Eric M. Eisenberg

Ambiguity as Strategy in Organizational Communication.

This paper argues that while most teachers, researchers, and practitioners of organizational communication encourage clarity, a critical examination of communication processes in organizations reveals that clarity is both non‐normative and not a sensible standard against which to gauge individual or organizational effectiveness. People in organizations confront multiple situational requirements, develop multiple and often conflicting goals, and respond with communicative strategies which do not always minimize ambiguity, but are nonetheless effective. Strategic ambiguity is essential to organizing in that it: (1) promotes unified diversity, (2) facilitates organizational change, and (3) amplifies existing source attributions and preserves privileged positions.

Jamming: Transcendence Through Organizing

Modern communication theory focuses to a disproportionate degree on the cultivation of shared meanings, interpretations, and emotions, and insufficiently on how coordinated action may occur under conditions of minimal self-disclosure and limited consensus. Borrowing a term from music and sports, this article describes characteristics of “jamming” experiences, instances of fluid behavioral coordination that occur without detailed knowledge of personality. Two biases in prior work—individual bias and strong culture bias—are cited as reasons why experiences like jamming have been ignored in the literature. Examples are given of how these experiences strike a balance between autonomy and interdependence, and can even be transcendent. Four preconditions for jamming—skill, structure, setting, and surrender— are also provided. Finally, possibilities for jamming in formal organizations and society are explored.Modern communication theory focuses to a disproportionate degree on the cultivation of shared meanings, interpretations, and emotions, and insufficiently on how coordinated action may occur under conditions of minimal self-disclosure and limited consensus. Borrowing a term from music and sports, this article describes characteristics of “jamming” experiences, instances of fluid behavioral coordination that occur without detailed knowledge of personality. Two biases in prior work—individual bias and strong culture bias—are cited as reasons why experiences like jamming have been ignored in the literature. Examples are given of how these experiences strike a balance between autonomy and interdependence, and can even be transcendent. Four preconditions for jamming—skill, structure, setting, and surrender— are also provided. Finally, possibilities for jamming in formal organizations and society are explored.

Conflict at Disneyland: A root‐metaphor analysis

This field study uses metaphor analysis to illuminate recent conflicts at Disneyland. A 30‐year change of emphasis of root‐metaphors from “drama”; to “family”; reflects fundamental differences in world‐view between management and employees. Recently, economic problems brought some of these differences to the surface, triggering a complex confrontation involving first‐ and second‐order issues. The implications of this confrontation for the future of Disneyland are discussed. Metaphor analysis is offered as one potentially useful method for studying the symbolic, dynamic aspects of organizational conflict.

Communication in Emergency Medicine: Implications for Patient Safety1 This study was funded by a generous grant from the National Patient Safety Foundation.

Emergency medicine is largely a communicative activity, and medical mishaps that occur in this context are too often the result of vulnerable communication processes. In this year-long qualitative study of two academic emergency departments, an interdisciplinary research team identified four such processes: triage, testing and evaluation, handoffs, and admitting. In each case, we found that narrative rationality (the patients story) was consistently subjugated to technical rationality (actionable lists). Process changes are proposed to encourage caregivers to either reconsider their course of action or request additional contextual information. A heightened awareness of the bias for technical over narrative rationality and a better recognition of uncertainty in emergency medicine communication are important first steps toward anticipating potential failures and ensuring patient safety.

Openness and Decision Making in the Search for a University Provost.

This article chronicles a year‐long investigation into one universitys search for a provost. Utilizing a communication approach to organizational decision making, we identify key elements in the search and selection process and explore them from multiple perspectives. Specifically, we employ Martins (1992) typology of approaches to organisational culture to highlight three narrative views of the process as integrated, differentiated, and fragmented. We conclude that search committee members use differing interpretations as rhetorical resources for performing arguments to various audiences. State “sunshine laws” and assumptions about rationality and social hierarchy were elements of a broader “cultural nexus” of influences on the decision process.

Transforming Emergency Medicine Through Narrative: Qualitative Action Research at a Community Hospital

Emergency departments struggle daily to save lives in an environment characterized by staff shortages, limited resources, and an expanding patient population. This qualitative action research study focused on the nature of communication in an urban emergency room (ER) and the organizing practices employed by staff to cope with these environmental changes, highlighting disconnects between current practices and traditional models of emergent care. A narrative description of the ER culture served as an impetus for practical improvements at this site, providing staff with both a unique perspective and a useful tool for improving their emergency care practices.

Karl Weick and the Aesthetics of Contingency

In this essay, I reflect on Karl Weick’s best-known texts as a means of tracing his influence on the field of organizational communication. From this perspective, his main contributions are: (1) recognizing the centrality of language and interaction in the social construction of organizational realities; and (2) focusing squarely on communicative praxis as a site for improving our understanding of cognition and culture. Beyond these substantive contributions, an ‘aesthetics of contingency’ pervades Weick’s writings. I maintain that this perspective presents a much needed alternative to seeking meaning and stability through the pursuit of various fundamentalisms.

Flirting with Meaning

Representational views of language and communication view ambiguity as a problem to be solved. An alternative approach treats ambiguity as an opportunity to challenge, skirt, and reinvent received knowledge and identity. In so doing, this approach makes a connection between epistemology and ontology, linguistic and existential meaning. This article describes this perspective on language and communication and offers three practical examples of how resources of ambiguity can be used to flirt with new, different notions of self and the world.

Meaning and interpretation in organizations

COMMUNICATION AND ORGANIZATIONS: AN INTERPRETIVE APPROACH. Edited by Linda Putnam and Michael E. Pacanowsky. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1983. pp. 303. paper

Transitions in Care: Signovers in the Emergency Department:

14.95. ORGANIZATIONAL SYMBOLISM. Edited by Louis R. Pondy, Peter J. Frost, Gareth Morgan, and Thomas C. Dandridge. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1983. pp. xvii + 307.