Communis Mei: Organizational Communication II

The International Encyclopedia of Communication

Organizational Discourse

Organizational Ethics

Organizational Identification

Organizational Image

Organizational Metaphors

Organizational Structure

Organizations, Cultural Diversity in

Strategic Communication

Organizational Discourse

Gail T. Fairhurst

DOI:10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x

Organizational discourse is a burgeoning area of study featuring the role of discourse and communication in organizational dynamics. While its rhetorical and literary roots date back to the ancient Greeks (→ Rhetorical Studies), a more recent impetus has been the analysis of professional talk in institutional settings, beginning in the 1970s, and the role of slogans, creeds, jokes, and stories as reflections of organizational culture in the 1980s (Putnam & Fairhurst 2001). From these early beginnings, organizational discourse analyses have taken on a number of forms.

DEFINITIONS

Discourse and communication are not synonymous; communication is conceived as a related but broader construct that goes beyond the language and meaning-centered concerns of organizational discourse. Although discourse can be defined in a number of ways, Alvesson and Kärreman (2000) generally distinguish between d iscourse and D iscourse. Specifically, d iscourse is the study of talk and text in social practices. Talk-in-interaction represents sociality, the processes of messaging and conversing. It is the “doing” of organizational discourse, while text is the “done” or material representation of discourse in spoken or recorded forms. Texts can include both written documentation and verbal routines, such as performance appraisals and job interviews that are reconfigured through continued use. The details of language and interaction are the central concerns of d iscourse analysts. Following Michel Foucault, D iscourse refers to general and enduring systems of thought rooted in history and culture. Power/knowledge relations are established in culturally standardized Discourses, formed by constellations of ideas, logics, assumptions, and language that come to constitute objects and subjects. These Discourses order and naturalize the world in particular ways and serve as linguistic resources for communicating actors. D iscourse analysts interpret Discourses either as standalone systems of thought or the ways in which these systems of thought become dialogically grounded in social practices (→ Discourse Analysis).

DISCOURSE–ORGANIZATION RELATIONSHIP

Organizational discourse analysts often refer to organizations as discursive constructions because the combined forces of d iscourse and D iscourse are the foundations upon which organizational life is built. However, there are at least three interpretations of the discourse–organization relationship (Fairhurst and Putnam 2004). When the organization is cast as an already formed object, the organization exists prior to discourse, remains stable over time, and has specific features or components that shape language use. In this tradition, language can be an interesting artifact, reflect the boundaries of one or more speech communities, or become a product of some feature of the organization. When the organization is depicted in a state of becoming, discourse exists prior to the organization because the properties of language and interaction produce organizing. For example, language use can signal relational differences, align group members into categories, legitimate actions, and enact asymmetric or distributed power relationships. This tradition explicitly rejects language as artifact to focus on the ways in which discourse constitutes micro- and macro-aspects of organizations. Finally, in the grounded-in-action relationship, action and structure are mutually constitutive. Drawing from → ethnomethodology, → structuration theory, or actor-network theory, the organization is anchored at the level of discursive practice. Rejecting the macro–micro distinction for organizational processes, analysts instead emphasize the ways in which structure is found in action, history is captured in the present, and the global exists within the local; for example, see concepts such as lamination (Boden 1994), structuration (Giddens 1984), and association (Latour, 1996). Because the object, becoming, and grounded-in-action perspectives all possess a certain veridicality, holding them in tension with one another can produce more complex understandings of the discursive foundations of organizational life.

TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL DISCOURSE ANALYSES

There are a number of typologies for organizational discourse. This discussion follows Putnam and Fairhurst (2001) with a few exceptions. Accordingly, there are eight types of organizational discourse analyses: sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, cognitive linguistics (including discursive psychology), pragmatics (including speech acts, ethnography of speaking, and interaction analysis), semiotics, literary and rhetorical analyses, critical discourse analysis, and postmodern discourse analysis.

In sociolinguistics, language is a product of social categories such as class, education, or geographic differences; the analytic focus is on the meanings and linguistic repertoires of these social groupings. In the organizational arena, sociolinguistics examines language differences among blue- and white-collar workers, geographically separate units, occupations, roles, or sub-cultures. Language and lexicons are the artifacts of organizations whose structures are static forms rather than dynamic processes (→ Linguistics; Interactional Sociolinguistics).

Conversation analysis focuses on the detailed organization of talk-in-interaction (→ Conversation Analysis). Its goal is to discern how people use various interactional methods and procedures to produce their activities and make sense of their worlds. Conversation analysis captures the inherent richness and complexity of social interaction by analyzing turn-taking, membership categorization, adjacency pairs, insertion sequences, accounting practices, topic shifts, conversational openings and closings, agenda setting, decision-making, and many other forms of talk-in-interaction. The interpretive practices and competencies of actors found through conversation analysis also reveal how the organization is literally “talked into being” (Heritage 1997). As such, the macro–micro distinction dissolves because of an emphasis on social practices, the primacy of text, and the absence of researcher-imposed “levels” of analysis (Boden 1994).

Cognitive linguistics is the study of discourse processes that arise from mental processes such as → scripts, → schemas, and frames. It includes discursive psychology, in which psychological phenomena such as attitudes, categories, scripts, memory, attributions, and so on are examined for the ways in which they surface in talk-in-interaction. For example, while scripts refer to mental representations or stereotyped sets of events, script formulations occur in ordinary conversation as verbalized event sequences. Scripts formulated in talk can be depicted as more or less routine; script violation or breach occurs in conversation when some problematic event is contrasted with a routine. Both script and breach formulations are rhetorical moves deployed for some interactional goal (Edwards 1997). In organizational discourse studies, script and breach formulations function as linguistic resources in organizational change, performance management, or organizational conflict. Other forms of cognitive linguistics include cognitive mapping of shared interpretations through linguistic phrasing, and semantic networksemerging from similar interpretations of organizational concepts and words.

Pragmatics emphasizes language in context (→ Linguistic Pragmatics) and forms three distinct schools. First, speech acts treat language as action, emphasizing the actions performed, such as promising, requesting, baptizing, and so on. Organizational studies focus on politeness, accounting, and common speech acts such as directives, declaratives, expressives, and so on as well as their ordering within specific episodes of interaction (speech act schematics). Second, ethnography of speaking focuses on actors' expectations and typifications associated with the context and its routines. Organizational studies emphasize the language of specific speech communities and communication rules, conversational performances of organizational roles, storytelling performances, and symbolic interaction through negotiated social orders. Finally, interaction analysis focuses on the coding of behavior according to a predefined set of codes. It includes a host of quantitative approaches that draw from studies of message functions and language structures to assess the frequency and types of coded verbal behavior in organizational interaction. Interaction analysis highlights the sequences and stages of interaction, their redundancy and predictability, and the link between interactional structures and the organizational context.

Semiotics examines the interpretive role played by → signs and sign systems (→ semiotics). It includes nonverbal codes, images, actions, and objects, in addition to discourse. The analytic focus may be individual signs or sign systems, termed codes. Two semiotic schools have emerged in the organizational discourse literature:structuralism, which casts language as a system of differences in which deep structures of meaning and control produce surface-level signs and sign systems; andsemiosis, which emphasizes the interplay of meaning between signs, referents in the material world, and mental images, such as that found between organizational identity, corporate image, and marketing communications.

Literary and rhetorical analyses focus on the interrelationships between language, → meaning, function, and context. Literary approaches focus on classic tropes such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, but also other rhetorical forms including alliteration, icons, euphemisms, and clichés. Rhetorical approaches draw from classical methods of argumentation to analyze corporate messages and advocacy in crises, organizational decision-making, identification, and conflict management. Analysts studying literary and rhetorical forms infer meanings through discursive subtexts rooted in organizational conditions and contexts.

Critical discourse analysis examines the often opaque relationships between discursive practices, events, and texts and wider social structures and processes to discern the hidden influence of ideology, hegemony, and struggles over power (Fairclough 1995; → Organizational Communication: Critical Approaches; Critical Theory). Discourse functions strictly to produce, maintain, or resist systems of power and control; thus, analysts critique organizational narratives for their political bias and organizational rituals, routines, and texts for privileged interests. As power relationships are actively constructed through the routines of everyday organizational life, ironies, contradictions, and paradoxes emerge, revealing struggles over power and opportunities to resist.

Postmodern discourse analysis also focuses on power and resistance, but analysts reject grand narratives, challenge representationalist views of language, and focus on the instability of meaning (→ Organizational Communication: Postmodern Approaches; Postmodernism and Communication). Foucault's Discourse and disciplinary power are central to this perspective. However, many analysts add to Foucault's work by adopting poststructuralist moorings, which cast Discourses of power as attempting to fix meanings in a struggle where several competing Discourses are always in play. In the organizational context, masculine, feminine, entrepreneurial, and managerialist Discourses are frequent examples. Discussions of agency are cast amid the fragmentation and ambiguity or irony and paradox wrought by multiple Discourses. In postmodern discourse analyses, text is also viewed as a metaphor for organizing; thus analysts privilege intertextuality or the ways a given text intersects with or embodies other texts. Deconstruction and exploring text–conversation tensions pose two analytic options.

CRITICISMS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Generally speaking, organizational discourse analysts argue for the social construction of reality through discourse and communication. Several discursive approaches have been charged with relativism, such that reality is just what actors define it to be; and discoursism, in which the organization collapses into discourse (Conrad 2004; Gergen 2003). In both instances, the putative lack of attention to pre-existing institutional forms and material conditions results in an exaggerated sense of agency and an insufficient account of coercive structural forces (Reed 2000), or how acts of organizing beget the complex form “organization” (McPhee & Zaug 2000). For a critique of specific organizational discourse analyses, see Putnam and Fairhurst (2001).

Organizational discourse analysts increasingly look for ways to tackle the “levels” issue associated with d iscourse and D iscourse. For example, Fairclough's (1995)critical discourse analysis preserves the macro–micro distinction between the two; Taylor and Van Every (2000) theorize hybrid agency between human and nonhuman objects (including texts), the latter of which carries the institutional traces of past organizing; and discursive psychologists like Wetherell (1998)reformulate D iscourse as the display of one or more linguistic repertoires in d iscourse. Organizational discourse analysts increasingly apply a complex levels approach to specific phenomena such as leadership (Fairhurst 2007), organizational succession and board meetings (Cooren 2007), and the self (Holstein & Gubrium 2000). Finally, as organizational discourse analyses continue to open up the processes of social construction through more meaning-centered models of communication, new implications for praxis are emerging (Barge & Craig in press).

