Power, Politics and Organizational Communication: An Ethnomethodological Perspective

Whittle, A.; Housley, W.; Gilchrist, A.; Lenney, P.; Mueller, F.

Abstract

Power and politics have long been recognized as central aspects of organizational life. This chapter seeks to explore how power and politics are used by organizational members as a key component of their category-bound reasoning within strategic interaction. Drawing on tape-recorded interactional data from an action research study of strategic change in a multinational corporation, the chapter develops an ethnomethodological analysis of the key categories and category predicates used to make sense of, and constitute, the organization and its environment. The chapter’s analysis reveals three key insights: (a) power and politics were associated with the category-bound reasoning about the firm’s external key account customers and the internal company hierarchy, (b) communication, or more precisely talk-in-interaction, constituted the customer and the company as a particular type of actor, with particular category-bound predicates (e.g. attributes, agendas, activities, etc.), and (c) this stock of knowledge and associated reasoning procedures influenced key strategic decisions. The chapter concludes by proposing that an ethnomethodological perspective can enable the member’s methods to be elucidated through which organizational ‘facts’ and ‘forces’ are made intersubjectively available and used for practical organizational tasks, such as making strategic decisions.

Citation

Whittle, A., Housley, W., Gilchrist, A., Lenney, P., & Mueller, F. (2014). Power, Politics and Organizational Communication: An Ethnomethodological Perspective. In F. Cooren, E. Vaara, A. Langley, & H. Tsoukas (Eds.), Language and communication at work : discourse, narrativity, and organizing (71-94). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198703082.001.0001

• Publication Date: 2014
• Deposit Date: Jun 22, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 23, 2020
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Pages: 71-94
• Book Title: Language and communication at work : discourse, narrativity, and organizing.
• ISBN: 9780198703082
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198703082.001.0001
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1628275
• Related Public URLs: http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/power-politics-and-organizational-communication(e6262b8d-347c-4d28-aa11-ca399bbf7f0a).html