In this article, the author,
Stanley Deetz, attempts to “foster useful discussions regarding how different
scholars construct knowledge and justify practices about organizations, and
also about their values, hopes, and group’s interests that they support.” In other words, Deetz is attempting to
understand many different types of research.
In order to facilitate this, the author discusses organizational
communication.
Organizational
Communication
Deetz describes three different
ways to view organizational communication, but decides to only consider the
third method: consider communication as a way to explain and describe
organizations. The author uses a graphic in order to illustrate two different
descriptive pieces of organizations based upon their communication. Specifically, upon the horizontal axis is
local/emergent versus elite/a priori (how researchers interact with other
groups) and upon the vertical axis is dissensus versus consensus (whether the
research is approaching an agreeing or disagreeing conclusion).
‘Local/Emergent’
versus ‘Elite/A Priori’ axis
·
This axis focuses on origin of concepts and
problem statements with respect to the beginning section of research. Important concepts which it poses are: where
research stems from, how research is created, and whose ideas are used; all of
these describe an extreme between organizations as a whole and their members.
·
Within a local/emergent community, one would
find:
o
Multiple language or style allowances
o
Driven experimentally
o
Determined by specific situations
o
Non-foundational
o
Small scale focus for research
o
Allows strangeness or anomalous research
o
Proceeds from others
·
Local/emergent communities focus on group work
through group openness. This tends to
lead to a focus in experimental research settings and a further focus on a
specialized problem or question.
·
Within an elite/a priori community, one would
find:
o
Strict single language requirement
o
Theoretical research
o
Determined by methodology
o
Foundational
o
Broad scale for research
o
Focus upon the familiar and the expected
o
Proceeds from self
·
Elite/a priori communities are opposites of
local/emergent communities, they generally consist of members working along,
focusing on theoretical problems which solve broad questions.
‘Consensus’ versus ‘Dissensus’
·
This axis focuses on research with respect to
existing social orders, in so much as recognition of a whether research presents
with unity or with difference to already researched topics.
·
Within a consensus community, one would find:
o
Trust
o
Focus on representation
o
Concerned with validity
o
Theory as an abstraction
o
Neutrality in science, life a discovery
o
Anonymous researchers
·
Consensus communities focus on higher order of
accuracies in an attempt to better collaborate and understand previous
results. Research and researchers are
neutral and anonymous, simply progressing further scientific successes.
·
Within a dissensus community, one would find:
o
Suspicion
o
Focus on challenge and reconsideration
o
Concerned with insight and praxis
o
Theory as a way of comprehension
o
Politics in science, life a struggle
o
Named and distinguished researchers
·
Dissensus communities focus on challenging
previous results and consider life as a conflict to be a natural state of
being. It is more important within a
dissensus community to be able to challenge assumptions than to produce
representational validity.
Discourses
From this graph of dominant social
discourses, there exist four major types of discourse: normative, interpretive,
critical, and dialogic.
·
Normative
– This discourse considers more modern and progressive concepts, which work
with theoretical problems in order to collaborate a greater understanding of
previous scientific results. In
particular:
o
Economic situations
o
Addresses inefficiency and disorder
o
Described as optimistic
·
Interpretive
– This discourse attempts to reinterpret previous specialized results more
precisely, generally within an experimental setting. In particular:
o
Social situations
o
Addresses meaninglessness and illegitimacy
o
Described as friendly
·
Critical –
This discourse takes a critical approach to previous theoretical results and
attempts to reform them to better fit a broad scale of understanding.
o
Political situations
o
Addresses domination and consent
o
Described as suspicious
·
Dialogic –
This discourse challenges previous specific settings, generally with respect to
situations controlled by dialogue.
o
Mass situations
o
Addresses marginalization and conflict suppression
o
Described as playful
No comments:
Post a Comment