Communicative Constitution of Organizations
[4] Theorists such as Karl E. Weick[5] were among the first to posit that organizations were not static but inherently comprised by a dynamic process of communicating.
The flows, though distinct, can affect one another in the model and lead to multi-way conversation or texts typically involving reproduction of as well as resistance to the rules and resources of the organization.
Communication of formal structure predetermines work routines rather than allowing them to emerge and controls the collaboration and membership-negotiation processes.
Organizational self-structuring is a political, subjective process that can be affected by systems, individuals, interests, and traditions in which it takes place.
To constitute an organization, the communication must imply the formation and governance of a differentiated whole with its own reflexive response cycle and mechanisms.
The negotiation process can be influenced by powers including prior existence and supervision, and all parties involved may redefine themselves to fit expectations.
Among higher status members, power-claiming and spokesmanship are examples of negotiation processes to gain resources of an organization.
It incorporates any processes and attitudes and therefore includes coordination for members to not complete work or to seek power over one another.
The work of Dr. Henry Mintzberg exemplifies activity coordination in the mechanism of mutual adjustment in his theory of organizational forms.
Though there is not one configuration that an organization must embody, in order to be considered by peer institutions, the minimum process involves negotiating inclusion in the environment.
Organizations must establish and maintain a presence, image, status, and a two-way communication channel with partners.
Organizations which are marginalized due to their lack of institutional positioning include startup companies and illegal groups such as the Mafia.
Cooren, Kuhn, Cornelissen, and Clark (2011) [12] suggest that coorientation occurs when individuals focus on each other and the multitudes of agencies within the organizational environment.
Finally, publication, dissemination, diffusion, and other forms of broadcast are employed to convey the message created by members of the organization.
The Montréal school’s proponents contend that the essence of organizing is captured in the submission, imbrication, and embeddedness of text and conversation (Schoeneborn et al., 2014).
A plenum of agencies refers to the potential of both human and non-human actants (a term borrowed from Actor Network Theory; Latour, 1995) to interact within the organizational environment.
[10] A system is defined by a boundary between itself and its environment, dividing it from an infinitely complex, or (colloquially) chaotic, exterior.
Perhaps this is why Luhmann’s general system perspective has only recently been considered a part of the CCO body of scholarship.
Specifically, Seidl (2014)[13] explains that Luhmann suggests communication is an amalgam of information, utterance, and understanding.
For this reason, Seidl claims that CCO research using Luhmann’s version should focus on communication not on actors.
Any “turn of talk, discourse, artifact, metaphor, architectural element, body, text or narrative”[12] is potentially important in producing and reproducing the organization.
Scholars broadly as “the ongoing, dynamic, interactive process of manipulating symbols toward the creation, maintenance, destruction and/or transformation of meanings which are axial—not peripheral—to organizational existence and organizing phenomena” [22] Premise 3 is that CCO acknowledges the co-constructed/co-oriented nature of communication.
