In the social sciences, coordinated management of meaning (CMM) provides  understanding of how individuals create, coordinate and manage meanings in their process of communication. Generally, it refers to "how individuals establish rules for creating and interpreting  meaning and how those rules are enmeshed in a conversation where meaning is constantly being coordinated". "Human communication is viewed as a flexible, open and mutable process evolving in an ongoing joint interaction, which enables movement, shifts and evolving ways with each other". CMM embodies this vision and allows interpersonal connection and open conversation among individuals or groups, and can be applicable across multiple academia fields and social scenarios. With that said, defining CMM has been a challenge. However, some commonly agreed upon definitions of CMM would be: it is "a multi-level structural theory in which rules describe the movement or linkages among meanings and actions. From the perspective of CMM  it's , two persons conversing compromise on an interpersonal system with two interpersonal component systems". Pearce and Cronen offer CMM to be "encouraging us to look at the process of communication and the ways meaning is made. We are encouraged to think about the ways that we might act in a critical moment". CMM "offers a framework that enables us to take a collaborative approach to take a position of working together to explore  meaning and arrive together at a shared understanding and agreed plan moving forward". Essentially, CMM also is a "theory of social construction that posits how we create our relationships and even the world itself through communication. It is complex and includes ideas of coherence and mystery". The data and information shared between two parties is visually and socially understood through the "hierarchies and coordination of the meanings in our messages". People live in a world where there is constant communication. In communicating with others, people assign meanings in their messages based on past conversational experiences from previous social realities. Through communication, an underlying process takes place in which individuals negotiate a common or conflicted meanings of the world around them, thereby creating a new social reality. CMM advocates that meanings can be managed in a productive way so as to improve the state of interactions by coordinating and managing the meaning-making process. It is an "interpersonal theory that describes causal forces in a conversation in two forces: logical force and practical force. Assuming that persons transform sensory perceptions into implications for meaning and action, and that of the process for this transformation may be usefully be described in terms of the actors  rules" Our social world can be understood through the practice of CMM through "managing our meanings in our messages based off our values" It is , "our task in interactions to actively manage the meanings that make up our lives and to co-cordinate these with meanings to others, to bring coherence to our social world". There is high importance also on the "processes between people take the form of rule-governed patterns of interactions and that there is logic to the way the we act in communication". There are also rules and stigmas that vary in cultures when we disclose information or communicate in the ways we are socially taught when assigning meaning to our messages that CMM designs to take into consideration. This is where messages in communication can have disparities in their meaning due to cross cultural or contextual disclosure differences in how we communicate. More information is covered in the three elements. CMM relies on three interdependent elements: coordination, management  and meaning. These elements help to explain how social realities are created through conversation and further applications and models listed below. History and orientation The theory of CMM was developed in the mid-1970s by W. Barnett Pearce (1943–2011) and Vernon E. Cronen. Communication Action and Meaning was devoted to CMM, is  thorough explication of CMM, which Pearce and Cronen introduced to the common scholarly vernacular of the discipline. Their scholarly collaboration at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst offered a major contribution to the philosophy of communication as story-centered, applicable, and ever attentive to the importance of human meaning. Pearce also famously said, "the three principles of CMM are, there are multiple social worlds, these social worlds are made in interactions and through conversations with others, and we are all active agents in the making of social worlds" and by this, our social worlds are ever-changing through which the conversations that we exchange through out time. The cluster of ideas in which CMM emerged has moved from the periphery toward greater acceptance  and CMM has continued to evolve along a trajectory from an interpretive social science to one with a critical edge and then to what its founders call a "practical theory". CMM is one of an increasing number of theories that see communication as "performative" (doing things, not just talking "about" them) and "constitutive" (the material substance of the social world, not just a means of transmitting information within it). In CMM-speak, "taking the communication perspective" means looking at communication rather than through it , and seeing communication as the means by which we make the objects and events of our social worlds. The "communication perspective" entails a shift in focus from theory to praxis.Cronen 2001. According to Rose, language and communication , "creates, shapes, and limits the diverse social worlds in which we live, and the coordinated management of meaning is the most comprehensive statement of social construction and emphasizes recursiveness. The level of praxis is fundamental in this recursive process in that communication is a primary social process". CMM concepts and models are best understood as providing tools for naming aspects of performance. To date, CMM has found greater acceptance among practitioners than among scholars. Taking the communication perspective confers something like "communication literacy"—the ability to inscribe