The situated organization : case studies in the pragmatics of communication research

"What happens when a fresh but solid foothold in the theory of pragmatics starts to interact with a range of novel case studies in communication research? Read it yourself and be inspired!"-Hans Weigand, Tilburg University, the Netherlands "The Situated Organization is an innovative work that accomplishes its purpose: to present its readers with theories and to reflect upon such theories through empirical studies."-Marlene Marchiori, Londrina State University, Brazil "The Situated Organization was an eye-opener to me. It presents and illustrates new, fundamental, and important insights in what organizations are from a communication point of view, and how essential communication is in understanding what organization is. These insights can contribute beyond communication studies, in realms like organization science, management science, information systems, and enterprise engineering."-Stijn Hoppenbrouwers, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands "This book develops an interesting conceptual framework based on the idea of `organization-as thirdness'. Applying concepts from semiotic, philosophy of language, ethnomethodology, etc; the authors put forth a convincing argument demonstrating the constructive role of communication in organization."-Sylvie Grosjean, University of Ottawa The Situated Organization explores recent research in organizational communication, emphasizing the organization as constructed in and emerging out of communication practices. It focuses not only on how an organizations members understand the purposes of the organization through communication, but also on how they realize and recognize the organization itself as they work within it. This text provides an alternative viewpoint to the idea of `organization-as-network,' viewing organization instead as a configuration of agencies and their fields of practice. It serves as an original, comprehensive, and well-written text, elaborated by case studies that make the theory come to life. It has been developed for students at all levels of study in organizational communication, offering a systematic introduction to conducting empirical field research.