organizational communication final essay
kkkkpcy
W13Deetz_1993_Ethicalcommunicativepracticeasabasisforevaluatingcorporatecultures.pdf
This article was downloaded by: [University of Dayton] On: 01 September 2015, At: 07:06 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG
New Jersey Journal of Communication Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ hajc19
Ethical communicative practice as a basis for evaluating corporate cultures Stanley A. Deetz a a Professor of Communication at Rutgers , The State University of New Jersey , 4 Huntington Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08903 Published online: 17 Mar 2009.
To cite this article: Stanley A. Deetz (1993) Ethical communicative practice as a basis for evaluating corporate cultures, New Jersey Journal of Communication, 1:2, 63-83, DOI: 10.1080/15456879309367254
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15456879309367254
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views
of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993, pages 63-83
Ethical Communicative Practice as a Basis for Evaluating Corporate Cultures
Stanley A. Deetz1
Organizational cultures can be evaluated through an analysis of site specific micro communicative practices within a critical theory of communication and organizations. In order to do so, corporate organizations are presented as social/historical institutions designed to fulfill needs for competing groups including owners, workers, managers, consumers, and the general public. Through arbitrary institutional advantages and distorted communicative practices, conflicts between these interests are often suppressed and the variety of legitimate interests are not fully represented. Conceptualizing communicative action as the attempt to reach mutual understanding describes an immanent moral standard within human culture, helps identify practices which limit the communicative process, and provides a basis for evaluating specific cultural activities within corporations.
The modern commercial corporation is a significant human creation. Commercial corporations have served to greatly increase our material well-being and are significant arenas for public decision making. Such corporations are a predominant site of work; and decisions made within them greatly influence the collective use of resources, the environment, the general economy, and the products available. Every society has a collective interest in the nature and quality of decisions made in corporations.
Unfortunately, most of the research concerning corporations and the communicative practices therein have read this interest rather narrowly. Primary attention has been given to efficiency and effectiveness in the production of goods and services often measured by profitability. Deeply embedded in these studies has been the acceptance of a managerial bias in the conception of the organization and articulation of organizational goals. The primary effect of these studies has often been to extend strategic control by management groups. The justification for this approach to research has often been grounded in a conception of corporations and management as a kind of value-neutral tool
1 Stanley A. Deetz (Ph. D., Ohio University) is Professor of Communication at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 4 Huntington Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. He is author of Democncy in an Age of Corporate Colonization (SUNY Press, 1992) and editor or author of six other books. He has published numerous essays in scholarly journals and books regarding decision making, human relations, and communication in corporate organizations and has lectured widely in the U. S. and Europe. He has served as a consultant on culture, diversity, and decision making for several major corporations. His current research focuses on international knowledge- intensive businesses and is sponsored by a grant from the Rickard Malmsten Foundation and a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to Sweden, Spring 1994.
Copyright © 1993 by Stanley A. Deetz. All Rights Reserved
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
64 Stanley A. Deetz
which scientific study can improve without direct attention to the uses to which this tool has been applied. With such a conception, scholarly concern could be narrowed to the perfectibility of the tool. To the extent that this conception has been useful, organization studies have enhanced the effective use of resources and fulfillment of human needs.
However, when researchers have accepted this "tool" version of organizations they have also missed much regarding the effects of modem organizations. The modern corporate form and current management practices embody a social theory, a political philosophy, and a conception of morality. Frequently these are neither known, acknowledged, nor critically examined. This largely Taylor/Weber/Parsons worldview-that focuses on corporate organizations as a politically neutral form for the production of goods and services-can lead to insufficient attention being paid to their numerous social and political functions. With the presence of continued environmental destruction, economic instabilities, growing social inequality, and increased awareness of the diversity of social groups, more researchers (e.g., Alvesson & Willmott, 1992) and managers (e.g., the development of the World Business Academy) are reconsidering the values and social effects of the so-called "neutral tool." Some have looked at the effect of corporations on other social institutions (Deetz, 1992), others have raised increasingly pressing questions of social responsibility (Clarkson, 1991; Etzioni, 1988; Freeman & Gilbert, 1988). Increasingly, questions of values, morality, and ethics framed within the context of multiple stakeholders have dominated the discussions (Carroll, 1989). With the expanded use of information technologies, a changing workforce, and new marketplace pressures, even the most entrenched corporations are casting aside bureaucratic, authority-centered models in favor of attention to different stakeholders. Both economic and social/political forces align in pushing toward a fundamental reconception of the nature of working and doing business.
Communication researchers have not been absent from these discussions. In general they have called for a careful consideration of the social theory grounding the conception and study of communication and organizations (Deetz & Mumby, 1990; Putnam, Bantz, Deetz, Mumby, & Van Maanen, 1993; Putnam & Pacanowsky, 1983). These authors have called for a dynamic interrelation of macro and micro studies. Without micro studies, theoretical conceptions become sterile and detached. Without consideration of the macro context of organizations, various micro studies naively reproduce existing structural arrangements and advance sectional group interests in the name of the collective.
This essay utilizes a macro theory of ethical communicative practice to suggest a corrective for the mass of micro-studies of corporate culture. Cultural descriptions of corporate worklife have become a significant part of the
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 65
contemporary study of corporations. During the past fifteen years a massive body of literature has explored virtually every nuance of organizational life-their symbols, stones, rituals, metaphors, values, norms, dramas, and sexuality. But perhaps in no way are these studies theoretically weaker than in their accounts of power and control, especially when considered in the context of the evaluation, development, and "management" of organizational cultures (Smircich & Cals, 1987).
In this essay I wish to contribute to the discussion of how to evaluate cultures by (a) showing that commercial corporations are emerging as political sites requiring social evaluation, (b) describing the goals of a theory of ethical communicative practice, and (c) building a critical theory of organizations and communication. In the process, studies of corporate culture will be shown to be unable to go beyond micro descriptions of the social construction of organizational reality, to have failed to account for power in the construction process, and to have been unable to provide a means of evaluating different cultures without arbitrarily privileging one set of corporate interests. This essay provides a set of basic conceptions that could be used to direct corporate culture studies to greater social responsibility.
