The Emergent Organization: Communication As Its Site and Surface

by Taylor, James R.; Van Every, Elizabeth J.

• ISBN13: 9780805821949
• ISBN10: 0805821945
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: Lawrence Erlbau

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

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