In this article, we develop an analytical perspective to examine how an organization's mode of being is constituted and experienced through ongoing processes of communication. To show the use and implications of this perspective, we analyze how members and partners of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, a.k.a.`Doctors Without Borders'), a renowned humanitarian organization, coproduce and problematize the presence of their organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa.
Boden, D.The business of talk: Organizations in action. Cambridge : Polity Press, 1994.
4.
Brummans, B.H.J.M.The Montréal School and the question of agency. In F. Cooren, J.R. Taylor & E.J. Van Every (Eds), Communication as organizing: Practical approaches to research into the dynamic of text and conversation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence-Erlbaum , 2006, pp. 197-211.
5.
Brummans, B.H.J.M.Death by document: Tracing the agency of a text. Qualitative Inquiry, 2007, 13, 711-27.
6.
Brummans, B.H.J.M., Cooren, F. & Chaput, M.Discourse, communication, and organisational ontology. In F. Bargiela (Ed.), The handbook of business discourse. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, in press.
7.
Bruni, A.Shadowing software and clinical records: On the ethnography of nonhumans and heterogeneous contexts. Organization, 2005 , 12, 357-78.
8.
Bruni, A., Gherardi, S. & Poggio, B.Gender and entrepreneurship: An ethnographic approach. London: Routledge, 2004.
9.
Burrell, G.Modernism, post modernism and organizational analysis 2: The contribution of Michel Foucault. Organization Studies, 1988, 9(2), 221-35.
10.
Burrell, G. & Morgan, G.Sociological paradigms and organizational analysis. London : Heinemann, 1979.
11.
Butler, J.Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New York: Routledge, 1993.
12.
Butler, J.Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. New York : Routledge, 1997.
13.
Callon, M.Some elements of a sociology of translation: The domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St-Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action, and belief. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986, pp. 196-233.
14.
Callon, M. & Latour, B.Unscrewing the big Leviathan: How actors macro-structure reality and how sociologists help them do so. In A.V. Cicourel & K. Knorr-Cetina (Eds), Advances in social theory and methodology: Towards an integration of micro- and macro-sociologies . Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, pp. 277-303.
15.
Castor, T. & Cooren, F.Organizations as hybrid forms of life: The implications of the selection of agency in problem formulation. Management Communication Quarterly , 2006, 16, 570-600.
16.
Cheney, G. & Christensen, L.T.Organizational identity: Linkages between internal and external organizational communication. In F.M. Jablin & L.L. Putnam (Eds), The new handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods. London: Sage, 2001, pp. 231-69.
17.
Chia, R.The concept of decision: A deconstructive analysis. Journal of Management Studies, 1994, 31(6), 781-806.
18.
Chia, R.Organizational analysis as decosntructive practice. Berlin /New York: Walter de Gruyter , 1996.
19.
Christensen, L.T. & Askegaard, S.Corporate identity and corporate image revisited: A semiotic perspective. European Journal of Marketing, 2001, 35, 292-315.
20.
Conrad, C. & Haynes, J.Development of key constructs. In F.M. Jablin & L.L. Putnam (Eds), The new handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2001, pp. 47-77.
21.
Cooper, R.Modernism, post-modernism and organizational analysis 3: The contribution of Jacques Derrida. Organization Studies, 1989, 10(4), 479-502.
22.
Cooper, R. & Burrell, G.Modernism, postmodernism and organizational analysis: An introduction. Organization Studies, 1988, 9(1), 91-112.
23.
Cooren, F.The organizing property of communication. Philadelphia, PA/Amsterdam: John Benjamins , 2000.
24.
Cooren, F.Textual agency: How texts do things in organizational settings. Organization, 2004, 11, 373-93.
25.
Cooren, F.The organizational world as a plenum of agencies. In F. Cooren, J.R. Taylor & E.J. van Every (Eds), Communication as organizing: Practical approaches to research into the dynamic of text and conversation . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence-Erlbaum, 2006, pp. 81-100.
26.
Cooren, F.Between semiotics and pragmatics: Opening language studies to textual agency . Journal of Pragmatics, 2008, 40, 1-16.
27.
Cooren, F. & Fairhurst, G.T.Dislocation and stabilization: How to scale up from interactions to organization. In L.L. Putnam & A.M. Nicotera (Eds), The communicative constitution of organization: Centering organizational communication . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates , in press.
