bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Class and Organizing
Authors: Gist Angela N.
Published: March 2017

Social class is a complex phenomenon that impacts organizing practices at individual, group, organizational, institutional, and societal levels. In this entry, various dimensions of social class are overviewed, including social identity, type of labor, dignity, dominant discourses, communication, and social mobility. Social class is considered to be deeply rooted in social identities as well as more macrolevel manifestations, such as labor practices. As a historically pervasive manifestation, social class is globally present in material and discursive reality. Organizational communication scholars have identified ways in which social class influences our communication, dignity, and social mobility. Recent theorizing about the relationship between social class and communication points to future directions for research. Scholars have an opportunity to explore the intersection of social class with a myriad of other phenomena from an interdisciplinary perspective in order to better understand its power and function both within and outside organizational contexts.
Cognition and Organizational Communication
Authors: Brooks Jo Ann
Published: March 2017

Cognition is simply “knowing,” and both shapes and is shaped by organizational communication. The relationship between cognition and organizational communication can be understood across several levels of analysis. First, the biological basis of cognition is characterized in terms of memory, learning, and attention processes. Second, socioculturally developed cognitive proficiencies feature prominently within studies of organizational communication. Third, communicative organizing processes that dynamically shape both organizations and members' cognition are a growing area of research. Finally, collective cognition continues to be a significant area of interest. Each section of the entry begins by identifying key contributions from cognate disciplines and then highlights contributions from organizational communication research.
Collaboration
Authors: Keyton Joann
Published: March 2017

Collaboration is a type of interaction that is frequently used in for‐profit, nonprofit, and governmental organizations to reach a common shared goal, activity, or production. Generally, collaborations are temporary and negotiated sites of interaction. Identity, power, and strategy are common themes that arise through the evaluation of interaction among collaboration members. Two models for organizational and interorganizational collaboration exist; however, many other theories and models from specific contexts influence the study of collaboration in organizations. Collaboration can be represented as a structure, a process, or both. Future research in this area should address the scalability of findings from across research that addresses collaboration as a method of resolving conflict, or as a problem solving process, to collaborations that exist in organizational and interorganizational settings.
Collective Action
Authors: Ganesh Shiv
Published: March 2017

Collective action research is both an explicit scholarly tradition in organizational communication research and an implicit concern of much work on community organizing and social movements. Over the years, the theoretical basis of collective action research in organizational communication has expanded from its traditional focus on second‐generation game theory to incorporate neo‐institutional and critical perspectives. Organizational communication scholars have studied communication dimensions of collective action in four ways: by treating communication as a key public good, by emphasizing communicative dynamics of collective action processes, by examining the communicative logics that underlie and emerge from collective action, and by studying the communicative issues around which collective actions are organized. Three trajectories for future research are discussed: translocalization, hybridization, and engagement.
Commitment
Authors: Allen Myria W.
Published: March 2017

The most commonly explored type of employee commitment involves attitudinal organizational commitment, which is an individual's psychological attachment to his/her organization. This type is made up of three components: affective, continuance, and normative. Scholars have investigated a myriad of factors which potentially influence employees' commitment levels as well as the impacts of commitment on employee behaviors. Committed employees are less likely to voluntarily leave their organization and more likely to contribute to its success. Research, including cross‐cultural research, utilizing the concept is strong, although critics point to measurement and conceptual problems. Communication research appears scant. However communication clearly applies to the process by which affective commitment is formed and shared. As a result, communication scholarship can fill a gap in how organizational behavior and/or management scholars conceptualize affective commitment.
Communication and Terrorist Organizations
Authors: Stohl Michael , Stohl Cynthia
Published: March 2017

Terrorism is communicatively constituted violence. Multiple types of organizations, state and insurgent, employ terrorism. Terrorism is used as a strategy either to maintain a regime or to create the conditions for a new governing system, but both state and insurgent organizations employ terrorism tactically to advertise the cause, to secure concessions through coercive bargaining, to create or enforce compliance, to elucidate boundaries, and/or to provoke indiscriminate reactions. Organizational communication research today is well situated to identify the most useful approaches and models of organizational structures that characterize organizations that use terrorism and what might be effective counterterrorism policies.
Communication Audits
Authors: Tourish Dennis , Hargie Owen
Published: March 2017

