Communication,Uncertainty, and Volunteer Membership

Approximately 25% of Americans volunteer annually (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). As organizational members, they face uncertainty concerning their roles, their relationships, and their organizations (Kramer, 2004). Volunteers likely face different uncertainty management issues than employees who have been the focus of most previous research. Volunteers have a different psychological contract and different motivations than employees (Rousseau, 1990). This study examined issues of uncertainty management of volunteer members in a particular setting, a community choir. In particular, it found that supervisor and peer communication and other internal factors, such as more preparation time and less difficult tasks, were associated with higher levels of certainty for members of a community choir. In addition, higher levels of certainty and additional external factors such as family support for participation and lack of conflicts were associated with higher levels of satisfaction and identification and a greater willingness to recruit for the organization. Results have implications for improving communication to increase volunteers' certainty and increasing their voluntary participation in organizations.     

Protean places: teams across time and space

Proteanism is about the simultaneous disruption of place and the seeking of a new sense of place. These metaphorical concepts of the fluid yet grounded, the shape shifting and consolidation, and the evolving creation of a sense of place are applied to a discussion of changing organizational forms and communicative processes. These new formings within ever-changing forms are referred to as Protean Places. The protean concepts of sequentiality, simultaneity, and sociality are examined within the context of what we know about changing organizational forms, major communicative processes, and the history of a virtual customer service team organized across time and space. Finally, the metaphor of Protean Places and the case study are utilized to provide direction for future research, theory building, and practical application in organizational communication.     

Protean places: teams across time and space

Proteanism is about the simultaneous disruption of place and the seeking of a new sense of place. These metaphorical concepts of the fluid yet grounded, the shape shifting and consolidation, and the evolving creation of a sense of place are applied to a discussion of changing organizational forms and communicative processes. These new formings within ever-changing forms are referred to as Protean Places. The protean concepts of sequentiality, simultaneity, and sociality are examined within the context of what we know about changing organizational forms, major communicative processes, and the history of a virtual customer service team organized across time and space. Finally, the metaphor of Protean Places and the case study are utilized to provide direction for future research, theory building, and practical application in organizational communication.     

Experiencing and Managing Uncertainty about Climate Change

This paper joins uncertainty management and problematic integration literatures to better understand how people experience and manage uncertainty about climate change. Interviews with 235 stakeholders from private, public, and non-profit organizations in the state of Washington indicate an interesting disparity of certainty and the role of climate-related information. A majority of participants (n=137) were certain that energy use and climate change are related, and far fewer (n=13) were certain that they are not related. Our interpretive analysis indicates notable differences regarding the way people experience and management uncertainty.     

Challenging Assumptions Underlying the Metamorphosis Phase: Ethnographic Analysis of Metamorphosis Within an Unemployment Organization

Organizational communication scholars have grappled with assimilation processes and expanded the theoretical conceptualization of each phase. This article joins in conversation with organizational communication scholars by identifying and problematizing the assumption that reaching metamorphosis is always a positive experience. Through the ethnographic analysis of empirical data collected from an unemployment support organization, the author argues that being an established organizational member is sometimes counter to organizational objectives. While traditional organizations attempt to maintain and grow their membership, some alternative organizational formats aim to minimize membership. This premise challenges the assumption that achieving metamorphosis is always a desirable state of organizational membership. Furthermore, this study reveals how communication changes when it is undesirable for service recipients to reach metamorphosis.     

Trends in Organizational Communication Research: Sustaining the Discipline,Sustaining Ourselves

This paper began as a keynote address delivered at the 16th annual Organizational Communication Mini‐Conference hosted by Western Michigan University. In it, I identify topical trends in organizational communication research, noting ways in which these trends are flexible, enduring, diverse, and problem‐centered. I go on to invite current doctoral students to join us in developing these trends further. Specifically, I discuss how we might engage research in ways that sustain the vitality of the discipline as well as our own personal vitality. I conclude by offering a list of key articles that could serve as starting points in the on‐going conversation centered around organizational communication.     

