This volume presents organizational communication from both a communication and managerial perspective. The text's writing style and use of examples and case studies should prove accessible to undergraduates.
Organizational Communication: Foundations, Challenges, and Misunderstandings examines how communication is central to organizational life and the complexities and complications that arise as people attempt to coordinate their organizational activities. The text underscores the importance of the relationships we establish with the people with whom we work and how a better understanding of organizational communication theory and application can help us anticipate and manage misunderstandings in the workplace. In Part One, students learn about classical and modern management theories, systems theory, and frameworks for understanding organizational communication, including organizational culture and critical theory. In Part Two, the text covers topics traditionally covered in organizational communication textbooks through the lens of misunderstandings. Stories from organizational members highlight challenges and opportunities related to communicating in the organization. Realistic recruitment, socialization, the relationship between supervisors and subordinates, peer and team relationships, and leadership communication are addressed. The fifth edition features new interview data; broader coverage of diversity; expanded discussions of emotions at work; and examinations of workplace bullying, blended relationships, and technology as it relates to gender and age. Offering students a balanced mix of theoretical and practical information, Organizational Communication is an exemplary textbook for introductory organizational communication courses.
The idea that communication constitutes organization (CCO) provides a unique perspective to organization studies by highlighting the fundamental and formative role of communication for organizational phenomena of various kinds. The book features original works that address the idea of organization as communication in the light of other theories, related concepts, as well as the tension between strategy and emergence. The first set of chapters discusses the idea of organization communication in the light of critical works of European scholars (Habermas, Honneth, and Günther). The second set of chapters reflects on a range of concepts such as institutions, routines, and leadership from a CCO perspective. The final set of chapters examines the tension between strategic and emergent communication by drawing on new methodology and empirical evidence. The chapters are set into dialogue with some of the most prominent proponents of CCO scholarship. The book offers an important contribution to CCO thinking by adding European perspectives on organization as communication. It connects the primarily North American approach and European traditions of theoretical thought to existing debates in communication and organization studies.
This book accounts for the transformation of organizations in a post-bureaucratic era by bringing a communicational lens to the ontological discussion on organization/disorganization, offering a conceptual and methodological toolbox for studying dis/organization as communication. Increasingly, scholars acknowledge that communication is constitutive of organization; because meaning is always indeterminate, communication also (and simultaneously) generates disorganization. The book synthesizes the major theoretical trends and empirical studies in communication that engage with dis/organization. Drawing on dialectics, relational ontologies, critical theory, systems theory, and affect thinking, the first part of the book offers communicational explanations of how dis/organization unfolds. The second part of the book grounds this theoretical reflection, providing empirical studies that mobilize diverse methodological and analytical frameworks (e.g., ethnography, situational, interactional and genre analysis) for studying the practices of dis/organization. Overall, the book exposes organizations (and organizing processes) as significantly messier, irrational (or a-rational), and paradoxical than scholars of organization typically think. It also offers readers the conceptual and methodological tools to understand these complex processes as communication. This book will be essential reading for scholars in organizational communication or management and organization studies, together with senior undergraduate and graduate students studying organizational communication, organizational discourse, discourse analysis (including rhetoric, semiotics, pragmatism, narratology) and courses in management studies. It will also be richly rewarding for organizational consultants, managers and executives.
Communication in organizations has changed drastically since the release of the first edition of this bestselling textbook. This fully revised and updated edition delves into state-of-the-art studies, providing fresh insights into the challenges that organizations face today. Yet this foundational resource remains a cornerstone in the examination of classic research and theory in organization communication.
Effective advice on communication at every level in an organization, by the author of the book Communications Strategies for Family Planning, Professor of Communication at the Institute for Communication Research at Stanford University. Communication in Organizations is Goodyear Roger and Rekha Agarwala-Rogers' business communications guide for organizational success perfect for any level.
Organizations, Communication, and Health focuses on theories and constructs of organizational communication and their relationship to health. The goal of the volume is to offer a current picture of organizational and organizing processes and practices related to health. Research in the area of health communication has expanded in recent years, and this research has advanced understandings of campaigns, patient/provider interactions, and social support. However, a gap in the area of health, organizations, and organizing processes emerged, a niche this volume fills. It does so by having chapters identify an organizational theory or organizing process and how aspects of that theory relate to health. Chapters discuss how to marry theory to practice and the other factors (e.g., organizational structure, role, occupation, industry, or environment) that need to be considered in the process of utilizing the theory in organizations. This volume, aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying health communication, as well as health professionals, provides useful theory and practice related the organizations and health, and issues a call for further theorizing on the practice of health communication in organizations.
While traditional in its coverage of the major research traditions that have developed over the past 100 years, Organizational Communication is the first textbook in the field that is written from a critical perspective while providing a comprehensive survey of theory and research in organizational communication. Extensively updated and incorporating relevant current events, the Second Edition familiarizes students with the field of organizational communication—historically, conceptually, and practically—and challenges them to critically reflect on their common sense understandings of work and organizations, preparing them for participation in 21st-century organizational settings. Linking theory with practice, Dennis K. Mumby and new co-author Timothy R. Kuhn skillfully explore the significant role played by organizations and corporations in constructing our identities.
Organizational communication as a field of study has grown tremendously over the past thirty years. This growth is characterized by the development and application of communication perspectives to research on complex organizations in rapidly changing environments. Completely re-conceptualized, The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Communication, Third Edition, is a landmark volume that weaves together the various threads of this interdisciplinary area of scholarship. This edition captures both the changing nature of the field, with its explosion of theoretical perspectives and research agendas, and the transformations that have occurred in organizational life with the emergence of new forms of work, globalization processes, and changing organizational forms. Exploring organizations as complex and dynamic, the Handbook brings a communication lens to bear on multiple organizing processes.
"This book offers a refreshing and engaging overview of the ways some research traditions in organizational communication have unfolded over time and continue to be connected to everyday, real events." —Patrice Buzzanell, Purdue University Engaging Organizational Communication Theory and Research: Multiple Perspectives is a book unlike any in the field. Each chapter is written by a prominent scholar who presents a theoretical perspective and discusses how he or she "engages" with it, personally examining what it means to study organizations. Rejecting the traditional model of a "reader," this volume demonstrates the intimate connections among theory, research, and personal experience. Significant theoretical perspectives such as post-positivism, social construction, rhetoric, critical theory, feminism, postmodernism, structuration theory, and globalization are discussed in terms of their history, assumptions, development, propositions, research, and applications. In addition to editors Steve May and Dennis K. Mumby, contributors include Brenda J. Allen, Karen Lee Ashcraft, George Cheney, Steven R. Corman, Stanley Deetz, Robert McPhee, Marshall Scott Poole, Cynthia Stohl, Bryan C. Taylor, and James R. Taylor. Key Features • An introduction that addresses the idea of engaged research. • Accessible and cutting edge accounts of important research traditions written by well-known leaders in the field. • Personal accounts of each scholar′s place in his or her field of study. • A conclusion that explores the future of organizational communication studies. • An extensive body of references on each perspective. Engaging Organizational Communication Theory and Research is an indispensable resource for anyone wishing to be familiar with current trends in the field of organizational communication. It is recommended as the main text for upper-level undergraduate and entry-level graduate courses in organizational communication theory. It is also an excellent supplementary text for related courses in departments of communication studies, business and management, sociology, and industrial relations.