A growing body of literature suggests that communication constitutes organizations, but this argument requires refinement to address its remaining flaws. This essay suggests the tremendous potential of using Michel Foucault’s work to grasp the underlying meaning of this argument and to respond to its shortcomings. The proposed Foucauldian-based process model highlights links across Foucault’s main lines of thought, applied to the relationships among technology, discourse, discipline, control, subject, and identity in an organization. By reframing the concept of technology as a discursive and nondiscursive practice that constrains and enables everyday life, this approach offers better understanding of the argument that communication constitutes organizations. The conceptual model also serves as a backdrop for exploring a problematic field situation with a case study. Technology appears part of processes by which technology, organizations, and subjects get redefined. The organization is dynamically constituted as an evolving, political, negotiated order through power–knowledge relationships.
AlvessonM.KarremanD. (2000). Taking the linguistic turn in organizational research: Challenges, responses, consequences. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 36, 136–158.
2.
AshcraftK. L.KuhnT. R.CoorenF. (2009). Constitutional amendments: Materializing organizational communication. Academy of Management Annals, 3, 1–64.
3.
BarkerJ. (1993). Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-managing teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 408–437.
4.
BrownA.CouplandC. (2005). Sounds of silence: Graduate trainees, hegemony and resistance. Organization Studies, 26, 1049–1069.
5.
BurrellG. (1998). Modernism, postmodernism and organizational analysis: The contribution of Michel Foucault. In McKinlayA.StarkeyK. (Eds.), Foucault, Management and Organizational Theory (pp. 14–28). London: Sage.
6.
CoorenF. (2004). Textual agency: How texts do things in organizational settings. Organization, 11, 373–393.
7.
CornelissenJ. (2006). Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and disciplined imagination. Organization Studies, 27, 1579–1597.
8.
CornelissenJ.OswickC.ChristensenL. T.PhillipsN. (2008). Metaphor in organizational research: Context, modalities and implications for research – Introduction. Organization Studies, 29, 7–22.
9.
CourpassonD. (2000). Managerial strategies of domination: Power in soft bureaucracies. Organization Studies, 21, 141–161.
10.
DaviesL.MitchellG. (1994). The dual nature of the impact of IT on organizational transformations. In BaskervilleR.SmithsonS.NgwenyamaO.DegrossJ. I. (Eds.), Transforming organizations with information technology (pp. 243–261). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
11.
DeetzS. (1992). Disciplinary power in the modern corporation. In AlvessonM.WillmottH. (Eds.), Critical management studies (pp. 21–45). London: Sage.
12.
DeetzS. (1996). Describing differences in approaches to organization Science: Rethinking Burrell and Morgan and their legacy. Organization Science, 7, 191–207.
13.
DeetzS. (2003). Reclaiming the legacy of the linguistic turn. Organization, 10, 421–429.
14.
DeetzS.MumbyD. (1990). Discourse and the workplace: Reclaiming the critical tradition. In AndersonJ. (Ed.), Power, communication yearbook13 (pp. 18–47). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
15.
DoolinB. (2002). Enterprise discourse, professional identity and the organizational control of hospital clinicians. Organization Studies, 23, 369–390.
16.
DuGayP. (1996). Consumption and identity at work. London: Sage.
17.
FairhurstG. T.PutnamL. (2004). Organizations as discursive constructions. Communication Theory, 14, 5–26.
18.
FlemingP.SpicerA. (2003). Working at a cynical distance: Implications for power, subjectivity, and resistance. Organization, 10, 157–179.
19.
FlemingP.SpicerA. (2007). Contesting the corporation: Struggle, power and resistance in organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
20.
FoucaultM. (1970). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. London: Tavistock. Original French version 1966.
21.
FoucaultM. (1972). The archeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. London: Tavistock. Original French version 1969.
22.
FoucaultM. (1973). The birth of the Clinic. London: Tavistock. Original French version 1963.
23.
FoucaultM. (1976). Two lectures. In FoucaultM.GordonC (eds.), Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972–1977 (pp. 78–108). New York: Pantheon.
24.
FoucaultM. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. London: Peregrine. Original French version 1975.
25.
FoucaultM. (1978). The history of sexuality Volume 1: An introduction. New York: Pantheon. Original French version 1976.
26.
FoucaultM. (1985a). The use of pleasure: The history of sexuality Volume 2. New York: Pantheon. Original French version 1984.
27.
FoucaultM. (1985b). The care of the self: The history of sexuality Volume 3. New York: Pantheon.
28.
FoucaultM. (1988). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason. New York: Random House. Original French version 1961.
29.
FoucaultM. (1997). Michel Foucault: Ethics, subjectivity and truth. New York: The New Press.
30.
HardyC.PhillipsN. (2004). Discourse and power. In GrantD.HardyC.OswickC.PutnamL. (Eds.), Handbook of organizational discourse (pp. 299–316). London: Sage.
