Organizational Communication
Persone
Descrizione
The course invites for a critical reflection on the role of communication in organizations. It proposes to shift from a functional to a constitutive perspective of communication and invites students to inquire into how organizational concerns and processes deeply rely on communication.
The course will first revisit some of the most classic organizational issues from a communication vantage point, such as control or legitimacy. It will then address particularly pressing organizational challenges in today’s business environment. In particular, it will present communication-centered approaches to the management of diversity, to the management of continuous yet radical change and to the management of organizational knowledge.
Obiettivi
The course aims at developing:
- a communication-sensitive understanding of organizations by revisiting key organizational concerns from a communication perspective;
- an appreciation of the practical implications of a communication-theoretical account of organizations;
- an understanding about processes, tools and technologies for managing key organizational concerns, such as legitimacy, diversity, organizational change, and organizational knowledge.
Modalità di insegnamento
In presenza
Impostazione pedagogico-didattica
The course builds on the active participation of students, problem-based learning and an interactive dialogue between theory and practice. The course’s paradigmatic ambition requires students to engage in the reading of academic papers and case studies. Students will moderate case studies, reflect on representations of organizational communication in popular culture and engage in practical exercises and collaborative group work.
Attendance is required and absences have to be justified in writing.
Modalità d’esame
- 30%: interactive case moderations – small groups of students carry out a 45-minutes case moderation during class. They guide the class interactively through a journey, which will allow for reflecting on the case through the insights of an academic paper and for theory-informed learnings of the practice of organizational communication.
- 10%: individual class participation
- 60%: final written exam with open questions (in English)
Case Studies:
Qumer, S.M. & Purkayastha, D. (2011) Facebook: Balancing Growth and Preserving Corporate Culture, IBS Center for Management Research
Petani, F. & Mengis, J. (2014) In chase of a runaway building: Coordination through organizational communication
Diversity Management at Google. The Debate around James Damore’s Memo (2017)
Groysberg, B. & Slind, M. (2011) Hindustan Petroleum Corporation LTD: Driving Change through Internal Communication, Harvard Business Publishing
Bibliografia
- Christensen, Lars Thøger, Cheney, George, Morsing, Mette. Corporate communications: convention, complexity, and critique. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2008. ((pp.14-19))
- Huy, Q., Shipilov, A.. "The key to social media success within organizations" MIT Sloan Management, 54, 1 (2012): 73-81.
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Johansson, Catrin, Heide, Mats. "Speaking of change: three communication approaches in studies of organizational change" Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 13, 3 (2008): 288-305.
10.1108/13563280810893661 - Mumby, D.K., Kuhn, T.R.. Organizational Communication. A Critical Introduction. Sage, 2019. (read: chapters 1, 7, 8, 9)
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Patriotta, Gerardo, Gond, Jean-Pascal, Schultz, Friederike. "Maintaining Legitimacy: Controversies, Orders of Worth, and Public Justifications" Journal of Management Studies, 48, 8 (2011): 1804-1836.
10.1111/j.1467-6486.2010.00990.x