and read the complex process of communication in real time . Among other things, CMM's concepts and models guide practitioners in helping clients become aware of the patterns of communication which make up aspects of the social world. They want to change and help both clients and practitioners identify openings or "bifurcation points" in everyday lives. Many CMM practitioners have an explicit commitment not only to describe and understand , but to improve the conditions in which they and those around them live. They believe that the best way of making better social worlds is to improve the patterns of communication which generates them.Pearce 2002. As mentioned, Pearce and Cronen together have set the stage for CMM and have unpacked this theory various times in order to give it the depth it needs. One of their studies in particular gained some speed when they wanted to analyze how rules and form of a conversation lead to the significance of the conversation and co-create verbal structures of communication within  social engagement. They found that in their game like study, respondents reported more engagement based on the structure, or in this case coordination, produced different articulations for determining the value and action of said rules given to them. "Logical force does affect the ability of person's to coordinate conversations and respond to them". Since this theory has been developed and tested in other disciples, there is a bountiful amount of definitions for CMM. Keeping in mind Pearce and Cronen's contributions, some other definitions entail it as not just a practical theory , but also a "social constructionist theory that traces its lineage to the work of American pragmatists". Pearce also says it is a "non-objectivist, realist position that foregrounds the process of communication". That being said, many of these theorists agree it is a practical angle to communication  and communication itself is a "primary social process". Basics It has been said that "CMM theory is a kind of multi-tool (like a Swiss Army knife) that is useful in any situation".Holmgren 2004, p. 91. It is not a single theory , but rather a collection of ideas to understand how humans interact during communication. According to CMM, individuals construct their own social realities while engaged in conversation. To put it simply, communicators apply rules in order to understand what is going on during their social interaction. Based on the situation, different rules are applied in order to produce "better" patterns of communication.Pearce Associates 1999, p.12. Often at times, these "constitutive rules change, and so do the regulative rules" that allow transformative empowerment of self perspectives and those of other people. These rules are discussed below further in the management sections. CMM theory is a fairly complex study focusing on both the complexity in the micro-social processes and the aspects of daily interaction.Holmgren 2004, p.92. Overall, it is concerned with how we coordinate and establish meaning during interactions. The theory can be complicated to teach and/or present to others, but it is best understood when it is broken down into the basics. The theory consists of three key concepts, which are further broken down into several different building blocks. The fundamental building blocks of CMM theory focus specifically on the flow of communication between people. The three different concepts experienced either consciously or unconsciously , are coordination, management  and meaning. Coordination Coordination refers to "the degree to which persons perceive that their actions have fitted together into some mutually intelligible sequence or pattern of actions". It exists "when two people attempt to make sense out of the sequencing of messages in their conversation". That is, if people in the interaction can recognize what their partners are talking about, then we say the conversation comes to a coordination. Scientists believes that people's desire for coordination in interaction arises from the subjectivity of meaning, which means the same message may have different meanings to different people. This holds true particularly in the case of intercultural negotiations  where the need to clarify the main keywords of the negotiation and eliminate misunderstanding is high See for reference URL In order to avoid this pitfall in communication, people work together to share meanings. Research shows that sense making is the foundation of coordination. By tokens within the information connected by means of  channel can the logic relationship emerge, then it contributes to the sense making. Sense making helps people to establish common understanding then further develops coordination between people. The act of formulating speech and reaching the initial coordination is where the conversation co-exists between the two parties. The "actions of each person affect and are mutually affected by those of the other person in a coevolving conversation. The unfolding of action is reflexively interpretable within various levels of nested narrative or meaning of contexts". This in some cases  is similar to relational transformation, which is "thought to be and emerge out of this combination of increased awareness and strength regarding ones own needs, together with increased appreciation and compassion toward the needs of the other party" and where this understanding is taking place in coordination. Relational transformation occurs when, "recognition or other perspectives are happening for either parties". This mindfulness also is considered when looking into the ethical production of CMM. As an example, For organizations  "interpersonal ethical analysis of these situations leads to the suggestion that communicators gain proficient knowledge of ethical principles before considering strategic ambiguity as a viable approach to organizational communications". There are three possible outcome of coordination: Management Our interactions are guided and defined by rules. "Interactants must understand the social reality and then incorporate rules as they decide how to act in a given situation." From the use of rules, individuals manage and coordinate meanings in the conversation. "Once rules are established in a