Confidential Gossip and Organization Studies

This essay sets out the case for regarding confidential gossip as a significant concept in the study of organizations. It develops the more general concept of gossip by combining it with concepts of organizational secrecy in order to propose confidential gossip as a distinctive communicative practice. As a communicative practice, it is to be understood as playing a particular role within the communicative constitution of organizations. That particularity arises from the special nature of any communication regarded as secret, which includes the fact that such communication is liable to be regarded as containing the ‘real truth’ or ‘insider knowledge’. Thus it may be regarded as more than ‘just gossip’ and also as more significant than formal communication. This role is explored, as well as the methodological and ethical challenges of studying confidential gossip empirically.

Where is an Organization? How Workspaces Are Appropriated to Become (Partial and Temporary) Organizational Spaces

One question not addressed in communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) literature is where an organization is located. As more workers work on the road, at coffee shops, from home, and in coworking spaces, it is important to consider the relationship of these spaces to the organization. In this study, I argue that when someone appropriates features of a space to do work, that space becomes organizational. This process allows spaces like coffee shops and homes to become at least partially and temporarily organizational, rendering these workspaces as organizational contributors (to a certain extent). Using photo-elicitation interviews with workers in a variety of fields and organizations, I demonstrate gradients of spatial organizationality and show how, through appropriation, some spaces are more clearly organizational than others.

Speaking about vision, talking in the name of so much more: A methodological framework for ventriloquial analyses in organization studies

Organizations have long been treated as stable and fixed entities, defined by concrete buildings, catchy names, and strategic goals neatly written on paper. The Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO) school proposes an alternative, practice-grounded conceptualization for studying organizations as emerging in communicative (inter)actions. In so doing, CCO invites organizational scholars to trace back organizational phenomena to how they are communicated into existence. The concept of ventriloquism can help us explain the communicative constitutive view as it depicts how various elements of a situation are communicated into being and make a difference in interaction. However, ventriloquism lacks a proper methodological outline. Taking employee conversations about visions—a classic constituent of organizations—as our venue, we created a four-step framework for ventriloquial analyses and explored how visions are talked into existence. In this paper, we introduce and illustrate our analytical framework, showing how to identify, order, and present ventriloquial effects. We thus provide organizational (communication) scholars with a new methodological tool that facilitates the systematic inquiry into organizing and the organized from a communicative constitutive perspective.

Recycling Stories: Mantras, Communication, and Organizational Materialization

Religious non-governmental organizations (RNGOs) are becoming powerful organizational actors, but how are these organizations enacted through the communicative practices of their members? To address this question, this article offers a conceptual framework for investigating how the terse retelling of an inspirational organizational story, encapsulated in a mantra, contributes to materializing a Buddhist NGO’s ethos and worldview. The value of this framework is subsequently demonstrated through an in-depth naturalistic case study of a mantra’s constitutive force in the enactment of a large international Buddhist NGO that is increasingly focused on environmental protection. By showing how a mantra acts as a textualization, substantiation, and invocation device in mass, social media, and face-to-face communication, this study makes important contributions to the literature on the intersection between religion and organization as well as the communicative constitution of organizations.

Introduction

In Chapter 1, the authors argue that legal sex workers in Nevada experience significant oppression and unfair labor practices. They move beyond traditional feminist arguments about whether or not prostitution is a choice to a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of sex work as an occupation. This chapter explains how the book serves as both an updated resource about the laws and policies which guide legal prostitution in Nevada, and also an intimate look at what life and decision-making is like for women doing sex work. Chapter 1 includes background information on the theoretical lenses which guide the project: the communicative constitution of organizations and feminist standpoint theory. The authors explain how these lenses allow them to privilege the voices of sex workers, and give unique insight into life in the brothels.

The role of space in the emergence and endurance of organizing: How independent workers and material assemblages constitute organizations

Where do new organizations come from, and how do they persist? Based on an ethnographic study of two creative hubs in Amsterdam, in which creative independent workers rented studio space, we show how space plays a role in constituting new organizations and making them last. Focusing on challenging moments in the development of these two creative hubs, we propose that space, understood as a material assemblage, participates in providing endurance to organizing practices. It does so because space and practice reflexively account for each other. In other words, space may constrain or enable practices, and provide them with meaning, as the literature abundantly illustrates, but practices also define and shape space. Rather than emphasizing either of these two options, we argue that they should be understood as integral to each other. Furthermore, it is precisely their reflexive relation that contributes to the emergence of new organizations. Our study contributes to the literature on the communicative constitution of organizations, and more broadly to the knowledge of organizing in the creative industries.

Ethics, Agency, and Non-Human Agency in the Study of the Communicative Constitution of Organizations

This chapter interrogates how recent CCO (communication constitutes organizing) theorizing impacts the study of organizational ethics. Beginning with existing approaches, the chapter addresses how the complexity of analyzing choice and agency (typically tied to ethics) at an organizational level helps explain the relative lack of organizational ethics research. Ethics research in areas connected to organizational communication (public relations, crisis communication, corporate social responsibility, and organizational rhetoric) are also specifically examined. Next, the chapter considers the two distinct definitions of agency, from to the Montreal School's CCO approach and the Four Flows approach respectively, delves into a theoretical discussion of each definition's implications, and concludes that the Montreal School's CCO approach is more suited to investigating and questioning organizational ethics. The chapter concludes by noting paths for organizational research on ethics and responsibility, including challenging assumptions that moral thinking prioritizes rational choice.

Secrecy and communication: towards a research agenda

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify possible lines of research relating to communication and secrecy. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a conceptual essay drawing on recent research on secrecy. Findings The findings suggest that secrecy entails the communication of rules about communication, and that secrecy can play a role in the communicative constitution of organizations. Originality/value The paper is innovative in configuring secrecy as a form of communication rather than being the opposite of communication, and in showing the linkages between what are normally two separate domains of research.