Thirty Years of Meeting Science: Lessons Learned and the Road Ahead

In this review essay, we explore how Luhmann’s radical communication approach, which conceptualizes communication without recourse to human beings’ intentions, can reorient existing research on organizational communication. We show how Luhmann’s perspective puts decisions back into organizational communication studies, how it changes our perspective on organizational continuity and on organizational boundaries, and how it redirects our understanding of human agency in organizations. We also discuss three areas in which Luhmann’s theory could draw inspiration from other research on organizational communication. Keywords: autopoiesis, communication, Niklas Luhmann, organization studies, systems theory.

Overview in Critical and Cultural Organizational Communication

This entry presents the current state of the art in studies of materiality and organizing from an organizational communication view. Starting with a brief historical background of the study of materiality in social science, the entry sketches out the trajectory of this area of research in organizational communication studies. A general definition of materiality considers both “matter” and “mattering,” which derives from the explanation of two lines of scholarship: the performativity of matter (its consequences for organizing) and the double (social and material) dimensions of organizing. The central part of this entry describes four influential approaches to materiality and organizing in organizational communication studies: sociomateriality, communicative constitution of organization approach, practice based studies, and critical approaches. Based on these approaches, the entry discusses three types of materials (objects, spaces, and bodies) that have been studied in organizational communication and reflects on some theoretical implications. Finally, the main critiques addressed to the so‐called material turn in organizational communication are presented, and futures directions are outlined.

article, Patricia Martin and DavidCollinson (2002) chart the obstacles scholars face in developing an inte-grated body of research on gender and organization. Arguing that theimpediments to such an endeavour far outweigh the incentives, they suggestthat gender and organization scholars ‘strike out’ on their own to establish anew, autonomous field of ‘gendered organization’. In this essay, we build onMartin and Collinson’s case, suggesting one way that striking out could berealized in its positive (venturing forth) rather than negative (baseball) sense.Our response stems from our own positioning as critical-feministresearchers who ‘do scholarship’ in the US-based field of organizational com-munication. This field of study is disciplinarily distinct from, but informallyrelated to, such cognate fields as management and organization studies.Although absent from Martin and Collinson’s case, organizational commu-nication studies represents an emergent site of scholarship that already wres-tles with many of the obstacles to disciplinary development faced by thenascent field of gendered organizations. Given its position in the academicinterstices between the more established disciplinary communities that studyorganization, our field is situated — institutionally, intellectually, and ideo-logically — to function as an inclusive, integrative site of gender and orga-nization scholarship, across bodies of water and disciplinary boundaries.And yet, despite such a potential, many scholars concerned with genderedorganization appear to remain unaware of our field’s existence.With this essay, we seek to enhance awareness of organizational commu-nication studies and to further develop the potential of our field to contributeto the study of gender and organization. Acting as ambassadors of sorts, weaim to introduce gender, work and organization scholars to organizationalcommunication research on gender, power, and organization and to demon-strate how that research represents a significant exception to the key patterns

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.

Alternative work communities encompass various organizing forms, including democratic organizing practices, participative decision making, feminist organizing principles, and technological alternatives, such as telecommuting and Internet businesses. These nontraditional organizing practices discursively construct identity and community in the day-to-day negotiation of the tensions of technological empowerment and organizational control. This review of literature pulls together varied, multidisciplinary sources from organizational communication, critical management studies, feminist theory, and gender studies, as well as business, organization studies, and sociology to aid in the development of future research in gender and organizational communication studies or, as Martin and Collinson (2002) referred to this growing area of study, gendered organizational studies.

This article presents an empirical analysis of the communicative constitution of organization (CCO) literature to demonstrate how, and to what extent, CCO scholarship is becoming established within organizational communication studies and related fields. We assess the trajectory of CCO research from 2000 to 2015 and, via the application of a neo-institutional perspective, show that CCO scholarship is gaining legitimacy within organizational communication and is becoming increasingly recognized in fields such as management and organization studies, although it has not focused extensively on formalizing its approaches to investigating how organizations are produced in communication. Our analysis reveals key questions and challenges that future CCO scholarship should address to strengthen its institutional legitimacy and influence.

Corporate museums rely on various rhetorical strategies to commemorate the history and legacy of private business organizations. Hence, corporate museums are rich examples from which to teach undergraduate students a nuanced understanding of public memory that incorporates interdisciplinary perspectives from the subfields of rhetorical and organizational communication studies. This single-class activity introduces students to corporate museums, equipping them to analyze these institutions as public memorials suffused by organizational rhetoric. Students work in small groups to apply this knowledge by persuasively proposing and justifying the design of an original corporate museum. Courses Undergraduate courses in rhetorical studies, organizational communication, business and professional communication, and strategic communication. Objectives This activity enables students to (1) gain familiarity with the corporate museum as a place-based vehicle for public memory and organizational rhetoric, (2) make interdisciplinary connections between the subfields of rhetorical and organizational communication studies while analyzing corporate museums, and (3) work in small groups to persuasively propose and justify the design of an original corporate museum.