dialogue, interactants will have a sufficiently common symbolic framework for communication." For instance, it would be ambiguous if a friend says  "I hate you". Does the friend really hate whomever he/she is speaking to or he/she is just expressing his/her feelings at the moment? Rules will help clarify and explain this kind of meanings . Constitutive rules: refer to "how behavior should be interpreted within a given context". It tells us what the given behavior means and linking belief to one another and behaviors to beliefs. In the example above, "I hate you" in some contexts counts as an expression of slight dissatisfaction. Constitutive rules "are rules of meaning, used by people involved in  communication process to interpret or understand an event". Regulative rules: refer to "some sequence of action that an individual undertakes, and they communicate what happens next in a conversation." They are also referred  as "cognitive reorganizations of constitutive rules". In other words, it means the behavior that is requested in certain situation . Regulative rules link the meanings in the interaction with the consequences they result to. Our body reaction can reflect on the contents of interaction. Regulative rules "are rules of action used to determine how to respond or behave". "Unwanted repetitive patterns": It refers to "the sequential and recurring conflictual episodes that are considered unwanted by the individuals in the conflict." This phenomenon happens because "two people with particular rule systems follow a structure that obligates them to perform specific behaviors." Several reasons count for unwanted repetitive patterns. First, sometimes people can't find other options than being in conflict. Second, people may feel comfortable in the conflict situation because they have experience on what others will behave in this kind of situation. Third, people may be tired of finding resolution on the conflict situation. "Not everything within communication can be explained", which is called Mystery. It is the recognition that "the world and our experience of it is more than any of the particular stories that make it coherent or any of the activities in which we engage". Mystery has to do with the sense of awe or wonder when communication leads to a surprising outcome. Put more simply, it is the feeling (anything from attraction to hate) one experiences when engaged in conversation that cannot be linked to the situation as a whole. Meaning Coordinated management of meaning states that people "organize meaning in a hierarchical manner." Theorists on CMM were in agreement on two points regarding hierarchical meaning. "First, the hierarchy of meaning defines the context in which regulative and constitutive rules are to be understood. Second, these contexts are arranged in a hierarchy of abstractness, such that higher levels of the hierarchy help to define – and may subsume – lower level." It can  interpreted to each of the contexts in the "hierarchical can be understood by looking at the other contexts, and each contexts is always contextualizing other contexts."
In the social sciences, coordinated management of meaning (CMM) provides an understanding of how individuals create, coordinate and manage meanings in their process of communication. Generally, it refers to "how individuals establish rules for creating and interpreting the meaning and how those rules are enmeshed in a conversation where meaning is constantly being coordinated". "Human communication is viewed as a flexible, open and mutable process evolving in an ongoing joint interaction, which enables movement, shifts and evolving ways with each other". CMM embodies this vision and allows interpersonal connection and open conversation among individuals or groups, and can be applicable across multiple academic fields and social scenarios. With that said, defining CMM has been a challenge. However, some commonly agreed upon definitions of CMM would be: it is "a multi-level structural theory in which rules describe the movement or linkages among meanings and actions. From the perspective of CMM , it's two persons conversing compromise on an interpersonal system with two interpersonal component systems". Pearce and Cronen offer CMM to be "encouraging us to look at the process of communication and the ways meaning is made. We are encouraged to think about the ways that we might act in a critical moment". CMM "offers a framework that enables us to take a collaborative approach to take a position of working together to explore the meaning and arrive together at a shared understanding and agreed plan moving forward". Essentially, CMM also is a "theory of social construction that posits how we create our relationships and even the world itself through communication. It is complex and includes ideas of coherence and mystery". The data and information shared between two parties are visually and socially understood through the "hierarchies and coordination of the meanings in our messages". People live in a world where there is constant communication. In communicating with others, people assign meanings in their messages based on past conversational experiences from previous social realities. Through communication, an underlying process takes place in which individuals negotiate common or conflicting meanings of the world around them, thereby creating a new social reality. CMM advocates that meanings can be managed in a productive way so as to improve the state of interactions by coordinating and managing the meaning-making process. It is an "interpersonal theory that describes causal forces in a conversation in two forces: logical force and practical force. Assuming that persons transform sensory perceptions into implications for meaning and action, and that of the process for this transformation may be usefully be described in terms of the actors ' rules" Our social world can be understood through the practice of CMM through "managing our meanings in our messages based off our values" It is "our task in interactions to actively manage the meanings that make up our lives and to co-cordinate these with meanings to others, to bring coherence to our social world". There is high importance also on the "processes between people take the form of