SEE ALSO: → Conversation Analysis → Critical Theory → Cultural Studies → Discourse → Discourse Analysis → Discursive Psychology → Ethnomethodology → Identities and Discourse → Interaction → Interactional Sociolinguistics → Linguistic Pragmatics → Linguistics → Meaning → Organizational Communication: Critical Approaches → Organizational Communication: Postmodern Approaches → Postmodernism and Communication → Rhetorical Studies → schemas → Scripts → semiotics → Sign → Storytelling and Narration → Structuration Theory

References and Suggested Readings

Alvesson, M., & Kärreman, D. (2000). Varieties of discourse: On the study of organizations through discourse analysis. Human Relations, (53) , 1125–1149.

Barge, J. K., & Craig, R. T. (in press). Practical theory. In L. R. Frey & K. N. Cissna (eds.). Handbook of applied communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Boden, D. (1994). The business of talk: Organizations in action. Cambridge: Polity.

Conrad, C. (2004). Organizational discourse analysis: Avoiding the determinism-volunteerism trap. Organization, (11) , 427–439.

Cooren, F. (ed.) (2007). Interacting and organizing: Analyses of a board meeting. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London: Sage.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. London: Longman.

Fairhurst, G. T. (2007). Discursive leadership: In conversation with leadership psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Fairhurst, G. T., & Putnam, L. L. (2004). Organizations as discursive constructions. Communication Theory, (14) , 5–26.

Gergen, K. (2003). Beyond knowing in organizational inquiry. Organization, (10) , 453–456.

Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Heritage, J. (1997). Conversation analysis and institutional talk. In D. Silverman (ed.), Qualitative research: Theory, method and practice. London: Sage, pp. 161–182.

Holstein, J. A., & Gubrium, J. F. (2000). The self we live by: Narrative identity in a postmodern world. New York: Oxford University Press.

Latour, B. (1996). On interobjectivity. Mind, Culture, and Activity, (3) , 228–245.

McPhee, R. D., & Zaug, P. (2000). The communicative constitution of organizations: A framework for explanation. Electronic Journal of Communication, (10) , 1–16.

Putnam, L. L., & Fairhurst, G. T. (2001). Discourse analysis in organizations. In F. M. Jablin, & L. L. Putnam (eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 78–136.

Reed, M. (2000). The limits of discourse analysis in organization analysis. Organization, (7) , 524–530.

Taylor, J. R., & Van Every, E. (2000). The emergent organization: Communication at its site and surface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Wetherell, M. (1998). Positioning and interpretative repertoires: Conversation analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse and Society, (9) , 387–412.

Cite this article

Fairhurst, Gail T. "Organizational Discourse." The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Blackwell Reference Online. 18 September 2014

Organizational Ethics

Stanley Deetz and George Cheney

DOI:10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x

Organizational ethics includes the consideration of a wide number of issues of rights, responsibilities, values, and proper conduct in contemporary organizations and in organizations' relations to host societies. Conceptions and studies of organizational ethics have focused on both internal practices and social consequences and have been descriptive as well as normative. Unsurprisingly, questions of organizational ethics are prominent today in the wake of major scandals in all sectors and the acknowledged global social, economic, and environmental impacts of large organizations such as multinational corporations. While many organizational ethics studies still focus on individual behavior and issues primarily linked to compliance with organizational policies, communication scholars have become increasingly interested in ethical issues focusing on values, culture, governance, and → corporate social responsibility, drawing on concepts developed from critical communication theory and cognate areas (May 2006; Deetz & Irvin 2008; → Organizational Communication: Critical Approaches).

Organizational ethics discussions focusing on descriptions of internal organizational practices and individual conduct (often also called business ethics) have emphasized accountability, employee rights and responsibilities, dissent, and whistleblowing, and more recently, transparency (e.g., Seeger 1997; Kassing 2001; → Dissent in Organizations). Most research has described various business ethics programs, formal codes of ethics, what division houses the ethics program (or officer) within an organization, ethics violation reporting, how culture influences ethics, and the role of leadership with respect to ethics. These studies investigate ethical decision-making, moral recognition, judgment, cognitive moral development, religion, and the role of emotion (e.g., Treviño & Weaver 2003). Most studies have used fairly simple self-report and behavioral measures. Jackall's (1988) work is an important exception in his ethnography of moral decision-making in organizations. His in-depth analysis provided an understanding of concrete moral dilemmas confronted by employees and the complex processes of making choices in actual work contexts.

A second line of work has been more philosophical and normative. Following MacIntyre's (1984) influential work, organizational managers were said to have developed a “character” problem. Character here is not meant in the sense of individual psychological or moral deficits but as arising from the decline of a robust social discussion of values and shared guiding principles. Managerial “stewardship” was described as giving way to a rather raw instrumental reasoning process in which ethics was relegated to a private emotive realm. Value conflicts and debates gave way to calculations in presumed value-free representational codes, and procedural values like due process replaced end-state values based on conceptions of quality of life and morality. These works tried to reinstate value discussions in the organizational context in much the way Weber (1978) intended them to be featured. The complexity of multiple communities with multiple standards makes such discussions important but difficult.

A third line of work argues that the primary issue is neither individual conduct nor shared values but instead organizational governance and decision-making processes (→ Decision-Making Processes in Organizations). In this work, the consequences for the environment and larger society are central, and issues of ethics and social responsibility are unified (e.g., Stohl et al. 2007). The concern ranges through important issues such as human rights, environmental protection, equal opportunity and pay for women and various disadvantaged minorities, and fair competition. Such broad issues are instantiated in activities such as using prisoners as workers, moving operations to environmentally less restrictive communities, offering and taking bribes and payoffs, creating environmentally unsound or wasteful products, closing economically viable plants in takeover and merger games; and also include concerns about income disparity, declining social safety-nets, malingering harassment, unnecessary and unhealthy effects on employees, involuntary migration patterns, and advocating consumerism.

From such a perspective, governance and decision-making processes are flawed from an ethical standpoint because, while the processes of organizational decision-making are heavily value-laden, they do not include a sufficiently representative set of values to make responsible decisions for the community or to make the most productive use of resources. The call for greater responsibility is less the application of a new social standard than a transformation of organizations to allow more decisional voices and to value debate and negotiation (→ Participative Processes in Organizations). Ethics and responsibility rest in freer and more open communication rather than in moral standards per se. At the same time, we must recognize that the celebrated value of transparency is an elusive and somewhat problematic goal (Lord 2006). Most of this work has focused on reforming → stakeholder theory by providing a richer conception and more robust applications drawing from critical communication theory, especially following the work of → Jürgen Habermas (Palazzo & Scherer 2006; Scherer et al. 2006;Kuhn & Deetz 2008).

A fouth and emerging area is the study of the broader culture of ethics in and around organizations. From this point of view, ethical decisions in professional and work life need to be understood within a wide cultural milieu. Research along these lines focuses on the very ways ethics are framed, not only at work but also in talk about work in popular culture (Cheney et al. 2009). From this standpoint, professional style itself becomes something to be interrogated even as it is elevated as a target of aspiration and a means of control (Cheney & Ashcraft 2007).

Importantly, scholars of ethics in organizations and those concerned with issues of power, justice, and difference are beginning to see their enterprises as interconnected. That is to say, explicit treatments of ethics usually associated with ethical theory and what we might call “implicit” treatments of ethics associated with marginalized groups and forces have important interests in common, especially as these lines of investigation advance (Cheney et al., in press).

References and Suggested Readings

Cheney, G., & Ashcraft, K. L. (2007). Considering “the professional” in communication studies: Implications for theory and research within and beyond the boundaries of organizational communication. Communication Theory, (17) , 146–175.

Cheney, G., Lair, D. J., Ritz, D., & Kendall, B. E. (2009). Just a job? Communication, ethics and professional life. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cheney, G., May, S. K., & Munshi, D. (eds.) (in press). The International Communication Association handbook of communication ethics. New York: Routledge/Lawrence Erlbaum.

Deetz, S. (2007). Corporate governance, communication and CSR. In S. May, G. Cheney, & J. Roper (eds.), The debate over corporate social responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 267–278.

Deetz, S., & Irvin, L (2008). Governance, stakeholder involvement and new communication models. In S. Odugbemi & T. Jacobson (eds.), Governance reform under real world conditions: Citizens, stakeholders, and voice. Washington, DC: World Bank, pp. 163–180.

Jackall, R. (1988). Moral mazes: The world of corporate managers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kassing, J. W. (2001). From the look of things: Assessing perceptions of organizational dissenters. Management Communication Quarterly, (14) , 443–471.

Kuhn, T., & Deetz, S (2008). A critical management theory view on corporate social responsibility. In A. Crane, A. McWilliams, D. Matten, J. Moon, & D. Siegel (eds.),The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 173–196.

Lord, K. M. (2006). The perils and promise of global transparency: Why the information revolution may not lead to security, democracy or peace. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

MacIntyre, A. (1984). After virtue: A study in moral theory, 2nd edn. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

May, S. K. (ed.) (2006). Case studies in organizational communication: Ethical perspectives and practices. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Palazzo, G., & Scherer, A. G. (2006). Corporate legitimacy as deliberation: A communicative framework. Journal of Business Ethics, (66) , 71–88.

Scherer, A. G., Palazzo, G., & Baumann, D. (2006). Global rules and private actors: Toward a new role of the transnational corporation in global governance.Business Ethics Quarterly, (16) , 505–532.

Seeger, M. (1997). Ethics and organizational communication. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Stohl, M., Stohl, C., & Townsley, N. C. (2007). A new generation of global corporate social responsibility. In S. May, G. Cheney, & J. Roper (eds.), The debate over corporate social responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 30–44.

Treviño, L. K., & Weaver, G. R. (2003). Managing ethics in business organizations: Social scientific perspectives. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society, (2 vols.) Berkeley: University of California Press.

