Language as the Catalyst between the Relationship of Subordinates' Communicative Competence and Supervisors' Communicative Behavior: A Canonical Correlation Analysis

• Main Author: Tan, Lindsey N.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2023
• Subjects: organizational communication competencies; communicative behavior; supervisor-subordinate relationship; language use in the workplace; English for specific purposes; Organizational Communication; Organization Development; Other Teacher Education and Professional Development
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/jeal/vol2/iss2/7; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/jeal/article/1077/viewcontent/7_Tan_revised.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Communicative competence could be understood as the ability to effectively use language in different contexts, and one of these contexts is the intricate framework of the supervisor-subordinate relationship (SSR). However, studies on SSR are mostly based on supervisors’ communicative behavior (SCB), and there is a scarcity of studies that investigate the role of subordinates’ organizational communication competence (SOCC) on SSR. Consequently, this study aims to investigate the relationship between SOCC and SCB in the SSR framework. Using the canonical correlation analysis, two sets of facets were used to analyze the relationship. The first set is the SOCC, which includes communicative competence, communicative event competence, assertiveness competence, and technological competence. The second set is the SCB, such as non-verbal immediacy, feedback intervention, and leader-member exchange. The results show that there is a moderately positive relationship between the variable sets. There are uniformly positive loadings on both SOCC and SCB. Specifically, higher technological competence, communicative event competence, and communicative competence are associated with higher SCB. This suggests that effective language use through SOCC and SCB may hold practical implications not only within the context of SSR but also in the domain of English for specific purposes.