An audit is in essence an objective evaluation of a designated process. The practice is most commonly associated with scrutiny of an organization's financial health, and the principle of communication audits is clearly derived from this area. Communication audits have now featured in the literature for more than 60 years. Research in this area reveals that, when implemented systematically, audits provide detailed information regarding the effectiveness of communication channels, sources, and structures within organizations. They can be used to audit communication internally or externally, and embrace a wide variety of methods that can be tailored to the unique circumstances of the audit concerned.
Communication Competence
Authors: Titsworth Scott , Okamoto Kristen
Published: March 2017

Communication competence is the effectiveness and appropriateness with which individuals use communication skills in a specific context like the workplace. Although there are multiple perspectives for defining communication competence, most assume that skills like message production, listening, interaction management, and situational awareness are constituent of the construct. Individuals who are able to develop multiple strategies for enacting these general skills are typically higher in communication competence, which can promote job satisfaction, reduced conflict with others, greater efficiency in accomplishing work tasks, and other positive outcomes.
Communication Policies
Authors: Medved Caryn E.
Published: March 2017

From an organizational communication perspective, policy is defined as an organization's formal statement of beliefs on issues or approved courses of action on matters of importance, and usually is set forth by senior management. Policy is a significant organizational communication issue as it plays an enduring and powerful role in the contemporary workplace. Three topical areas of communication policy scholarship are addressed in this entry: destructive organizational communication, employee work–life integration, and information and communication technologies.
Communities of Practice
Authors: Hartwig Ryan T.
Published: March 2017

Communities of practice – groups of people who share an interest or concern, build a community together, and create a shared repertoire of practices and resources while learning together – are a key feature of modern organizational practice and a focal point for conceptual debate among organizational studies, knowledge management, and organizational communication scholars. These social learning systems often serve as important sites for organizational and individual learning, knowledge management, group and individual identity formation and management, relationship development and information sharing across boundaries, and the communicative constitution of organizations.
Conflict, Organizational
Authors: Jameson Jessica Katz
Published: March 2017

Conflict is a natural and often necessary part of organizational communication. The topic has attracted a number of scholars from different theoretical perspectives. Traditional communication scholarship examines the antecedents, features, and consequences of constructive and destructive conflict. Research from cultural interpretive and critical orientations examines organizational discourse and narratives, and explores how communication constructs conflict, relationships, and organizations. Organizational conflict scholarship explores the complexity of overlapping relationships among individual, group, and organizational levels of analysis and investigates how conflict is experienced; it also examines conflict's role in reifying power relationships, resistance, and organizational transformation.
Contingent Labor
Authors: Christie Erin , Gigliotti Ralph A.
Published: March 2017

The contingent workforce provides both challenges and opportunities for communication in organizations. This entry provides societal background to this growing subset of workers, gives definitions for contingent labor arrangements, and discusses the communication issues and relevant research findings these arrangements pose to worker satisfaction, workplace harassment and mistreatment, employee identification, control, and the communication experiences of contingent workers. Future directions for research are then proposed.
Contradictions, Tensions, Paradoxes, and Dialectics
Authors: Ballard‐Reisch Deborah , Turner Paaige K.
Published: March 2017

Contradictions in organizational life have been conceptualized as tensions to be solved, resisted, or accepted. Although a number of potential theoretical frameworks exist, organizational communication scholars have primarily drawn upon dialectics and paradox to examine how contradiction is constituted and how it constrains and enables organizational processes. This entry traces the shifting conceptualizations of contradictions and tensions within organizational communication as an anomaly to be resolved through a discursive perspective emphasizing communication as the core of contradiction and tension and viewing paradox and dialectics as opportunities for organizational growth and understanding.
Coordination
Authors: Rice Ronald E. , Zackrison Eric J. , Seibold David R.
Published: March 2017

Communication is core to organizational coordination, and coordination is an inherently communicative process that is fundamental to organizational functioning. Although conceptions vary widely, here organizational coordination consists ofcoordinatingas the overarching process,coordinating mechanismsas the structures that are brought to bear, andcoordinationas the in situ interaction. A structurational model of coordination includes structures (mechanisms) that affect practices (coordination) that in turn affect outcomes – all within organizational members' ongoing streams of activity.
Corporate Colonization
Authors: McClellan John G.
Published: March 2017

