com 325 exam 2

What is the basic premise of structuration?

Posits that the social world is generated through the agency of active participants. There are rules and resources (structures) that agents draw on while they interact in the social world.

Four flows 3. Activity Coordination

Refers to the ongoing interaction that is necessary to get work done in an organization. Highlights the idea of interdependence

The Cultural Metaphor

Takes an anthropological approach in understanding organizations as sites of interlinked beliefs, values, behaviors, and artifacts

Disciplined Bodies: what is the double standard?

We already should know!!!!

Multiplexity:

What kind of relationships define the network?

Deal & Kennedy "Strong Culture"

1. Values are the beliefs and visions that members hold for an organization. 2. Heroes are the individuals who come to exemplify an organization's values. *Become known through stories and myths. 3. Rites and rituals are the ceremonies through which an organization celebrates its values. *Company picnic, awards, etc. 4. The cultural network is the communication system through which cultural values are instituted and reinforced. *Formal and informal channels

Equifinality

A system can reach the same final state from differing initial conditions and by a variety of paths." A result of the interdependent operation of system components. Because the components of the system are integrated in highly complex ways, a variety of means exist to reach any system goal. Particularly important in today's complex organizational world.

Holism

A system is more than the sum of its parts. Systems have this property because of the interdependent nature of their components. And because of the information that flows through the feedback and exchange processes.

Hierarchical

A system is not simply an undifferentiated set of parts thrown together. System components are arranged in highly complex ways that involve subsystems and supersystems.

Sexual Harassment and Framing devices

Accepting dominant interests-Sexual harassment accepted or justified as a less important problem than other managerial concerns. Simple misunderstanding-Sexual harassment accepted or justified as "mere flirting". Reification-Sexual harassment accepted or justified as "the way things are". Trivialization-Sexual harassment accepted or justified as "a harmless joke". Denotative hesitancy-Sexually harassing encounter not defined by the term 'sexual harassment'. Public/private expression-public/private domain- Sexual harassment described as part of private - rather than public - life or described using private forms of expression (e.g., embarrassment, fear)

What is the basic premise of social constructivism?

Argues that reality (i.e., an organization) is not an objective thing but is, instead, an inter-subjective construction created through communication. "We create our social world through our words and other symbols, and through our behaviors."

Feminist Approaches

Begins with the basic idea that organizations - in their traditional and bureaucratic forms - are highly patriarchal (they were all men!)

Text and Conversation

Co-orientation: the process through which people coordinate activity through interaction Conversation: ongoing interaction among individuals facilitated by language Text: attempts to memorialize and fix interpretations (e.g. rules)

Resistance

Considers how workers can exert counterpressure on the exercise of power and control. Resistance sometimes seen in collective and organized processes such as unionization, strikes, boycotts, and large-scale social movements.

Four flows 2.Self-Structuring

Considers processes that serve to design the organization and provide guidance about resource allocation, institute policies, and procedures, and create rules about how work is accomplished. Provides norms, standards, and rules for getting work done in organizations

Descriptive and Explanatory Approaches to Culture

Culture is complicated 2. Culture is emergent 3. Culture is not unitary 4. Culture is often ambiguous

Cultures are emergent

Cultures are socially created through the interaction of organizational members. Central to a communication focus on culture in which culture is not merely transmitted through communication but also in which communication is "constitutive of culture". Communication processes can best be conceptualized as "performances." Interactional Contextual Episodic Improvisational

Summary and Challenges for Constitutive Approaches

Dominant shift in thinking away from thinking of communication as something that "happens in" or is "shaped by" the organization. The container metaphor An important move toward thinking about communication in ways where interaction shapes and reshapes the emerging organization. Influenced by foundational principles such as social constructionism, discourse analysis, and structuration theory. Emphasizes the recursive nature of this process by also studying the ways in which interaction is constrained by organizational texts and structures.

System Properties

Emerge from the interaction of these components and processes. Four characteristics of properties are particularly relevant: Holism Equifinality Negative Entropy Requisite Variety

Two kinds of processes

Exchange With the environment. Apparent in both input and output activities. Related to permeability. Feedback Information that helps to facilitate the interdependent functioning of system components

6 Degrees of "Scaling Up"

First Degree The intent of the speaker is embedded in conversation Second Degree The conversation is given a narrative representation Third Degree The text is transcribed into a more permanent form Fourth Degree A specialized language is developed that is used in subsequent texts and conversations Fifth Degree The texts and conversations are transformed into material and physical frames Sixth Degree The standardized form is disseminated to a broader public

Hegemony

Hegemony refers to a process in which a dominant group leads another group to accept subordination as the norm. It is "manufactured consent", in which employees willingly adopt and reinforce hierarchical power structures. Hegemonic control is typically accomplished by shaping ideology in such a way that the controlled group accepts and actively participates in the control process. Ex: most organizational members accept the legitimacy of rules and may actively participate in formulating them

Density:

How many relationships are there compared to the maximum amount?

Ideology

Ideology refers to the "taken-for-granted assumptions about reality that influence perceptions of situations and events." This definition has several important facets: Ideology refers to more than a set of attitudes or beliefs. Ideology "structures our thoughts and controls our interpretations of reality." Ideology shapes our understanding about what exists, what is good, and what is possible. Basic assumptions according to Schein Ideology involves assumptions that are rarely questioned or scrutinized. By shaping our view of the world, an ideology can also influence our behaviors.

cultures not unitary

Impossible to characterize an organization as having a single culture. Organizations characterized by subcultures and supercultures May co-exist in harmony, conflict, or indifference to each other. A number of sites where culture might develop in an organization: "vertical slice" - a division "horizontal slice" - specific hierarchical level Specific work group Networks of personal contacts Demographic similarity Various subcultures may represent important differences in power and interests

Ludwig von Bertalanffy

Interested in the study of "living systems" Argued that systems concepts could be applied to a large number of fields in both the natural and social sciences.

Network Roles

Isolates: Any unconnected nodes? • Group members: Are there clusters of groups? • Centrality: Are there nodes with lots of links? • Liaisons: Do nodes broker relationships between groups (middle man) Bridges: Do I have to go through any group members to reach another group?

Power in organizations

Modes and Means of Production Organizational Discourse

Modes and Means of Production vs Mean

Modes refers to the economic conditions that underlie the production processes. Marx argued that the capitalist mode of production is based on owners unknowingly expropriating surplus labor from unaware workers; this creates conflict between workers and owners. Means refers to actual work processes - how products are made and services rendered. When owners and managers have control over workplace processes and technologies (the means of production), critical theorists believe the result will be an alienated and oppressed workforce. The mechanization of the workplace allows management to constantly monitor the behavior of workers

System Processes Feedback

Negative/Corrective/Deviation-Reducing Helps to maintain steady system functioning Positive/Growth/Deviation-Amplifying Serves to change system functioning through growth and development

Cultures are complicated

Not something you can just capture through a survey Needs to be experienced or through stories told by those in it Schein's onion model

What does the container metaphor?

Organization is seen largely as a thing that holds communication processes and that influences the nature of those processes

cultures are often ambiguous

Organizational Cultures are Often Ambiguous Not always a clear picture of the organization's culture - or even of its various subcultures. Fragmentation perspective We live in a postmodern world that is multifaceted, fragmented, fast-moving, and difficult to understand. Culture might also be in a state of flux.

