Communication in Organizations: An Overview and Provocations

Abstract

The role that communication plays in social organization and processes of organizing has received considerable scholarly attention from multiple disciplines over several decades. This paper provides a review of the diverse literature that has sought to contribute to the understanding of communication and its implication for management and organization studies. An analysis of the SCOPUS database for the period 1980-2022 enabled us to cluster reference material and identify five perspectives which emerge from a review of the literature: communication as transfer, discourse, conversation (analysis), narrative, and Communicative Constitution of Organizations. These categories are not intended to be exhaustive, but they do provide a useful critical heuristic for navigating a field of study that might otherwise appear overwhelming. To map the terrain’s theoretical underpinnings, our study also adopted a problematizing approach to the review which revealed various conspicuous conceptual and empirical absences at a ‘field level’ which merit further attention. The paper offers provocations and suggestions that we expect will inform future studies of organizational communication. Possibilities for developing the field include paying attention to: (a) paralinguistic dimensions of communication; (b) communication in relation to actual work practices; (c) monologic communication; and (d) organizational communication in non-Western contexts.