Corporate colonization refers to the unobtrusive ways corporate meanings, instrumental logics, and managerial values dominate the ways we understand, think, and act in everyday life. Concern for corporate colonization arises with increased participation in corporate forms of organizing and renewed appreciation for communication as a sociohistorical political practice that constitutes social reality and individual identity. Interest in corporate colonization directs attention to issues of systematically distorted communication and discursive closures maintaining corporate disciplinary power. Researchers interested in corporate colonization focus on revealing suppressed conflicts of meanings and encouraging participatory forms of collaborative meaning creation.
Corporate Communication
Authors: Dixon Maria A.
Published: March 2017

Corporate communication emerged from the earliest traditions of brand and reputational management. Once the purview of journalists hired to help corporations respond to negative publicity, corporate communication is a multifaceted field that serves as the intersection between marketing, public relations, advertising, and employee communication functions. Careers in corporate communication are among the fastest growing within organizational communication, and specialists are skilled in the management of communication strategy for both internal and external publics.
Coworker Communication
Authors: Ploeger‐Lyons Nicole A. , Kelley Katherine M.
Published: March 2017

Coworker communication is defined as the communication between two individuals of equal organizational status, neither of which has authority over the other. While still understudied, the importance of coworker communication in workers' health, productivity, and organizational functioning is increasingly acknowledged. Peer coworker communication serves several vital functions in organizations, such as organizational socialization, peer mentoring, and social support. Common topics of peer coworker communication research include bullying, friendship, and romance. While peer coworker communication is studied from a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives, future directions in this area of research are plentiful. Future research can further explore nuances of peer coworker friendship and romance, the impact of technology on coworker communication, the dark functions of coworker communication, and the influences of (and on) specific organizational communication variables, such as trust and identification.
Critical Approaches
Authors: Mumby Dennis K. , Ashcraft Karen Lee
Published: March 2017

This entry describes what it means, broadly speaking, to take a “critical approach.” It then identifies important theoretical influences, especially Marxism and strands of neo‐Marxism; key associated concepts like capitalism, alienation, ideology, and hegemony; and major lines of critique that have left or are leaving an imprint, such as poststructuralism, postcolonialism, post‐Marxism, and autonomist Marxism. Finally, the entry traces the rise of critical approaches to organization in particular, and considers how this movement found distinctive roots in organizational communication studies, generating unique perspectives on and contributions to knowledge of power and resistance in and around organizational life.
Crowdsourcing
Authors: Brabham Daren C.
Published: March 2017

Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem solving and production model where organizations tap the collective intelligence of online communities. A joining of top‐down management processes with bottom‐up open innovation processes, crowdsourcing can be used by organizations to solve four general types of problems related to information management or ideation. Crowds are motivated in a variety of ways and often consist of professionals or experts who self‐select into a given challenge, giving rise in recent years to calls for ethics and fair labor practices in crowdsourcing ventures.
Dialogic Perspectives
Authors: Kevin Barge J.
Published: March 2017

Dialogic perspectives toward communication take a holistic approach to the human condition, recognizing that human systems are constituted by tensions that must be managed and are informed by a commitment to working with difference in ways that engage the full humanity and complexity of “others” in order to sustain the emergence of meaning making. Dialogic perspectives draw on a number of philosophical approaches including the work by Bakhtin, Bohm, Buber, Freire, Gadamer, and Habermas. Dialogic perspectives may be distinguished by their emphasis on description or prescription, whether they view dialogue as an epistemological or an ontological practice, and their stance toward power. Dialogic perspectives engage research in different ways as communication scholars may treat the overall research act as a dialogue, conduct analyses of dialogically structured communication, or use dialogically oriented tools to generate their research projects.
Discourse Analysis/Methods
Authors: Ainsworth Susan
Published: March 2017

Studying discourse means more than examining language use. It entails studying the use of language (and other nonlinguistic systems of meaning) as a form of social practice, and a way of reflecting and shaping society. Not surprisingly then, discourse analysis is of interest to researchers in varied academic fields such as education, health, law, sociology, gender studies, psychology, public policy, political science, management, organization studies, and, of course, organizational communication.
Discursive Construction
Authors: Connaughton Stacey L. , Linabary Jasmine R. , Yakova Liliya
Published: March 2017

