Human communication - Essay Example

Alternatively, from a retailing perspective the need for businesses to be creative in order to adapt to the multi-channel marketplace has become well-recognized (Levy & Weitz, 2008). Indeed, leading industry body for global e-retailing IMRG estimates that currently a quarter of all UK shopping is undertaken online via the internet or other mobile devices within a market estimated at approximately £80 billion according (www.imrg.org). Signals of this prolific growth have been evident since 2003, which has resulted in a constant drive by retailers to introduce new delivery mechanisms to broaden customer reach (Diamond & Pinter, 2004).

As such, this has seen a shifting approach in multi-channel retail strategy from bricks and mortar to multi-level formats including home shopping and mobile commerce (Levy & Weitz, 2008). It is submitted in this paper that the change in consumer behaviour, growth of media outlets and de-regulation of the media industry has created a seismic shift in corporate strategy, which is underpinned by the media ecology theory. Leading sociologist George Caspar Homans is usually hailed as the central consolidator of social exchange theory works in his piece “Social Behaviour as Exchange” (1958).

In general terms, the social exchange theory posits that social change and stability is a process of negotiated exchanges between parties (Homans, 1958). Moreover, the social exchange theory posits that all human relationships are formed by the use of a subjective cost-benefit analysis and the comparison of alternatives (Gouldner, 1960). Homan gives the example of when a person perceives the cost of a relationship as outweighing the perceived benefits, the theory predicts that the person will depart from the relationship (Homans, 1958).

Katherine Miller (2005) is a key opponent of the social exchange theory and argues that it reduces human interaction to purely rational process that arises from