This project is situated within the interpretive tradition in organizational communication research, focusing on organizational discourse. It goes further by bringing the discussion into the 21st century through examining how communication technology--specifically e-mail--plays a role in the linguistic practices that help create, maintain and…

Explains that when organizations face crises, their rhetorical response often follows two steps: assessment of causes leading to the crisis, and a search for potential solutions and preventive measures for the future. States that epideictic rhetoric designed to sustain or regain the organization's reputation is effective in both steps. Examines…

Proposes a model of organizational change by describing organizational change as a discursive process, sparked by a rhetorical conflict in an organization's narratives and images. Examines the educational assumptions and theories that structured a training course used by a company that was restructuring and reorganizing. (SG)

Traditional scholarship on social movements has emphasized external rhetoric and the role of the leader, rather than the internal dynamics of social movement organizations. This paper is an argument for the integration of experiences and meanings related to membership. Belle Edson's feminist critique of social movement studies provides a framework…

Argues that, if rhetoricians are to make significant strides forward in understanding writing that takes place both within and external to a single workplace culture, they will need to develop a much more expansive, complex, and sophisticated vision of collaboration across multiple organizational cultures. (SR)

Argues that traditional views of organizational communication have fallen short because they misapprehended and oversimplified the realities of rhetorical behavior in organizations and because they offered weak theoretical underpinnings for the study of business communication. (FL)

Outlines a framework which uses the rhetorical approach of generic criticism for the analysis of issues-management campaigns (instances of public relations discourse in which an organization makes explicit efforts to influence public policy). Outlines organizing principles, situational requirements, and substantive and stylistic characteristics.…

Argues that organizations routinely engage in values advocacy (the appeal to shared cultural values) to perform three distinct functions: (1) to enhance the organization's image; (2) to deflect criticism of the organization and/or its policies, products, and services; and (3) to establish value premises that can be used in later discourse. (SR)

Examines the public discourse of McDonald's and the Environmental Defense Fund's alliance. Shows that both partners drew from the emerging discourse of market environmentalism and from the older paradigm of command and control. Argues that this rhetorical ambivalence is emblematic of the contemporaneous sociopolitical conflict over how the…

Examines the roles played by technology and the rhetorical practices surrounding that technology in the formation of work roles and the relationships at a small Internet start-up company. Investigates the technical/social split in the workplace, how it is created and enacted, and how it impacts workers and daily work as well as the perceived…

Analyzes the corporate apologetic discourses of three paradigmatic cases (at Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo) and examines the use of persuasive descriptions and strategic dissociations preferred by these corporate apologists. Shows how organizations label their wrongdoing in a way that displays sorrow but limits culpability and use dissociations to…

Offers a case study describing how the rhetorical expertise of a young woman (at the lowest professional level in a male-dominated bureaucratic organization) gave her the power to revise the processes by which her organization did its work, to rewrite the job descriptions of the managers within the organization, and to create a unique role for…

Contributes to scholarship advancing the understanding of human communication, illustrating the discursive enactment of hegemony through organizational responses to sexual harassment. Analyzes stories from both victims of sexual harassment and administrators who manage sexual harassment complaints at a major United States university. Argues that…

Reviews organizational communication studies since 1955: (1) explores problems with the use of language in these studies; (2) reviews specifically the literature on organizational hierarchies; (3) discusses promising areas of emerging research, and (4) recommends ways research can be productively conducted and reported. Includes an extensive…

Examines one organization's complex rhetorical processing aimed at shaping ethical conduct of newcomers. Reveals a strategy of evoking identification to the organization through a series of strategically focused identifications which culminate in an attempt to shape commitment to a set of organizational values. (KEH)