The notion of the organization as “discursive construction” is a concept that follows from the linguistic turn and draws on various conceptualizations of “discourse.” This concept gives primacy to the ways that organizations and organizing are constituted in and through discourse. Major areas of empirical research on this topic include themes of power, identity, leadership, and organizational culture.
Distortion
Authors: Bisel Ryan S.
Published: March 2017

Distortion – the interference with or alteration of a message – is a way of describing undesirable disruptions to a message as it moves from organizational member to organizational member. Contemporary organizational communication research investigates how ordinary features of everyday talk, like equivocation, can result in intentional and unintentional muting of important topics like private ethical concerns. Distortion in upward, lateral, and downward organizational communication is described. Remedies for suppressing the negative organizational outcomes of distortions are also discussed.
Employee–Organization Relationship
Authors: Gillis Tamara L.
Published: March 2017

The employee–organization relationship (EOR) is a construct for examining the complex perceptions of both employees and employers/managers and their expectations of one another in the workplace. Based in social exchange theory (and economic exchange theory) and the inducements–contributions model, study of the EOR enables scholars and professionals to analyze the contributions of internal communications and organizational development practices on productivity, employee engagement, satisfaction, and organizational trust. Employee–organization relationships, by way of impact on these concepts, affect internal and external organizational outcomes.
Entrepreneurship
Authors: Gill Rebecca
Published: March 2017

Entrepreneurship is a dynamic concept that can be explored from a variety of perspectives and a number of different contexts. Originating within the discipline of economics, the concept of entrepreneurship has grown exponentially in Western scholarship and practice over recent decades, and is now addressed by scholars across disciplines, including management and organization studies, sociology, psychology, and critical studies, leading to the formation of the burgeoning, interdisciplinary field of “entrepreneurship studies.” The multidisciplinary attention to entrepreneurship has underscored that the concept cannot be defined with any certainty, though many scholars agree that in its most general sense, entrepreneurship refers to the mindsets, attitudes, and processes associated with or attributed to creating value; what is meant by “value,” however, continues to be debated. Entrepreneurship has only recently been taken up by organizational communication, which has done so largely by joining other critical and discourse‐centered approaches for understanding the concept.
Ethics
Authors: Lair Daniel J.
Published: March 2017

Ethics, in the most inclusive sense of the term, is understood as the study of “right conduct.” Organizational communication scholars have long been interested in ethical questions, though a longstanding concern has been whether the topic has generated interest commensurate with the social significance of organizational ethics. Studies of organizational communication have adopted both normative and descriptive approaches and applied a variety of theoretical perspectives to assess ethicality. Organizational communication scholars have been primarily interested in the ethics of communication behaviors in and by organizations, of the nature of organizations themselves, and of organizational contexts.
Ethnography
Authors: Taylor Bryan C.
Published: March 2017

The term “ethnography” designates a particular methodological tradition in social and cultural research. Historically, it is associated with documentary and analytic practices developed by agents of the European powers between the 18th and 20th centuries, which supported their projects of imperial expansion and colonial administration. Methodologically speaking, ethnography is categorized as “qualitative,” in that it seeks to record, interpret, and explain human communication in the unique contexts of participants' local activities and their subjective meanings. Because organizations constitute both a principal agency and object of (post‐)modernity, they have proven to be rich and enduring contexts for ethnographic research. Nonetheless, the formal use of ethnographic methods to explain human organization has waxed and waned in popularity over the past hundred years. Organizational ethnography in the 21st century faces turbulence that will stimulate redefinition of the enterprise.
Feedback
Authors: Waldeck Jennifer H.
Published: March 2017

This entry describes the primary theoretical models of organizational feedback, beginning with the seminal model and tracing the cumulative development of the literature on how feedback is constructed and encoded, delivered, received, perceived, and acted upon. The entry summarizes primary areas of organizational feedback research from multiple disciplines including communication, organizational psychology, management, health sciences and communication, and organizational behavior, then goes on to explore more recent work on the proactive role that organizational members take when they seek feedback, as well as exchange feedback with peers. The relationship between the type of feedback culture characteristic of an organization and the levels of member identification and dissent is discussed. The entry concludes with a list and brief description of commonly employed measures utilized in the empirical study of feedback.
Field Methods
Authors: Gibbs Jennifer L. , Doerfel Marya L. , Ki Seol
Published: March 2017