Cite this article

Deetz, Stanley and George Cheney. "Organizational Ethics." The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008.Blackwell Reference Online. 18 September 2014

Organizational Identification

Timothy Kuhn

DOI:10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x

For organizational communication scholars, identification provides a key to understanding organizing practices, the individual–organization relationship, and the construction of selves. “Organizational identification” refers to the creation, maintenance, and modification of linkages between individuals and organizations, whereas “identity” refers to the conception of the self that defines the person's position in the social order (Cheney 1983a; Scott et al. 1998). Identification scholarship builds on a conception of personal identity in which we create selves, as well as distinctions from others, in social settings comprised by a variety of social groups. Identification, then, is the process by which an identity is constructed, but the linkages actors form are simultaneously guided by their pre-existing personal and social identities.

Conceptions of these individual–organization “linkages” mark an important distinction between three versions of identification theorizing. A first view emphasizescognitive processes, drawing on → social identity theory and its claims that individuals seek to attain distinctiveness for their mental representations of ingroups and competing groups. In this perspective, identification is the perception of belongingness to a group, and it occurs when one integrates beliefs, attitudes, and emotions regarding an organization into one's own identity (Pratt 1998).

The majority of organizational communication research on identification falls into a second perspective, one that foregrounds communicative practice in understanding individual–organization linkages. This approach draws on the dramatism of Kenneth Burke (1950), → symbolic interactionism, and → structuration theory to assert that one's personal identity is made up of the myriad identifications with groups comprising social life and that identities tend to be “grouped” such that some identifications logically occur together (Scott et al. 1998; Kuhn 2006). Identification here is fundamentally communicative because the individual–organization linkages are manifest both in organizational activity and in the messages proffered by organizations.

A third approach sees identification as subject to organizational discourses, both within and beyond a given organization, which place us in “subject positions” that regulate thought and action. Usually drawing from poststructualist theorizing, this third view provides an alternative communicative conception of identification that emphasizes the active power of discourse in comprising individuals' identities (→ Organizational Discourse; Identities and Discourse).

Running across these perspectives is the assumption that individuals identify with organizations because doing so is necessary in the construction of a personal identity. Burke, for instance, argued that contemporary social life creates new divisions between people, and that individuals secure a sense of self against these divisions through attachments with various social groups. We identify with organizations because we recognize some congruence between our personal identities (or perhaps our desired selves) and the identities projected by organizations. In other words, organizations – and particularly workplaces – are attractive resources for identification because individuals can derive several benefits through identification, including satisfying desires for affiliation with others, alleviating feelings of uncertainty or vulnerability, raising aspirations about performance, developing a positive self-image, and providing a sense of purpose.

Organizations benefit from member identification as well. Highly identified workers display more motivation, satisfaction, and pro-social behaviors; they are superior performers who are less likely to leave (Cheney 1983b; Elsbach 1999). More generally, highly identified members place the concerns of the organization above their own self-interest, so coordination with, and control of, these members tends to be relatively simple. Drawing on the work of Herbert Simon, scholars see organizational efforts to induce identification as part of a strategy to exert unobtrusive control over members (Tompkins & Cheney 1985; → Control and Authority in Organizations).

Public relations messages, socialization tactics, characterizations of competitors, and contact with charismatic leaders lead members to internalize decision premises in ways that guide their action toward the organizational interest, and away from personal interests, in the absence of overt commands. Thus, identification is generally encouraged by organizations, but high levels of identification can be damaging for both individuals and organizations if it generates unquestioning conformity, decreased creativity, and a lack of personal autonomy (Mael & Ashforth 2001). Moreover, some organizations, such as agencies for temporary workers, may actually seek to discourage identification because the attachments it creates are not beneficial for organizational action (Gossett 2002).

The presence of a multiplicity of identity resources complicates the outcomes for individuals and organizations. The most commonly studied identity resources are the work group, the organization, and the occupation, and scholars often examine the compatibilities or conflicts between these identifications in situated activity (e.g., Scott 1997; Glynn 2000). This research shows that differences in professional practices, the nature of the (often tacit) employment contract, communication structures, and organizational strategies lead some identity resources to have a stronger influence on identification than others. Recent work also suggests that identifications may shift over time in response to important organizational events or as actors perceive changes in the nature of the identity resources (e.g., Kuhn & Nelson 2002; Larson & Pepper 2003).

References and Suggested Readings

Burke, K. (1950). A rhetoric of motives. New York: Prentice Hall.

Cheney, G. (1983a). The rhetoric of identification and the study of organizational communication. Quarterly Journal of Speech, (69) (2), 143–158.

Cheney, G. (1983b). On the various and changing meanings of organizational membership: A field study of organizational identification. Communication Monographs, (50) (3), 342–362.

Elsbach, K. D. (1999). An expanded model of organizational identification. In R. I. Sutton & B. M. Staw (eds.), Research in organizational behavior ( (vol. 21) ). Stamford, CT: JAI, pp. 163–200.

Glynn, M. A. (2000). When cymbals become symbols: Conflict over organizational identity within a symphony orchestra. Organization Science, (11) (3), 285–298.

Gossett, L. M. (2002). Kept at arm's length: Questioning the organizational desirability of member identification. Communication Monographs, (69) (4), 385–404.

Kuhn, T. (2006). A “demented work ethic” and a “lifestyle firm”: Discourse, identity, and workplace time commitments. Organization Studies, (27) (9), 1339–1358.

Kuhn, T., & Nelson, N. (2002). Reengineering identity: A case study of multiplicity and duality in organizational identification. Management Communication Quarterly, (16) (1), 5–39.

Larson, G. S., & Pepper, G. L. (2003). Strategies for managing multiple identifications: A case of competing identities. Management Communication Quarterly, (16) (4), 528–557.

Mael, F. A., & Ashforth, B. E. (2001). Identification in work, war, sports, and religion: Contrasting the benefits and risks. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, (31) (2), 197–222.

Pratt, M. G. (1998). To be or not to be?: Central questions in organizational identification. In D. Whetten & P. Godfrey (eds.), Identity in organizations: Building theory through conversations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 171–207.

Scott, C. R. (1997). Identification with multiple targets in a geographically dispersed organization. Management Communication Quarterly, (10) (4), 491–522.

Scott, C. R., Corman, S. R., & Cheney, G. (1998). Development of a structurational theory of identification in the organization. Communication Theory, (8) (3), 298–336.

Tompkins, P. K., & Cheney, G. (1985). Communication and unobtrusive control in contemporary organizations. In R. D. McPhee & P. K. Tompkins (eds.),Organizational communication: Traditional themes and new directions. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 179–209.

Cite this article

Kuhn, Timothy. "Organizational Identification." The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Blackwell Reference Online. 18 September 2014

Organizational Image

Craig E. Carroll

DOI:10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x

Organizational image is a useful concept for understanding the impressions individuals have of organizations or that organizations want to convey to individuals. The term refers to an → Image that encapsulates the likeness of an organization. Organizational images can have a strong influence on most aspects of members' organizational experiences. From an individual perspective, organizational image helps to explain how people: (1) seek membership in organizations, (2) identify with organizations, (3) make sense of and compare organizations, (4) align their decisions and behavior with others serving the same organizational cause, and (5) understand themselves and their roles in organizations. From an organizational perspective, organizational image helps the dominant coalition to establish or position the organization, its goals, and its views in the minds of its employees, customers, or other stakeholders. For employees, organizational image helps envision what types of activities are appropriate; for external constituencies, the image helps place the organization into a category of similar organizations while simultaneously differentiating the organization from others (→ Organizational Communication).

The concept of organizational image is closely related to the term “corporate image,” used by management consultants and public relations practitioners. The concept was broadened to capture a wider range of uses. Most people immediately understand organizational image and acknowledge its influences on organizational life. Most scholars and practitioners recognize its value as a concept and as an organizational “intangible.” Yet there has been little systematic research on this concept within communication studies because of the term's early association with marketing and manipulation.

HISTORY

Much of the popular press writing about image from management consultants and public relations practitioners coincided with scholarly writings on image in the first place. The earliest scholarly writings on organizational image came in the early 1960s from the economist Kenneth Boulding and the historian Daniel Boorstin; each had his own influences. Boulding (1956) offered “the image” as a device undergirding much of society. Boorstin (1961) used the term as a signification of the “graphical revolution,” whereby much of what the public knows becomes mediated through the graphical interfaces, such as advertising, the news media, or other third parties. While Boulding noted that his view shares much with George Herbert Mead's symbolic interactionism (→ Symbolic Interaction), he assigned Barnard'sFunctions of the executive (1968, 1st pub. 1938), Wiener's Cybernetics (1948), and Shannon and Weaver's The mathematical theory of communication (1998, 1st pub. 1949) as the sources for his formulations of the image concept. Boorstin attributed his source of inspiration to Walter Lippmann, who used “image” to describe the “pictures in our heads” of the world outside of our direct experience.

The first use of “organizational image” in communication studies was by Harris and Cronin (1979, 13), who used the term to mean the “construed beliefs and goals that define a collectivity.” According to Harris and Cronin, an organizational image is composed of three analytical levels: constructs used to define the organization, beliefs about the organization, and ideal goal states for the organization. Based on this “image,” organization members negotiate rules that define appropriate behavior within the context.

DIMENSIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL IMAGE

There is considerable debate about whether all organizations even have an image. Using such terminology usually suggests a question about the degree of familiarity stakeholders have with the organization or whether they have sufficient clarity to make an estimation of what the organization is about. Erving Goffman (1963) suggested that if an image is not clear or discernible, people will fill the blank screen with images of their own (→ Goffman, Erving). Often, these images are not favorable, which suggests that organizations are better off creating their own images as a way of establishing desirable ones.

A second way that image is described is purely in terms of affect, sentiment, or status, such as when it is said that an organization has a positive or negative image. Organizational images are used as frames in which organizations attempt to attach themselves to a category of similar organizations, and then distinguish themselves from the pack with which they associate. In this sense, individuals are able to locate an organization within a particular category, while still being able to differentiate the organization from others sharing the same label. Particular types of categories include market positions, industries, or even organizational forms. In more cynical views, “organizational image” is used to connote a facade or a public face that contrasts with reality. According to Baudrillard (Merrin 2005), an image can function as (1) the reflection of a basic reality, (2) a mask or perversion of a basic reality, or (3) a mask for the absence of a basic reality, or (4) the image becomes its own reality.

