Organizing the Study of Organizational Communication

Abstract

This chapter provides an orientation to and definitions of organization and to communication, as well as definitions of organizational communication as a set of phenomena and as a field. It also provides several organizing models to frame the study of organizational communication theory and research. The chapter also provides a history of theorizing about organization, showing how early management theory and social psychological theory come together with other relevant disciplines to crystallize as organizational communication. To provide disciplinary context, this is accompanied by a brief history of communication as a whole. It will emphasize that those related fields continue their own separate literatures after the intersection with organizational communication, establishing organizational communication as just one academic discipline in the multidisciplinary field of organizational studies. A set of conceptual models is introduced that provide conceptual continuity throughout the book: First, a model that illustrates three ways of understanding organization (as process, structure, or entity); second, a spiraling model illustrating the mutually reflexive interplay between communication and organization.