Larry D. Browning

Building Cooperation in a Competitive Industry: Sematech and the Semiconductor Industry

This article presents the results of a grounded theory analysis of observation, interview, and archival data collected at SEMATECH, a research, development, and testing consortium in the semiconduc...

Argument and Narration in Organizational Communication

This review highlights the relevance of argumentation and narration for organizational communication, which is the exchange of information among organizational participants from which meaning is inferred. The links between argument and organizational rationality and between the narrative paradigm and organizational storytelling are discussed. Organizational and communication variables are viewed as mutually relevant. As the mixtures of argumentation and narration change, interaction changes, and different organizational structures are created. These processes have implications for both scholars and practicing managers.

Transforming an industry in crisis: Charisma, routinization, and supportive cultural leadership

Abstract This article narrates the saga of how leaders in the highly competitive U.S. semiconductor manufacturing industry framed their future as a struggle for survival against an unprincipled adversary and thus generated an industry-wide strategy for battling the competition. Their strategy amounted to a social experiment in that it required unprecedented cooperation from members of the industry. Our account and analysis focus on four remarkable, interrelated aspects of this saga: (1) how these leaders linked their actions to support the charisma of their central leader—Robert Noyce—who became the first CEO of the resultant consortium; (2) how the participation they shared in the saga of the founding and growth of the U.S. semiconductor industry, especially at Fairchild Industries, provided a basis for their later cooperation; (3) how they created an unusual participative and democratic culture at Sematech; and (4) how Noyces vision persisted after his death through various forms of routinization established earlier. Five bodies of qualitative data generated in two independent series of investigations inform this study. They include two sets of in-depth interviews with participants at various levels, extensive archival data, ethographic observations, informal conversations and interviews, and information supplied by a key informant.

Discrete, Sequential, and Follow-Up Use of Information and Communication Technology by Experienced ICT Users

Most prior media use research has assumed that people use information and communication technologies (ICTs) independently of other ICTs, that is, as discrete media. This study uses cross-organizational, in-depth interview data to uncover the important role that ICT sequences play in persuasion, information exchange, and documentation. The primary occasions for sequential ICT use were (a) preparing for meetings, (b) performing daily tasks, and (c) following up to persuade. When people need to follow up initial communication episodes, the overall groupings of ICTs represent two underlying attributes: degree of connection with others and extent of synchroneity. These findings support an expanded perspective on media richness theory and information theory by illustrating that ICT sequences can expand cues and channels and provide error-reducing redundancy for equivocal and uncertain tasks.

The reflexivity between ICTs and business culture: Applying Hofstede's theory to compare Norway and the United States

This study compares how workers in Norway and the United States use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Our data—72 in-depth interviews of advanced ICT users – were coded, analyzed, and placed into Hofstede’s four dimensional framework (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity). We proposed that ICT use comparisons between the two countries are congruent to Hofstede’s findings. We find partial support for these propositions. As expected, Norway and the US are similar on two dimensions (power distance and uncertainty avoidance), but contrary to expectations, they are also similar on the two dimensions where we expected differences (individualism and masculinity). We suggest possible explanations for these findings, including our focus on an expert-user subculture, external triggering events, and technical codes inscribed in Internet applications and software.

A Grounded Organizational Communication Theory Derived from Qualitative Data.

Communicative “incidents” in a research and development organization were recorded from interviews and observation. These incidents were assigned to “categories,” and the categories to three theoretical “clusters”: the Power‐Advancement cluster, the Power‐Pressure cluster, and the Central Figure cluster. The clusters were used to produce predictive generalizations about organizational communication.

The structuring of shared voluntary standards in the U.S. semiconductor industry: Communicating to reach agreement

Although pervasive in modern organizations, standards have been neglected in organizational communications research. Qualitative study of the SEMATECH consortium revealed that an important outcome of the efforts of participants was the reflexive structuring of voluntary, cooperative standards in the U.S. semiconductor industry, which had previously operated on the basis of proprietary, competitive standards. Analysis of extensive interview, archival, and observational data suggested that seven incidents were pivotal in the structuring process. These incidents showed how the increased communication initiated by SEMATECH produced new provinces of meaning, actions, and frameworks that engendered cooperation in relations between the supplier and manufacturing sectors of the industry, which had previously been characterized by mutual distrust and conflict.

Organisational Narratives and Organisational Structure

Organisational narratives as contributing to organisational structure are discussed. The trend lines of narratives introduce the ascent, decline and plateau narratives as reflections of organisational direction. The plateau narrative is used to emphasise the value in supporting the values of flat structures. Plateau narratives are more difficult to grasp because there are more players and more actions that potentially merit recognition by the organisation′s culture. Four suggested dimensions of plateau narratives are offered for change agents to identify. They are: stories of rotating leadership, stories of individuals doing any action that helps the group towards the goal, stories celebrating conscious levelling, and stories of power shifts from turf to large goals.

Impression management and the use of procedures at the Ritz‐Carlton: Moral standards and dramaturgical discipline

This article uses Goffmans work on moral standards and dramaturgical discipline to inform a case study featuring a hotels procedures for guaranteeing reliable impression management. Through an analysis of archival material and 18 interviews at two sites, we developed four categories of impression management behaviors. Viewing our analysis through Goffmans lens, we argue that procedures codify moral standards thereby offering employees specific means by which they can enact dramaturgical discipline. In our discussion we suggest several ways in which our case study reinforces and expands Goffmans original concepts. Our findings are (a) procedures can function as codified moral standards within the organizational setting, (b) procedures can serve as the basis for employee enactment of dramaturgical discipline, (c) the use of databases in collecting and storing information offers a new wrinkle to impression management theory, and (d) the use of incentives to pacify guests expands the defensive practices available to those engaging in impression management.

The Dialectical Tensions in the Funding Infrastructure of Cyberinfrastructure

This article focuses on funding for cyberinfrastructure and how funding affects the cyberinfrastructure foundation laid, who completes the work, and what the outcomes of the funding are. By following qualitative procedures and thematic analysis, we identify five dialectical tensions across three difference levels of institutions, individuals, and ideologies in the funding infrastructure of cyberinfrastructure. Through an organizational communication lens, we define funding infrastructure as the communication arrangements of institutions, individuals, and ideologies that must be coordinated in order for cyberinfrastructure to be brought into existence. These communication arrangements include salient motivations of and financial compensations for individuals who engage in them. They also comprise explicit policies about funding, as well as implicit ideologies about science embedded in funding, as held by institutions involved in these communication arrangements.