Field methods offer a way to get a multifaceted view of the communicative processes associated with organizing, organizations, and the complex relationships that make up and are shaped by organizations. This entry discusses the history and evolution of field methods in organizational communication. It starts by defining field research and its methods, describes its development in the discipline, and identifies the types of phenomena and topics studied. Field studies are then arrayed on a spectrum ranging from low to middle ground to high, using examples of key studies to illustrate each type. Key considerations, practical issues, and future directions are then discussed.
For‐Profit Organizations
Authors: Clampitt Phillip G. , Dekoch Robert J.
Published: March 2017

For‐profit businesses exist to provide financial benefits for their owners. In contrast, nonprofits exist to provide an educational, social service, or other type of humanitarian benefit for society at large. For‐profits generate income (e.g., sales revenue) from the services they provide and/or the goods that they sell, whereas nonprofits generate income primarily from donations and grants. The governmental and competitive environment influence profit making organizations, which in turn shapes business strategy and the dynamics of organizational communication.
Formal Communication
Authors: Felipe Gómez Luis , Dailey Stephanie L.
Published: March 2017

Formal communication represents a repertoire of communication genres that are goal oriented and function related, flow through the hierarchy, follow prescribed norms, and transcend time and space. Formal communication may vary in substance and form, but all formal communication shares the characteristics of being rational, structured, and goal oriented. Formal communication is foundational to the emergence of organizational communication as a discipline and critical to the communication as constitutive of organizations perspective. However, formal communication often deprives organizational groups of their voice and may filter out critical information. The strength of formal communication lies in its capacity to standardize communication to ensure reliability, and in its capacity to document, and hence constitute, organizations.
Genealogy of the Field
Authors: D'urso Scott C. , Fyke Jeremy P.
Published: March 2017

A genealogy of the field of organizational communication provides a reflection on scholars (mentors) and their students (protégés), key influencers, and collaboration networks. The value of genealogy to academic disciplines is discussed, followed by a discussion of key methodological approaches in the Organizational Communication Genealogy Project (OCGP), exemplar genealogies in other academic disciplines, the importance of mentor–protégé relationships, and the genealogical tree of the “father of organizational communication,” W. Charles Redding. In the end, as a resource for the field, the genealogy of organizational communication offers implications and directions for future research – the importance of the human side of mentoring, and the call to expand our reach as a discipline via further interdisciplinary scholarship.
Goal Setting
Authors: Diaz‐Saenz Hector R. , Padilla‐Cano Katty E.
Published: March 2017

Goal setting theory is one of a number of motivational theories which agree that emotions are fundamental to human impetus. Understanding what promotes an individual's good performance in the workplace was the interest in developing this theory. Thus, goal setting is the core of several other motivational theories including expectancy theory, management by objectives (MBO), control theory, and job enrichment. The complexity of the goal setting phenomenon presents a challenging but rewarding field of study for academic research. Understanding how other factors might motivate individuals to perform well and unraveling its intricacies is an important endeavor to pursue.
Governance
Authors: Bartlett Jennifer L. , Grant‐Smith Deanna , Bartlett George
Published: March 2017

Governance is concerned with the guidelines set down for the way organizations operate. Although governance is based in the legal frameworks of agents and owners that underpin agency and stewardship theories, a raft of corporate scandals in the 1990s and 2000s shifted public expectations around corporate behavior and the role of directors and those guiding organizations. To deal with the societal impact of corporate decisions raised by these scandals, the notion of governance has broadened: first, to include moral claims and the concerns of stakeholders; and second, by spreading from corporations to other organizational types. The communication implications of governance surround how organizations engage in dialogue with stakeholders and nonfinancial reporting to foster transparency and accountability around corporate decisions and to legitimate organizational practices.
Grounded Theory
Authors: Treem Jeffrey W. , Browning Larry
Published: March 2017

Grounded theory is both a philosophical approach and methodology for data analysis that is focused on the discovery and development of theory through direct engagement with data. As such, grounded theory is almost exclusively an inductive orientation to research whereby a researcher considers all data present, and sorts those data into meaningful sets of categories that are related to each other. This analysis involves a process of constant comparison whereby at every stage of the research process, data and emerging findings are compared to each other to aid refinement – with the goal of abstracting eventual categories into a single statement of theory.
Groups and Teams in Organizations
Authors: Reimer Torsten , Russell Tillman , Roland Christopher
Published: March 2017

