Abstract
The study of organizational discourse is a task which is multi-faceted and philosophically and methodologically complex. Previous studies have established the importance and feasibility of employing discursive means to explore organizations (Grant et al., 2004). Organizational Discourse by François Cooren shows us how different methods can be combined to study organizations from a discursive perspective. Although the study of organizational discourse alone is not new, Cooren is the first to bring together six discursive perspectives (i.e. semiotics, rhetorics, speech act theory, ethnomethodology/conversation analysis, narrative analysis and critical discourse analysis) that are integrated in what the author calls a communicative constitutive approach (CCO). The volume covers broad topics such as coordination and organizing, organizational culture, identity and ideology, and negotiation, decision-making and conflicts in meetings. It stands out as a very interesting and insightful study in the field of organizational communication.
In this book, Cooren aims to provide a discursive interpretation of classical organizational themes, objects and questions, so as to demonstrate the significance of studying discourse and communication (p. 13). He considers CCO to be the unifying thread of the book for the purpose of maintaining the coherence of the analysis and to highlight the discursive approach (p. 15). Each core chapter (Chapters 3–5) focuses on a specific topic or practice, and develops theoretical discussion and data analysis applying the six perspectives. This permits consistency in the discussion and helps readers to find out the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of different perspectives.
The Introduction (Chapter 1) reviews the concepts of discourse in general and organizational discourse specifically and proposes a constitutive view of discourse which Cooren hopes to employ in this study, and where discourse is considered to be constitutive of organizations. With distinctions between ‘big-D’ and ‘small-d’ discourse approaches initiated by Gee (1990, see also Gee, 1989, 1999), and the concept of organizational discourse from a common-sense and constitutive viewpoint, the author highlights the significance of discourse studies in understanding organization, arguing that ‘discourse […] constitutes the very means by which the organizational forms exist’ (p. 12).
To illustrate the constitutive power of discourse, the author introduces and characterizes in Chapter 2 the six traditional perspectives for a consideration of their theoretical frameworks or methodologies, and especially the shared constitutive view of organizational discourse (p. 16). First is semiotics, where it is argued that signs always go with organizational forms and thus play a crucial constitutive role in the structuring of organizational forms. Second is a rhetorical approach to organizational discourse that emphasizes the power of words to define a situation in a specific way. Then comes speech act theory, which demonstrates that words have the capacity to go beyond just defining situations to their actual transformation by ‘doing things with words’. The fourth perspective Cooren deals with involves ethnomethodology/conversation analysis, which can provide the most detailed and careful observation of those meaningful and accountable actions in interaction that ‘come to define, produce and constitute situations’ (p. 38). From the fifth perspective of narrative analysis, the events, agents and discourse of an organization are linked with each other through narratives, and narrative structure is seen as crucial for understanding action. Finally, the perspective of critical discourse analysis emphasizes that any discourse is acting upon and constitutive of organizations. By synthesizing all six perspectives, various aspects of the same discourse can be highlighted from different angles.
Chapters 3–5 constitute the core of the empirical discourse analysis and theoretical interpretation in this book. In these chapters, the author attempts to systematically apply the six perspectives to specific organizational topics or practices. In Chapter 3, the author scrutinizes coordination and organizing from all six perspectives, and argues that coordination and organization need to be spontaneously mobilized into actual existence through specific actions, words and ideas, performed and talked into being, and reproduced and reaffirmed in interaction, as well as expressing specific ideologies, norms or values (pp. 63, 66, 74). Culture, identity and ideology, the three closely knitted aspects of organization, are tackled from all six perspectives in Chapter 4. The author demonstrates that culture and identity may be affirmed or realized by analyzing cultivated or repeated values, norms or principles in discourse (p. 88), and that ideology can be identified by ‘what is said and the way it is said’ (p. 112). Chapter 5 investigates the phenomena of negotiation, decision-making and conflicts within the context of meetings, again from the six discursive perspectives. By analyzing six excerpts from real meetings, the author demonstrates that rhetorical moves, semiotic aspects, specific speech acts, conversational features, narrative mechanisms and critical theories contribute to the constitution of meetings. The book ends with a brief conclusion in Chapter 6, in which the author offers an extended discussion of the constitutive view of communication.
With the solid and innovative construction of an integrated theoretical and methodological framework, the book offers fine exemplars of how to describe and explore the characteristics of organizational communication from different discursive perspectives. Taking a constitutive view of communication, this book makes the proposition that different aspects of organizational discourse can be unveiled and the mechanism of how organizations are communicatively constituted can be understood through discursive analysis. The theories and methods selected and introduced by the author in this book provide guidelines for researchers to analyze organizational discourse. The volume may thus contribute to the study of discourse and organizational communication both theoretically and practically.
As an innovative interdisciplinary study, this book also leaves some room for improvement. First, although the author clearly states the reasons why he selected these six perspectives to study organizational discourse (p. 16), it is still unclear why he excluded other possible perspectives such as pragmatics or sociolinguistics. Second, since the six perspectives belong to different categories (i.e. general branches of study, specific theories, research methods), the relations between these perspectives could be clarified further. And third, the lack of a summary or conclusion in each chapter makes the book less readable, especially if it were to be used as a textbook for students.
To sum up, Cooren’s book is a clear, detailed, broad-ranging and very insightful resource in the field of organizational communication with truly interdisciplinary perspectives. The author displays great expertise in both discourse analysis and organizational discourse, and the book is an excellent resource for researchers and postgraduates whose research interests lie in organizational communication, institutional discourse and discourse analysis in general.