Commercial Organizations as Emerging Political Sites
In the next decade organizational communication studies will become far more connected to wider social issues and will become more politically sensitive. This can be characterized in two ways. First, issues in what has been called the "politics of everyday life" (see Deetz, 1992) will begin to have far greater impact on research in organizations. Organizational studies have quickly moved to the study of culture and have produced greater understanding of the social construction of identity, meaning, and knowledge; but few studies have demonstrated clear political sensitivities. As control through cultural management and the understanding of organizations as meaning producers increase, such sensitivities will increase (Alvesson, 1987a. 1987b, and 1993). As some say, the personal in the corporation has become increasingly political (see Deetz, in press; Mumby & Putnam, 1992). The recognition of the political issues focused attention to the social production of meaning, the participation of different groups in that process, and the possibility of massive systems of domination.
Second, multinational corporations will become more clearly seen as political entities as their impact on the wider society becomes more evident. The corporation has become a dominant institution in most societies, eclipsing both the power of the state and primary institutions such as the home and community in the ability to structure knowledge and meaning. Corporate practices pervade
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
66 Stanley A. Deetz
modem life by providing personal identity, structuring time and experience, influencing education and knowledge production, and directing entertainment and news production. After a decade of takeovers and mergers, the consolidation of power and lifeworld intrusion is becoming more of an issue. Many governments are becoming concerned about their own independence as corporations grow larger, their lock on information acquisition and distribution become greater, and economic decision making replaces political decision making as primary. The fragmentation of state power, the privatization and loss of state legitimacy, and the rise of new ethnic-based nationalism provides a climate ripe for greater influence by larger international corporations. In the United States a handful of corporations own and/or control nearly all significant mass media and most data bases and information systems (Bagdikian, 1990). No other group-religious, political, or governmental-could produce the billboards and media spots that define lifestyle, personal appearance, and values without the public objecting to propaganda. The extension of corporate values into public educational materials and curricula and the corporate development of extensive internal training programs can be read as a new colonialism, a colonization of the public's mind (see Schiller, 1989). The worldwide democracy movements have thus far focused on state control and the attempt to gain consumer goods, but less publicized concerns with a new economic colonialism and cultural imperialism best described as "McWorld" resides barely below the surface (Barber, 1992).
Clearly, corporate organizations are political sites. They serve as places where different values, forms of knowledge, and group interests are articulated and embodied in decisions, structures, and practices. As institutions they provide meaning and identity. Decisions are made within them that affect the public good. Corporate organizations make most decisions regarding the use of resources, the development of technologies, the products available, and the working relations among people. Understanding corporations as political entities calls for massive reinterpretation of past studies conducted for the sake of furthering corporate control and the development of new conceptions and studies to understand how their politics function. Doing this requires drawing together insights from several different theoretical and political agendas, but with a new motive.
Moreover, even though corporations are political sites, making political decisions, few are democratic even in democratic societies. The corporate site is filled with both shared and conflicting interests, but only certain conflicts are possible and others suppressed. The conflicts and conflict suppression evidence undemocratic advantage and systematically distorted decision making in content and process, and this advantage is secured by micro-power-laden practices that produce uninformed consent and discursive closure (see Clegg, 1989; Czarniawska-Joerges, 1988; Deetz, 1992; Kunda, 1992; Vallas, 1993). The
The New Jersey Journal of Communication. Volume J, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 67
analysis will require a reconception of power in relation to the politics of everyday life, a politics of meaning-experience-knowledge-sensuality. If such analyses become our agenda, we can contribute to reclaiming democracy as a continuous life practice of joint decision making against its reduction to "free" expression and election-day politics.
Goals of a Theory of Ethical Communication Practice
At the minimum a general theory of ethical communication in organizations should (a) provide a unified way of understanding the complex processes of organizational life, (b) direct the evaluation of existing organizational forms, and (c) provide guidance for the education of members and design of organizational structures (Deetz, 1982). First, organizational processes are exceptionally complex. Understanding phenomena like power and control involves economic, social, historical, psychological, and technological considerations. Current general theories often tend to be either monist or pluralist; either reducing alternative conceptions to a central driving one or oscillating between different and often incommensurable perspectives without a conception of how the "elephant" fits together. The alternative is to develop a complementary holist perspective whereby alternative conceptions are seen as different ways of articulating the same moment of interconnectedness (Albert, et. al., 1986). Critical theory developed as a holist perspective provides a way of drawing attention to a constellation of forces that can be unpacked along different horizons; the same phenomenon seen in several manners rather than one composed of distinctly different parts or forces.
Second, organizations both as institutions and processes of decision making purport to, and are supported and certified by society to, fulfill social "goods" and can be evaluated according to the accomplishment of these "goods." Society has a collective interest in the nature and quality of decisions made in organizations because of the use of natural resources, effects on the environment and local and general economies, and the need for high-quality products and services. Moreover, corporations do not just produce goods, services, and salaries, but foster the development or restriction of people, produce social knowledge and conceptions, and affect other social institutions. Corporate values and practices extend into nonwork life through time structuring, educational content, economic distributions, product development, and creation of needs. Social good is hardly a simple or neutral concept and can be understood only by reference to some general social theory (Carter & Jackson, 1987).
Much organizational research presumes moral neutrality of organizations and managerial decision making, leaving morality as an extra-organizational concern.