CATEGORIES AND DEFINITIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL IMAGE

Many use the term → “corporate reputation” as a substitute for organizational image because of the “negative image” the latter term often has. That is, the term can often pejoratively refer to the illusory or superficial nature of images that may or may not reflect reality. There are four general types of organizational images in the communication literature. They are projected images, perceived images, refracted images, and defining images. Each of these four general types overlaps with the others in different ways depending upon whether one is adopting the viewpoint of senders or receivers, organizational members or individuals outside the organization, or simply comparing the messages designed to represent the organization with those from individuals who have their own opinions, speaking as authorized agents, highly identified or disenchanted individuals, or self-appointed experts.

The projected image refers to the image emitted by the organization. This is the view that came from management consultants and public relations practitioners in the 1950s and 1960s, and the view associated with management and marketing orientations. From this view, the projected image is the corporate image embodied in visual icons, corporate logos, tag lines, and message points. It also refers to the desired image that the dominant coalition projects through mission and vision statements, credos, speeches, and expressions of organizational identity and core values. This image can also be used by founders or entrepreneurs to help create, constitute, and guide the organization before the organization has any sense of history or precedence upon which to rely.

The second major view of organizational image is the perceived image. Here, the emphasis is on a general impression or perceptions held by insiders or outsiders. This category includes the organization's public image, perceived organizational identity (members' answers to the question “Who are we?” as an organization), construed external image (what insiders think outsiders believe), and corporate reputation (what outsiders actually think about the organization). This view also includes what those outside the organization hear coming from the organization. This view, too, is sometimes referred to as corporate image, but from the perspective of the external members' perceptions of the organization. This view of image is different from corporate reputation in the sense that external audiences are comparing what they see the organization doing with what the organization says.

Another general view that is emerging is the view of refracted images; that is, organizational images passed on by third parties such as the news media, advertising agencies, government regulators, analysts, and pundits through some form of medium. These groups will often take the images passed on by organizations and add their own interpretations, which may or may not match or align completely with what the organization projects or says itself, but become part of the symbolic environment. Refracted images gain an air of objectivity because they come from sources generally regarded as authoritative, they are publicly available, and they are widely distributed. The general public has access to these images and they interact or combine with what is seen coming from the organization itself.

The last view of organizational image comes from scholars who study organizations. This category of organizational image, defining images, simply refers to central images in organizations, such as root metaphors and archetypes. These images are used as heuristic devices to capture the general nature or definition of organizations or the worldviews that are at work within them. For example, Ruth Smith and Eric Eisenberg (1987) used root metaphors as organizational images to illuminate conflict in worldviews between management and labor at Disneyland. Gareth Morgan (1997) used images to help shed light on underlying organizational structures.

MEASURING ORGANIZATIONAL IMAGES

Organizational images have been assessed and measured in a variety of ways, including participant observation, in-depth interviews (→ Interview, Qualitative), focus groups, → Surveys, Q methodology (→ Statistics, Descriptive), and content analysis (→ Content Analysis, Quantitative; Content Analysis, Qualitative). There are no standardized questionnaires for assessing the contents of organizational images (→ Interview, Standardized). Don Treadwell and Teresa Harrison (1994)studied organizational images using personal interviews, Q-sort, and questionnaires. Another large-scale example of the study of organizational images comes from Mary Mohan (1993).

Most Q methodology studies and surveys usually begin with in-depth interviews or focus groups to determine what images are applicable. The conditions of instruction for assessing organizational images have seen more systemization. Respondents are often asked to identify what their perceptions of the organizational image is, which images they find attractive or unattractive, which images they agree or disagree with, which images conform to their experiences with the organization, even their perceptions of what top management (or the organization) is attempting to convey. Content analysis has been used for examining organizational image in CEO speeches, vision and mission statements, annual reports, and published news reports. One concern with assessing organizational images through the use of respondents is their idiosyncratic nature. An individual's personal image of the organization may not even exist prior to the person's being asked to provide it.

IMPLICATIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL IMAGE

There is considerable potential for organizational image as a construct within communication research. Communication scholars can combine these approaches in order to more fully illuminate conflict in communication policies and practices both within and across organizations. Using co-orientation theory from interpersonal communication research, researchers and organizational practitioners can use organizational image as a way of helping organizations understand the degree of accuracy, agreement, and perceived agreement between the different forms of organizational images described here.

For example, → Public Relations practitioners can compare the images that the general public sees coming from the organization with the images the organization is trying to project, or the perceptions that organizational members have of their organization's reputation with the reputation their organization actually has. Further still, the projected image of the organization can be compared with the reputation that the organization actually has with the general public or members of any one stakeholder group. Comparing these different perceptions and projects may enable organizations to identify areas of consensus and conflict that may suggest whether policy changes are needed or are sustainable.

SEE ALSO: → Branding → Content Analysis, Qualitative → Content Analysis, Quantitative → Co-Orientation Model of Public Relations → Corporate Design → Corporate Reputation → Goffman, Erving → Image → Interview, Qualitative → Interview, Standardized → Organizational Communication → Public Relations → Statistics, Descriptive → Survey → Symbolic Interaction

References and Suggested Readings

Aust, P. (2004). Communicated values as indicators of organizational identity: A method for organizational assessment and its application in a case study.Communication Studies, (55) (4), 515–534.

Barnard, C. I. (1968). The functions of the executive, 2nd edn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1938).

Boorstin, D. J. (1961). The image: A guide to pseudo-events in America. New York: Harper and Row.

Boulding, K. (1956). The image: Knowledge in life and society. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Goffmann, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Harris, L., & Cronin, V. (1979). A rules-based model for the analysis and evaluation of organizational communication. Communication Quarterly, (27) (1), 12–28.

Lippmann, W. (1991). Public opinion, 2nd edn. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Merrin, W. (2005). Baudrillard and the media: A critical introduction. Cambridge: Polity.

Mohan, M. L. (1993). Organizational communication and cultural vision: Approaches for analysis. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Morgan, G. (1997). Images of organization, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Riley, J. W., & Levy, M. F. (1963). The corporation and its publics: Essays on the corporate image. New York: John Wiley.

Ross, I. (1959). The image merchants: The fabulous world of public relations. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1998). The mathematical theory of communication. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. (Original work published 1949).

Smith, R. C., & Eisenberg, E. M. (1987). Conflict at Disneyland: A root metaphor analysis. Communication Monographs, (54) , 367–380.

Treadwell, D. F., & Harrison, T. M. (1994). Conceptualizing and assessing organizational image: Model images, commitment and communication. Communication Monographs, (61) (1), 63–85.

Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cite this article

Carroll, Craig E. "Organizational Image." The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Blackwell Reference Online. 18 September 2014

Organizational Metaphors

Kathleen J. Krone

DOI:10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x

Metaphors have played an important role in shaping the study of organizations and organizational communication since the 1980s. Various principles of metaphor have been used to conceptualize the abstract and complex domains of organizations and organizational communication; to imagine new constructs, theoretical insights, and perspectives; to analyze and understand organizational culture; and to facilitate organizational change (Lakoff 1993).

An early and influential consideration of metaphorical → Images analyzed organizational theory through a set of eight metaphors as diverse as “machines,” “cultures,” “psychic prisons,” and “instruments of domination” (Morgan 1986, 1997). This analysis highlighted the partiality of each metaphor, illustrating the idea that organizations are too complex to be understood completely as any one. In addition, multiple and overlapping metaphors have been used to characterize organizational communication research, including those of conduit, lens, linkage, performance, symbol, multiple voices, and discursive forms (→ Organizational Communication). This analysis also implies that the complexity of organizational communication requires the use of multiple metaphors in research and illustrates how the relationship between organization and communication shifts within and across metaphors, between those of containment, co-production, and equivalency (Putnam et al. 1996).

A range of organizational constructs have been reconceptualized through the use of metaphor, including the organizing process itself (Eisenberg 1990), career models (Buzzanell & Goldzwig 1991), negotiation (Stutman & Putnam 1994), organizational socialization (Smith & Turner 1995), emotion management (Krone & Morgan 2000), international teamwork (Shockley-Zalabak 2002), and employee cynicism and resistance (Fleming 2005). In the process, these studies have illustrated the limits of traditional constructs and opened up space for the development of new knowledge and insights.

In addition, metaphors have played a role in the analysis of → organizational culture. Scholars have examined the external and internal coherence of metaphor clusters to understand the social construction of organizational reality (Koch & Deetz 1981), and the use of metaphor to better understand power relations and the processes by which systems of consensual meaning are constructed and challenged (Deetz & Mumby 1985; → Constructivism). Through an analysis of root metaphors, scholars have also demonstrated how the images of drama and family embedded in organizational culture help explain conflict and change in Disneyland (Smith & Eisenberg 1987).

Because metaphorical expressions both reflect and construct an organization's system of → meanings, their use can both facilitate and block change (→ Organizational Change Processes). The skillful use of metaphorical language is considered important for leaders and others who wish to manage innovation and change in organizations (→ Leadership in Organizations). Organizational development consultants work with metaphor in a variety of ways as a tool to diagnose problems and design appropriate interventions (see Oswick & Grant 1996 for examples). Some of this work is noteworthy in its attempt to acknowledge and creatively work with the inherent ambiguity and potential unmanageability of organizational metaphor (Barrett & Cooperrider 1990).

Future research on organizational metaphors supports the turn toward discourse in organizational studies and organizational communication research (→ Organizational Discourse). The greatest contributions to understanding will come from the continued study of metaphors in use among organizational members (Oswick & Grant 1996). Such language-centered research will continue to inform understandings of the discursive production and reproduction of organizations (Deetz 1986), and the ways in which some metaphorical expressions become dominant while others are suppressed (Inns 2002). The study of metaphors in use also will continue as a complement to the study of other forms of organizational discourse such as irony (Oswick et al. 2004).

