The Situated Organization ─ Case Studies in the Pragmatics of Communication Research

The Situated Organization explores recent research in organizational communication, emphasizing the organization as constructed in and emerging out of communication practices. Working from the tradition of the Montreal School in its approach, it focuses not only on how an organization’s members understand the purposes of the organization through communication, but also on how they realize and recognize the organization itself as they work within it.
The text breaks through with an alternative viewpoint to the currently popular idea of 'organization-as-network,' viewing organization instead as a configuration of agencies, and their fields of practice. It serves as an original, comprehensive, and well-written text, elaborated by case studies that make the theory come to life. The substantial ideas and insights are presented in a deep and meaningful way while remaining comprehensible for student readers.
This text has been developed for students at all levels of study in organizational communication, who need a systematic introduction to conducting empirical field research. It will serve as an invaluable sourcebook in planning and conducting research.

James R. Taylor is Professor Emeritus and founder of the Department of Communication at the University of Montreal. He is the author, co-author or editor of six books, including The Emergent Organization (2000).
Elizabeth J. Van Every is an historian and sociologist by training and has worked in both the public and private sectors. She has co-authored two previous books with James Taylor: The Vulnerable Fortress (1993) and The Emergent Organization (2000) as well as co-edited The Computerization of Work (2001) and Communication as Organizing (2006).

Prologue: The Puzzle of Organization
PART ONE: THEORY
Chapter 1: The Premise of Organization as Thirdness

Preliminary Remarks: Connecting to Weick’s View of Enactment
What is "Thirdness"?
Adding in Communication
The Explanatory Challenge We Now Address
Toward an Explanation
Organization as a Thirdness: Establishing its Agency and its Authority
The Authoring of Organization
A Concluding Note
Suggested Supplementary Readings
Chapter 2: The Frame Game, And How Communication Establishes and Distributes Organizational Authority

Games: Situated and Not Situated
Von Neumann’s theory of games
Situation and why it is important
Pragmatism in Dewey’s interpretation
Focus and frames
Goffman’s Interpretation of Game Theory
The information game and thirdness
Bateson and Meta-Communication
Wittgenstein’s Concept of a Game—a "Language Game"
Mapping the Organization, Communicatively Speaking
Maps and organization
Playing the Frame Game: Or How to Authorize the "Map"
Doing Field Research in an Imbricated Organization
Suggested Supplementary Readings
Chapter 3: Language as Both Meaning and Action

Cybernetics, Information Theory and Noam Chomsky’s Linguistics
Wittgenstein Again
John Austin and ¨Speech Acts¨
Modality
Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis
Labov and Fanshel: Language and Thirdness
M. A. K. Halliday: A Social Semiotic View of Reflexivity
Conclusion
Suggested Supplementary Readings
PART TWO: RESEARCH
Chapter 4: Text as the Constitutive Basis of Organization

The text in the conversation
"Espacer l’organisation: trajectoires d’un projet de diffusion de la science et de la technologie au Chili"
Down-linking: Building a Local Program by Enlisting Scientists
Up-linking: The Other Dimension of Organizational Coherence
Act II: in Santiago
Summary of Analysis
Vasquez’ Singular View of Organization
Conclusion
Suggested Supplementary Readings
Chapter 5: The Accounts of a Business—Or Perhaps Rather the Business of Accounting?

"Les activités de production de l’information budgetaire: Communications organisationnelles et régulations, le cas d’une entreprise de BTP"
The Organizational Context of Fauré’s Research
The Performative Dimension of an ERP-type System
Updating the Budget: The Organization in the Conversation
Selecting a Communicative Event for Analysis
Analysis
Imbrication Reexamined: The Role of the Third Party
A Word on the Limitations of Formal Accounting
Text as the basis of organization
Suggested Supplementary Reading
Chapter 6: Playing On the Game while Playing In the Game—Frames, Identities and the "Fall Plan"

How to constitute the organization in a text
Senem Güney’s Study: "An Ethnographic Case Study of ‘Building the Box’"
The "Fall Plan": Text versus context
The "NuevoHyp Episode": Partners? Or Competitors?
Conclusion
Suggested Supplementary Readings
Chapter 7: The Organization as Text

Sandrine Virgili’s Study: "La construction mutuelle de la technologie et de l’organisation en phase de développement: Une perspective communicationnelle appliquée à l’étude d’un ERP"
The Research Site: "Labopharma"
The Conversation in the Text, and the Text in the Conversation
Conversation # 1: Different "Maps"
Conversation #2:"Telepresence"
Conclusion
Suggested Supplementary Readings
Chapter 8: The "Western," 21st Century Version—Mapping the Boundaries Through Texts

"Communicating in the Field: The Role of Boundary Objects in a Collaborative Stakeholder Initiative"
Heron Lake Watershed Synergy Group (HLWSG)
The Fall Meetings, 2005
Conclusion
Suggested Supplementary Reading
PART THREE: SYNTHESIS
Chapter 9: The Organization as Thirdness, or How to Do Organizational Communication Research

Theorizing communication
On Being an Organizational Communication Researcher
Toward a Research Strategy
What is Organizational Communication Research?
Suggested Supplementary Reading
Bibliography