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
68 Stanley A. Deetz
Maclntyre (1984) devoted a major section of his work on ethics to demonstrate this "neutrality" as one of the great myths of our time. Efficiency and effectiveness alone cannot provide evaluative criteria. Efficiency and effectiveness are means of accomplishing some end; they are not ends themselves (Jehenson, 1984). Full meaningful employment versus optimal profit are only two of the possible competing goals. The entire conception of efficiency and effectiveness changes depending on the goal of focus (Cameron & Whetten, 1983; Keeley, 1984). Evaluation of organizational processes and cultures must begin with some concept of social good. What we want is implicitly involved in descriptions of what is (Gergen, 1978). Micro cultural analyses frequently hide their value commitments, but that does not make them nonexistent (Hamnett, Porter, Singh, & Kumar, 1984). The extent to which values enter into research design and the production of research results is well chronicled by Wagner & Gooding (1987) in their summary of participatory management research.
Third, a general theory provides direction to the continued development of individuals and organizations. Much of the current training and development literature focuses on a managerial conception of organizational needs. Departments of training and development and strategic planning specialize in performing their function from a specific point of view. Other groups have different and at times competing interests in personal and organizational development. Lower level employees may want to increase their skills so that the work is more interesting and they are more valuable and, thereby, have more freedom from managerial control. Their manner of attaining this may be to take more time away from work, and they may even engage in acts of resistance as job enrichment. The wider community may yet have different needs for the redesign of corporations and often uses pressure groups and legislation to accomplish change. From the owners' and workers' viewpoints, managerial self-interest may be a great cost to corporate efficiency and goal accomplishment; yet to managers, a focus on career concerns may be a natural and necessary feature of corporate functioning (e.g., Friend & Lang, 1988). A strong general theory cannot be one-sided in looking at developmental issues but considers all to be vantage points needing to be considered in the analysis. From a critical perspective, individual and corporate development must actively take into account the existence of competing interests and include processes that foster the articulation and accomplishment of the competing interests.
Critical Theory of Communication and Organization
Critical studies of organizational communication, like any general social theory, begin with basic conceptions regarding communication and organizations; each of these establishes a way of perceiving empirical events and
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 69
appeals to a set of empirical observations. In each case their validity arises abductively from their grounding and analytic power. These conceptions are briefly reviewed.
Organizations are Social-Historical Constructions
Organizations are constructed entities, sustained and transformed by processes internal and external to them. Existing organizations are intrinsically interrelated with the larger social, historical, and economic forces of the society(ies)/culture(s) of which they are a part (see Coleman, 1974). Marx, Weber, and Michel each provided early unified understandings of the development of industrialization and bureaucracy. Chandler (1977) in his analysis of the rise of managerial capitalism provided perhaps the most detailed record of the combination of technological, economic, educational, and ideological elements involved in the creation of the modern corporate form and the managerial domination in it.
Modern analyses, however, frequently treat organizations as quasi-natural entities. This appears to be equally true of presumably competing perspectives such as structural functionalism and corporate culture studies. By taking the present form of organizations for granted the research naively reproduces the value structures hidden in the now forgotten choices in construction (Giddens, 1979; Lukacs, 1971). For example, managerial prerogative is often assumed without investigating its legitimacy or relation to other potential claims, i.e., those of owners, consumers, or workers (see Storey, 1983). When organizations are treated as fixed entities their relation to the individual actor is overly simplified. Most accounts either implicitly or outright see the member as influenced/controlled by the structure/culture (Kanter, 1978) or as an autonomous agent capable of using those structures (Culbert & McOonough, 1980), but have trouble conceptualizing structure and agent as joint products. Weick (1979) is best known for his demonstration that organizing rather than organization best describes work life. Organizations are real only in their enactment in processes of organizing. Organizations are not only historically produced, they must be reproduced across historical moments. Weick is not always clear that these enactments are not freely chosen but happen under real historical conditions of power difference. While employees appear to consent in reenactment of organizational structures, this consent arises under both ideological control and constrained material choices (Burawoy, 1986).
Corporate culture research has followed suit. Culture is often defined as shared values and practices, and thereby the processes by which consensus was reached are overlooked (see Martin, 1992, for an extended critique). Perhaps culture is better described by the set of contestable issues to which the present
The New Jersey Journal of Communication. Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
70 Stanley A. Deetz
values are the answer. Rarely have cultural studies in organizations situated their studies within the context of the wider host culture (see Smircich & Cals, 1987). When history has been considered at all it is usually the history of the firm or the founder rather than social cultural changes.
From the standpoint of critical theory, the widespread emergence of cultural research itself must be explained. The study of the human, subjective side of organizational life has gradually shifted from concern with climate to quality of work life to cultural studies. But nothing has changed in the attempt to manage the subjective as well as objective processes at work. The interest in culture can be partially attributed to the relative success of the Japanese in relation to U.S. competitors and the perception that cultural differences rather than resource allocation and quality of executive decision making was responsible for this success. Managing culture appears as a natural extension of "legitimate" corporate adjustment. But it is not simply the need to develop a different culture that is at issue, but corporations' presumed need to control culture.
Corporate cultural studies can be understood in relation to the growing need for new forms of control in a situation of growing diversity and failure of alternative means of control. Several social conditions have led to development of control through consent rather than through the direct exercise of power (see Deetz & Mumby, 1990; Lukes, 1974). Works like those of Burawoy (1979), Edward (1979), and Willis (1977) have described the different processes by which consent to control is accomplished (see Vallas, 1993, for an empirical test of these theories). In order for consent to be willingly given by employees, a strong ideology is needed to legitimize managerially enacted corporate positions, values, and goals. Alvesson (1987a) has provided the most complete analysis of the historically situated "need" for cultural studies. The corporate cultural studies partially answer management's current need for new legitimation of their power, position, and values. The situation intensifies as older forms of legitimacy are eroded and the cost of opposition, motivation problems, and noncompliance becomes greater. Some of the reasons for this are (a) the cost of applying sanctions, (b) changing concepts of authority, (c) the cost of oppositional actions in complex, capital- intensive production, (d) fragmented and monotonous work for over qualified workers, (e) competing values from increased ethnic identity and multinational operations, and (f) minimal identification with increasingly centralized organizations (Alvesson, 1987a).