SEE ALSO: → Constructivism → Image → Leadership in Organizations → Meaning → Organizational Change Processes → Organizational Communication → Organizational Culture → Organizational Discourse → Power and Discourse → Sense-Making

References and Suggested Readings

Barrett, F., & Cooperrider, D. (1990). Generative metaphor intervention: A new behavioral approach for working with systems divided by conflict and caught in defensive perception. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, (23) , 219–244.

Buzzanell, P. J., & Goldzwig, S. R. (1991). Linear and nonlinear career models. Management Communication Quarterly, (4) , 466–505.

Deetz, S. A. (1986). Metaphors and the discursive production and reproduction of organizations. In L. Thayer (ed.), Organization-communication: Emerging perspectives. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, pp. 168–182.

Deetz, S., & Mumby, D. (1985). Metaphors, information, and power. In B. D. Ruben (ed.), Information and behavior. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, (vol. 1) , pp. 369–386.

Eisenberg, E. (1990). Jamming: Transcendence through organizing. Communication Research, (17) , 139–164.

Fleming, P. (2005). Metaphors of resistance. Management Communication Quarterly, (19) , 45–66.

Grant, D., & Oswick, C. (eds.) (1996). Metaphor and organization. London: Sage.

Inns, D. (2002). Metaphor in the literature of organizational analysis: A preliminary taxonomy and a glimpse at a humanities-based perspective. Organization, (9) , 305–330.

Koch, S., & Deetz, S. (1981). Metaphor analysis of social reality in organizations. Journal of Applied Communication Research, (9) , 1–15.

Krone, K. J., & Morgan, J. M. (2000). Emotion metaphors in management: The Chinese experience. In S. Fineman (ed.), Emotion in organizations, 2nd edn. London: Sage, pp. 83–100.

Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 202–251.

Morgan, G. (1986). Images of organization. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Morgan, G. (1997). Images of organization, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Oswick, C., & Grant, D. (eds.) (1996). Organisation development: Metaphorical explorations. London: Pitman.

Oswick, C., Putnam, L. L., & Keenoy, T. (2004). Tropes, discourse and organizing. In D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick, & L. Putnam (eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational discourse. London: Sage, pp. 105–127.

Putnam, L. L., Phillips, N., & Chapman, P. (1996). Metaphors of communication and organization. In S. Clegg, C. Hardy, & W. Nord (eds.), Handbook of organization studies. London: Sage, pp. 375–408.

Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2002). Protean places: Teams across time and space. Journal of Applied Communication Research, (30) , 231–250.

Smith, R. C., & Eisenberg, E. M. (1987). Conflict at Disneyland: A root-metaphor analysis. Communication Monographs, (54) , 367–380.

Smith, R. C., & Turner, P. (1995). A social constructionist reconfiguration of metaphor analysis: An application of SCMA to organizational socialization theorizing.Communication Monographs, (62) , 152–181.

Stutman, R. K., & Putnam, L. L. (1994). The consequences of language: A metaphorical look at the legalization of organizations. In S. B. Sitkin & R. J. Bies (eds.), The legalistic organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 281–302.

Cite this article

Krone, Kathleen J. "Organizational Metaphors." The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Blackwell Reference Online. 18 September 2014

Organizational Structure

Robert D. McPhee and Heather Canary

DOI:10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x

Organizational structure is the set of formally stipulated rules and regulations that regulate and legitimate the organization's work processes, communication, and other activities. An organization's structure constrains interaction processes and biases the style and content of interaction; also, since organizational structure is the framework of any organization, it is the focus of → Discourse about organizational change.

Organizational structure includes features such as an organization's hierarchy, divisional and departmental pattern, arrangements for surveillance and record keeping, and explicit operating procedures and policies. It is generally spelled out in writing in a typical organization's legal documents, personnel and payroll records, strategic plan, and operating procedures manuals. Explicit, planned structural features make organizations distinct from other social forms such as communities and families, and are in large part responsible for the power organizations have in our world today. Organizational structure has long been important to → Organizational Communication, because it is a managerial tool establishing authority allocations, mandatory information flows, work allocation and workflow patterns, and grouping arrangements for employees. Early studies reflected this managerial perspective by identifying structural patterns useful for efficient communication. More recently, scholars have conceptualized an organization's structure as itself created and conveyed in a communication process that reflects cultural norms and the organization's environment and history.

HISTORY

Formal structure is focal in even the earliest writings about organizations, which involve records of resources and plans for personnel use in building cities and pyramids. Early analysis of organizational communication prescribed communication along lines of formally authorized relationships, within organizations viewed as containers of communication processes. Early analysts of bureaucracy and scientific management emphasized written communication, the regular flow of files from official to official, the importance of clear oral instructions about behavior, all supported by a formal managerial apparatus designed to maximize the efficiency of information flow (→ Bureaucracy and Communication). Bureaucracy, beyond its controlling tendencies, also manifested norms of transparency, fairness, and workplace justice, both to limit worker resistance and to harness worker loyalty and initiative. The tendency of human relations theorists was to take a managerial perspective emphasizing supervisor leadership through vertical communication to shape informal group norms. That tendency was echoed in the emphasis in early business communication literature on appropriate channel and style selection in vertical communication.

In the 1960s, strategic contingency and → systems theories led researchers and consultants to pay more attention to communication issues. They reasoned that as organizations faced more complex, unclear, and dynamic environments, structures had to change to allow similarly complex information processing. Abstract structural syndromes such as centralization, formalization, and standardization were reconceived as variables; both concrete and abstract structural features were seen as potentially simplifying or helping to perform the vital functions of coordination and information processing. In complex environments, organizations were supposed to: (1) develop flatter, more decentralized structures, (2) create ways to facilitate interdepartmental communication by appointing liaison managers and setting up regular integrating relationships and task forces, (3) share information and power more fully, and (4) engage in collaborative decision-making.

The documents stipulating organizational structure automatically mandate and constrain other organizational communication processes; moreover, they serve as a foundation for a managerial and financial logic that could overpower other bases of organizational decision-making. In addition, these documents create a fundamental division or “distanciation” in the organization, between managers empowered to create or write structural documents and approve them, professionals who have access to and can influence implementation of the structure, and workers who rarely have access to the documents and can seldom understand them.

Differences among documents such as hierarchy charts, mission statements, and policies lead to important differences in the implementation of, or dissemination of information about, structural change. Some important changes may be subject to brief announcement only, while others involve extensive consultation during planning, elaborate announcement ceremonies, and extensive training or development programs to deal with cultural and other consequences of the structural changes (→ Organizational Change Processes).

Since the height of influence for contingency theory, attention of researchers has swung away from general issues of organizational structure, for several reasons. First, global competition, technological advances, and greater complexity of outputs have led organizations to adopt very flexible structural arrangements across the board; today's “machine bureaucracy” is rarer and very different from that of old. Second, growing understanding of nonformal factors such as information channeling, → organizational culture, and peer group pressure have led to increased concentration on their use for organizational control, replacing standard structural features. Third, communication technology has revolutionized organizations, facilitating the development of novel forms, and augmenting or substituting for standard structural features (→ Technology and Communication; Information and Communication Technology, Development of). As a result of these developments, research on organizational structure has turned to analysis of specific structural features and types.

IMPORTANT STRUCTURAL FEATURES TODAY

Communication Technology (CT)

Though communication technology is not really a structural feature, its power as a communication and control medium has enabled it to supplant other structural features and change basic properties of organizations. CT has affected organizational structure foremost by allowing the creation of “new organizational forms,” discussed below. Other impacts include the fact that computerized communication replaces direct interaction for orders and standard rules as a coordination mechanism, allowing for more transparent coordination apart from control. CT also allows both synchronous and delayed communication, enabling coordinated work over global distances without regard to time differences. CT crosses traditional organizational boundaries and geographic distances easily, allowing the distancing effects of rank, occupation, and even organizational membership to be bypassed, so that organizations and their alliances can have truly global reach (→ Globalization of Organizations). CT allows the transition to → knowledge management as an important value-adding process, with information and ideas rapidly disseminated and applied in new ways.

With these empowering changes come some constraints. CT replaces work rules with communication access rules: there are some databases and message threads that employees cannot read or affect. CT also allows greatly expanded surveillance of employee work and communication, in a way that can defeat decentralization. For instance, optimal empowerment of battlefield commanders is undermined if distant superiors use CT to micro-manage combat decisions. Further, CT rules and surveillance are often less transparent than traditional structural features. Both these constraints and the empowering effects may depend on the structural context of the units using CT.

Organizational Policy

Policies created and implemented within organizations are material features of organizational structure. Policies both reflect and create structure by mediating between structure and action and by formally prescribing how activities and procedures transpire.

Developing policy research has made links among structure, policy, and action clearer. Critical approaches focus on ways that structure influences whether an issue becomes policy-relevant and how policies reproduce existing organizational power distributions. Interpretive approaches focus on how organizational caseworkers interpret and use policies to negotiate activities within contested contexts, often in ways that thwart the original intent involved in the policy. Decision-makers, implementers, and policy stakeholders engage in continuous negotiations of meaning and purpose throughout issue identification, policy construction, implementation, evaluation, and revision.

Because they are publicly available and subject to adjudication, policies – especially public policies – are often developed and disseminated in elaborate processes of investigation, publication, review, implementation, and staff training. Such processes help mediate between levels of organizational hierarchy.

Nonstandard Employment Relations

More organizations employ workers under nonstandard arrangements such as independent contracting, temporary firm placements, daywork, and at-home work. Implications of these new relations vary by contract type, with workers who desire temporary status having better work experiences, greater flexibility, and more benefits, while involuntarily nonstandard workers suffer economic disadvantage. Other sources of success for temporary workers are the socio-emotional and informational supports from the client organization. Workers from “temp” firms often fall under a dual-control system, by both temporary agency and client organization, and experience looser control.

Organizations receive economic and knowledge benefits from nonstandard workers. Contingent workers also learn (so organizations risk proprietary knowledge), especially if they are successfully integrated with the core workforce. But integration can be challenging. Presence of temporary workers can lead core workers to be more conscious of the threat (and benefits) of greater insecurity in their own job arrangements, and also of (perceived) injustice, overwork, and reduced promotion opportunities for core workers.