An Examination of How People in Romantic Relationships Use Communication to Manage Financial Uncertainty

Money is critical for financial and relational well-being, yet financial communication is often considered taboo, and most Americans receive little financial guidance. Not surprisingly, romantic couples experience financial uncertainty, which has been negatively correlated with satisfaction and trust. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews of 40 individuals in married or cohabitating relationships and the lens of Uncertainty Management Theory (UMT), this investigation examines how people are (un)able to manage financial uncertainty. The study uncovers tangible ways individuals can negotiate financial uncertainty via uncertainty reduction, maintenance, and adaption, as well as information, communication, time-management, and/or sociocultural barriers that can impede uncertainty management. The investigation suggests the extension of UMT to consider the role of the dyad and offers practical implications for financial literacy and communication efforts.     

我国青年编辑组织承诺研究

组织承诺是组织行为的一个重要领域。青年编辑的组织承诺就是青年编辑愿意为单位付出心力,并希望留在单位服务的意念。我国青年编辑组织承诺结构模型的维度主要包括：感情承诺、规范承诺、经济承诺、机会承诺和理想承诺5个维度。青年编辑应当通过做好职业规划、发挥个人优势、提高职业素养与研究能力等来提高组织承诺。     

Identity and Technology: Organizational Control of Knowledge-Intensive Work

Much has been written about the functioning of managerial ideologies in identity-based organizational control. However, less attention has been given to the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and identity defined by a technological discourse in regulating knowledge-intensive work. The purpose of this research is to examine the roles of identity and ICTs in the control of knowledge-intensive work. A case study of a technology service organization reveals that the construction and consumption of a technologist identity operate as organizational control, and that ICTs enable the functioning of a dialectic of technological control. This study also demonstrates the paradoxical nature of work knowledge that both empowers and controls knowledge-workers.     

组织学习与绩效的关系：基于动态能力的中介效应

基于资源基础观构建一个反映组织学习、动态能力以及绩效关系的理论模型。以我国广东珠三角地区317家企业为调查对象,采用结构方程模型方法进行实证检验。结果发现：企业的组织学习对组织绩效没有显著的直接影响,但是组织学习可以通过动态能力对组织绩效产生显著的影响。该研究结果可为中国企业如何运用组织学习以增强动态能力和最终改善绩效提供有益的借鉴。     

组织学习研究的本体论进路：进展及贡献

本体论进路是以基于本体论思维或由本体论衍生的一些理论为研究对象,进行剖析的研究脉络、研究方法或研究范式的统一。已有学者以本体论思想为本源,基于不同领域的具体理论,对组织学习开展了不同层面的研究。本体论进路常结合复杂系统理论、中国哲学中阴阳等相关理论,以＂类比—关联—融合＂的结构和程序深度分析组织及组织学习,从而使个人学习理论和组织学习理论更紧密连接,弥补现有理论的不足,为组织学习研究提供了新的理论基础,并取得了一些进展。     

Organizational Surveys: A System for Employee Voice

Although surveys are often used to assess and track employee attitudes and opinions over time and are used quite frequently by applied communication researchers, the use of surveys as a channel to voice employee attitudes and opinions has not been fully explored in the employee voice or basic organizational communication literature. With the increased call for accountability, effective applied communication researchers can play an important role in ensuring that organizations engage in the survey process in a manner that is “safe” for employees, and ethical and practical for the organization. Because the question of how to accomplish this task is complex and cannot be fully addressed within the constraints of a commentary, I offer three general principles to guide future researchers in helping overcome organizational communication problems:

1. Build trust in the organizational survey process, the researcher(s), and the organization.

2. Eliminate the adversarial relationship that often exists between management and employees who speak up.

3. Provide evidence that the organization does more than purport to value the things that it says it values.

     

The Story Behind an Organizational List: A Genealogy of Wildland Firefighters’ 10 Standard Fire Orders

To invigorate research on the dialectic between lists and stories in communication, this study recommends adding context back to text by focusing on the enduring problems these forms are summoned to solve. A genealogy of one significant organizational list, wildland firefighters’ 10 Standard Fire Orders, shows how a list's meaning resides less on its face and more in the discourses surrounding it, which can change over time. Vestiges of old meanings and unrelated cultural functions heaped upon a list can lead to conflicts, and can make the list difficult to scrap even when rendered obsolete for its intended purpose. Reconciling these layers of meanings and functions is thus not a technical problem but rather a rhetorical one. Implications for communication research are addressed.     

