CCO

A Range of Questions

How do individual acts of communication have inherently organizational qualities? → How do the things we call 'organizations' come to exist? (four flows)

THE MAJOR PREMISE:

Human beings communicate organizations into existence through talk and text

Flows

circulating fields of messages that constitute organization

Sensemaking:

communication behavior that reduces ambiguity and equivocality; "squeezes" out meaning

Institutional positioning

communication between an organization and external entities -need others to exist

Valve where no one is a boss, unleashes employee creativity. CCO theorists insist any company is what it is because

communication brings the organization into existence -persons-in-conversation co-construct their social worlds -only communication can bind an organization

Activity coordination

communication that accomplishes the organization's work toward goals -getting the job done; purpose -exists only because self-structuring because how do you get work done without knowing who's doing what

Constitution:

communication that calls organizations into being

Membership negotiation

communication that regulates the extent to which a person is an organization member -socialization = learning what it means to be a member

Self-structuring

communication that shapes the relationship among an organization's members EX: constitution, manuel, memes, relationship chart CLOSURE: A sense of shared understanding that emerges in back and forth interaction

On the scale of interpretive to objective, where does CCO fall?

interpretive

what tradition does CCO fall under?

socio-cultural

CCO is not a

theory; it is a body of theories that attempt to explain or understand - the constitutive and organizing power of communication

Critique

-Professor James Taylor views it as too simple and sees it starting at the wrong place (not top-down) taylor prefers ground up (everyday convo_ dislikes McPhee's vague definition of flow - Co-orientation = communication wherein two or more people focus on a common object; these conversations are the glue that binds organizations across time and space -Bisel thinks Taylor assumes co-orientation is a sufficient condition for organizing - Sufficient conditions under which something will occur -Bisel thinks four flows are necessary conditions - Necessary conditions = conditions under which can occur -organizations can disorganize too

How might CCO be used?

-in an effort to lead organizational change? -to better understand/resolve organizational conflict? or organizational mergers? -to motivate or manage individuals workers -to address organizational diversity -to study toxic work environments

Four principles of the fours flows

1. All four flows are necessary for organizations EX: occupy wall street 2. Different flows happen in different places 3. The same messages can address multiple flows qualifier = space separates flows 4. Different flows address different audiences EX: self-structuring is of little interest to those outside an organization

Ontology:

Addresses the nature of reality

Takeaway

CCO is an emerging perspective that focuses on how organizations are made and maintained through communication. There are many ways to theorize CCO, the 4 flows is one of those ways. CCO enables us to to examine how particular assumptions that shape the way we organize are maintained. CCO enables to examine how particular communication behaviors reinforce or challenge existing practices of organizing.