Groups and teams are the central building blocks of organizations. Many organizational tasks and functions are performed by teams, and organizational communication is often organized in meetings and other interactions that involve teams and groups. An input–process–output framework is used to describe, classify, and connect key findings regarding the role of communication in organizational groups and teams. The framework is rooted in early group communication models and reflects multiple roles of communication in organizations. The entry includes studies that conceptualize communication as a process as well as studies that focus on communication as an outcome. Recent developments in research on organizational groups and teams are emphasized and future directions are discussed.
Healthy Workplace
Authors: James Eric P. , Zoller Heather M.
Published: March 2017

Creating and maintaining a healthy workplace crosses both organizational and health communication contexts. Due in part to rising health care costs, managerial interest in workplace health promotion has exploded since the end of the twentieth century. Scholarship in this vein focuses on the management of occupational health and illness, workplace fitness and health promotion, and constructions of wellness. Scholars evaluate the effective implementation of workplace health programs, promote employee participation in health programs, and raise important questions about power and the ethics behind company‐sponsored notions of what is perceived to be healthy and well.
Hegemony
Authors: Herrmann Andrew F.
Published: March 2017

This entry provides a historical review of the study of hegemony. Hegemony is created when the worldview of the ruling class is consented to as the cultural norm for society. In organizational communication studies, investigations of hegemony began concurrently with the interpretive turn, as critical‐cultural scholars investigated how members create and enact organizational meaning. There are three relatively distinct, but sometimes overlapping, waves of research on organizational hegemony. The first wave examined dominance and proceeded from neo‐Marxist frameworks. The second wave, often using early poststructuralism, investigated resistance to hegemonic processes. In the current third wave, newer interpretations of dialectical tension and postmodern discursive approaches reframed the earlier dominance–resistance binaries as struggle.
Invisible Labor and Hidden Work
Authors: Weidhaas Allison D.
Published: March 2017

Invisible labor refers to work that frequently receives little or no recognition or monetary reward. Invisible laborers desire a greater appreciation for their efforts, but are often hindered by stigma and the social values associated with a capitalist system. Conversely, hidden work refers to individuals who intentionally obscure their labor for a variety of reasons, including maintaining appropriate role identities, as a form of resistance, and as a means of job security.
History of Organizational Communication
Authors: Conrad Charles , Sollitto Michael
Published: March 2017

The study of organizations and organizational communication has progressed for thousands of years, and insights into processes of organizing and processes of communicating have become increasingly sophisticated. The discipline of organizational communication was solidified during the 1960s, but has changed in major ways during the decades that have followed. Two primary transformations spurred by complex interactions between economic and academic conditions have occurred in the discipline: the interpretive and critical turns of the early 1980s and the discursive turn at the beginning of the 21st century.
Humor
Authors: Schaefer Zachary A. , Lynch Owen Hanley
Published: March 2017

Humor research concerns the study of jokes, laughter, in‐group dynamics, and the struggle between ambiguity, paradox, and tensions. Humor is one of the oldest and most pervasive forms of speech communication that humans use and it serves a variety of social, organizational, and managerial functions in the workplace. Humor theory and research seek to understand how and why individuals and groups use humor, the effects that humor can have within organizations, and its utility as a persuasive medium. Although humor has been considered a trivial form of speech, it is the fact that humor is ubiquitous, difficult to interpret and sanction, and leads to real organizational change that adds a new dimension to the study and appreciation of this communicative form.
Ideology
Authors: Novak David R. , Norander Stephanie
Published: March 2017

This entry broadly defines the concept of ideology and focuses more specifically on how communication scholars investigate organizational ideologies. It provides a brief history of the concept and then examines some of the key concepts that interconnect with ideology. An overview of future organizational communication research on ideology is also provided.
Impression Management
Authors: Henderson Alison
Published: March 2017

Impression management has evolved from earlier theorization of the management of individual identity and image, and of organizational identity and image, corporate identity, and reputation management. It brings together recent work in organizational communication, public relations, and strategic management, and recognizes the speed with which relationships within organizations, and between organizations and their stakeholders, may change in a globalized, digitally connected world. Impression management may refer to both the management of perceptions at an individual level within the organization (for example, during job interviews, feedback/appraisal sessions, and intergroup activity) and managing the public's impression of the organization as a totality (for example, in positioning the organization in relation to public policy).
Information and Communication Technologies in Organizations
Authors: Van Den Hooff Bart
Published: March 2017

