Dialogical Wisdom, Communicative Practice, and Organizational Life

Abstract

Organizational dialogue has traditionally been associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology learning organization project rooted in the work of David Bohm. As a result, dialogue is viewed as an “abnormal” form of discourse—removed from everyday managerial practice—that occurs when organizations encounter crisis and need to engage in second—order learning. We offer an alternative approach to dialogue grounded in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. A Bakhtinian perspective toward dialogue views everyday communicative practice as inherently dialogic. We explore Bakhtin's notion of dialogue and offer a set of conversational sensibilities that may inform communicative practice in organizational life.