28.
Cooren, F. & Taylor, J.R.Organization as an effect of mediation: Redefining the link between organization and communication. Communication Theory, 1997 , 7, 219-60.
29.
Cooren, F., Fox, S., Robichaud, D. & Talih, N.Arguments for a plurified view of the social world: Spacing and timing as hybrid achievements. Time & Society, 2005 , 14, 263-80.
30.
Cooren, F., Matte, F., Taylor, J.R. & Vasquez, C.A humanitarian organization in action: Organizational discourse as an immutable mobile. Discourse and Communication, 2007, 1, 153-90.
31.
Couldry, N.Passing ethnographies: Rethinking the sites of agency and reflexivity in a mediated world. In P.D. Murphy & M.M. Kraidy (Eds), Global media studies: Ethnographic perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2003, pp. 40-56.
32.
Czarniawska-Joerges, B.Exploring complex organizations. A cultural perspective. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE, 1992.
33.
Deetz, S.Alternative perspectives in organizational communication studies. In F.M. Jablin & L.L. Putnam (Eds), The new handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2001, pp. 3-46.
34.
Derrida, J.Declarations of independence. New Political Science, 1986, 15, 7-15.
35.
Derrida, J.Limited IncEvanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988.
36.
Diamond, M., Allcorn, S. & Stein, H.The surface of organizational boundaries: A view from psychoanalytic object relations theory. Human Relations, 2004, 57, 31-53.
37.
Fairhurst, G.T. & Putnam, L.L.Organizations as discursive constructions. Communication Theory , 2004, 14, 5-26.
38.
Fleming, P. & Spicer, A.`You can check out anytime, but you can never leave': Spatial boundaries in a high commitment organization. Human Relations, 2004, 57, 75-94.
39.
Ford, J. & Harding, N.We went looking for an organization but could find only the metaphysics of its presence. Sociology, 2004, 38, 815-30.
40.
Foucault, M.Discipline and punish. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.
41.
Garfinkel, H.Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967.
42.
Garfinkel, H.Ethnomethodology's program: Working out Durkheim's aphorism. Lantham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
43.
Goffman, E.The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959.
44.
Greimas, A.J.On meaning: Selected writings in semiotic theory. London : Frances Pinter, 1987.
45.
Grunig, J.E. (Ed.). Excellence in public relations and communication management. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992.
46.
Gumbrecht, H.U.Production of presence: What meaning cannot convey. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004 .
47.
Gumbrecht, H.U. & Pfeiffer, K.L. (Eds). The materialities of communication. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.
48.
Heracleous, L.Boundaries in the study of organization. Human Relations, 2004, 57, 95-103.
49.
Hernes, T.Studying composite boundaries: A framework of analysis. Human Relations, 2004, 57, 9-29.
50.
Hobbes, T.Leviathan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. (Original work published 1651.)
51.
Jefferson, G.On stepwise transition from talk about a trouble to inappropriately next-positioned matters. In J.M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds), Structures of social action: Studies of conversation analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 191-222.
52.
Keenoy, T., Marshak, R., Oswick, C. & Grant, D.The discourses of organizing. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2000, 36, 511-12.
53.
Keenoy, T., Oswick, C. & Grant, D.Organizational discourses: Texts and context. Organization , 1997, 4, 147-57.
54.
Knights, D.Organization theory in the age of deconstruction: Dualism, gender and postmodernism revisited. Organization Studies, 1997, 18, 1-19.
55.
Knights, D. & Morgan, G.Corporate strategy, organizations, and subjectivity: A critique. Organization Studies, 1991, 12, 251-73.
56.
Kostera, M.Organisational ethnography: Methods and inspirations. Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur, 2007.
57.
Kurke, L.B. & Aldrich, H.E.Mintzberg was right: A replication and extension of the nature of managerial work. Management Science, 1983, 29, 975-85.
58.
Latour, B.The powers of association. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action, and belief. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986, pp. 264-80.
59.
Latour, B.We have never been modern, trans. C. Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993 .
60.
Latour, B.On interobjectivity. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 1996, 3, 228-45.
61.
Latour, B.Gabriel Tarde and the end of the social. In P. Joyce (Ed.), The social in question. New bearings in history and the social sciences. London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 117-32.
62.
Latour, B.Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
63.
Latour, B. & Woolgar, S.Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
64.