IMPORTANT STRUCTURAL TYPES TODAY

“New Organizational Forms”

These are also called network organizations and post-Fordist organizations. Noteworthy features include: (1) flexible production, with skilled workers using computerized technology to do intelligent work responding to differentiated markets; (2) team organization; (3) dense CT nets within and between teams; (4) flat vertical structure with little middle management but dynamic self-organization of team alliances; (5) control by top management through surveillance, peer pressure, and result-based allocation of capital; and (6) technology allowing global distribution of such teams and networks. This complex of features is strikingly different from the “machine bureaucracy” that characterized many organizations a half-century ago; it is closer to the “organic community” form of craft shops and research labs, but lacks the social stability and worker power of those institutions.

New organizational forms have proliferated due to low-cost communication technology and more educated workforces; they are encouraged by hypercompetition and mobile global capital. They allow invisible, dynamic control, making worker organization and resistance harder. They also present communication challenges to workers: problems of successful team self-management in an externally controlled environment, problems of surveillance and autonomy, and difficulties in developing trust and team commitment.

Organizational Democracy

Another research focus, going beyond decentralization aimed at interactive coordination, is democratic participation by stakeholders in the resolution of basic structural issues for organizations. Democratic organizations develop due to top-level corporate desires to motivate workers, as well as from worker efforts inspired by democratic ideals. They are facilitated by an educated, empowered workforce valuing democratic initiative and voice, but constrained by post-Fordist developments, such as politically powerful free-flowing capital and new surveillance or control media.

Organizational democracy is a mixed structural type, with varied arrangements for member voice through ownership, voice, and representation, about varying issue types. Democratic organizations face special challenges, stemming both from the need for bureaucratic elements in performance-oriented social systems, and from today's hypercapitalistic environment (→ Participative Processes in Organizations).

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

As new media of control, nontraditional work forms, and global workforces proliferate, research must explore how management and work design, in conjunction with new structuring practices, lead to organizational control and/or emancipation. Future studies of structure and policy will benefit by focusing on micro-processual connections to macro-organizational and broader societal structures, using → structuration and activity theory. Investigations also will benefit from longitudinal studies and qualitative data reflecting critical, interpretive, and practice theory approaches.

References and Suggested Readings

Cheney, G., Straub, J., Speirs-Glebe, L., Stohl, C., DeGooyer, D., Whalen, S., Garvin-Doxas, K., & Carlone, D. (1998). Democracy, participation, and communication at work: A multidisciplinary review. In M. E. Roloff (ed.), Communication yearbook 21. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 35–91.

Furney, K. S., Hasazi, S. B., & Keefe, K. C. (2005). Multiple dimensions of reform. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, (16) , 169–176.

McPhee, R. D., & Poole, M. S. (2001). Organizational structures and configurations. In F. Jablin & L. Putnam (eds.), New handbook of organizational communication. London: Sage, pp. 503–543.

Perrow, C. (1986). Complex organizations: A critical essay, 3rd edn. Chicago: McGraw-Hill.

Spillane, J. P., Reiser, B. J., & Reimer, T. (2002). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of Educational Research, (72) , 387–431.

Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society (ed. G. Roth & C. Wittich). New York: Bedminster.

Cite this article

McPhee, Robert D. and Heather Canary. "Organizational Structure." The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Blackwell Reference Online. 18 September 2014

Organizations, Cultural Diversity in

Mary M. Meares

DOI:10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x

Cultural diversity is an increasingly salient issue for organizations due to greater geographic mobility among potential members (including migration; → Migration and Immigration) and a decrease in legal and cultural barriers to participation in many countries. “Cultural diversity” is defined as the presence of members with different systems of understanding based on cultural or group affiliation (Cox 1993; → Diversity in the Workplace). These systems of understanding may be based on identities of gender, age, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, religion, educational background, or other identity groups (→ Culture: Definitions and Concepts). Loden and Rosner (1991) divide dimensions of diversity into those that are relatively fixed as primary (e.g., age, ethnicity, gender, physical abilities, race, and sexual orientation) and those that are more mutable as secondary (e.g., educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, etc.). Although demographic differences in a group often reflect differences in experiences and patterns of behavior, it is the differences in worldview, values, and ways of understanding based on cultural differences that often prove challenging in interacting and understanding diversity in organizations. When members of a work, social, or educational organization come from different cultural backgrounds, there is both increased potential for conflict and misunderstanding and the potential for greater creativity and resources, resulting in productivity (→ Intercultural Conflict Styles and Facework; Organizational Conflict).

Cultural diversity has been framed by organizations in various ways (Cox 1993; Ely & Thomas 2001). Diversity has long been seen as an issue of civil rights, social justice, and morality in some organizations, where providing access and fair treatment to people from different cultural backgrounds is the “right thing to do.” Cultural diversity, especially in the US, has also been framed as a legal issue, with a focus on avoiding charges of discrimination (e.g., lawsuits) and meeting governmental requirements (e.g., affirmative action). Many workplace organizations also frame cultural diversity as an economic issue (i.e., the “business case” for diversity), linking diverse membership to better creativity and innovation, legitimacy, the ability to attract talented new members, and, ultimately, productivity. A focus on cultural diversity may also be seen as part of the organization's mission (particularly with educational or nonprofit organizations) or identity. Often these frames overlap, with organizations citing multiple reasons for focusing on cultural diversity.

RESEARCH ON CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

Research on cultural diversity in organizations has been approached from a variety of meta-theoretical perspectives. While much of the early research addressed cultural differences from a functional or social scientific perspective, many researchers today utilize interpretive and critical approaches to examine diversity in organizational life.

From a functional perspective (→ Functional Analysis), researchers (e.g., Hofstede & Hofstede 2005) have examined cultural-level factors that influence organizational behavior and affective outcomes (e.g., satisfaction), focusing on the influence of national culture and other easily measured factors (sex, ethnicity, age, etc.). These studies aim to predict behavior on the basis of knowledge of cultural norms, but have been criticized for essentializing cultural identity and minimizing the influence of multiple cultures and individual differences (Jackson et al. 2003).

From an interpretive perspective, research on cultural diversity in organizations has examined organizations via ethnographic case studies (e.g., Ely & Thomas 2001; → Ethnography of Communication) and in-depth interviews (→ Interview, Qualitative), for example asking minorities in organizations about their experiences and perceptions of behavioral choices (e.g., Orbe 1998). These studies analyze the experiences of diverse members in specific organizational contexts. While they examine members' perceptions of life in the organization with recognition of the complexity of organizational realities, these studies rarely suggest ways to improve cultural relations beyond increasing understanding of the experience of those being studied.

A growing area of current research on diversity in organizations takes more of a critical approach, examining issues of dominant cultural power and privilege in organizations (→ Organizational Communication: Critical Approaches). The goal from this perspective is to critique organizations as sites of power and control, and examine the roles that cultural identity and dominant group membership play in this control (→ Control and Authority in Organizations). This perspective is exemplified by Munshi (2005) and Perriton (2009), who use postcolonial and feminist perspectives to critique the ways in which discourse about diversity serves to control those outside of the dominant group. While critical research highlights the structural changes that are necessary for equality of members, critics note that opportunities for radical change are rarely accessible to organizational members.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY AT DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS

Within the organizational context, cultural diversity can also be addressed at individual, interpersonal, group, organizational, and societal levels (Jackson et al. 2003). Both the theoretical and the applied literatures address topics at these levels, while recognizing some concerns may be present on multiple levels.

At the individual level, the focus is on the influence of cultural diversity and the diversity climate on members' individual perceptions, attitudes, and performance. The emotional toll associated with being culturally different may be a salient issue for individuals who are not part of the dominant group (e.g., Allen 1998), as are issues of ethnocentrism and cultural sensitivity. Attitudes toward the organization and the subsequent level of involvement and identification (Cox 1993) are examined at the individual level. However, most communication scholars examine these factors in tandem with communication behaviors at the interpersonal, group, or organizational level.

At the interpersonal level, interactions between members from different cultural backgrounds are the focus. Interpersonal conflicts, often due to different expectations or cultural norms, are manifest at this level, including issues of stereotyping, prejudice, and mistreatment. Members from minority backgrounds may also experience less access to interpersonal relationships with mentors who can help them within the organization. Training is often designed to address interaction between members at an interpersonal level, rather than examining structural issues that privilege one cultural group over others (Hafen 2005; →Intercultural Communication Training).

At the group level, the interactions between members working together in a team, committee, or departmental context are central (Oetzel et al. 2001). Issues of inclusion/exclusion and tokenism become salient for members who are different from the majority or dominant group. Intergroup conflict may also be an issue (→Organizational Conflict; Group Communication and Problem-Solving).

At the organizational level, the cultural diversity focus is on the organizational climate. The diversity climate is influenced by communication at the other levels, but also includes formal and informal structures, patterns of minority individual outcomes (opportunities for advancement, equity in compensation and job assignment, and fair assessment of performance), the value placed on diversity, the level of knowledge about and acceptance of cultural difference, and evaluations of institutional bias in human resource systems and other policies and procedures (Cox 1993). Both structural and informal access are important for members of nondominant groups. The level of structural integration of members from different cultural groups can be measured from their representation both at different levels of status within the organization and in specific units. Lack of opportunities for advancement to higher-level positions results in a “glass ceiling” (Morrison & Von Glinow 1990). However, the integration into informal networks, providing access to information and the ability to build relationships with others, is also vital. Voice, representation, and access to participation in organizational decision-making are often concerns for nondominant groups (→ Participative Processes in Organizations).

At the societal level, organizational representatives' interactions with potential members and others outside of the organization (e.g., clients and customers) can be influenced by cultural diversity. Organizational representatives may also reflect perceptions about the cultural diversity of the organization and the diversity climate as they interact in communities. Public perceptions may be influenced by publicity about positive or negative events or climate evaluation, influencing the success of the organization in attracting members.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES AND FUTURE RESEARCH

Methodological concerns in studying cultural diversity in organizations center on the complexity of cultural identity and identity development, as well as power issues in the research process. Cultural influences are difficult to conceptualize and measure, as much of culture is based on tacit understanding that may be difficult to articulate. Different aspects of one's identity may be salient depending on the organizational context, and personality and life experiences may influence the individual's level of cultural self-awareness. Dominant culture members and those assimilated into the dominant culture may not consider culture to be important, but those who are exploring their nondominant identity and resisting assimilation may be more cognizant of their own cultural group's norms and expectations (Phinney 1993). Cultures are also in constant change, increasing the complexity of cultural dynamics.