rule-governed patterns of interactions and that there is logic to the way the we act in communication". There are also rules and stigmas that vary in cultures when we disclose information or communicate in the ways we are socially taught when assigning meaning to our messages that CMM designs to take into consideration. This is where messages in communication can have disparities in their meaning due to cross-cultural or contextual disclosure differences in how we communicate. More information is covered in the three elements. CMM relies on three interdependent elements: coordination, management , and meaning. These elements help to explain how social realities are created through conversation and further applications and models listed below. History and orientation The theory of CMM was developed in the mid-1970s by W. Barnett Pearce (1943–2011) and Vernon E. Cronen. Communication Action and Meaning was devoted to CMM, is a thorough explication of CMM, which Pearce and Cronen introduced to the common scholarly vernacular of the discipline. Their scholarly collaboration at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst offered a major contribution to the philosophy of communication as story-centered, applicable, and ever attentive to the importance of human meaning. Pearce also famously said, "the three principles of CMM are, there are multiple social worlds, these social worlds are made in interactions and through conversations with others, and we are all active agents in the making of social worlds" and by this, our social worlds are ever-changing through which the conversations that we exchange throughout time. The cluster of ideas in which CMM emerged has moved from the periphery toward greater acceptance , and CMM has continued to evolve along a trajectory from an interpretive social science to one with a critical edge and then to what its founders call a "practical theory". CMM is one of an increasing number of theories that see communication as "performative" (doing things, not just talking "about" them) and "constitutive" (the material substance of the social world, not just a means of transmitting information within it). In CMM-speak, "taking the communication perspective" means looking at communication rather than through it and seeing communication as the means by which we make the objects and events of our social worlds. The "communication perspective" entails a shift in focus from theory to praxis.Cronen 2001. According to Rose, language and communication "creates, shapes, and limits the diverse social worlds in which we live, and the coordinated management of meaning is the most comprehensive statement of social construction and emphasizes recursiveness. The level of praxis is fundamental in this recursive process in that communication is a primary social process". CMM concepts and models are best understood as providing tools for naming aspects of performance. To date, CMM has found greater acceptance among practitioners than among scholars. Taking the communication perspective confers something like "communication literacy"—the ability to inscribe and read the complex process of communication in real-time . Among other things, CMM's concepts and models guide practitioners in helping clients become aware of the patterns of communication which make up aspects of the social world. They want to change and help both clients and practitioners identify openings or "bifurcation points" in everyday lives. Many CMM practitioners have an explicit commitment not only to describe and understand but to improve the conditions in which they and those around them live. They believe that the best way of making better social worlds is to improve the patterns of communication which generate them.Pearce 2002. As mentioned, Pearce and Cronen together have set the stage for CMM and have unpacked this theory various times in order to give it the depth it needs. One of their studies , in particular, gained some speed when they wanted to analyze how rules and form of a conversation lead to the significance of the conversation and co-create verbal structures of communication within the social engagement. They found that in their game-like study, respondents reported more engagement based on the structure, or in this case coordination, produced different articulations for determining the value and action of said rules given to them. "Logical force does affect the ability of person's to coordinate conversations and respond to them". Since this theory has been developed and tested in other disciples, there is a bountiful amount of definitions for CMM. Keeping in mind Pearce and Cronen's contributions, some other definitions entail it as not just a practical theory but also a "social constructionist theory that traces its lineage to the work of American pragmatists". Pearce also says it is a "non-objectivist, realist position that foregrounds the process of communication". That being said, many of these theorists agree it is a practical angle to communication , and communication itself is a "primary social process". Basics It has been said that "CMM theory is a kind of multi-tool (like a Swiss Army knife) that is useful in any situation".Holmgren 2004, p. 91. It is not a single theory but rather a collection of ideas to understand how humans interact during communication. According to CMM, individuals construct their own social realities while engaged in conversation. To put it simply, communicators apply rules in order to understand what is going on during their social interaction. Based on the situation, different rules are applied in order to produce "better" patterns of communication.Pearce Associates 1999, p.12. Often at times, these "constitutive rules change, and so do the regulative rules" that allow transformative empowerment of self perspectives and those of other people. These rules are discussed below further in the management sections. CMM theory is a fairly complex study focusing on both the complexity of the micro-social processes and the aspects of daily interaction.Holmgren 2004, p.92. Overall, it is concerned with how we coordinate and establish meaning during interactions. The theory can be complicated to teach and/or present to others, but it is best understood when it is