Common Themes

Peters and Waterman's "Excellent" Cultures A bias for action. Close relations to the customer. Autonomy and entrepreneurship. Productivity through people. Hands-on, value-driven. Stick to the knitting. Simple form, lean staff. Simultaneous loose-tight properties

Identification

Refers to the perception of oneness with or belongingness to the organization, where the individual defines himself or herself in terms of the organization in which he or she is a member

Control of organizational disclosure

Scholars argue that power relationships are produced and reproduced through organizational discourse. Similar to the notions of cultural and CCO researchers. However, critical researchers go further by explicitly arguing that the reality created through discourse is the site of domination. "Webs of significance"

Discipline

See discipline as embedded within the "discursive formations" of a social group. Through communicative interaction, work groups develop techniques to reward and punish behavior that conforms with or deviates from the values identified as important by the work group.

Control

Simple control involves the direct and authoritarian exertion of control in the workplace. Technological control involves control exerted through technological workplace processes such as assembly lines or computer programs. Bureaucratic control is based on the power of hierarchical structure and the rational-legal rules that emanate from the bureaucratic structure.

Karl Weick sense making

Simple decision rules and structures can be used in sensemaking when equivocality is low 2. More complex communication cycles and systems are needed to make sense of highly uncertain information environments 1. If we don't know how to interpret an event (e.g., UK's journalism controversy: is it free speech or a violation of protection of those sexually harassed). We need more dialogue and perspective to make sense of the events.

What is ventriloquism?

Sometimes people 'represent' others and do the speaking for them Other times, texts do the speaking for us (they say they have agency) and constrain us

System Processes

System "inputs" materials or information from the environment through its permeable boundaries. System then works on these inputs with some kind of transformational process - "throughput". Finally, system returns the transformed "output" to the environment.

Feminist

The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities

Permeability

The degree to which information and materials to flow in and out The degree of permeability varies from system to system. Some relatively closed; others are extremely open. All biological and social systems require some degree of permeability to survive. Refers to the system as a whole - which must be open to its environment - and to the components within the system.

Interdependence

The functioning of one component of a system relies on other components of the system.

Requisite Variety

The internal workings of the system must be as diverse and complicated as the environment in which it is embedded. "matching complexity" Allows an organization - or team or group within the organization - to deal with information and problems in the environment.

Scaling Up

The notion that the meaning created in the relationship between text and conversation can be codified (recorded) and thus make a difference in situations beyond the initial interaction.

Negative Entropy

The tendency for open systems to sustain themselves and grow; closed systems to slow down and die. Possible because of the flow of information and materials between the environment and the system - permeability. A system's success and very survival depends on active exchange with the system's environment.

Four flows 4. Institutional Positioning

The ways in which relationships are set up and maintained with other organizations and the ongoing communication that flows within these relationships. Establishing relationship with other entities in the environment Organizational identity

Four flows 1. Membership Negotiation

This flow makes clear the point that organizations are communicatively constituted through people who bring the organization into existence and enter and exit over time. The membership negotiation flow is about more than just organizational entry, as communication processes continuously serve to shift and change membership status.

Summary and Challenges for Constitutive Approaches

Two schools of thought: The Montreal School Ideas about the ways in which co-orientation occurs in the process of conversation and then scales up into various forms of text. Considered ways in which these texts become distanced from the conversation and can be seen as exercising agency on their own. The Four Flows A more macro approach. Argues that organizing is constituted by four specific flows: Membership negotiation Self-structuring Activity Coordination Institutional positioning These approaches have had great influence in the field of organizational communication. Organizations are constituted through communication and there are problems with regarding organizations as mere containers that hold various communication processes.

The Systems Metaphor

Views organizations as complex organisms that must interact with their environment to survive

Big "D" Discoure vs. little "d" discourse

discourse: the study of talk and text in social practices Discourse: general and enduring systems of thought

Emancipation

seen as psychoanalyst. The ultimate goal of the critical model. "The liberation of people from unnecessarily restrictive traditions, ideologies, assumptions, power relations, and identity formations, that inhibit or distort opportunities for autonomy, clarification of genuine needs and wants, and thus greater and lasting satisfaction." Most scholars see emancipation as a process of emerging awareness and communicative action on the part of the oppressed

Systems Components

the people and departments that make up the organization. Hierarchical Ordering Interdependence Permeability