Interdisciplinary Listening: Understanding Strategic Listening in Interdisciplinary Project Work
(2024) SKOM12 20241Department of Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- Active listening is of utmost importance for interdisciplinary project work to ensure communication across disciplinary boundaries. To listen actively enables fostering a project climate, in which creative and innovative thinking as well as speaking up freely is supported by contributing to a psychologically safe environment. Despite the potential of active listening to enhance interdisciplinary project communication, listening is an often-neglected part of internal communication. From a social constructionist and internal communication perspective, this study explores the hinders of listening in interdisciplinary project work and investigates how strategic listening practices among project staff can contribute to creating psychological... (More)
- Active listening is of utmost importance for interdisciplinary project work to ensure communication across disciplinary boundaries. To listen actively enables fostering a project climate, in which creative and innovative thinking as well as speaking up freely is supported by contributing to a psychologically safe environment. Despite the potential of active listening to enhance interdisciplinary project communication, listening is an often-neglected part of internal communication. From a social constructionist and internal communication perspective, this study explores the hinders of listening in interdisciplinary project work and investigates how strategic listening practices among project staff can contribute to creating psychological safety in interdisciplinary projects. Methodologically, the research problem is explored through qualitative interviews with researchers who are members of interdisciplinary projects. The findings outline six identified themes of hinders to listening in interdisciplinary project work: (1) a lack of interest and reason, (2) a lack of taking other perspectives, (3) a lack of interactive expertise, (4) a lack of prerequisites for social interactions, (5) a lack of functioning leadership as well as (6) a lack of psychological safety within the group. The six themes were discussed to further group into two categories: reward-driven hinders and cost-increasing hinders. Moreover, active listening contributes to a psychologically safe project climate by (1) appreciating and validating each other, (2) showing acceptance, and respect, as well as (3) building personal connections. Insights into how project members decide to listen and to speak up, as well as why they are hindered could be gained through a social exchange theory perspective. This thesis highlights the importance of active listening in interdisciplinary project work due to its impact on relationships and the team climate. Additionally, qualitative deepened insights into how lis- tening contributes to psychological safety could be generated. A new perspective of strategic interdisciplinary listening could be added to the research field of strategic communication. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9156365
- author
- Helling, Christine LU
- supervisor
-
- Mats Heide LU
- organization
- course
- SKOM12 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- strategic listening, interdisciplinary listening, interdisciplinary projects, project communication, team communication, project climate, psychological safety, group work
- language
- English
- id
- 9156365
- date added to LUP
- 2024-06-14 16:20:47
- date last changed
- 2024-06-14 16:20:47
@misc{9156365,
abstract = {{Active listening is of utmost importance for interdisciplinary project work to ensure communication across disciplinary boundaries. To listen actively enables fostering a project climate, in which creative and innovative thinking as well as speaking up freely is supported by contributing to a psychologically safe environment. Despite the potential of active listening to enhance interdisciplinary project communication, listening is an often-neglected part of internal communication. From a social constructionist and internal communication perspective, this study explores the hinders of listening in interdisciplinary project work and investigates how strategic listening practices among project staff can contribute to creating psychological safety in interdisciplinary projects. Methodologically, the research problem is explored through qualitative interviews with researchers who are members of interdisciplinary projects. The findings outline six identified themes of hinders to listening in interdisciplinary project work: (1) a lack of interest and reason, (2) a lack of taking other perspectives, (3) a lack of interactive expertise, (4) a lack of prerequisites for social interactions, (5) a lack of functioning leadership as well as (6) a lack of psychological safety within the group. The six themes were discussed to further group into two categories: reward-driven hinders and cost-increasing hinders. Moreover, active listening contributes to a psychologically safe project climate by (1) appreciating and validating each other, (2) showing acceptance, and respect, as well as (3) building personal connections. Insights into how project members decide to listen and to speak up, as well as why they are hindered could be gained through a social exchange theory perspective. This thesis highlights the importance of active listening in interdisciplinary project work due to its impact on relationships and the team climate. Additionally, qualitative deepened insights into how lis- tening contributes to psychological safety could be generated. A new perspective of strategic interdisciplinary listening could be added to the research field of strategic communication.}},
author = {{Helling, Christine}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Interdisciplinary Listening: Understanding Strategic Listening in Interdisciplinary Project Work}},
year = {{2024}},
}