Engaging Organizational Communication Theory and Research

Steve May (Ph.D., University of Utah, 1993) is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a Leadership Fellow at the Institute for the Arts and the Humanities, an Ethics Fellow at the Parr Center for Ethics, and a researcher and ethics consultant for the Ethics at Work program at the Kenan Institute for Ethics He is co-editor, with George Cheney and Debashish Munshi, of The Handbook of Communication Ethics and, with Oyvind Ihlen and Jennifer Bartlett, of The Handbook of Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility. His organizational communication research has been published in journals such as Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Public Policy Yearbook, and Organizational Communication: Emerging Perspectives. He is a past Forum Editor of Management Communication Quarterly and Associate Editor of The Journal of Applied Communication Research and The Journal of Business Communication. Dennis K. Mumby is the Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Communication at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.  His research focuses on the communicative dynamics of organizational control and resistance under neoliberalism.  He is a Fellow of the International Communication Association, and a National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar. He has authored or edited 7 books and over 60 articles in the area of critical organization studies, and his work has appeared in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Management Communication Quarterly, Organization Studies, Organization, and Human Relations.  He is past chair of the Organizational Communication Division of NCA, and an 8-time winner of the division’s annual research award.  He has served as chair of the Organizational Communication Division of the International Communication Association, and is a recipient of the division’s Fredric M. Jablin Award for contributions to the field of organizational communication.

I very much liked the book and especially appreciated the attention paid to critical theory, postmodern theory, and globalization theory. I would definitely use it as a supplementary text or even a main text for a more advanced course on organizational communication. I would hesitate to use it as a primary text for an introductory course on organizational communication.

• 1. Introduction: Thinking about Engagement - Dennis K. Mumby and Steve May2. Postpositivism - Steven R. Corman3. Social Constructionism - Brenda J. Allen4. Theorizing about Rhetoric and Organizations: Classical, Interpretive, and Critical Aspects - George Cheney with Daniel J. Lair5. Critical Theory - Stanley Deetz6. Postmodern Theory - Bryan C. Taylor7. Feminist Organizational Communication Studies: Engaging Gender in Public and Private - Karen Lee Ashcraft8. Structuration Theory - Marshall Scott Poole and Robert D. McPhee9. Worldview: My Pursuit of an Explanation of Communication as Organizing - James R. Taylor10. Globalization Theory - Cynthia Stohl11. Conclusion: Engaging the Future of Organizational Communication Theory and Research - Steve May and Dennis K. MumbyAuthor IndexSubject IndexAbout the EditorsAbout the Contributors