The Emergent Organization: Communication As

This volume explores communication in organizations and advances the theory that an organization is both a pragmatic and cognitive construction. It is written for scholars in organizational communication, org studies, management, and related fields.

Preface

ix

PART I: THEORY OF COMMUNICATION

1

(136)

Organizational Communication: A New Look

3

(30)

Precedents

5

(1)

The Rediscovery of the Natural World of Communication---Its ``Conversation''

6

(10)

Critical Theory and Organizational Process

16

(14)

Why Study Organizational Communication in a New Way?

30

(3)

Communication as Coorientation

33

(36)

Toward a Bidimensional Text/Conversation Model of Communication

35

(6)

The Theory of Narrative

41

(17)

Communication as Coorientation

58

(4)

Conclusion

62

(7)

How the a Priori Forms of Text Reveal the Organization

69

(36)

In Search of the A Priori Forms

72

(3)

What to Look for: The Semantics of Organizational Communication

75

(14)

Where to Look: Interactive Exchanges

89

(6)

How to Look: Discourse Dimensions

95

(9)

Conclusion

104

(1)

Language as Technology and Agent

105

(32)

Language as Technology

106

(1)

Noam Chomsky and His School

107

(14)

Agentive Properties of Language and Text

121

(5)

Linking Discourse-World to Text-World

126

(8)

Conclusion

134

(3)

PART II: THEORY OF ORGANIZATION

137

(190)

Reinterpreting Organizational Literature

139

(34)

The ``Flatland'' Perspective on Organization

141

(3)

Karl Weick: Enactment

144

(5)

Anthony Giddens: Structuration

149

(8)

Bruno Latour: Translation

157

(6)

Latour, Weick, and Giddens

163

(4)

Labov and Fanshel: Rights and Obligations

167

(4)

Conclusion

171

(2)

From Symbol Processing to Subsymbolic Socially Distributed Cognition

173

(34)

System Theory: Organization and Communication

175

(8)

March and Simon's Model Revisited

183

(4)

The Theory of Computation and Organization

187

(4)

Reversing the Field: Computationist Theory in Disarray

191

(3)

The New Theory of Computation

194

(5)

Socially Distributed Cognition: A New Model of Organization

199

(6)

Conclusion

205

(2)

Conversation Transformed: Organization

207

(36)

Bottom-Up Thinking

208

(1)

What We Will Find

209

(1)

The Organization Has to Map More Than the Environment; It Has to Map Itself

210

(1)

Organization as Conversation

211

(7)

From the ``Business of Talk'' to the ``Talk of Business''

218

(2)

Lamination of Conversations

220

(3)

Why Organization-as-Conversation Is Not Enough

223

(5)

Backpropagation: The Learning Organization

228

(8)

Organization-in-Text

236

(4)

Conclusion

240

(3)

Reenacting Enactment

243

(33)

Weick and Enactment

244

(2)

The Concept of an Interpretation System

246

(17)

Enactment Reenacted

263

(9)

Limits of the Computational Metaphor

272

(2)

An Afterword on Weick's Evolution

274

(2)

Why ``In''? Of Maps, Territories, and Governance

276

(51)

The Importance of Maps

278

(3)

Some General Properties of Maps

281

(2)

The Organizational Map

283

(1)

Differences Between Our View and Other Theories of Cause Maps

284

(4)

Summarizing Our Principal Assumptions

288

(5)

Becoming Recognized on the Organizational Map: A Departmental Evaluation

293

(31)

What Is an Organization?

324

(3)

References

327

(14)

Author Index

341

(6)

Subject Index

347

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The Emergent Organization: Communication As Its Site and Surface

Summary

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials