We are not only interested in how we talk, but in research into organizations as languaging systems. Morgan identifies several different metaphors for organizations, we could add others, such as organizations as stories, narratives, conversations, and discourses. We are looking for articles that reconceptualize accepted ideas of organizations and their management inside a language perspective, as well as the application of language based perspectives to the understanding of phenomenon in organizations. For example, conceptualizing organizations as stories or narratives results in a different perspective for management than organizations as arguments. We encourage contributions from nontraditional areas that shed new theoretical light on organizations and their management as phenomenon in language.
Language is central to the critical and postmodern perspectives on organizations and organizing.
For postmodernists, organizations are plurivocal phenomena open to multiple interpretations which in turn produce alternative conceptualizations of reality. From a critical perspective, organizations can be seen as sites of discursive struggle where certain discourses are privileged and legitimized while others are silenced and marginalized. When viewed in these ways, language use in organizations becomes inextricably linked to issues of power and knowledge. Papers submitted to AMR should seek to advance our theoretical and conceptual understanding of how language impacts management and organizations and the nature of both as phenomenon in language. While the journal is open to a wide range of formats, the typical AMR article is innovative in its propositions and structure, yet very well grounded in the extant literature.