Access can also prove challenging for researchers. Even willing and open participants' candor may be influenced by the cultural background of the researchers. An interviewee may share less with a dominant-culture interviewer, for example, or frame information in ways that create or maintain a positive (face-saving) image of the cultural group. Organizations may also choose to limit access to researchers so as to not highlight potential problems or encourage members to focus on differences related to cultural diversity.

New and continuing directions for research on cultural diversity in organizations, include studying the resources and skills necessary for diversity “competence” at multiple organizational levels, dimensions of culture that have been overlooked or underexamined in previous studies (e.g., religion, age, language), evolving contexts (e.g., virtual groups), and organizational processes from the perspective of nondominant cultural groups (e.g., emotional labor, leadership, change). Much of the research on diversity in organizations has been conducted within business and educational contexts in the United States; however, with increasing globalization and worldwide demographic shifts, further analysis is being conducted in different countries and contexts.

References and Suggested Readings

Allen, B. J. (1998). Black womanhood and feminist standpoints. Management Communication Quarterly, (11) (4), 575–586.

Cox, T. H. (1993). Cultural diversity in organizations: Theory, research, and practice. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Ely, R. J., & Thomas, D. A. (2001). Cultural diversity at work: The effects of diversity perspectives on work group processes and outcomes. Administrative Science Quarterly, (46) (2), 229–273.

Hafen, S. (2005). Cultural diversity training: A critical (ironic) cartography of advocacy and oppositional silences. In G. Cheney & G. A. Barnett, (eds.), International and multicultural organizational communication. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 3–43.

Hofstede, G., & Hofstede, G. J. (2005). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind, 2nd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Jackson, S. E., Joshi, A., & Erhardt, N. L. (2003). Recent research on team and organizational diversity: SWOT analysis and implications. Journal of Management, (29) (6), 801–830.

Loden, M., & Rosner, J. B. (1991). Workforce America: Managing employee diversity as a vital resource. Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin.

Morrison, A., & Von Glinow, M. A. (1990). Women and minorities in management. American Psychologist, (45) , 200–8.

Munshi, D. (2005). Through the subject's eye: Situating the other in discourses of diversity. In G. Cheney & G. A. Barnett, (eds.), International and multicultural organizational communication. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 45–70.

Oetzel, J. G., Burtis, T., Chew, M. I., & Perez, F. G. (2001). Investigating the role of communication in culturally diverse work groups: A review and synthesis. In W. Gudykunst, (ed.), Communication yearbook 25. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 237–269.

Orbe, M. P. (1998). An outsider-within perspective to organizational communication: Explicating the communication practices of co-cultural group members.Management Communication Quarterly, (12) (2), 230–279.

Perriton, L. (2009). “We don't want complaining women!” A critical analysis of the business case for diversity. Management Communication Quarterly, (23) , 218–243.

Phinney, J. (1993). A three-stage model of ethnic identity development. In M. E. Bernal & G. P. Knight, (eds.), Ethnic identity: Formation and transmission among Hispanics and other minorities. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 61–79.

Cite this article

Meares, Mary M. "Organizations, Cultural Diversity in." The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008.Blackwell Reference Online. 18 September 2014

Strategic Communication

Derina Holtzhausen

DOI:10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x

Strategic communication is the study of how organizations or communicative entities communicate deliberately to reach set goals. Although the term strategiccommunication has been in use for years, twenty-first-century scholars are only now fully engaged in defining the field and its theoretical influences. Traditionallycommunication in its organizational context has been studied through various disciplines academically and functionally scattered over domains from managementcommunication, → marketing communication, → advertising, → public relations, technical communication, → organizational communication, and → politicalcommunication, to information or social marketing campaigns (Holtzhausen & Zerfass 2013; → Social Movements and Communication). It also covers the full spectrum of economic and social sectors, such as trade and industry, politics, nonprofit, government agencies, activist groups, and even celebrities in the sports and entertainment industries, all referred to here as communicative entities.

All these fields have one commonality: they engage in the study or practice of deliberate and purposive communication aimed at reaching goals such as winning market share, building a positive reputation, winning a political campaign, or enacting social change. This involves people who engage in deliberate communicationpractice on behalf of organizations, causes, and social movements as their communication agents and thus has a definite focus on the practice of communication.Strategic communication is planned and proactive, aimed as much at reaching organizational goals as at prevention of organizational crises, although the concept of strategy as emerging from situations and crises has increasingly gained traction among scholars Finally, unlike interpersonal or small group communication,strategic communication takes place in the public sphere, which, with new communication technologies, is more pervasive and has taken on new meaning.Strategic communication is therefore viewed as an important tool in shaping public information and discourse.

At a professional level the field faces challenges in coordinating and integrating the communication activities of organizations. Theoretically it is challenged to create a multidisciplinary, but unified, body of knowledge that better serves communicative entities in a society consisting of fragmented audiences and message delivery platforms. Strategic communication also has a significant impact on society at large. Strategic communicators can affect local and global outcomes in terms of every aspect of society, from democracy, political systems, and markets to gender roles and cultural orientation. Although the emergence of strategiccommunication as a domain of study has precipitated a naming crisis among certain communication disciplines, because of its highly situational nature it can be studied as a process that can be applied in many areas of communication practice and many contexts rather than being named for only one specific area of practice.

“STRATEGIC” AND “COMMUNICATION” AS PRECONDITIONS FOR THE FIELD

Generally, scholars in the United States tend to study the field as a process that includes goal setting, audience analysis, message design, communication channel selection, and assessment. European scholars are more likely to study it as a phenomenon that affects society, as in its effect in the public domain on political and policy outcomes. For both these schools of thought the terms “strategic” and “communication” remain central.

The term strategic originated in warfare. However, organizations originally used it to describe how they competed in the marketplace to gain competitive advantage and market share (Hatch 1997). Supporters of this view see strategic planning as a rational process that starts with an analysis of the organization's internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats (popularly known as SWOT analysis). The SWOT analysis is used to set the organization's goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. Here the role of the practitioner is to replicate this process with the focus on how communication can be used strategically to support the organization's overall goals. Managers believe this enables them to exert control over the organization's environment. Critics argue this approach is manipulative and only takes into account managerial goals and intentions. It is viewed as a one-sided approach to management that is asymmetrical and excludes alternative perspectives, including societal interests. These critics challenge the very notion of rationality.

This is an unnecessarily negative view of strategy. Many view all communication as strategic in the sense that all communication is intentional and aimed at persuading. New perspectives on strategy formulation in organizations provide several alternative, and more inclusive, interpretations. Emergent strategy holds that strategy is based on prior experience and actions, which values the contribution of employees at every level of the organization. Strategy formulation should therefore be a bottom-up process (Quinn 1978). In → learning organizations, strategy formulation is viewed as a more short-term and agile process that allows organizations to react quickly to developments in their environments, thus recognizing the importance of those environments. Emergent strategy also implies that there is not necessarily a beginning and end to the strategic process, that it can emerge at any point during strategy formulation, and that it can be immediate and spontaneous.

The communication part of strategic communication is also contested. For instance, in the United States public relations is often viewed as “relationships with publics” (Ledingham 2003), whereas the European viewpoint focuses on communication that takes place in the public sphere through public media (Bentele & Nothhaft 2010). The European school argues that communication remains central to the study of the field, and that scholars in the United States ignore the fact that all relationships are formed through communication, thus ignoring the process of relationship formation. US scholars have more recently addressed this issue by focusing on the communicative actions of stakeholders (Ki & Hon 2009; Kim et al. 2010). Strategy and communication also remain the core functions of otherstrategic communication disciplines such as marketing and campaigns of every nature.

One of the most important emerging perspectives in strategic communication is the rejection of linearity. The traditional communication perspective that professional communicators can control messages and meanings is now largely redundant. Meanings and messages are viewed as “negotiated” between sender and receiver. Message receivers shape the meaning of messages and have control over whether they wish to receive them or seek them out. Meanings and relationships are shaped through the communication process, and the outcome of the process depends more on the receiver than on the sender. Thus dialogic communicationand how it shapes strategy have become one of the major focus areas for strategic communication practitioners and theorists (→ Uses and Gratifications).

The study of strategic communication does not preclude these divergent viewpoints. An analysis at the macro- or societal level, the meso- or organizational level, and the micro- or communication level provides for a comprehensive application of the different theoretical and practical approaches to the field.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY

The environment in which the communicative entity operates affects the way strategic communication is practiced. One common way to analyze the environment is to differentiate between the economic, legal-political, socio-cultural, competitive, and technological segments in the environment. These segments do not operate independently but are deeply interlinked. Several studies indicate that when environments are turbulent, the communication functions in organizations are required to become more strategic. Institutional theory and population ecology theory support the notion that organizational environments determine whether an organization will survive or not. By helping organizations adhere to the value systems of the environments in which they operate strategic communicators help their organizations endure. Systems, chaos, and complexity theory perspectives also often explain communication behavior, particularly in the study of crisiscommunication (Gilpin & Murphy 2008). From this application comes the concept of strategic communicators as boundary spanners who help organizations adapt to their environment by, in turn, representing the viewpoints of constituents and the organization. Thus strategic communicators form an inherent part of any change management team (→ Change Management and Communication).

Although → Habermas (1979, 210) has somewhat softened his stance on strategic communication, he views it as a form of communication that is “pseudoconsensual.” He recognizes that strategic communication has become important in the public sphere, but remains critical of the ability of organizations, politicians, and lobbyists to employ strategic communicators that allows them to gain access to the media and so gain political influence. Strategic communicatorshelp these already powerful people gain social capital that adds to their power. This requires the “actors of civil society” to also use strategic communication to affect the debate in the public sphere (Habermas 2006, 15).