broken down into the basics. The theory consists of three key concepts, which are further broken down into several different building blocks. The fundamental building blocks of CMM theory focus specifically on the flow of communication between people. The three different concepts experienced either consciously or unconsciously are coordination, management , and meaning. Coordination Coordination refers to "the degree to which persons perceive that their actions have fitted together into some mutually intelligible sequence or pattern of actions". It exists "when two people attempt to make sense out of the sequencing of messages in their conversation". That is, if people in the interaction can recognize what their partners are talking about, then we say the conversation comes to coordination. Scientists believe that people's desire for coordination in interaction arises from the subjectivity of meaning, which means the same message may have different meanings to different people. This holds true particularly in the case of intercultural negotiations , where the need to clarify the main keywords of the negotiation and eliminate misunderstanding is high See for reference URL In order to avoid this pitfall in communication, people work together to share meanings. Research shows that sense-making is the foundation of coordination. By tokens within the information connected by means of a channel can the logic relationship emerge, then it contributes to the sense-making. Sense-making helps people to establish common understanding then further develops coordination between people. The act of formulating speech and reaching the initial coordination is where the conversation co-exists between the two parties. The "actions of each person affect and are mutually affected by those of the other person in a coevolving conversation. The unfolding of action is reflexively interpretable within various levels of nested narrative or meaning of contexts". This in some cases , is similar to relational transformation, which is "thought to be and emerge out of this combination of increased awareness and strength regarding one's own needs, together with increased appreciation and compassion toward the needs of the other party" and where this understanding is taking place in coordination. Relational transformation occurs when, "recognition or other perspectives are happening for either parties". This mindfulness also is considered when looking into the ethical production of CMM. As an example, For organizations , "interpersonal ethical analysis of these situations leads to the suggestion that communicators gain proficient knowledge of ethical principles before considering strategic ambiguity as a viable approach to organizational communications". There is three possible outcomes of coordination: Management Our interactions are guided and defined by rules. "Interactants must understand the social reality and then incorporate rules as they decide how to act in a given situation." From the use of rules, individuals manage and coordinate meanings in the conversation. "Once rules are established in a dialogue, interactants will have a sufficiently common symbolic framework for communication." For instance, it would be ambiguous if a friend says , "I hate you". Does the friend really hate whomever he/she is speaking to or he/she is just expressing his/her feelings at the moment? Rules will help clarify and explain this kind of meaning . Constitutive rules: refer to "how behavior should be interpreted within a given context". It tells us what the given behavior means and linking belief to one another and behaviors to beliefs. In the example above, "I hate you" in some contexts counts as an expression of slight dissatisfaction. Constitutive rules "are rules of meaning, used by people involved in the communication process to interpret or understand an event". Regulative rules: refer to "some sequence of action that an individual undertakes, and they communicate what happens next in a conversation." They are also referred to as "cognitive reorganizations of constitutive rules". In other words, it means the behavior that is requested in certain situations . Regulative rules link the meanings in the interaction with the consequences they result to. Our body reaction can reflect on the contents of interaction. Regulative rules "are rules of action used to determine how to respond or behave". "Unwanted repetitive patterns": It refers to "the sequential and recurring conflictual episodes that are considered unwanted by the individuals in the conflict." This phenomenon happens because "two people with particular rule systems follow a structure that obligates them to perform specific behaviors." Several reasons count for unwanted repetitive patterns. First, sometimes people can't find other options than being in conflict. Second, people may feel comfortable in a conflict situation because they have experience with what others will behave in this kind of situation. Third, people may be tired of finding a resolution to the conflict situation. "Not everything within communication can be explained", which is called Mystery. It is the recognition that "the world and our experience of it is more than any of the particular stories that make it coherent or any of the activities in which we engage". Mystery has to do with the sense of awe or wonder when communication leads to a surprising outcome. Put more simply, it is the feeling (anything from attraction to hate) one experiences when engaged in conversation that cannot be linked to the situation as a whole. Meaning Coordinated management of meaning states that people "organize meaning in a hierarchical manner." Theorists on CMM were in agreement on two points regarding hierarchical meaning. "First, the hierarchy of meaning defines the context in which regulative and constitutive rules are to be understood. Second, these contexts are arranged in a hierarchy of abstractness, such that higher levels of the hierarchy help to define – and may subsume – lower level." It can be interpreted to each of the contexts in the "hierarchical can be understood by looking at the other contexts, and each contexts is always contextualizing other contexts."
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