Theory Building at the Intersections of Organizing and Communication

Faculty
Timothy Kuhn, University of Colorado, Boulder and Dennis Mumby, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Course Coordinator
Robyn Remke, CBS

Prerequisite
Applicants are expected to be enrolled in a PhD program. Scholars not enrolled in PhD programs, but with a special interest in the topic, are welcome to send in an application stating special interest and will be approved if space allows.
Prerequisite/progression of the course

Students are expected to have read all course materials prior to the start of the course and be prepared to discuss and critique the readings in the course discussion.

Aim of the course

The aims of this course are to introduce students to the importance of theory development within an empirical context. Students will learn how to develop and analyze organizational communication theory, and they will consider the ontological, epistemological, and axiological implications of these theories. On the second day, students will examine specific case studies, which will allow them to explore concrete issues of power and resistance within organizations. Additionally, students will be asked to critically examine the ways that scholars have traditionally positioned power and resistance in a dialectical relation. By the end of the third day, students will be able to discuss current organizational issues from a perspective informed by the theoretical and empirical considerations of the previous two days: that is, from a uniquely organizational communicative perspective.

Course content, structure and teaching

In the last 25 years the so-called “linguistic turn” has placed communication and discourse at the focal point of organizational theory and research. The assumption that organizations are constituted through the everyday communicative practices of their members requires that we develop robust and powerful theories regarding the relationship between communication and organization. This course will explore some of those theories, and investigate the extent to which they meet the challenge of taking communication seriously as a constitutive feature of organizational life. In addition, we will examine the ways in which these theories have been put into practice and ask to what degree has the last 25 years of research provided us with great insight into the complexities and contradictions of everyday communicative practice and organizational meaning making. The course concludes by asking what are the future, yet unrealized, possibilities for organizational communication research?

Lecture Plan

Day 1
These sessions are meant to focus on metatheory. We will explore how studying communication contributes to theory development. Questions to be considered in these sessions include: How does the study of communication contribute to the development of organizational theory? What are the ontological, epistemological, and axiological implications of communication-based theory development? How does it move us forward theoretically, particularly vis-à-vis the dynamics of organizational life? The two final sessions look at specific communication influenced perspectives.

Session 1 Introductions; Theory development in Organization Studies
Session 2 Developing a Critical Communication Approach
Session 3 & 4 Comparing and Contrasting Comm. Approaches

Day 2
These sessions address power and resistance in a more thematic manner, focusing on empirical work. Questions to consider during these sessions include: What insights do these empirical studies provide? How do they enable us to “think otherwise” about the dialectic of power and resistance? How might we move forward from here?

Session 1-4 Power and Control in Organizations: Case Studies

Day 3
These sessions engage with particular topical/empirical concerns that frequently emanate from the issues raised in the preceding days’ discussions. The first afternoon session takes up an interest in how thinking on organizational communication is conceptually distinct and can ‘speak’ to other influential theorizing about organizations.

Session1 Identity, Subjectivity, and Organizational Communication
Session 2 Knowledge and Knowing in Organizing
Session 3 Organizational Communication in Conversation with Management and Economics Theorizing
Session 4: Wrap-up; reflection; thoughts about theory development as we move forward.

Learning Objectives

To provide students with analytic tools to assess competing theoretical perspectives on organizing processes.
To provide students with an understanding of post "linguistic turn" approaches to organizations
To enable students to develop an appreciation of organizations as sites of power.
To provide students with insight into the relationship between theory development and knowledge production.

Teaching methods

Discussion/seminar style. Students are expected to participate in the discussion by asking and answering questions

Course literature

(Readings marked with a * will be sent to students via email)

Ashcraft, K. L., & Mumby, D. K. (2004). Organizing a critical communicology of gender and work. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 166, 19-43.
*Forthcoming Ashcraft, Cooren, & Kuhn Annals of the Academy of Management piece
Brummans, B. H. J. M. (2007). Death by document: Tracing the agency of a text. Qualitative Inquiry, 13, 711-727.
Collinson, D. (2003). Identities and insecurities: Selves at work. Organization, 10, 527-547.
Contu, A., & Willmott, H. (2003). Re-embedding situatedness: The importance of power relations in learning theory. Organization Science, 14, 283-296.
Deetz, S. (1996). Describing differences in approaches to organization science: Rethinking Burrell and Morgan and their legacy. Organization Science, 7, 191-207.
Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2007). Contesting the Corporation: Struggle, Power and Resistance in Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Heaton, L., & Taylor, J. R. (2002). Knowledge management and professional work: A communication perspective on the knowledge-based organization. Management Communication Quarterly, 16, 210-236.
Kuhn, T. (2006) A ‘demented work ethic’ and a ‘lifestyle firm’: Discourse, identity, and workplace time commitments. Organization Studies, 27, 1339-1358.
Kuhn, T., & Jackson, M. (2008). Accomplishing knowledge: A framework for investigating knowing in organizations. Management Communication Quarterly, 21, 454-485.
May, S., & Mumby, D. (2005). Engaging Organizational Communication Theory and Research: Multiple Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Mumby, D. K. (1987). The political function of narrative in organizations. Communication Monographs, 54, 113-127.
Mumby, D. K. (1997). Modernism, postmodernism, and communication studies: A rereading of an ongoing debate. Communication Theory, 7, 1-28.
Mumby, D. K. (2005). Theorizing resistance in organization studies: A dialectical approach. Management Communication Quarterly, 19, 1-26.
*Mumby, D. K. (2006). Organizational Communication. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (pp. 3290-3299). London: WileyBlackwell.
*Mumby, D.K. (2008). Organizational Communication, Critical Approaches. In Wolfgang Donsbach (Ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Communication (pp. 3427-3433). London: Blackwell.
Tracy, S. J. (2000). Becoming a character for commerce: Emotion labor, self-subordination, and discursive construction of identity in a total institution. Management Communication Quarterly, 14, 90-128.