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Communication and Theatre 4/514
Issues in Organizational Communication
What is organizational communication?
Deetz: Organizational Communication is a
way to describe and explain organizations.
Communication creates organization.
• Organizing is constituted through
communicating
• Structure is created and changed through
communication
• Communication is influenced by structure
Language creates and
limits choices.
•What is contested?
•What is privileged?
•What is marginalized?
We create meaning more than discover
the truth . . .
• Reality is mediated through the
senses, culture and language.
Therefore:
 The truth is local
 Commonality needs to be
negotiated
Topical orientation: We tend to reify . . .
Set up a conceptual frame and make
experience fit into it . . . And deny other
frameworks.
“The effective leader provides direction.”
• What does this statement promote?
• What does this statement deny?
Following a scheme of
researching produces results
that depend upon the
methodology.
Or, what you see is what you
get . . .
and, where you stand is what
you see.
Linda Putnam: research perspectives:
• Functional (empirical/scientific)
• Interpretive
• Critical
• Deetz adds: dialogic.
Theoretical Standpoint in Relation to Dominant
Social Discourse (p. 11)
dissensus
dialogic
post modern
deconstructionist
critical
late modern
reformist
local
emergent
elite
a priori
interpretive
pre-modern
traditional
normative
modern
progressive
consensus
So, what is organizational
communication?
From a normative position:
Organizational
communication reproduces
laws of relationship
designed to efficiently
control people in order to
compete in the marketplace
From an interpretive standpoint:
organizational communication serves to
reveal cultural values that promote
community.
From a critical perspective:
organizational communication
unmasks forms of domination in order
to reform power relations.
From a dialogic view: organizational
communication is an emergent negotiation
among participants.
*Deetz privileges this position in order to
question assumptions that:
• the marketplace should be valued.
• cultural norms are natural.
• power relations should remain invisible.
End of Session