Organizations Embody and Represent Competing Human Interests
Organizational processes and products fulfill certain human needs. These needs can be described as the interests or "stake" that stockholders, managers, workers, consumers, suppliers, and the wider society have in the organization
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 71
(Carroll, 1989; March & Simon, 1958; Preston, 1989). Beyond these work- related distinctions, interest differences can often be demonstrated along gender and racial lines. Organizational structures, communication and decision systems, technologies, and work design influence the representation and fulfillment of different human interests. While people produce organizations, all people are not equal in their ability to produce or reproduce organizations that fulfill their interests (Deetz, 198S). Organizations are thus never politically neutral. Order, efficiency, and effectiveness as values aid the reproduction of advantages already vested in an organizational form (Jehenson, 1984). Organizational life could be a site of political struggle as different groups try to realize their own interests. Under such conditions power could be conceptualized as that which makes possible the production and reproduction of organizational structures and decisions that aid in the accomplishment of one's own interests. The more equal the power and opportunity of diverse groups to represent their own interests, the more explicit the conflicts and potentially more mutually satisfactory the decisions. But power differences distort representation, and conflict is often suppressed under a veneer of integration. The researcher's choice to see an organization as consensual and integrated or as conflictual and having potential suppressed conflict is usually based on whether the researcher wishes to advance the dominant current interests or describe the relation of the many interests rather than particular empirical conditions.
Known power differences often lead to inequitable interest representation, but power differences are sometimes quite subtle. Different stakeholders are not always in a position to analyze their own interests, owing to the lack of adequate undistorted information or insight into fundamental processes. Both stockholders and workers can be disadvantaged by particular financial accounting practices (Willmott, 1983) and the structuring and/or withholding of information (Zmud, 1990). Further, the presence of ideology in the external social world or at the workplace, perpetuated through legitimation and socialization processes, can indicate the inability of certain or even all groups to understand or assess carefully the implicit values carried in their everyday practices, linguistic forms, and perceptual experience (Baudrillard, 1975; Bourdieu, 1977; Hall, 1985; Pcheux, 1982; Thompson, 1984). Under such conditions power is best represented as a system of domination since the empirical manifestation is that of free consent and reproduction of structures that work against fulfillment of interests (Burawoy, 1979; Deetz & Mumby, 1990; Mumby, 1987).
Alvesson (1987b) argued that what has passed for culture in organizations is better understood as ideology since it often represents a symbol system deployed by actors to define as well as secure their sectional interests. This can be seen in a number of characteristics of cultural studies particularly as they imply value standards for cultural evaluation. In general, (a) cultural studies can be seen to
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
72 Stanley A. Deetz
emphasize the managers' picture of successful integration and corporate goals; (b) top management's culture is often treated as the organizational culture; (c) socialization and legitimation practices are treated neutrally or as positively affecting culture (when they work right) and as needed where cultures fail rather than as processes securing advancing domination; (d) cultural phenomenon, e.g, stories, perceptions, and images, are judged on their functional value rather than truth value; and (e) conflict and contradictions tend to be downplayed in the discovery and presentation of culture (if only to make the concept describe something real in the organization) and as functional problems where they exist (see Alvesson, 1987a, for development).
Clearly the worker and the general society have interests in work that are only partially and indirectly shared by management and owners. These include the quality of the work experience and work environment, mental health and safety, the skill and intellectual development of the worker, the carry-over of thinking patterns and modes of action to social and political life, and the production of personal and social identity (see Alvesson, 1987a, for development; also Elden, 1981; Pateman, 1970). The possible tension between these interests and those of efficient production are often suppressed in organizational practices and discourse. Martin (1990) showed how both the bringing of the day care into the plant (rather than use flextime for parents) and various narratives can suppress the tension between work and child-rearing. Sorting out the differences between successful integration and conflict suppression requires detailed micro analyses, but also requires a macro analysis of the social conditions giving us the tools to structure the issue.
Habermas (1971,1975,1984,1987) has traced the social/historical emergence of technical rationality over competing forms of reason. As Habermas described, technical reasoning is instrumental, tends to be governed by the theoretical and hypothetical, and focuses on control through the development of means-ends chains. The natural opposite to this Habermas conceptualizes as a practical interest. Practical reasoning focuses on the process of understanding and mutual determination of the ends to be sought rather than control and development of means of goal accomplishment (Apel, 1979; Stablein & Nord, 1985). As Habermas (1971) described the practical interest:
a constitutive interest in the preservation and expansion of the intersubjeclivitY of possible action-oriented mutual understandings. The understanding of meaning is directed in its very structure toward the attainment of possible consensus among actors in the framework of a self-understanding derived from tradition (p. 310).
In a balanced system these two forms of reasoning become natural complements. But, in the contemporary social situation, the form and content of modern social
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2. Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 73
science and the social constitution of expertise align with organizational structures to produce the domination of technical reasoning (Dgot, 1987; Fischer, 1990). To the extent that technical reasoning dominates, it lays claim to the entire concept of rationality and alternative forms of reason appear irrational. To a large extent studies of the "human" side of organizations (climate, job enrichment, quality of work life, worker participation programs, and culture) have each been transformed from alternative ends into new means to be brought under technical control for extending the dominant group interests of the corporation (Alvesson, 1987a). The productive tension between the two becomes submerged to the efficient accomplishment of often unknown but surely "rational" and legitimate corporate goals. We need to consider the actual processes by which this happens and look at how these interests relate to different sections of the organization. Cultural studies talk much about the social construction of meaning but have tended to study constructed meanings. When they turn to a process orientation they move to an instrumental reasoning process whereby they study socialization or cultural management, both lending themselves to the study of the reproduction of culture but not to an understanding of its production.
