In line with recent theorizing on the communicative constitution of organizations, this project seeks to expand the notion of agency within organizations to include human and nonhuman agents. The formulation of problems and solutions is examined as an ideal discursive site in which organizational participants negotiate the role of various agencies in organizational action. The authors’ thesis is illustrated through a discourse analytic examination of a university faculty senate's discussion of a problematic decision made during a budget crisis. This analysis illustrates how problem formulation can be conceptualized as an interplay between various agents including human, textual, and other nonhuman agents. Implications are discussed more generally regarding the role of human and nonhuman agents in the construction of organizational realities.
Antaki, C. (1994). Explaining and arguing: The social organization of accounts. London: Sage.
2.
Anton, C. (1999). Beyond the constitutive-representational dichotomy: The phenomenological notion of intentionality. Communication Theory, 9, 26-57.
3.
Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration strategies. Albany: State University of New York Press.
4.
Bormann, E. G. (1996). Symbolic convergence theory and communication in group decision making. In R. Y. Hirokawa & M. S. Poole (Eds.), Communication and group decision making(2nd ed., pp. 81-113). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
5.
Buttny, R. (1985). Accounts as a reconstruction of an event's context. Communication Monographs, 52, 57-77.
6.
Buttny, R. (1993). Social accountability in communication. London: Sage.
7.
Buttny, R., & Morris, G. H. (2001). Accounting. In W. P. Robinson & H. Giles (Eds.), The new handbook of language and social psychology(pp. 285-301). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
8.
Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay. In J. Law(Ed.), Power, action and belief: Anewsociology of knowledge?(pp. 196-223). London: Routledge.
9.
Callon, M., & Law, J. (1995). Agency and the hybrid collectif. South Atlantic Quarterly, 94(2), 481-507.
10.
Conrad, C., & Poole, M. S. (2002). Strategic organizational communication in a global economy. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt.
11.
Cooren, F. (2000). The organizing property of communication. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
12.
Cooren, F. (2001). Acting and organizing: How speech acts structure organizational interactions. Concepts and Transformation, 6(3), 275-293.
13.
Cooren, F. (2004a). The communicative achievement of collective minding: Analysis of board meetings excerpts. Management Communication Quarterly, 17(4), 517-551.
14.
Cooren, F. (2004b). Textual agency: How texts do things in organizational settings. Organization, 11, 373-393.
15.
Cooren, F. (in press). The organizational world as a plenum of agencies. 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.
16.
Cooren, F., & Fairhurst, G. T. (in press). 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.
17.
Cragan, J. F., & Wright, D. W. (1995). Communication in small groups: Theory, process, skills(4th ed.). St. Paul, MN: West.
18.
Deetz, S. (1992). Democracy in an age of corporate colonization: Developments in communication and the politics of everyday life. Albany: State University of New York.
19.
Descombes, V. (2004). The mind's provisions: A critique of cognitivism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
20.
Dewey, J. (1933). Howwe think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston: D. C. Heath.
21.
Eisenberg, E. M. (1990). Jamming: Transcendence through organizing. Communication Research, 17, 139-164.
22.
Eisenberg, E. M., Murphy, A.,& Andrews, L. (1998). Openness and decision making in search for a university provost. Communication Monographs, 65, 1-23.
23.
Engeström, Y., & Blackler, F. (2005). On the life of the object. Organization, 12, 307-330.
24.
Fairhurst, G. T., & Putnam, L. (2004). Organizations as discursive constructions. Communication Theory, 14, 5-26.
25.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
26.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
27.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
28.
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual. Essays in face-to-face behaviour. Chicago: Aldine.
29.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper & Row.
30.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfield and ethnomethodology. Cambridge, MA: Polity.
31.
Higgins, R. L.,& Snyder, C. R. (1991). Reality negotiation and excuse-making. In C. R. Snyder& D. R. Forsyth (Eds.), Handbook of social and clinical psychology: The health perspective(pp. 79-95). New York: Pergamon.
32.
Holt, G. R. (1989). Talk about acting and constraint in stories about organizations. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 53, 374-397.
33.
Johnson, D. W.,& Johnson, F. P. (1994). Joining together: Group theory and group skills(5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
34.