Family Communication Patterns as Predictors of Organizational Dissent: A Replication Study

This study replicated a previous research project addressing connections between family-of-origin communication and organizational dissent expression. We predicted that family communication patterns (FCPs), specifically conversation and conformity orientations, would predict upward, lateral, and displaced dissent. As in the original study, significant findings emerged for upward dissent and conformity orientation. This replication study indicated family type as an inconsistent predictor of expressed dissent. Contrary to the original study, we found no evidence to support a connection between pluralistic family types and upward dissent. Finally, as an extension of the original study we analyzed effects of FCPs on displaced dissent, finding an inverse association with conversation orientation. Implications for future research are discussed.     

The Rate and Delay in Overload: An Investigation of Communication Overload and Channel Synchronicity on Identification and Job Satisfaction

This study investigates the relationship between communication overload and uses of diverse communication channels in terms of their level of synchronicity. Emphasis on the synchronicity of any given channel reveals how temporal elements (i.e., rate and processing time) play an important role in perceptions of communication load. Additionally, this study examines the association between communication overload, organizational identification and job satisfaction. Findings reveal: (a) both high and low synchronous channels are associated with increased reports of communication overload; (b) a mediating effect of organizational identification on the relationship between communication overload and job satisfaction; and (c) a moderating effect of communication overload on the relationship between low synchronous channels and organizational identification.     

“We Do It, but They Don't”: Multiple Categorizations and Work Team Communication

The present study adopted an intergroup approach to information sharing and ratings of work team communication in a public hospital (N = 142) undergoing large-scale restructuring. Consistent with predictions, ratings of communication followed a double ingroup serving bias: while team members reported sending about the same levels of information to double ingroup members (same work team/same occupational group) as they did to partial ingroup members (same work team/different occupational group), they reported receiving less information from partial ingroup members than from double ingroup members and rated the communication that they received from partial ingroup members as less effective. We discuss the implication of these results for the management of information sharing and organizational communication.     

The flight attendant dilemma: an analysis of communication and sensemaking during in-flight emergencies

Building on past research, this article argues that organizational life can be usefully construed as a series of communicative performances that are embedded and enacted in everyday discursive practices. Specifically, this research explores the sensemaking process individuals undertake when faced with the dilemma of knowing when to invent appropriate ways to respond rather than being automatically constrained by past routines. The research presents case study evidence drawn from participant observation and interviews with flight attendants from a major U.S. airline. Shown to be high in emotional and impression management, flight attendants perform a feminized role that privileges accommodation over authority and reassurance over safety that may influence their performances in emergency situations. The work ends with an evaluation of the dominant air travel performance in relation to safety and offers recommendations for facilitating communication and coordination among flight attendants and pilots.     

The flight attendant dilemma: an analysis of communication and sensemaking during in-flight emergencies

Building on past research, this article argues that organizational life can be usefully construed as a series of communicative performances that are embedded and enacted in everyday discursive practices. Specifically, this research explores the sensemaking process individuals undertake when faced with the dilemma of knowing when to invent appropriate ways to respond rather than being automatically constrained by past routines. The research presents case study evidence drawn from participant observation and interviews with flight attendants from a major U.S. airline. Shown to be high in emotional and impression management, flight attendants perform a feminized role that privileges accommodation over authority and reassurance over safety that may influence their performances in emergency situations. The work ends with an evaluation of the dominant air travel performance in relation to safety and offers recommendations for facilitating communication and coordination among flight attendants and pilots.     

“Omega is a Four-Letter Word”: Toward a Tension-Centered Model of Resistance to Information and Communication Technologies

The adoption of enterprise-wide information and communication technologies (ICTs) has become a growing trend in a wide range of industries. Resistance has been identified as one of the most common reasons for unsuccessful implementations. Assuming technologies as fixed objects, many existing theories tend to reduce resistance to psychological mechanisms or structural misalignment. The purpose of this study is to retheorize resistance to ICTs by integrating a social constructionist perspective of technology and a framework of organizational tensions. By employing qualitative methods, a case study examined the adoption, implementation and use of an enterprise-wide software system in a technology service organization. The in-depth case analysis revealed a tension-centered process model, which shows that resistance to ICTs is constituted in a dynamic, reflexive interplay between the ongoing construction of ICTs and organizational tensions. In this process, an ICT adoption brings into play various organizational tensions, which then shape the interpretations of the ICT in oppositional terms, and reactions to these tensions and oppositional interpretations result in various forms of resistance behaviors. This tension-centered process model offers a useful alternative to existing research on resistance to ICTs in the workplace.