The technical reasoning process not only holds sway over practical reasoning, but also over what Habermas called the critical-emancipatory interest. The primary thrust of this interest is the process of reflection whereby arbitrary historical restrictions can be made available for self-control and collective choice (Habermas, 1971; Stablein & Nord, 1985). Since this interest reflects the collective concern with what we will become as a species, it is probably best referred to as a moral interest. Unlike most creatures, human beings are born with a relatively open nature and lack a clear instinctual basis for action choices. The cumulative knowledge of the species is passed through socialization rather than biologically, and social institutions provide much of the perceptual and action guidance carried instinctually by animals (Berger, Berger & Kellner, 1973; Berger & Kellner, 1965). The relative freedom provided by this creates opportunities and responsibilities. What social science theories say about people have consequences for what people do and ultimately become (Apel, 1979). Organizational structures affect the human character both directly through the work experience and indirectly through products and influences on other social institutions. No clear basis exists for the privileging of one group or interest over others in this human dialogue. Ideally a communication system would aid in the understanding and representation of different personal and group interests.
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
74 Stanley A. Deetz
Communication as an Attempt to Reach Mutual Understanding is the Moral Foundation for All Discourse
The difficulty of evaluating corporate cultures is usually twofold. First, since evaluative criteria manifest a point of view, the charge of ethno- or group-centrism is likely by any group negatively evaluated. And, second, in evaluation the culture becomes abstracted, losing its attachment to the local site circumstances and reasons for specific choices. If such criticisms cannot be answered, evaluative criteria lose their critical force and existing (often abstract and ethno-/group-centric) cultures remain beyond scrutiny (Waltzer, 1987).
A critical theory of communicative action is able to move beyond each of these difficulties. The critical program begins with a description of the immanent conditions of the empirical acts of discourse within the necessary value conditions of the site culture, and it is upon these grounds that evaluation takes place. While these values may be harder to identify than the self-professed values in the community and while the evaluative consequences may be objectionable to some (they may oppose dominant group interests benefiting by presumed neutrality of cultural studies), the empirical and nongroup-centric status is not questioned (though a debate regarding them would always be welcome).
Further, culture from a critical perspective is not an autonomous object to be evaluated. Culture has no existence except through everyday practices, routine settings, and discursive acts. In these, culture is produced, sustained, and reproduced. Evaluation is necessarily of the micro practices that compose culture. Critical theory does not offer a description of the model culture but rather what might be called minimalist conditions for ongoing moral activity. Good culture is an ongoing accomplishment produced by forums for continuous conflict expression and resolution. Instant good culture is no easier to prescribe than instant rationality in scientific progress. Progress is made within real communities engaging in claims and counterclaims (Apel, 1979; Deetz, 1990a, 1992). The production of moral knowledge, like the production of scientific knowledge, rests on the minimal discursive conditions of truth, justice, and freedom. The specification of these conditions is provided in the theory of communicative action and anticipated/described in actual sites.
The focus of communication analysis is on the participatory conditions for the production of understanding through communication as distinct from the strategic reproduction of meaning. Gadamer (1975) and Habermas (1984, 1987) have shown how strategic uses of communication are dependent on a more basic communicative attempt to reach mutual understanding. While their conceptions differ regarding the nature of the process, they both emphasize the continual social formation of consensus in interaction beyond the intentions and opinions
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 75
of the participants. Mutual understanding focuses attention on reaching openly formed agreement regarding the subject matter under discussion, rather than on the agreement of the perspective of the participants (see Deetz, 1990a). Habermas (1984) presented his position:
Processes of reaching understanding aim at an agreement that meets the conditions of rationally motivated assent [Zustimmung] to the content of an utterance. A communicatively achieved agreement has a rational basis; it cannot be imposed by either party, whether inslrumenUlly through intervention in the situation directly or strategically....This is not a question of the predicates an observer uses when describing processes of reaching understanding, but of the pretheoretical knowledge of competent speakers, who can themselves distinguish situations in which they are causally exerting an influence upon others from those where they are coming to an understanding with them....|T]he use of language with an orientation to reaching understanding is the original mode of language use, upon which indirect understanding, giving something to understand or letting something be understood, and the instrumental use of language in general, are parasitic (pp. 286-8).
Figure 1 describes the key terms and relations in Habermas's analysis. Such an analysis depends on a careful description of the attempt to reach mutual understanding, a socially based description of morally guided dispute resolution, and a description of communicative difficulties, i.e., communicative processes that preclude mutual understanding. From a participation perspective, communication difficulties arise from communication practices that preclude value debate and conflict, which substitute images and imaginary relations for self presentation and truth claims, that arbitrarily limit access to communication channels and forums, and that then lead to decisions based on arbitrary authority relations (See Deetz, 1990a&b, 1992, and Forester 1989).
Trying to identify a normative standard for any human enterprise is filled with pitfalls. Most scholars have given up on the attempt to privilege certain forms of communication or social organization on philosophical grounds, though many in the society still argue for certain basic human rights. While most today refuse to articulate normative principles at all, I have not yet seen a work on communication that does not implicitly advance some good/bad, better/worse, healthy /pathological position. In most cases the standard is implicit and not open to debate, though certainly present and operant. Even without proclaiming a universal foundation, it appears evident that the wider culture presumes a participatory standard even though it rarely uses this standard to evaluate the culture of its corporations.
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
76 Stanley A. Deetz
Action Oriented to Consensual Openly Strategic Latently Strategic Reaching Understanding Action Action Action
/ \ Action Discourse Manipulation Systematically
D i s m e d
These action types can be distinguished by virtue of their relations ID the validity basis of speech:
a) Communicative vs. Strait fie Action. In communicative action a basis of mutually recognized validity claims is presupposed: this is not me case in strategic action. In the communicative attitude it is possible to reach a direct understanding oriented to validity claims: in the strategic attitude, by contrast, only an indirect understanding via determinative indicators is piwiflite.
b) Action Oriented to Reaching Understanding vs. Consensual Action. In consensual action agreement about implicitly raised validity claims can be presupposed as a background consensus by reason of common rtrfmitmpt of die situations: such agreement is supposed to be arrived at in action oriented to rcscninff
c) Action vs. Discourse. In communicative action it is naively supposed that implicitly raised validity claims can be vindicated (or made immediately plausible by way of question and answer). In discourse, by contrast, the validity claims raised for statements sod norms are hypodietJcaUy bracketed and thematically examined. As a communicative action, die participants in discourse retain a cooperative attitude.
d) Manipulative Action vt. Systematically Distorted Communication. Whereas in systematically distorted communication at least one half of the participants deceives himself about the fact that the basis of consensual action is only apparently being maintained, the manipulator deceives at least one of the other participants about his own strategic attitude, in which he deliberately behaves in a pgfwiocflfiiTfniif ^ manner.
