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Organizational Communication From a Critical Perspective

The critical approach adopts a number of assumptions about organizations as communicative phenomena. In the past 30 years or so, there has been wide acceptance of the idea that organizations are not objective structures but rather, exist as a result of the collective and coordinated communication processes of its members. Communication is not something that happens in organizations; rather, organizations come into being through communication processes. Such a position is often referred to as a social constructionist approach because of its belief that language and communication do not simply reflect reality but actually create the realities in which we live. From this perspective, scholars study various forms of symbolic practice such as storytelling, metaphors, and humor in an attempt to understand the role they play in creating the reality that organization members experience. Not only are organizations communicatively constructed, but such construction processes are influenced by processes of power and control. In other words, organizational meanings do not simply arise spontaneously but are shaped by the various actors and stakeholder interests. In this context, the critical approach to organizations explores the relationship between the social construction process discussed above and the exercise of power. We are now in a position to examine the various theories and bodies of research that make up the field of organizational communication. Armed with the analytic tools, we can begin to get to grips with the history of organizational communication as a field of study and to understand the historical, cultural, and political forces that have shaped the role of organizations in our society.