The Language of Organization
First Edition
Edited by:
- Robert Westwood - UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia
- Stephen Linstead - University of York, UK
March 2002 | 370 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
The importance of communication for organizations has been an ongoing concern since management was first theorized. Yet language has tended to be viewed as simply a medium of communication - without language per se being theoretically problematized. This book enables a more critical exploration of the major theoretical positions on language and organization, explaining why language warrants a more central and considered place in organization studies. Language and Organization explains how various perspectives on the relationship between language and organization can be represented and explored. Concerned with issues such as power, knowledge and organizational discourse, this book will provide essential new links for a proper conceptualization and understanding of organizations.
Robert Westwood and Stephen Linstead
Language/Organization
Introduction
PART ONE: LANGUAGE, ORGANIZATION AND ACTION
David S Richards
Talking Sense
Ethnomethodology, Postmodern and Practical Action
Ian Lennie
Language That Organizes
Plans and Lists
Simon Lilley
The Language of Strategy
PART TWO: METAPHORS OF ORGANIZATION
Dan K[um]arreman
The Scripted Organization
Dramaturgy from Burke to Baudrillard
Tojo Joseph Thatchenkery
Mining for Meaning
Reading Organizations using Hermeneutic Philosophy
David M Boje, Rossana C Alvarez and Bruce Schooling
Reclaiming Story in Organization
Narratologies and Action Sciences
PART THREE: LANGUAGE, KNOWLEDGE AND POWER
Graham Sewell
The Prison-House of Language
The Penitential Discourse of Organizational Power
Rolland Munro
After Knowledge
The Language of Information
Stephen Linstead
Rhetoric and Organizational Control
A Framework for Analysis
PART FOUR: ORGANIZING SILENCE
Robert Westwood
Appropriating the Other in the Discourses of Comparative Management
Joanna Brewis
Telling It Like It Is?
Gender, Language and Organizational Theory
PART FIVE: WRITING, THEORY AND BEYOND
Robert Chia and Ian King
The Language of Organization Theory
Stephen Linstead and Robert Westwood
Meaning beyond Language
Monstrous Openings