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are an important subject of organizational communication research. The research on ICTs in organizations can be characterized as having moved from technological determinism to social determinism to a “middle ground” in which the interaction between technology (the material) and users and their organizations (the social) has become the central focus. Four main themes in organizational communication research on ICTs are discussed: adoption and use, media choice, computer mediated communication, and ICTs in knowledge management. Finally, recent developments in the world of ICTs related to digitization, mobility, the virtualization of work and organizing, social media, big data and analytics, the Internet of Things, and their implications for privacy and surveillance are discussed in terms of their relevance for organizational communication research.
Institutional Rhetoric
Authors: Boyd Josh
Published: March 2017

Institutional rhetoric allows organizations to speak with a single voice. Its characteristics include personification of institutions, the corporate “we,” the use of synecdoche, and an emphasis on the maintenance of institutional image and the support of the institution's publics. Scholarship in this area brings together work from organizational communication, public relations, and rhetorical traditions, and scholars have focused on both the problems and prospects created by this rhetorical form. Although institutional rhetoric enables much public dialogue and in many ways simplifies everyday interactions, it also poses challenges to individuals in areas of accountability and representation.
Intergenerational Communication in the Workplace
Authors: Way Amy K. , Medved Caryn E.
Published: March 2017

We consider communication in the workplace as it is influenced and understood through the age of the worker. Age is an integral part of a worker's identity and experience of work as is the impact of a worker's age on the organization. Our entry proceeds through the lifespan and explores: youth and early work experiences; work experiences of millennials and their interactions with workers from other generations; and finally, the process of aging as workers and into and through retirement.
Interpretive Approaches
Authors: Putnam Linda L. , Banghart Scott
Published: March 2017

Interpretive approaches encompass social theories and perspectives that embrace a view of reality as socially constructed or made meaningful through actors' understanding of events. In organizational communication, scholars focus on the complexities of meaning as enacted in symbols, language, and social interactions. This entry describes the distinctive features of interpretive approaches, the history of their development in the field, their role in paradigms of organizational studies, genres of interpretive approaches, links to naturalistic research, guidelines for interpretive research, and directions for future studies. Organizational communication scholars have embraced interpretive approaches in studies of such topics as organizational culture, identity management, organizational discourse, accounts in organizational change, and social construction of technology.
Issue Management
Authors: Seeger Matthew , Gupton Melvin
Published: March 2017

Issue management is a strategic, multistage, and continuous process involving issue monitoring, identification, analysis, evaluation, and action that is widely practiced in public relations and in corporate public affairs. In involves the use of persuasive tactics to influence the development of public policy along with activities such as the creation and support of various interest and trade groups, legal and lobbying efforts, and association with other organizations, values, and causes.
Knowledge Management
Authors: Iverson Joel O.
Published: March 2017

Knowledge management is the coding, collecting, development, sharing and enactment of knowledge practices in an organization. Knowledge management covers a wide variety of organizational programs, technologies, and human interaction relating to knowledge. Because knowledge is complex, with varying definitions across tacit and explicit, object and process, individual and collective, the approaches to knowledge management by organizational communication scholars also vary significantly. Knowledge is enacted communicatively, so organizational communication scholars examine knowledge management from a communicative perspective. Approaches include analyzing technological systems for storing and retrieving information, networks, communities of practice, and transactive memory systems for communicatively enacting knowledge and knowledge management. Communication research should further refine social capital measurements and identify organizational practices that strengthen social capital.
Labor
Authors: Cloud Dana L.
Published: March 2017

“Labor” refers to the class of people in capitalist society who must work for others in order to survive. The word “labor” also refers to the activity of laborers, as well the movement defending their interests. Interested in the possibilities for worker agency, the field of organizational communication concerns itself with the question of how ordinary people resist the conditions of labor and achieve a degree of freedom. Communication plays an enormous role in this process. The subfield of critical organizational communication studies is the site of most work concerning the situation of employees in capitalist firms. This work emphasizes the tension between techniques of control and sources of participation and voice as they unfold in communication. Organizational communication research has increasingly attended to the workings of these processes on a global scale.
Learning Organization
Authors: Su Chunke
Published: March 2017

Learning organizations emphasize and engage in active learning to achieve strategic organizational goals. Learning organizations support continuous pursuit of knowledge by facilitating the creation, sharing, acquisition, and utilization of organizational knowledge among their employees. Organizational communication scholars have applied several theoretical approaches to examining the development and impacts of learning organizations. Communication plays a crucial role in learning organizations as the process through which organizational knowledge is learned, utilized, and managed to enhance the competitive advantage of the organization. The transformation into a learning organization requires fundamental changes to the organizational structure, culture, and technological infrastructure. Although organizational learning positively influences organizational performance, innovation, and sustainable growth, many challenges remain for the benefits of a learning organization to emerge.
Materiality and Organizing
Authors: Vásquez Consuelo , Plourde Marie‐Claude
Published: March 2017

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.
Meeting Technologies
Authors: Timmerman C. Erik , Choi Chang Shik
Published: March 2017

Meeting technologies consist of electronic hardware and software applications that are used by teams to support task and social processes. Although individuals and groups may utilize the technologies for a range of reasons, meeting technologies are often adopted to help mitigate costs associated with structural characteristics of groups (e.g., group size, diversity of membership, distribution across time and/or space), perceived or real limitations of group work such as decreased motivation or coordination, and/or to maximize the sought‐after benefits that are more typically attributed to group work. Three types of meeting technologies are described based on the ways that these tools provide support for (1) scheduling and planning, (2) participation, and (3) data storage, retrieval, and recording. Following the description of the forms of meeting technology, there is a summary of recent research findings and brief descriptions of the way theory informs our understanding of these technologies.
Metacommunication
Authors: Castor Theresa R.
Published: March 2017

In its most basic sense, metacommunication is communication about communication and, as such, it is a rich resource for understanding how communicators reflect on the meanings of communication within a given context. Metacommunication has a rich, interdisciplinary history and comes in a variety of forms. It functions to frame communication, and it is shaped by and can shape relationships and contexts. Within organizational communication, metacommunication is of special significance in helping to explain how organizations are communicatively constituted.
Micro/Meso/Macrolevels of Analysis
Authors: Barbour Joshua B.
Published: March 2017

Understanding the interplay between micro‐, meso‐, and macrolevels of analysis is a fundamental problematic of organizational communication scholarship. These terms are typically used to locate the researchers' analytical focus (e.g., on individuals, teams, organizations) relative to superordinate contextual phenomena and subordinate compositional phenomena. A simultaneous focus on multiple levels of analysis or on the influence of one on another has important conceptual and methodological implications. Organizational communication scholarship offers multiple theoretical and analytical approaches to the multilevel study of micro‐ meso‐, and macro‐phenomena.
Mindful Organizing
Authors: Brummans Boris H. J. M.
Published: March 2017

Mindful organizing focuses on cultivating organizational members' collective ability to notice unexpected events and correct errors. Hence, it is typically found in high reliability organizations (
HROs
). This Western perspective on mindful organizing is increasingly complemented by an Eastern perspective that centers on cultivating organizational members' ability to be present in the here‐and‐now and act with wisdom and compassion, based on continuous awareness of the impermanent, interdependent nature of phenomena. Engaging in Eastern mindful organizing is believed to benefit
HROs
and other types of organizations because it enables members to stabilize their attention, bounce back from unexpected events, and act creatively and ethically by using whatever is at hand in a given situation. This entry gives an overview of the scholarship on mindful organizing from these different perspectives and highlights the contributions of organizational communication scholars to this research.
Mission Statements
Authors: Carmon Anna F.
Published: March 2017

A mission statement is a statement that defines an organization's purpose and image for both internal and external stakeholders. Broadly, a mission statement serves two primary purposes: to inspire the employees of an organization and to assert leadership. This entry describes a mission statement's key components and communication attributes. Further, it addresses the organizational benefits of having a mission statement as well as some noted drawbacks of using mission statements as an organizational beacon.
Mobility
Authors: Lucas Kristen
Published: March 2017

Mobility refers to the ability of people to traverse through different social spaces, including geographic spaces, workspaces, organizational hierarchy, and social classes. Key dimensions of mobility include whether mobility is voluntary–involuntary or upward–downward. Several organizational communication processes are embedded in the experience of mobility, including socializing newcomers, performing identity work, negotiating ambivalences, sustaining interpersonal communication ties, and managing mobile work and workspaces.