From Communication and the Evolution of Society. Copyright O 1979 by Beacon Press (Introduction and Translation). German Text O 1976 by Suhrfcamp Verlag. Frankfurt am Main.
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1991
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 77
Following Apel (1979), a twofold foundation for regulative communication principles can be advanced within most western societies:
First, in all actions and omissions, it should be a nutter of ensuring the survival of the human species qua real communication community. Second, it should be a matter of realizing the ideal communication community in the real one. The first goal is the necessary condition for the second; and the second goal provides the first with meaning....(T]he task of realizing the ideal communication community [aims at] the elimination of all socially determined asymmetries of interpersonal dialogue (pp. 282-3).
The key issues for us here rest in the relation of the real and ideal communication community and the nature of socially determined asymmetries. The significance of the ideal communication community rests in preacceptance by each interactant when engaging in communication. The argument here is not simply that we should believe in and try to create the ideal. Rather each and every interaction assumes the ideal as a background for each communicative act performed. Even the most strategic act of self-interested expression takes place in a language community where presumptions of reciprocity and symmetry exist.
For example, lying can work to one's advantage only in a community where honesty is assumed. The act of lying has to present an anticipation of truthfulness. From a participation standpoint, the lie's primary social violation does not come in the deception per se, for the speaker is as much removing him/herself from representation in the distortion of the decision making process. The lie, however, functions to undermine the social consensus necessary for the act of communication to function at all. The lie not only is false participation but anticipates and at once denies the social possibility of communication. The support for participation as a normative ground is thus based on the presumption or anticipation of some ideal communication situation by each real communication community. It is internal to everyday communication (even though implicit and only partly realized) rather than external to it. The anticipation of the ideal community has been demonstrated in two ways. First, Gadamer (1975), in developing an ontology of understanding, demonstrated the social character of the formation of experience that precedes each and every expression of it-the hermeneutic situation. Second, Habermas (1979, 1984) and Apel (1979) have shown that the illocutionary structure in discourse demonstrates the types of claims presumed as possible in a society and, thus, anticipates the forms of support and dispute in contested claims. In both cases the "hermeneutic" and "ideal speech" situations are counterfactual-that is, rarely fully realized-but each is a necessary anticipation even when violated. These ideas are perhaps best seen in Habermas's (1979) description of the social presumptions present in dispute resolutions.
The New Jersey Journal of Communication. Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
78 Stanley A. Deetz
Basically, Habermas argued that every speech act can function in communication by virtue of common presumptions made by speaker and listener. Even when these presumptions are not fulfilled in an actual situation, they serve as a base of appeal as failed conversation turns to argumentation regarding the disputed validity claims. The basic presumptions and validity claims arise out of four shared domains of reality: the external world, human relations, the individual's internal world, and language. The claims raised in each are truth, correctness, sincerity, and intelligibility, respectively. Thus we can claim that each competent, communicative act represents facts, establishes legitimate social relations, discloses the speaker's point of view, and is understandable. Any claim that cannot be brought to open dispute serves as the basis for systematically distorted communication (see again Figure 1). The ideal speech situation must be recovered to avoid or overcome such distortions. It should be clear that this conception not only applies to the everyday and ordinary acts of communication but also models the ideal processes by which collective decisions can be made. They can be used in this sense as a guide to denning institutions and practices that advance participation and democracy (see Denhardt, 1981). Participation modeled in this way is central to our moral responsibility to decide what our society will be and what kind of people we will become. Such principles should be central to corporate design and human interaction within them (see Knights & Willmott, 1985). Four basic guiding conditions are necessary for free and open participation in the resolution of claims.
First, the attempt to reach understanding presupposes a symmetrical distribution of the chances to choose and apply speech acts. This would specify the minimal conditions of skills and opportunities for expression including access to meaningful forums and channels of communication. When we extend these through a consideration of communication technologies, the initial focus must be on equal access, distribution of training opportunities, and development of technologies that can be used to express a full variety of human experiences. Such a principle argues against privileged expression forms and routines and rules that advantage certain experiences, identities, and expressions.
Second, the understanding and representation of the external world must be freed from privileged preconceptions in the social development of "truth." Ideally, participants have the opportunity to express interpretations and explanations with conflicts resolved in reciprocal claims and counterclaims without privileging authority, particular epistemoiogies, or forms of data. The freedom from preconception implies an examination of ideologies that would privilege one form of discourse, disqualify certain possible participants, and universalize any particular sectional interest. Communication technologies must be examined with regard to how they function ideologically to privilege certain
The New Jersey Journal of Communication. Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 79
perceptions and forms of data and obscure historical processes. Third, participants need to have the opportunity to establish legitimate social
relations and norms for conduct and interaction. The rights and responsibilities of people are not given in advance by nature nor by a privileged, universal value structure, but are negotiated through interaction. The reification of organizational structures and their maintenance without possible dispute and the presence of managerial prerogatives are examples of potential immorality in corporate discourse. Acceptance of views because of an individual's privilege or authority or because of the nature of the medium represents a possible illegitimate relation. Authority itself is legitimate only if redeemable by appeal to an open, interactional formation of relations freed from the appeal to other authorities. Values and norms legitimately exist in society by the achievement of rational consensus subject to appeals to warrants supporting the assumed social relations. To the extent that particular technologies embody values, hide authority relations, or reify social relations, they participate in domination.
