peers at the same level, and grapevine is informal and unofficial.

  1. AVertical communication
  2. BHorizontal communication
  3. CDiagonal (crosswise) communicationCorrect
  4. DGrapevine communication

Explanation

The message crosses both departments and hierarchical levels, which defines diagonal or crosswise communication. Horizontal would be between persons at the same level. It is an official work message, so it is not grapevine, and it skips the chain so it is not purely vertical.

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