Postmodernists in turn argue that all discourse is political and therefore strategic (Lyotard 1988). Foucault (1988, 168) says: “Every human relationship is to some degree a power relationship. We move in a world of perpetual strategic relations.” What these philosophers have in common is that strategic communication is a real and influential feature of the public sphere.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

Public relations theorists have led the way in studying the impact of organizational factors on strategic communication practice. Grunig (1989) determined thatcommunication practice differed across organization type and that the structure of the communication function itself can have an impact on communication (→Organizational Structure). This is true in centralized and decentralized communication functions, and in newer organizational forms such as virtual and network organizations (Werder & Holtzhausen 2011). The worldviews of organizational leaders and professional communicators also affect communication practice and determine whether organizations have participative or autocratic communication philosophies.

Strategic communication requires a holistic approach to communication; therefore the communication function should be integrated into a single organizational function. This is difficult in complex organizations, where communication functions are often scattered across divisions and departments. For instance, marketingcommunications might fall under marketing, community and media relations under public affairs, investor relations under finance (→ Financial Communication), internal communication under human resources, and → corporate social responsibility under an organizational foundation. This fragmentation is further exacerbated by the strict definition of roles within each of these disciplines, e.g., copywriter, media relations specialist, event coordinator, strategist, media planner, creative director, etc. (→ Public Relations Roles). In a strategic communication approach it is important that all these communicators work in a team, which is difficult when they have different reporting structures and strictly defined roles.

Strict differentiation of tasks typically is associated with bureaucratic structures, and makes the coordination of communication activities difficult. This is intensified by the overly specialized approach to communication education, where marketing, public relations, advertising, and speech communication are seldom integrated into a single educational unit. Clegg (1990) suggests de-differentiation, which means the breaking down of the borders that separate these. Thus de-differentiation, in practice and academe, will be necessary for the field of strategic communication to flourish. This is a trend already taking shape in higher education, where there is increasing pressure to produce interdisciplinary research.

Power relations within an organization are another stumbling block to the integration of functions. Mintzberg (1996, 237) first defined the “strategic apex” of the organization as consisting of “those people charged with overall responsibility of the organization.” The marketing function is typically included in the strategicapex, while communication functions are viewed as support staff. This access to power gives marketing departments a decision-making advantage over othercommunication functions. Communication functions like public affairs would often report to a marketing executive and not have direct input at the top decision-making level of the organization. In this situation, communication practitioners often find an overemphasis on consumers, while other, often more important audiences are ignored.

Organizations that are able to integrate their communication activities into a single, integrated unit that has influence at the highest level of the organization and represents all strategic audiences will have a competitive advantage. They can use the skills of all communicators while addressing every audience in thecommunication process in a coordinated way, insuring consistency of strategic messages and message delivery platforms (Grunig et al. 2002). This is true for organizations of every type.

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION AT THE MICRO-LEVEL

The micro-level is where the actual communication between communicative entities and audiences takes place and has always been the major focus of research and practice. The outcome of strategic communication at this level is aimed at reaching the goals set out in the strategic planning phase. Strategic communicationgoals vary according to the situation at hand. In the marketing context the focus is on building → brands and improving sales. Public relations focuses on reputation management (→ Corporate Reputation) through increasing awareness, maintaining positive attitudes and relationships, or changing negative behavior and poor relationships.

New communication technologies help to integrate marketing and public relations at this level. Traditionally, public relations scholars argue that publics are very different from markets. Organizations choose their markets based on product and service development and then communicate to consumers in specific market niches with the intent to persuade. Publics, on the other hand, engage organizations, often in a negative way because of some perceived transgression. Marketingcommunication usually takes place through highly controlled, mediated channels or at retail level. In public relations the required outcome of communication is lasting and trusting relationships, which needs more direct involvement with publics and less mediated communication. Public relations practitioners traditionally have had much less control over communication situations than do marketing communicators.

New media platforms such as the Internet and different → social media outlets now allow strategic communicators to bypass traditional media and overcome these divisions through a holistic approach. The strategic communication process provides for both persuasive and collaborative communication, depending on the audiences involved, while maintaining consistent messages. It adopts an audience-centered approach to communication, based on a thorough knowledge of the characteristics of the particular → audience. A more recent phenomenon that affects the ability to communicate strategically, and which is shaped largely by newcommunication technologies, is the network society (Barney 2004). New communication platforms make it possible for strategic communicators to reach broad but specific targeted audiences outside of the traditional media. New analytics and the ability to micro-segment an audience, or even target individuals directly, also allows for shaping messages tailored to individual needs. As a result both media and audiences have become fragmented, which further necessitates an integrated approach to communication. These technologies support networks, which Barney describes as “a structural condition” that bring many people together in multiple, decentralized matrices (2004, 2). Audience members belong to many networks at any time and each network represents a different identity of the audience member. As a result, strategic communicators need to identify their target audiences through micro-segmentation, and they also have to assume that an audience member may have multiple identities that are reached through different media and different platforms (→ Public Sphere, Fragmentation of).

Nonetheless, many strategic communicators still conduct a holistic audience analysis, which leads to → audience segmentation. Typically this involves defining the demographic, geographic, and sociographic profile of audiences and also identifying social role players, such as activist groups, people in powerful regulatory positions, and even informal leaders. Employees form an integral part of all audience analyses in strategic communication. Many view this as an organization's most important audience. Another way of approaching audiences is to determine their information-processing or information-seeking behavior and their preferred use of communication channels. Segmentation also is an important component in studying consumer behavior. Thus strategic communication requires knowledge of the full spectrum of communication theories on a continuum from persuasion to full collaboration, contingent on the audience type and situation. Relationship theory now also belongs in the realms of both public relations and marketing, showing the increasing overlap of theoretical approaches.

MEASUREMENT OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION OUTCOMES

Traditionally the success of marketing communication has been measured in terms of return on investment (ROI). Public relations scholars argue this is too narrow an approach for measuring the outcomes of communication. First, the ROI principle is only applicable to for-profit organizations. Return on communicationinvestment, be it financial or time, in activist groups, nonprofit organizations, or political campaigns is measured in social change or election outcomes that require benchmark research to measure progress against. Second, strategic communicators, due to their long-term, proactive approach to communication often prevent crises (→ Crisis Communication). The financial implications are impossible to determine.

Public relations scholars in the United States have long argued that the status of organizational relationships effectively measures public relations outcomes. European scholars particularly focus on measuring trust and reputation. However, trust is inherent in both approaches, which indicates that measuring trust might be an effective way of measuring the outcome of a strategic communication campaign that targets both consumers and other stakeholders. (→ Trust of Publics)

Some other theoretical concepts that provide measurement techniques in strategic communication would be gap analyses, message adoption, message comprehension, message and media effects, agenda setting, and framing (→ Message Effects, Structure of). These theoretical concepts are often used independently in public relations, advertising, and marketing contexts. Applying them consistently to all organizational strategic audiences allows communicativeentities to better evaluate the successes and shortcomings of their communication strategies.

Online and social media metrics provide new methods for measuring strategic communication outcomes. Baym (2013, 1) argues, “Metric and big data analysis generally serves economic values, while other approaches … may be more appropriate for assessing social and personal values.” Quantitative metrics such as site visits, unique visitors, and click-throughs provide data on the number of visitors but not on visitor values. Qualitative analysis of → Twitter feeds, retweets, and →Facebook Likes provide better information on audiences values such as engagement and support.

References and Suggested Readings

Barney, D. (2004). The network society. Cambridge: Polity.

Baym, N. K. (2013). Data not seen: The uses and shortcoming of social media metrics. First Monday, (18) (10), 1–16.

Bentele, G., & Nothhaft, H., (2010). Strategic communication in the public sphere from a European perspective. International Journal of Strategic Communication, (4) (2), 93–116.

Clegg, S. R. (1990). Modern organisations: Organisation studies in the postmodern world. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Foucault, M. (1988). Social security. In L. D. Kritzman (ed.), Michael Foucault: Politics, philosophy, culture. New York: Routledge, pp. 159–177.

Gilpin, D. R., & Murphy, P. J., (2008). Crisis management in a complex world. New York: Oxford University Press.

Grunig, L. A. (1989). Horizontal structure in public relations: An exploratory study of departmental differentiation. Public Relations Research Annual, (1) , 175–196.

Grunig, L. A., Grunig, J. E., & Dozier, D. M., (2002). Excellent public relations and effective organizations: A study of communication management in three countries. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society. Boston: Beacon Press.

Habermas, J. (2006). Political communication in media society: Does democracy still enjoy an epistemic dimension? The impact of normative theory on empirical research. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International Communication Association, Dresden, Germany.

Hatch, M. J. (1997). Organisation theory: Modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's consequences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Holtzhausen, D. R., & Zerfass, A., (2013). Strategic communication: Pillars and perspectives of an alternative paradigm. In A. Zerfass, L. Rademacher, & S. Wehmeier (eds.), Organisationskommunikation und public relations. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 72–94.

Ki, E.-J., & Hon, L., (2009). Causal linkages between relationship cultivation strategies and relationship quality outcomes. International Journal of StrategicCommunication, (3) (4), 242–263.

Kim, J.-N., Grunig, J. E., & Ni, L., (2010). Reconceptualizing the communicative action of publics: Acquisition, selection, and transmission of information in problematic situations. International Journal of Strategic Communication, (4) (2), 126–154.

Ledingham, J. A. (2003). Explicating relationship management as a general theory of public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research, (15) (2), 181–198.

Lyotard, J.-F. (1988). The differend: Phrases in dispute. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Mintzberg, H. (1996). The five basic parts of the organization. In J. M. Shafritz & J. S. Ott (eds.), Classics of organization theory. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, pp. 232–244.

Murphy, P. (2000). Symmetry, contingency, complexity: Accommodating uncertainty in public relations theory. Public Relations Review, (26) (4), 447–462.

Quinn, J. B. (1978). Strategic change: Logical incrementalism. Sloan Management Review, (20) , 7–21.

Werder, K. G., & Holtzhausen, D. R., (2011). Organizational structures and their relationship with communication management practices: A public relations perspective from the United States. International Journal of Strategic Communications, (5) (2), 118–142.

Cite this article

Holtzhausen, Derina. "Strategic Communication." The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Donsbach, Wolfgang (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Blackwell Reference Online. 18 September 2014

Communis Mei

Herramientas para la formación del comunicador social

Páginas

.

Organizational Communication II

The International Encyclopedia of Communication