Role and Importance of Theories in an Organization

Importance of Theory:

To learn the importance of theories lets first understand what they actually are.

According to Wikipedia Encyclopedia, “Theories are constructed in order to explain, predict and master phenomena (e.g. inanimate things, events, or the behavior of animals). In many instances we are constructing models of reality. A theory makes generalizations about observations and consists of an interrelated, coherent set of ideas and models.”

Theories don’t always cover the specific details but more often describe the generalized model to explain how the process takes place in an environment (in our case, organization). We can say that theories talk about the universality instead of particularity.

Our book mentions about the formal theories that these are something researchers develop over time to make sense of various aspects of this world such as how the governments of UK of USA work.

Now coming down to the importance of Theory in terms of an Organization:

There are various questions mentioned in the textbook that theories try to answer regarding Organizational Communication. These are as follow:

What happens when people come together to create a new organization?

How can the members of an organization work together effectively?

How should an organization be governed, managed and led?

What values should an organization embody and promote?

What is good organizational communication?

Looking at these questions we understand how important is the role of a theory in achieving the goals of an organization in a convenient way. Without a well established and non practical theory it can become very hard to govern the productive growth of an organization.