Organizational Communication : Perspectives and Trends

Examines and explores the problems and paradoxes of organizational communication and the changing features of organizational life that have been revealed through the application of pluralistic perspectives. This book discusses the implications of race, gender, technology, and increasing globalization to organizational communication.

Communication in organizations has changed drastically since the release of the first edition of this bestselling textbook. This fully revised and updated edition delves into state-of-the-art studies, providing fresh insights into the challenges that organizations face today. Yet this foundational resource remains a cornerstone in the examination of classic research and theory in organization communication.

Beginning with an extended analysis – from an organizational communication vantage point – of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, this groundbreaking edition weaves recent and memorable case materials with up-to-date research and theory, creating a meaningful and comprehensive view of organizational communication.

The authors take the unique path of describing and evaluating communication in organizations by focusing on three major perspectives for understanding organizations: traditional, interpretive, and critical. Because these perspectives differ in the ways that they study communication and in the assumptions that they make about the nature of organizations, the authors are able to offer diverse insights into communication in organizations. These three perspectives are used to examine communication functions and structure, organizational culture, information technology; cultural control, diversity, and change; new forms of organizing such as lattices and heterarchies, group relations, leader-member relations, power, conflict, and strategic communication; and new millennium thinking about organizations.

Packed with current case studies and commentary, Organizational Communication features an impressive range of contemporary global institutions such as General Motors, Triyo Industries of Japan, Enron, Wal-Mart, Ben & Jerry′s, The Carter Center′s Peace Programs, Canada′s public health programs, social change programs in rural India, and more.  

Important new topics in this edition include

• New Communication Structures 
• Cultural Diversity and Empowerment 
• Implications of Information Technology 
• Affirmative Action and Supreme Court Cases 
• Transformational Leadership 
• New Millennium Trends

Instructor′s Resource CD Available  
An easy-to-follow instructor′s manual on CD is available for qualified textbook adopters. This valuable instrument includes PowerPoint presentations, keyword definitions, discussion and exam questions, suggested activities, sample syllabi, recommended assignments, hyperlinks to complementary Internet video, and more.