About the Book
With the growing influence of discursive and narrative perspectives on organizing, organizational scholars are focusing increasing attention on the constitutive role that language and communication play in organizational processes. This view conceptualizes language and communication as bringing organization into being in every instant and is therefore inherently sympathetic to a process perspective. However, our understanding of the role of language in unfolding
organizational processes and as a part of organizational action is still limited. This volume brings together empirical and/or conceptual contributions from leading scholars in organization and
communication to develop understanding of language and communication as constitutive of work, and also analyze how language and communication actually work to achieve influence in the context of organizations. It aims to elucidate the role language, communication, and narrativity play as part of strategic and institutional work in and around organizational phenomena. In keeping with the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, this
collection demonstrates why we need to start thinking processually and offers a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to studying these 'works in process' that we call organizations,
companies, businesses, institutions, communities, associations, or NGOs
Table of Contents:
Part I: Language and Communication in Organizations
1: François Cooren, Eero Vaara, Ann Langley, Haridimos Tsoukas: Language and Communication at Work: Discourse, Narrativity, and Organizing: Introducing the Fourth Volume of Perspectives on Process Organization Studies
2: James R. Taylor: Impersonating the Organization: Reflections on the Communicative Constitution of Organization
3: Ruth Wodak: Analyzing Interaction in Meetings: Perspectives from Critical Discourse Studies and the Discourse-Historical Approach
4: Andrea Whittle, William Housley, Alan Gilchrist, Peter Lenney and Frank Mueller,: Power, Politics and Organizational Communication: An Ethnomethodological Perspective
5: Philippe Lorino: From Speech Acts to Act Speeches: Collective activity, a discursive process speaking the language of habits.
6: Geneviève Musca Linda Rouleau, and Bertrand Fauré: Time, Space, and Calculation in Discursive Practices: Insights from the Crow s Flight Chronotope of the Darwin Expedition
7: Timothy Kuhn and Nicholas R. Burk: Spatial Design as Sociomaterial Practice: A (Dis)Organizing Perspective on Communicative Constitution
8: Florian Schulz and Chris Steyaert: Studying Talk-at-Work: An Analysis of the Discursive Processes of Management Coaching Conversations
9: David M. Boje and Rohny Saylors: Quantum Storytelling: An Ontological Perspective on Process
Part II: Process Perspectives
10: Maxim Ganzin, Robert P. Gephart Jr., and Roy Suddaby: Narrative and the Construction of Myths in Organizations
11: Katharina Hohmann and Jeanne Mengis: Temporal Work in Coordination: Co-orienting Around a Fleeting Object of Concern
12: Emmanouil Gkeredakis, Davide Nicolini, Jacky Swan: Moral Judgements as Organizational Accomplishments: Insights from a Focused Ethnography in the English Healthcare Sector
13: Kjersti Bjørkeng, Arne Carlsen, and Carl Rhodes: Between the Saying and the Said: From Self-reflexivity to Other-vulnerability in The Research Process
About the Author :
Francois Cooren, Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication, Universite de Montreal, Canada, Eero Vaara, Professor of Management and Organization, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland, Ann Langley, Professor of Management, HEC Montreal, Haridimos Tsoukas, Professor of Strategic Management; Professor of Organization Studies, University of Cyprus; Warwick Business School, University of Warwick Francois Cooren is Professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the Universite de Montreal, Canada. He is past president of the International Communication Association (ICA, 2010-2011) and the current president of the International Association for Dialogue Analysis (IADA, 2012-2014). His research interests lies in organizational communication, language and social interaction, communication theory and pragmatics. He has published seven books (both as an author and editor), close to 50 articles in international peer-reviewed journals and more than twenty book chapters.
Eero Vaara is Professor of Management and Organization at Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. He is a permanent Visiting Professor at EMLYON Business School, France, a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Lancaster University, UK, and an Adjunct Professor at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. His research interests focus on organizational and institutional change, strategic practices and processes, multinational corporations and globalization, management education, and methodological issues in organization and management research. He has worked especially on discursive and narrative approaches. His work has been published in leading journals and several books.
Ann Langley is professor of management at HEC Montreal and Canada research chair in strategic management in pluralistic settings. Her research focuses on strategic change, leadership, innovation and the use of management tools in complex organizations with an emphasis on processual research approaches. She has published over 50 articles and two books.
Haridimos Tsoukas is the Columbia Ship Management Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Cyprus, Cyprus and a Professor of Organization Studies at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK. He has published widely in several leading academic journals and was the Editor-in-Chief of Organization Studies (2003-2008). He is the editor (with Christian Knudsen) of The Oxford Handbook of Organization Theory (Oxford University Press, 2003). He has also edited Organizations as Knowledge Systems, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004 (with N. Mylonopoulos) and Managing the Future: Foresight in the Knowledge Economy, Blackwell, 2004 (with J. Shepherd). His book Complex Knowledge: Studies in Organizational Epistemology was published by Oxford University Press in 2005. He is also the author of the book If Aristotle were a CEO (in Greek, Kastaniotis, 2005, 2nd edition).
Review :
`Perspectives on Process Organization Studies will be the definitive annual volume of theories and research that advance our understanding of process questions dealing with how things emerge, grow, develop, and terminate over time. I applaud Professors Ann Langley and Haridimos Tsoukas for launching this important book series, and encourage colleagues to submit their process research and subscribe to PROS.
'
Andrew H. Van de Ven, Vernon H. Heath Professor of Organizational Innovation and Change, University of Minnesota, USA
`The recent decades witnessed conspicuous changes in organization theory: a slow but inexorable shift from the focus on structures to the focus on processes. The whirlwinds of the global economy made it clear that everything flows, even if change itself can become stable. While the interest in processes of organizing is not new, it is now acquiring a distinct presence, as more and more voices join in. A forum is therefore needed where such voices can speak
to one another, and to the interested readers. The series Perspectives on Process Organization Studies will provide an excellent forum of that kind, both for those for whom a processual perspective is a
matter of ontology, and those who see it as an epistemological choice.
'
Barbara Czarniawska, Professor of Management Studies, School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden
