Joel O. Iverson

Exploring strategy and board structure in nonprofit organizations

This research explores how nonprofit managers conceptualize their organization’s strategic orientation toward products and services and in what way the governing board is structured to match that orientation. Using the Miles and Snow typology of strategy and a survey of 132 nonprofit organizations, organizations were categorized into four strategic types (e.g., defenders, prospectors, analyzers, or reactors), and distinctive structural patterns in board committees and composition were found. Prospectors had broader, more inclusive structures, whereas defenders tended to have tighter, more focused structures. Although some patterns appeared muted, through in-depth interviews with selected exemplars, several characteristics were found that helped define and clarify nonprofit strategy. This included the use of mission statements to help communicate the organization’s strategic orientation.

Communicating Knowing Through Communities of Practice: Exploring Internal Communicative Processes and Differences Among CoPs

Knowing is an enacted, communicated process that is difficult to observe, let alone manage, in organizations. Communities of practice (CoPs) offer a productive solution for improving knowledge and knowledge management, but the communicative processes that enact CoPs have not been explored, leaving CoPs as an organizational black box. This research extends CoP theory as a means to determine the presence of a CoP and distinguish between various CoPs, and as a practical means to evaluate the communicative processes of organizational knowledge. CoPs enact the communicative nature of knowing through the elements of mutual engagement, negotiation of a joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. Specifically, two groups of volunteers are examined through a combination of participation, observation, and interviews in order to explore CoP theory as a dynamic system for examining and evaluating organizational knowledge.

USA Today's Coverage of the Top Women Golfers, 1998–2001

Womens sports not only receive less media coverage than male sports but also when women athletes are covered, gender-role stereotypes are often reinforced. This study examines USA Todays coverage of the top 3 professional women golfers, Se Ri Pak (South Korea), Annika Sorenstam (Sweden), and Karrie Webb (Australia), during the 1998–2001 LPGA seasons. The intent of this study is to gain an understanding of how the media covers a top female Asian athlete compared with athletes from Europe and Australia. A multi-method approach, using both content and textual analyses, was used to assess the amount and type of coverage accorded to the athletes. A content analysis of 649 articles indicates that Pak received less coverage proportionate to her wins than Sorenstam or Webb. Further, textual analyses revealed that three themes emerged regarding both positive and negative characteristics of the golfers: caliber, personality/appearance, and achievement. More negative characteristics were used to describe Pak than either Webb or Sorenstam.

Agents of constitution in communidad: Constitutive processes of communication in organizations

Chapter 1 Introduction: Communication Constitutes OrganizationLinda L. Putnam, Anne M. Nicotera, and Robert D. McPheeChapter 2 The Communicative Constitution of Organizations: A Framework for ExplanationRobert D. McPhee and Pamela ZaugChapter 3 Agents Of Constitution In Communicad: Constitutive Processes of Communication In OrganizationsRobert D. McPhee and Joel IversonChapter 4 Constitutive complexity: Military entrepreneurs and the synthetic character of communication flowsLarry D. Browning, Ronald Walter Greene, S. B. Sitkin, Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, and David ObstfeldChapter 5 Dislocation and Stabilization: How to Scale Up from Interactions to OrganizationFrancois Cooren and Gail T. FairhurstChapter 6 Organizing from the bottom up?: Reflections on the constitution of organization in communicationJames R. TaylorChapter 7 Theory Building: Comparisons of CCO OrientationsLinda L. Putnam and Robert D. McPhee

The evolution of the operational earthquake forecasting community of practice: the L’Aquila communication crisis as a triggering event for organizational renewal

ABSTRACT The scientific community of earthquake experts has long grappled with how to communicate earthquake probabilities successfully to non-scientific publics. Perhaps most central to their concern is the widely held belief that scientists can actually predict earthquakes when, in fact, they cannot. The potential consequences of this miscommunication problem were appallingly realized as a result of the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy. Failed risk communication among scientists, a public official, and L’Aquila residents prior to the earthquake resulted in 309 deaths, 1500 injuries, and 65,000 people displaced from their homes, as well as the sentencing of six scientists and one public official to six years in prison for manslaughter. This paper examines how and why the L’Aquila Earthquake communication crisis ultimately redefined the international scientific earthquake community of practice and its discourse beyond that of community resilience to organizational learning and renewal.

Activity coordination and the Montreal School

INTRODUCTION : Materiality, Agency and Discourse in the Constitution of Organization PART I - THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS PART II - EMPIRICAL EXPLORATIONS With contributions from: Barbara Czarniawska Bruno Latour Linda L. Putnam Anne M. Nicotera Robert McPhee Joel Iverson Boris H.J.M. Brummans Haridimos Tsoukas Consuelo Vasquez Isabelle Piette Mathieu Chaput Viviane Sergi James R. Taylor