George Cheney

The rhetoric of identification and the study of organizational communication

This essay argues that scholars of rhetoric and communication broaden their conception and application of Kenneth Burkes “rhetoric of identification.” The first part of the essay offers the individual‐organization relationship as an exemplar for understanding and examining the rhetoric of identification. The second section derives a tentative typology of identification strategies and tactics and applies it in a critical assessment of corporate house organs. The essay concludes with an interpretive explication of the process of identification in contemporary business organizations.

On the various and changing meanings of organizational membership: A field study of organizational identification

The primary aim of this study was to analyze and interpret some aspects of the process of organizational identification in a corporate field setting. Specifically, the study focused on how an individuals identification (or identifying) with an employing organization influences on‐the‐job decision making. Past research efforts have been limited by their treatment of organizational identification as a product or state, rather than as a process. The wider perspective on identification is well represented by Herbert A. Simon and Kenneth Burke, whose writings were integrated to provide a theoretical framework for this study. While this study neither examined the phenomenon of identification over time nor placed it in a clearly‐defined causal chain, it explicitly recognized identification as a continuing development involving many changes. The study employed two methodologies for the examination of identification in a corporate field setting: moderately‐scheduled interviews that produced largely qualitative da...

Participatory Processes/Paradoxical Practices Communication and the Dilemmas of Organizational Democracy

This article brings together previous research efforts by the authors and reviews a wide range of relevant literatures to explain and analyze paradoxes of employee participation and workplace democracy. Although the authors do not take the position that all or even most of these paradoxes are necessarily harmful, they do maintain that there are a variety of practical avenues for dealing with them. The heart of the essay analyzes several main categories of participatory paradoxes: those of structure, agency, identity, and power. Following that, the authors offer practical suggestions for the management of paradoxes (and related tensions and contradictions), linking those recommendations to relevant theoretical and empirical propositions.

Coming to terms with organizational identification and commitment

The concepts of organizational identification and organizational commitment are examined in an effort to explicate both their interrelations and their distinctiveness. The essay establishes identification as a term referring to the “substance” of individual‐organizational relationships and commitment as referring to their form.

Democracy in the workplace: Theory and practice from the perspective of communication

Abstract This essay considers a range of issues related to workplace democracy in the contemporary industrialized world. Although drawing from a broad multi‐disciplinary literature, the essay emphasizes topics that can be usefully explored from the perspective of communication and sound contributions that can be made to theory and practice from such an engagement of the field. The essay essentially argues for the widespread democratization of work but not without considering realistic limitations to that ideal. The case of the Mondragon worker cooperatives, in the Basque region of Spain, is offered to demonstrate both the promise and problems of workplace democracy.

Marketization and the Recasting of the Professional Self The Rhetoric and Ethics of Personal Branding

Within the personal branding movement, people and their careers are marketed as brands complete with promises of performance, specialized designs, and tag lines for success. Because personal branding offers such a startlingly overt invitation to self-commodification, the phenomenon invites a careful and searching analysis. This essay begins by examining parallel developments in contemporary communication and employment climates and exploring how personal branding arises as (perhaps) an extreme form of a market-appropriate response. The contours of the personal branding movement are then traced, emphasizing the rhetorical tactics with which it responds to increasingly complex communication and employment environments. Next, personal branding is examined with a critical eye to both its effects on individuals and the power relations it instantiates on the basis of social categories such as gender, age, race, and class. Finally, the article concludes by reflecting on the broader ethical implications of personal branding as a communication strategy.

The student as consumer: The implications and limitations of a metaphor

The metaphor of “Student as Consumer” appeared upon the social horizon in North America and Western Europe seemingly for all the right reasons: the responsibility of higher education to its publics, the attendant accountability, an interest in practical applications of knowledge, and spiraling increases in the cost of going to college. Widespread adoption of the metaphor, however, can produce some negative educational consequences. Drawing upon the literatures of organizational studies, education, communication and rhetoric, we trace the rise of the student consumer metaphor, explore its limitations, and suggest alternatives to its use. Specifically, we argue that this metaphor (a) suggests undue distance between the student and the educational process; (b) highlights the promotional activities of professors and promotes the entertainment model of classroom learning; (c) inappropriately compartmentalizes the educational experience as a product rather than a process; and (d) reinforces individualism at the...

Organizational rhetoric and the practice of criticism

Contemporary life is so unavoidably affected by the organizations to which we belong that it has become necessary to rethink our traditional understanding of both individual and collective rhetoric...

Nuts about Change Multiple Perspectives on Change-Oriented Communication in a Public Sector Organization

This article reports a case study of change-related communication in the business services department of a large local-government organization in New Zealand. The authors argue that popular contemporary management discourse celebrates change and creates assumptions that guide managerial practice and the interpretation of managerial actions. Thus, the work experience of most people is inundated with communication about and promoting change. The authors explore the change communication from the three perspectives suggested by Trujillo, what he terms the “functional,” the “romantic,” and the “critical”. Each of these perspectives has a different logic, suggests different metaphors, and implicates different standards for evaluation. In terms of communication, each perspective highlights different change-related communication practices and/or alternative dimensions of the same practice.

The concept and the practices of discipline in contemporary organizational life

In this paper we articulate how Michel Foucaults perspective on “discipline” applies to the modern organization. Primarily, we explicate Foucaults view of discipline and demonstrate its usefulness for organizational analysis, particularly as it serves to extend Webers thesis on the increasing rationalization of advanced industrial society. From this discussion we develop a communication‐based perspective on how discipline operates in contemporary organizations, offering a brief case study of the corporate specification of an employee value system that draws upon observations, interviews, and the analysis of company policy statements. Using this case as an illustration, we articulate four aspects of discipline in contemporary organizational life. Finally, we discuss the importance of discipline for organizational analysis, particularly in terms of how team‐oriented, “concertive” relationships can function to increase control for individuals but especially for the system as a whole