BLCC’S Professor Peter Case has co-authored a new paper with Michal Izak, University of Chester, & Sierk Ybema, Anglia Ruskin University, entitled “Communication in Organizations: An Overview and Provocations” published in the International Journal of Management Reviews.
This paper provides an extensive review of the literature examining the role of communication in social organization and organizing processes across multiple academic disciplines over the past several decades.
Through an analysis of research publications in SCOPUS from 1980-2022, the authors identified five major perspectives that have shaped organizational communication studies:
- Communication as transfer
- Communication as discourse
- Communication as conversation/conversation analysis
- Communication as narrative
- The Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO) perspective
In addition to synthesizing these key theoretical lenses, the article highlights notable gaps in current research. This includes calling for more study on the paralinguistic aspects of communication, analysing communication in relation to actual workplace practices, examining one-way/monologic organizational communication, and expanding research on communication dynamics in non-Western cultural contexts.
The open access paper is an excellent resource for students taking courses that cover organizational communication components. It also provides a valuable overview for scholars and practitioners researching communication processes within organizational settings.
Congratulations to Professor Case on this publication synthesizing and advancing the field of organizational communication research!
The full paper can be accessed here
Abstract: Abstract
The role that communication plays in social organization and processes of organizing has received considerable scholarly attention from multiple disciplines over several decades. This paper provides a review of the diverse literature that has sought to contribute to the understanding of communication and its implication for management and organization studies. An analysis of the SCOPUS database for the period 1980–2022 enabled us to cluster reference material and identify five perspectives which emerge from a review of the literature: communication as transfer, discourse, conversation (analysis), narrative, and Communicative Constitution of Organizations. These categories are not intended to be exhaustive, but they do provide a useful critical heuristic for navigating a field of study that might otherwise appear overwhelming. To map the terrain’s theoretical underpinnings, our study also adopted a problematizing approach to the review which revealed various conspicuous conceptual and empirical absences at a ‘field level’ which merit further attention. The paper offers provocations and suggestions that we expect will inform future studies of organizational communication. Possibilities for developing the field include paying attention to: (a) paralinguistic dimensions of communication; (b) communication in relation to actual work practices; (c) monologic communication and (d) organizational communication in non-Western contexts.