Linda L. Putnam

Communication and Organizations: An Interpretive Approach.

The contributors to this volume study the ways in which employees create messages and symbols, and how they interpret the messages they receive. What do these messages and their symbols tell us about organizational culture? The contributors discuss the theoretical grounding of the approach and its relation to other perspectives. They also show it usefulness in studies that examine leadership, decision making, power, and organizational climate.

Disentangling approaches to framing in conflict and negotiation research: A meta-paradigmatic perspective

Divergent theoretical approaches to the construct of framing have resulted in conceptual confusion in conflict research. We disentangle these approaches by analyzing their assumptions about 1) the nature of frames — that is, cognitive representations or interactional co-constructions, and 2) what is getting framed — that is, issues, identities and relationships, or interaction process. Using a meta-paradigmatic perspective, we delineate the ontological, theoretical and methodological assumptions among six approaches to framing to reduce conceptual confusion and identify research opportunities within and across these approaches.

Reciprocity in negotiations: An analysis of bargaining interaction

This investigation examined the effects of bargainer role and sex‐role composition on the frequencies and sequences of bargaining talk. Thirty‐two male and thirty‐two female bargainers were assigned to labor‐management roles in same‐sex or mixed‐sex dyads to bargain a simulated grievance case. A modified version of the Bargaining Process Analysis (BPA) was employed to test for reciprocity of bargaining strategies. The findings demonstrated that management representatives relied on defensive tactics while labor negotiators specialized in offensive maneuvers; these strategies emerged in the interaction structure of negotiators, especially in their use of attack‐defend and offensive‐information giving patterns. Impasse dyads, as compared with agreement pairs, exhibited a tightly‐structured, reciprocal pattern of attack‐attack or defend‐defend, with management initiating this cycle.

Building Theories of Organization : The Constitutive Role of Communication

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

Bona fide groups: A reconceptualization of groups in context

This study culminates in the identification of what can be called “bona fide groups,” a theoretical category proposed for future small group research. In some respects an answer to the various calls and critiques in the previous papers, the article begins with an examination of differing research approaches to naturalistic groups, including discussions of groups in field settings, the use of descriptive‐exploratory designs, full‐fledged and intact groups, and naturally emergent groups. Next, a review of the literature on naturalistic groups provides both a framework for identifying bona fide groups and a rationale for future research to focus on such groups.

Interaction Goals in Negotiation

Negotiation is a strategic process, carried out through maneuvers designed to accomplish goals. Most negotiation theorists, however, treat goals as global, predetermined, and static task-oriented objectives. This chapter focuses on the role of interaction goals in negotiation. Bargainers’ interaction goals are organized within a scheme that varies in two respects: type (instrumental, relational, and identity) and level of abstraction (globat, regional, local). Following the discussion of goal types, the chapter explores the dynamic and conflictual nature of negotiators’ interaction goals, and then suggests that goal analyses could shed insight into how bargaining contexts influence strategies and outcomes, and how negotiators develop expertise. A goals focus emphasizes that negotiators act purposefully but with “bounded rationality,” constantly manage conflicting objectives, and enact bargaining behavior that are guided by interaction goals but often reframe those goals.

Contradictions, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizations: A Constitutive Approach†

This article presents a constitutive approach to the study of organizational contradictions, dialectics, paradoxes, and tensions. In particular, it highlights five constitutive dimensions (i.e., discourse, developmental actions, socio-historical conditions, presence in multiples, and praxis) that appear across the literature in five metatheoretical traditions—process-based systems, structuration, critical, postmodern, and relational dialectics. In exploring these dimensions, it defines and distinguishes among key constructs, links research to process outcomes, and sets forth a typology of alternative ways of responding to organizational tensions. It concludes by challenging researchers to sharpen their focus on time in process studies, privilege emotion in relation to rationality, and explore the dialectic between order and disorder.

Making Sense of Intractable Multiparty Conflict: A Study of Framing in Four Environmental Disputes

Intractable multiparty conflict is omnipresent in social life, but how do individuals in this type of dispute make sense of their situation and therefore enact it in a particular way? The current study investigated this question by examining how disputants from different stakeholder groups framed conflict situations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Texas that revolved around environmental issues. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of interview transcripts and archival data suggested that, based on their framing similarities, disputants could be grouped together in four clusters, each implying a different framing repertoire. In turn, the analyses indicated that the repertoire differences between these clusters fueled the intractability of each dispute.

Measuring Interpersonal Conflict in Organizations: Where Do We Go from Here?

This critique indicts conflict style literature for focusing on disagreements rather than incompatibilities, for downplaying the role of interdependence between parties in assessing interpersonal conflicts, and for failing to cast interpersonal conflict within an organizational system. This article also questions the exhaustiveness and representativeness of the two-dimensional models that form the five styles. It argues for reframing communication to include nonverbal and contradictory messages, multiple meanings, linkages between message tactics and strategic behavior, and inconsistencies between intentions and communicative tactics as conflict develops. Finally, it argues for contingency and political models of organizing to guide researchers in selecting appropriate variables and models to study interpersonal conflicts.

Alternative Perspectives on the Role of Text and Agency in Constituting Organizations

Organizational discourse analysis, as an area of research, has grown in the past decade. Most scholars posit that language, regardless of the discursive form, is critical to the very nature of an organization. This article contends that discourse is more than an artifact or a reflection of an organization; rather it forms the foundation for organizing and for developing the notion oforganization as an entity. The articles in this volume present different perspectives on the role of text and agency in contributing to the constitution of organizations. Although the concept of text has different meanings in these articles, it refers, in general, to the medium of communication, collection of interactions, and assemblages of oral and written forms. Whether influenced by interaction analysis, structuration theory, text/conversation analysis or textual agency, these essays demonstrate how textuality in all its various forms participates in the production and reproduction of organizational life.