Organizational CommunicationThis book discusses the semiotic and ethnographic bases for organizational analysis, including the related fieldwork issues confronting the investigator. It explains the importance of rhetorical-dramaturgic and phenomenological strategies for the study of organizations. The arbitrary and culturally based connections in which organizations abound require an understanding of the particulars of cultural scenes, first observed, later conceptualized through semiotic theory. Organizational Communication includes a series of examples from applied semiotics research in nuclear regulatory policy making, truth telling, regulatory control (by, among others, the police), and risk analysis. These data provide the basis for a critique of the limits of earlier analyses of organizational change, such as those offered by structuralist theories. Dr. Manning concludes with an assessment of the postmodernist ethnographic strategies that have evolved as a response to a larger representational crisis, and of the implications of these strategies for the study of organizational culture. |
Contents
Organizational Communication in Context | 17 |
Paradigms in Communication Research | 35 |
FIELD STUDIES | 48 |
Examples | 59 |
Two Ethnographic Studies | 89 |
Comparative Analysis | 100 |
Paradox Routines | 107 |
Crisis Routine | 135 |
Safety Discourse | 165 |
Lessons for the Field | 183 |
Aspects of Postmodern Ethnography | 199 |
Notes | 219 |
19 | 225 |
References | 227 |
30 | 233 |
| 245 | |
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action activities ambiguity American analysis aspects assumptions authority calls central changes Chapter claims codes community policing concept contains context created crime culture decisions defined discourse discussed ethnography example expressive external facts field focus formal function given groups ideas images important interaction internal interpretive Introduction kinds knowledge language linked loose coupling maintain matters meaning messages metaphor moral narrative nature noted nuclear observed officers operators organization organizational communication paradox patterns performance person perspective points police political postmodern practices presented Press principles problems produce questions reactor reality relations relationships relevant reported response result rhetoric risk role routine rules safety seen sense serve shape shared signs social society stories strategies structure studies suggests symbolic themes theory tion types understanding units University values writing York