This introductory chapter establishes the relevance of investigating the dynamics and challenges that underlie the ability of organizations to speak with one voice. It sets the stage for the arguments developed in the remaining chapters by focusing on the meanings of the voice metaphor in organizational communication studies and how issues of voice have been investigated. First, we introduce four related meanings of voice, each of which manifests to varying degrees in organizational communication studies: voice as sound, voice as style of expression, voice as discourse, and voice as agency. Second, we review key studies that have contributed to our understanding of issues of voice in organizational communication, which we group into three themes: (1) the organizing properties of speaking for a collective, (2) voice in relation to issues of power, and (3) the tensions between univocality and multivocality. We conclude by introducing the book's remaining chapters and their respective contributions to the investigation of how organizations create the conditions of unity necessary for their existence on the basis of the multiplicity of voices that compose them.

Modern film, television and theater works not only reflect the social reality, but also inherit and promote the traditional culture, and at the same time, absorb the world's outstanding culture. The article introduces the basic elements of the cultural identity of modern film and theater works, and analyzes them in depth from the aspects of value and function, so as to build a theoretical bridge for the following specific research. In addition, this article discusses the method of constructing and expressing cultural identity in film, television and theater works, using literature research method, text analysis method and empirical analysis method to carry out the research on the construction and expression of cultural identity in modern film, television and theater works. Modern film and television drama works have a higher sense of cultural identity construction and expression of identity, and the ratings are 0.182~0.578 percentage points higher than traditional film and television works. Cluster analysis verifies the reasonableness of the system of drama cultural identity construction and expression effect constructed in this paper, and with 10 locations extracted, the comprehensive drama cultural identity construction and expression effect is 0.782, which is a good performance. The symbols of dress culture (4.70) and behavior culture (4.33) in the work of Taeming Fenghua have gained a high degree of recognition from the audience, and have constructed and expressed theatrical cultural identities at different levels.

Symbolic convergence theory (SCT) is a communication centered theory that resonates with time‐tested organizational communication foci such as narratives and storytelling, shared and collective meanings, rhetoric, and the grapple with the relationship between little “d” and big “D” discourse. This entry on SCT contextualizes it in the broader history of communication studies, remembers its central ideas, explains its resonance with organizational communication studies, identifies organizational communication criticisms of SCT, discusses how organizational communication theories can improve SCT, examines how a reformulated SCT is influencing organizational communication studies, and considers future directions for SCT based works.

The 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Diversity of Cultural Expressions can be viewed as safeguarding group identities as understood through cultural expressions. Equally, the Convention protects the economic interests of member states in commercially produced cultural expressions such as film and television programmes. This dichotomy has led to vociferous trade versus culture debates in international cultural policy-making; but, seen as a facet of global deliberation, this may be an enduring contribution from UNESCO to global norm formation. Despite the importance of cultural issues within UNESCO, until the 2005 Convention culture had remained relatively marginalized from discussions among post-Second World War global institutions. The emergent global issues of culture, cultural identity, and cultural expressions therefore, need some historical context. Without this context, the vocabulary of the UNESCO Convention seems technocratic, limited to debates between commerce versus culture, and devoid of connections to historical trends.

Postmodern approaches to organizational communication elude easy description. Broadly speaking, they are diverse forms of inquiry that challenge and reconstruct systems of power, identity, and representation (→ Control and Authority in Organizations). Since the 1980s, postmodern approaches, situated with reference to a larger critical tradition, have burgeoned in organizational communication studies. Under this rubric, many extant theories and methods in → Organizational Communication inquiry have been challenged and refashioned.

This article focuses on the study of organizational communication, which is a dominant subarea of communication scholarship as recognized by the National Communication Association (NCA) and the International Communication Association (ICA). Because communication, and organizational communication as a subarea, is multiperspectival, this article first defines communication and then organizational communication. Next, the article describes the philosophical perspectives of organizational communication. The next section points to specific areas of individual-, dyadic-, group-, and organizational-level communication research in which communication and organizational psychology and organizational behavior (OPOB) share similar interests. The article concludes by describing practical implications of this area of scholarship (i.e., what can organizations and individuals do with the findings of organizational communication scholarship) and by identifying promising areas of organizational communication study.

‘Postcolonial studies’ is the term given to the study of diaspora and the ideology of colonialism. Since the 1970s, when postcolonial studies was termed ‘Third World’ literature, and the 1980s, when it became ‘Commonwealth’ literature, the persistence of the framework of centre and margin, coloniser and colonised, has endured as a lens with which to view human identity and cultural expression. However, the relationship of postcolonial studies to international development is less well explored. Much of postcolonial studies is concerned with articulating patterns of gain, loss, inclusion, exclusion, identity formation and change, cultural evolution and human geographical dispersal in the wake of the after-effects of colonial rule. Postcolonial critics examine texts and images in order to make inferences about the significance of cultural identity and expression under these conditions. Often this is with a diachronic view of history. International development studies offers postcolonial critics a synchronic perspective on both the policy and materiality of political ideologies affecting cultural identity and expression. This paper looks at how the relationship between postcolonial and international development studies might be furthered in a dialectical exchange. Postcolonial critics such as Said and Pollard et al offer a critical understanding that informs policy making in international development contexts.