Law, J. (Ed.). A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology, and domination. London: Routledge, 1991.
65.
Law, J. & Hassard, J. (Eds). Actor network theory and after. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
66.
Law, J. & Singleton, V.Object lessons. Organization, 2005, 12, 331-55.
67.
Livingston, E.Making sense of ethnomethodology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
68.
Manning, P.K.Metaphors of the field: Varieties of organizational discourse. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1979, 24, 660-71.
69.
Marcus, G.E.The uses of complicity in the changing mise-en-scène of anthropological fieldwork . Representations, 1997, 59, 85-108.
70.
McDonald, S.Studying actions in context: A qualitative shadowing method for organizational research. Qualitative Research, 2005, 5, 455-73.
71.
Mintzberg, H.The nature of managerial work. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
72.
Moore, F.Symbols of organization: Informal ways of negotiating the global and the local in MNCs. Global Networks, 2004, 4, 181-98.
73.
Moriarty, S.E.PR and IMC: The benefits of integration. Public Relations Quarterly, 1994, 39, 38-44.
74.
Mumby, D.K. & Clair, R.P.Organizational discourse. In T.A. Van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction. London: SAGE, 1997, pp. 181-205.
75.
Mumby, D.K. & Stohl, C.Power and discourse in organization studies: Absence and the dialectic of control. Discourse & Society, 1991, 2, 313-32.
Phillips, N. & Hardy, C.Managing multiple identities: Discourse legitimacy and resources in the UK refugee system. Organization, 1997, 4, 159-85.
78.
Pollach, I.Corporate self-presentation on the WWW: Strategies for enhancing usability, credibility, and utility. Corporate Communications, 2005, 10, 285-301.
79.
Putnam, L.L. & Fairhurst, G.T.Discourse analysis in organizations: Issues and concerns. In F.M. Jablin & L.L. Putnam (Eds), The new handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2001, pp. 78-136.
80.
Putnam, L.L. & Pacanowsky, M.E. (Eds). Communication and organizations: An interpretive perspective. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE, 1983, pp. 31-54.
81.
Roberts, J.The manufacture of corporate social responsibility: Constructing corporate sensibility. Organization, 2003, 10, 249-65.
82.
Robichaud, D.Steps toward a relational view of agency. In F. Cooren, J.R. Taylor & E.J. Van Every (Eds), Communication as organizing: Empirical and theoretical explorations in the dynamic of text and conversation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006, pp. 101-14.
83.
Robichaud, D., Giroux, H. & Taylor, J.R.The metaconversation: The recursive property of language as the key to organizing . Academy of Management Review, 2004, 29(4), 617-34.
84.
Rowland, R.C. & Jerome, A.M.On organizational apologia: A reconceptualization. Communication Theory, 2004, 14, 191-211.
85.
Schutz, A.Collected papers: The problem of social reality, Vol. 1. The Hague, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973.
86.
Schwartzman, H.B.Ethnography in organizations. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE, 1993.
87.
Shumate, M. & Fulk, J.Boundaries and role conflict when work and family are collocated: A communication network and symbolic interaction approach. Human Relations , 2004, 57, 55-74.
88.
Spradley, J.P.The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979.
89.
Tarde, G.Les lois sociales [Social laws]. Paris: Les empêcheurs de penser en rond, 1895/1999 .
90.
Taylor, J.R.Shifting from a heteronomous to an autonomous worldview of organizational communication: Communication theory on the cusp. Communication Theory, 1995, 5, 1-35.
91.
Taylor, J.R. & Van Every, E.J.The emergent organization: Communication as its site and surface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000.
92.
Tompkins, P.K. & Wanca-Thibault, M.Organizational communication: Prelude and prospects. In F.M. Jablin & L.L. Putnam (Eds), The new handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2001, pp. xvii-xxxi.
93.
Trujillo, N.`Performing' Mintzberg's roles: The nature of managerial communication. In L.L. Putnam & M.E. Pacanowsky (Eds), Communication and organizations: An interpretive approach. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE, 1983, pp. 73-98.
94.
Waldman, D.A. & Yammarino, F.J.CEO charismatic leadership: Levels-of-management and levels-of-analysis effects. Academy of Management Review , 1999, 24, 266-85.
95.
Weick, K.E.The social psychology of organizing, 2nd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979.
96.
Weick, K.E.Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 1995.