31.
HarveyL. (1998). Visibility, silencing and surveillance in an IT needs analysis project. In LarsenT.LevineL.DeGrossJ. (Eds.), Information systems: Current issues and future challenges. Proceedings of the IFIP WG 8.2 and 8.6 Joint Working Conference, Helsinki, Finland (pp. 207–228). IFIP, Laxenburg, Austria.
32.
HatchuelA.StarkeyK. (2002). Foucault, a history of desire and pleasure. Organization, 9, 641–665.
33.
Holmer-NadesanM. (1996). Organizational identity and space of action. Organization Studies, 17, 49–81.
34.
JacksonN.CarterP. (1998). Labour as dressage. In McKinlayA.StarkeyK. (Eds.), Foucault, management and organizational theory (pp. 49–64). London: Sage.
35.
JermierJ. M.KnightsD.NordW. (1994). Resistance and power in organizations. London: Routledge.
36.
JianG.SchmisseurA. M.FairhurstG. T. (2008). Organizational discourse and communication: The progeny of Proteus. Discourse and Communication, 2, 299–320.
37.
KnightsD. (1990). Subjectivity, power and the labour process. In KnightsD.WillmottH. (Eds.), Labour process theory (pp. 88–103). London: Macmillan.
38.
KnightsD.MurrayF. (1994). Managers divided: Organizational politics and IT management. London: Wiley.
39.
KuhnT. (2008). A communicative theory of the firm: Developing an alternative perspective on intra-organizational power and stakeholder relationships. Organization Studies, 29, 1227–1254.
40.
LeclercqA. (2008). Le contrôle organisationnel et les systèmes d’information mobiles: Une approche foucaldienne. Thèse de doctorat en sciences de gestion. Paris-Dauphine University.
41.
McPheeR.ZaugP. (2000). The communicative constitution of organizations: A framework for explanation. Electronic Journal of Communication, 10, 1–2.
42.
MumbyD.StohlC. (1991). Power and discourse in organization studies: Absence and the dialectic of control. Discourse & Society, 2, 313–32.
43.
NewtonT. J. (1998). Theorizing subjectivity in organizations: The failure of Foucauldian studies. Organization Studies, 19, 415–47.
44.
OswickC.PutnamL.KeenoyT. (2004). Tropes, discourse and organizing. In GrantD.HardyC.OswickC.PutnamL. (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational discourse (pp. 105–128). London: Sage.
45.
PooleM. S.Van de VenA. H.DooleyK.HolmesM. E. (2000). Organizational change and innovation processes: Theory and methods for research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
46.
PrasadP. (1995). Working with ‘smart’ machines: Computerization and the discourse of anthropomorphism in organizations. Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, 1, 253–265.
47.
PrasadP.PrasadA. (2000). Stretching the iron cage: The constitution and implications of routine workplace resistance. Organization Science, 11, 387–403.
48.
PutnamL.CoorenF. (2004). Alternative perspectives on the role of text and agency in constituting organizations. Organization, 11, 323–333.
49.
PutnamL.NicoteraA. M.McPheeR. D. (2008). Introduction: Communication constitutes organization. In PutnamL.NicoteraA. M. (Eds.), Building theories of organization: The constitutive role of communication (pp. 1–19). New York: Routledge.
50.
PutnamL.NicoteraA. M. (2010). Communicative constitution of organization is a question: Critical issues for addressing it. Management Communication Quarterly, 24, 158–165.
51.
ReedM. (2010). Is communication constitutive of organization?Management Communication Quarterly, 24, 151–157.
52.
RichardsL. (2005). Handling qualitative data: A practical guide. London: Sage.
53.
RoseN.O’MalleyP.ValverdeM. (2006). Governmentality. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 2, 83–104.
54.
RoseN.MillerP. (2008) Governing the present: Administering economic, social and personal life. Cambridge: Polity.
55.
SmithR. (1993). Images of organizational communication: Root metaphors of the organization–communication relation. Annual conference of the international communication association, Washington, DC.
56.
TaylorJ. (2009). The communicative construction of community: Authority and organizing. In SanninoA.DanielsH. R. J.GutierrezK. D. (Eds.), Learning and expanding with activity theory (pp. 228–239). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
57.
TownleyB. (1993). Foucault, power/knowledge and its relevance for human resource management. Academy of Management Review, 18, 518–545.
58.
WatsonT. (1995). Rhetoric, discourse and argument in organizational sense making: A reflexive tale. Organization Studies, 16, 805–821.
59.
WillcocksL. (2004). Foucault, power/knowledge and information systems: Reconstructing the present. In MingersJ.WillcocksL. (Eds.), Social theory and philosophy for information systems (pp. 238–296). Chichester: Wiley.