Finally, interactants need to be able to express their own authentic interests, needs, and feelings. This would require freedom from various coercive and hegemonic processes by which the individual is unable to form experience openly, to develop and sustain competing identities, and to form expressions presenting them. Certain communication technologies and structures can produce particular imagistic relations and establish a type of distance that denies the formation of "otherness" and the interrogation of self, for example, when data or information is available and is treated as objective without an equal availability of understanding of the means of data or information construction. In such circumstances, they function immorally. The examination of technology in its structuring of the interior would be important to understanding its effect on the accomplishment of such an ideal (see Deetz, 1990b; Turkle, 1984).
If truth, justice, and freedom are irreducible moral principles that are immanent in cultural presumptions, there is then the moral compulsion to approach the study of culture in ways that are aimed toward the ultimate realization of such principles. For the student of organizational communication and culture, this entails designing methods of inquiry meant to describe the empirical constraints on the full realization of communication aimed at reaching understanding and to evaluate actually existing moral codes against the universal standards that are immanent within these codes but that fail to be legitimized by cultural actors because of strategically manipulated or systematically distorted communication. This does not preclude empirical research aimed at understanding the range and depth of meanings that form the communicative bases of cultural forms of life, but it does morally legislate against engaging in empirical inquiry under the amoral guise of value neutrality. For to the extent that such a purportedly amoral stance suppresses what are in reality its
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
50 Stanley A. Deetz
underlying interests, so it must surely function also to retard the moral development of local cultures. Among other things, this constitutes a shirking of one's responsibility as a moral-rational participant in our global culture. The cultural processes to be valued are not simply the bringing of liberal democracy or greater freedom of speech to organizations as an evaluative standard. Many modern employee participation and team management plans give the appearance of open communication but hide the exclusion of significant groups and may reproduce domination by consent. Democratic conceptions often encourage free expression as the opportunity to represent self-interests, but do not foster the development of the community or mutual understanding (Barber, 1984). The quality of particular management styles, communication processes, and discussion forums cannot be simply determined in advance but is empirically determinable within a morally guided research program.
Cultural analyses that reveal hidden sources of power and the ways decisions become distorted based on power moves foster the process of making corporations responsible to their many stakeholders. They also aid in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of corporations in meeting broad-based social goals in the production of goods and services. In light of increasing evidence of the costs associated with our current forms of management and limited representation in decision making, we should also expect more efficient use of social resources and greater competitiveness. Such cultures are not always easy to create in the short term but it helps to have a clearer vision of what such cultures are like and to conduct research that enables intervention in situations that are considerably less than ideal.
References
Albeit, M., Cagan, L., Chomsky, N., Hahnel, R., King, M., Sargent, L., & Sklar, H. (1986). Liberating theory. Boston: South End Press.
Alvesson, M. (1987a). Organizational theory and technocratic consciousness: Rationality. ideology and quality of work. New York: de Gruyter.
Alvesson, M. (1987b). Organizations, culture and ideology. International Studies of Management and Organizations, 17, 4-18.
Alvesson, M. (1993). Cultural-ideological modes of management control. In S. A. Deetz (Ed.), Communication Yearbook 16 (pp. 3-42). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (Ed.) (1992). Critical management studies. London, England: Sage. Apel, K. O. (1979). The a priori of the communication community and the foundation of ethics:
The problem of a rational foundation of ethics in the scientific age (G. Adey and D. Frisby, Trans.). In Towards a Transformation of Philosophy (pp. 225-300). London, England: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bagdikian, B. (1990). The media monopoly (3rd ed.). Boston: Beacon Press. Barber, B. (1984). Strong democracy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Barber, B. (1992). Jihad vs. McWorld: How the world is both falling apart and coming
together—and what it means for democracy. The Atlantic, 269, 53-65.
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume I, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 81
Baudrillard, J. (1975). The mirror of production (M. Poster, Trans.). St. Louis: Telos Press. Berger, P., Berger, B., & Kellner, H. (1973). The homeless mind: Modernization and
consciousness. New York: Random House. Berger, P., & Kellner, H. (1965). Arnold Gehlen and the theory of institutions. Social Research,
32, 110-115. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press. Burawoy, M. (1979). Manufacturing consent: Changes in the labor process under monopoly
capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Burawoy, M. (1986). The politics of production: Factory regimes under capitalism and socialism.
New York: Routledge Chapman and Hall Cameron, K., & Whetten, D. (Eds.) (1983). Organizational effectiveness: A comparison of multiple
models. New York: Academic. Carroll, A. (1989). Business and society: Ethics and stakeholder management. Cincinnati:
South-Western. Carter, P., & Jackson, N. (1987). Management, myth, and metatheory-from scarcity to post
scarcity. International Studies of Management and Organizations, 17, 64-89. Chandler, A. (1977). The visible hand: The managerial revolution in American business.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Clarkson, M. (1991). Defining, evaluating, and managing corporate social performance: The
stakeholder management model. Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy, 12, 331-358.
Clegg, S. (1989). Frameworks of power. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Coleman, J. (1974). Power and the structure of society. New York: Norton.
Culbert, S., & McDonough, J. (1980). The invisible war: Pursuing self-interests at work. Toronto: Wiley.
Czarniawska-Joerges, B. (1988). Ideological control in nonideological organizations. New York: Praeger.
Deetz, S. A. (1982). Critical-interpretive research in organizational communication. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 46, 131-149.
Deetz, S. A. (1985). Ethical considerations in cultural research in organizations. In P. Frost, L. Moore, L. Louis, C. Lundberg, & I. Martin (Eds.), Organizational culture (pp. 251-269). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Deetz, S. A. (1990a) Reclaiming the subject matter as a moral foundation for interpersonal interaction. Communication Quarterly, 38, 226-43.
Deetz, S. A. (1990b). Representation of interests and the new communication technologies: Issues in democracy and policy. In J. Medhurst, A. Gonzales & T. Peterson (Eds.), Communication and the culture of technology (pp. 43-62). Pullman: Washington State University Press.