Koch, S.,& Deetz, S. (1981). Metaphor analysis of social reality in organizations. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 9, 1-15.
35.
Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
36.
Latour, B. (1994). On technical mediation-philosophy, sociology, genealogy. Common Knowledge, 3, 29-64.
37.
Latour, B. (1996). Oninterobjectivity. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 3(4), 228-245.
38.
Latour, B. (1999). Pandora's hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
39.
Mandelbaum, J. (1993). Assigning responsibility in conversational storytelling: The interactional construction of reality. Text, 13, 247-266.
40.
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340-363.
41.
Meyer, J. W.,& Rowan, B. (1983). The structure of educational organizations. In J. W. Meyer & W. R. Scott (Eds.), Organizational environments: Ritual and rationality(pp. 71-97). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
42.
Miller, K. I. (2000). Common ground from the post-positivist perspective: From “strawperson” argument to collaborative coexistence. In S. R. Corman& M. S. Poole (Eds.), Perspectives on organizational communication: Finding common ground(pp. 46-76). New York: Guilford.
43.
Murphy, A. G. (1998). Hidden transcripts of flight attendant resistance. Management Communication Quarterly, 11, 499-535.
44.
Peirce, C. S. (1955). Philosophical writing of Peirce. New York: Dover.
45.
Putnam, L. L.,& Cooren, F. (2004). Alternative perspective on the role of text and agency in constituting organizations. Organization, 11(3), 323-333.
46.
Putnam, L. L., & Pacanowsky, M. E. (1983). Communication and organizations: An interpretive approach. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Robichaud, D. (1999). Textualization and organizing: Illustrations from a public discussion process. Communication Review, 3(1/2), 103-124.
49.
Robichaud, D. (in press). Steps toward a relational viewof 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.
50.
Robichaud, D., Giroux, H., & Taylor, J. R. (2004). The meta-conversation: The recursive property of language as the key to organizing. Academy of Management Review, 29, 617-634.
51.
Rothwell, J. D. (2004). In mixed company: Communicating in small groups and teams(5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
52.
Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.
53.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
54.
Searle, J. R. (1980a). Intrinsic intentionality. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 450-456.
55.
Searle, J. R. (1980b). Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 417-424.
56.
Searle, J. R. (1984). Minds, brains, and science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
57.
Searle, J. R. (1995). The construction of social reality. New York: Free Press.
58.
Scott, M. B., & Lyman, S. M. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33, 46-62.
59.
Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2002). Fundamentals of organizational communication: Knowledge, sensitivity, skills, values(5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
60.
Shotter, J. (1993). Conversational realities: Constructing life through language. London: Sage.
61.
Shotter, J. (2005). “Inside the moment of managing”: Wittgenstein and the everyday dynamics of our expressive-responsive activities. Organization Studies, 26, 113-134.
62.
Simon, H. A. (1979). Models of thought. NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press.
63.
Taylor, J. R., & Lerner, L. (1996). Making sense of sensemaking: How managers construct their organization through their talk. Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies, 2, 257-286.
64.
Taylor, J. R.,& Van Every, E. J. (2000). The emergent organization: Communication as its site and surface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
65.
Tracy, K. (1995). Action-implicative discourse analysis. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 14, 195-215.
66.
Tracy, K.,& Muller, H. (2001). Diagnosing a school board's interactional trouble: Theorizing problem formulating. Communication Theory, 11, 84-104.
67.
Tracy, S. J. (2000). Becoming a character for commerce: Emotional labor, selfsubordination, and discursive construction of identity in a total institution. Management Communication Quarterly, 14, 90-128.
68.
Trujillo, N. (1985). Organizational communication as cultural performance: Some managerial considerations. Southern Communication Journal, 50, 201-204.
69.
Trujillo, N., & Dionisopoulos, G. (1987). Cop talk, police stories, and the social construction of organizational drama. Central States Speech Journal, 38, 196-209.
70.
Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 1-19.
71.
Weick, K. E. (1979). The social psychology of organizing(2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
72.
Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
73.
Weinberg, L. (1996). Seeing through organization: Exploring the constitutive quality of social relations. Administration & Society, 28, 177-204.
74.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
