This commentary reflects on Mumby and Stohl's essay “Disciplining Organizational Communication Studies.” The author argues that Mumby and Stohl's desire to create a “birth” story for the discipline caused them to overlook two important trends among its scholars that may work to undermine the discipline's relevance: overvaluing theory relative to the empirical study of communication behavior and resisting technology both as a subject and a tool. Organizational communication scholars should work against tendencies to maintain the currency of their research enterprise.
Abbott, A. (2001). Chaos of disciplines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2.
Abbott, A. (2004). Methods of discovery. New York: Norton.
3.
Agnes, M., & Guralnik, D. B. (Eds.). (2001). Webster's new world college dictionary (4th ed.). Foster City, CA: IDG.
4.
Allen, M. W., Gotcher, J. M., & Seibert, J. H. (1993). A decade of organizational communication research: Journal articles 1980-1991. In S. Deetz (Ed.), Communication yearbook 16 (pp. 252-330). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
5.
Bennington, A. J., Shetler, J. C., & Shaw, T. (2003). Negotiating order in interorganizational communication: Discourse analysis of a meeting of three diverse organizations. Journal of Business Communication, 40, 118-143.
6.
Boden, D. (1994). The business of talk. Cambridge, MA: Polity.
7.
Conrad, C. (2000). On the destiny of acceptance frames: Organizational communication discourse. In S. R. Corman & M. S. Poole (Eds.), Perspectives on organizational communication: Finding common ground (pp. 96-104). New York: Guilford.
8.
Corman, S. R. (2000). The need for common ground. In S. R. Corman & M. S. Poole (Eds.), Perspectives on organizational communication: Finding common ground (pp. 1-15). New York: Guilford.
9.
Corman, S. R. (2004). Postpositivism. In S. May & D. Mumby (Eds.), Engaging organizational communication theory and research: Multiple perspectives (pp. 15-34). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
10.
Corman, S. R., Kuhn, T., McPhee, R., & Dooley, K. (2002). Studying complex discursive systems: Centering resonance analysis of communication. Human Communication Research, 28, 157-206.
11.
Corman, S. R., & Scott, C. R. (1994). A synchronous digital signal processing method for detecting face-to-face organizational communication behavior. Social Networks, 16, 163-179.
12.
Deetz, S. (2003). Reclaiming the legacy of the linguistic turn. Organization, 10, 421-429.
13.
Delia, J. E. (1987). Twentieth-century communication research: An historical perspective. In C. R. Berger & S. H. Chaffee (Eds.), Handbook of communication science(pp. 20-98). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
14.
Dooley, K. J., & Corman, S. R. (2002). The dynamics of electronic media coverage. In B. Greenberg (Ed.), Communication and terrorism: Public and media responses to 9/11(pp. 121-136). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.
15.
Dooley, K., Corman, S., McPhee, R., & Kuhn, T. (2003). Modeling high-resolution broadband discourse in complex adaptive systems. Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, & Life Sciences, 7(1), 61-86.
16.
Eagle, N., & Pentland, A. (2003). Social network computing. In A. K. Dey, A. Schmidt, & J. F. McCarthy (Eds.), UbiComp 2003 (pp. 289-296). Berlin, Germany: Springer.
17.
Ellis, D. (1982). The shame of speech communication. Spectra, 18(3), 1-2.
18.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Vintage. (Original work published 1977)
19.
Hart, R. P. (1984). Verbal style and the presidency: A computer-based analysis. New York: Academic Press.
20.
Hart, R. P. (2001). Redeveloping DICTION: Theoretical considerations. In M. West (Ed.), Progress in communication sciences (Vol. 6, pp. 43-60). Westport, UK: Ablex.
21.
Jones, E., Watson, B., Gardner, J., & Gallois, C. (2004). Organizational communication: Challenges for the new century. Journal of Communication, 54, 722-750.
22.
Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers (D. Cartwright, Ed.). New York: Harper Torchbooks.
23.
Miller, K. I. (2000). Common ground from the postpositivist perspective: From straw person argument to collaborative coexistence. In S. R. Corman & M. S. Poole (Eds.), Perspectives on organizational communication: Finding common ground (pp. 46-67). New York: Guilford.
24.
Mumby, D. K., & Stohl, C. (1996). Disciplining organizational communication studies. Management Communication Quarterly, 10, 50-72.
25.
Pallett, D. S. (2003). A look at NIST's benchmark ASR tests: Past, present, and future. Retrieved August 20, 2005, from http://www.nist.gov/speech/history/pdf/NIST_benchmark_ASRtests_2003.pdf
26.
Putnam, L. L. (1983). The interpretive approach: An alternative to functionalism. In L. L. Putnam & M. E. Pakanowsky (Eds.), Communication and organizations: An interpretive approach (pp. 31-54). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
27.
Putnam, L. L., & Fairhurst, G. T. (2001). Discourse analysis in organizations: Issues and concerns. In F. Jablin & L. Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods (pp. 76-136). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
28.
Putnam, L. L., & Pakanowsky, M. E. (1983). Communication and organizations: An interpretive approach. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
29.
Radicati Group. (2005). Taming the growth of email: An ROI analysis. Retrieved August 20, 2005, from http://www.whitepaper.developerpipeline.com/cmpdeveloppline/search/viewabstract/76475/index.jsp
30.
Roberts, C. W. (1997). Introduction. In C. W. Roberts (Ed.), Text analysis for the social sciences (pp. 1-8). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
31.
Shapiro, G. (1997). The future of coders: Human judgments in a world of sophisticated software. In C. W. Roberts (Ed.), Text analysis for the social sciences (pp. 225-238). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
32.
Shetty, J., & Adibi, J. (2004). The Enron dataset database schema and brief statistical report. Retrieved November 4, 2004, from http://www.isi.edu/%7Eadibi/Enron/Enron_dataset_Report.pdf
33.
Taylor, J. R., Flannagin, A. J., Cheney, G. E., & Seibold, D. R. (2001). Organizational communication research: Key moments, central concerns, and future challenges. In W. Gudykunst (Ed.), Communication yearbook 24 (pp. 99-137). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
34.
Ten years that changed the world. (2005, August). Wired, pp. 91-102.
35.
Zakon, R. H. (n.d.). Hobbes' Internet timeline v8.1. Retrieved August 20, 2005, from http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
36.
Zerubavel, E. (2003). Time maps: Collective memory and the social shape of the past. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