Deetz, S. A. (1992). Democracy in an age of corporate colonization: Developments in communication and the politics of everyday life. Albany: SUNY Press.
Deetz, S. A. (in press). The micro-politics of identity formation in the workplace: The case of a knowledge intensive firm. Human Studies.
Deetz, S. A., & Mumby, D. K. (1990). Power, discourse, and the workplace: Reclaiming the critical tradition in communication studies in organizations. In J. Anderson (Ed.), Communication Yearbook 13 (pp. 18-47). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Denhardt, R. (1981). In the shadow of organization. Lawrence, KS: Regents Press. Dgot, V. (1987). Corporate culture and the concept of rationality in corporate models. International
Studies of Management and Organizations, 17, 19-39.
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
82 Stanley A. Deetz
Edward, R. (1979). Contested terrain: The transformation of the workplace in the twentieth century. New York: Basic Books.
Elden, M. (1981). Political efficacy at work: The connection between more autonomous forms of workplace organization and a more participatory politics. American Political Science Review, 75, 43-58.
Etzioni, A. (1988). The moral imperative. New York: Free Press. Fischer, F. (1990). Technocracy and the politics of expertise. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Forester, J. (1989). Planning in the face of power. Berkeley: University of California Press. Freeman R. & Gilbert, D. Jr. (1988). Corporate strategy and the search for ethics. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Friend, I., &. Lang, L. (1988). An empirical test of the impact of managerial self-interest on
corporate capital structure. Journal of Finance, 43, 271-281. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method (G. Barden & J. Cumming, Trans.). New York: Seabury
Press. Gergen, K. (1978). Toward generative theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36,
1344-1360. Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory. Berkeley: University of California Press. Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and human interests (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston: Beacon
Press. Habermas, J. (1975). Legitimation crisis (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston,
MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action, volume 1: Reason and the rationalization
of society (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicative action, volume 2: Lifeworld and system (T.
McCarthy, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press. Hall, S. (1985). Signification, representation, ideology: Althusser and the post-structuralist debates.
Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 2, 91-114. Hamnett, M., Porter, D., Singh, A., & Kumar, K. (1984). Ethics, politics, and international social
science research. Honolulu, HI: East-West Center and University of Hawaii Press. Jehenson, R. (1984). Effectiveness, expertise and excellence as ideological fictions: A contribution
to a critical phenomenology of the formal organization. Human Studies, 7, 3-21. Kanter, R. (1978). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books. Keeley, M. (1984). Impartiality and participant interest theories of organizational effectiveness.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 29, 1-25. Knights, D., &. Willmott, H. (1985). Power and identity in theory and practice. Sociological
Review, 33, 22-46. Kunda, G. (1992). Engineering culture: Control and commitment in a high-tech corporation.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Lukacs, G. (1971). History and class consciousness (R. Livingstone, Trans.). Cambridge: MIT
Press. Lukes, S. (1974). Power: A Radical View. London, England: Macmillan. Maclntyre, A. (1984). After virtue: A study in moral theory (2nd ed.). Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame Press. March, J., & Simon, H. (1958). Organizations. New York: Wiley. Martin, J. (1990). Deconstructing organizational taboos: The suppression of gender conflict in
organizations. Organization Science, 1, 339-59. Martin, J. (1992). Cultures in organizations: Three perspectives. Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press.
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume J, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
Ethical Communicative Practice 83
Mumby, D. K. (1987). The political function of narrative in organizations. Communication Monographs, 54, 113-127.
Mumby, D. K., & Putnam, L. (1992). The politics of emotion: A feminist reading of "bounded rationality." Academy of Management Review, 17, 465-486.
Pateman, C. (1970). Participation and democratic theory. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Pcheux, M. (1982). Language, semantics and ideology: Stating the obvious (Harbans Nagpal, Trans.). London, England: Macmillan.
Preston, L. (1989). Stakeholder management and corporate performance. Journal of Behavioral Economics, 19, 361-375.
Putnam, L., Bantz, C., Deetz, S. A., Mumby, D. K., & Van Maanen, J. (1993). Ethnography versus critical theory: Debating organizational research. Journal of Management Inquiry, 2(3), 221-235.
Putnam, L., & Pacanowsky, M. (Eds.) (1983). Communication and organizations: An interpretive perspective. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Schiller, H. (1989) Culture, inc.: The corporate takeover of public expression. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Smircich, L., & Cals, M. (1987). Organizational culture: A critical assessment. In F. Jablin, L. Putnam, K. Roberts, & L. Porter (Eds.), Handbook of organizational communication (pp. 228-263). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Stablein, R., & Nord, W. (1985). Practical and emancipatory interests in organizational symbolism: A review and evaluation. Journal of Management, 11, 13-28.
Storey, J. (1983). Managerial prerogative and the question of control. London, England: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Thompson, J. (1984). Studies in the theory of ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press. Turkic, S. (1984). The second self: Computer and the human spirit. New York: Simon & Schuster. Vallas, S. (1993). Power in the workplace: The politics of production at AT&T. Albany: SUNY
Press. Wagner, J. III, & Gooding, R. (1987). Effects of societal trends on participation research.
- Administrative Science Quarterly, 32, 241-262. Waltzer, M. (1987). Interpretation and social criticism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society (G. Roth and C Wittich, Trans.). Berkeley: University of
California Press. Weber, M. (1958). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York: Scribners. Weick, K. (1979). The social psychology of organizing (2nd. ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labor. New York: Columbia University Press. Willmott, H. (1983). Paradigms for accounting research. Accounting, Organizations and Society,
8, 389-405. Zmud, R. (1990). Opportunities for strategic information manipulation through new information
technologies. Organizations and communication technologies (pp. 95-116). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 1, No. 2, Fall 1993
D ow
nl oa
de d
by [
U ni
ve rs
it y
of D
ay to
n] a
t 07
:0 6
01 S
ep te
m be
r 20
15
