Management Communication Quarterly

This article addresses two intertwined aspects of difference that have yet to be deeply examined by organizational communication scholars—language and national identity. Accordingly, in this research, which is taken from a larger study on scientific occupational identity, I use Tompkins and Cheney’s enthymeme as an analytical device to explore the ways that participants reject and simultaneously instantiate discrimination in the workplace. In doing so, I contribute to the theory of occupational control by demonstrating how perceptions of language and national identity are used as part of occupational decision making in order to evaluate “good science” at work. Findings in this article indicate, regardless of the common assumptions that “science does not discriminate,” that the concept of good science is based, in part, on the identity of the embodied subject and his or her English language performance.

This article examines how those who hold leadership positions in an internationally renowned Taiwanese Buddhist humanitarian organization establish themselves as legitimate authors of their organization by invoking a spiritual leader in their daily interactions and use this invocation to author their organization with a shared sense of compassion and wisdom. In so doing, this article extends the literature on mindful organizing and offers practical insights into the cultivation of mindfulness in an organizational setting. In particular, this study underscores the importance of understanding how a spiritual organization is communicatively constituted by voicing a revered figure into everyday situations, illustrating the profound connections between voice, invocation, and vocation.

Previous research on organizational dissent has explored a number of issues, but that research has been overly focused on the dissenter while neglecting the active role of others in co-constructing dissent. That line of scholarship has also tended to examine dissent expressions in isolation rather than exploring how previous experiences shape present expectations. This essay redefines dissent to situate interaction centrally and to focus on dissent interactions over time as a process rather than a one-time event. The success or failure of dissent is conceptualized as part of that process. Such a perspective reveals nuances by including the stories and discourses that are told as part of and in addition to an initial dissent conversation. A case study demonstrates how this reconceptualization of dissent recognizes the primary importance of interaction in constituting organizations and advances process theory by explicating the value such a perspective adds to this context.

Organizational values demand that working mothers separate the maternal from the professional. Due to the nature of maternity leave in the United States, however, working mothers who are breastfeeding have little choice but to bring motherhood into the workplace. In investigating the ways women navigate this situation, we found that to maintain their reputations as good workers participants practiced bounded motherhood at work, constraining breastfeeding practices to preserve norms of professionalism. However, participants sometimes practiced unbounded motherhood wherein their inter/actions disrupted organizational orders by merging motherhood and work in material ways. This embodiment of a good working mother identity expands the repertoire or action for working mothers and contributes to a re-meaning of the relationship between work and motherhood. This study demonstrates one means for making breastfeeding while working more feasible as well as to how workers’ bodies can be sites of resistance and reinforcement of gendered symbolic orders in organizations.

The purpose of this study was twofold and involved examining the viability of using the Organizational Dissent Scale as an other-report instrument, and developing additional perceptual data related to dissent expression. A sample of 291 people completed survey questionnaire measures of organizational dissent. Equal-sized groups (n = 97) completed either a self-report, a workplace colleague other-report, or an organizational outsider other-report. Results indicated the Organizational Dissent Scale performed reliably as an other-report, but it showed some tendency for social desirability. In addition, findings suggested that certain indicators of proximity to the dissenter reduced discrepancy between self- and other-reports for upward dissent, but not lateral dissent. By comparison, lateral dissent produced the most discrepant reports of dissent expression, while displaced dissent produced the most coherent reports.

This study develops a multilevel model to advance research on interpersonal exchange relationships among supervisors, subordinates, and coworkers by integrating leader–member exchange (LMX), team–member exchange (TMX), and perceived cooperative communication. The model was tested by using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) with data obtained from a sample of 375 manager–employee dyads working in 48 groups in Malaysia. At the individual level, LMX was found to be related to TMX; at the team-level, the relationship between the LMX-perceived cohesion link and the TMX-perceived cohesion link was mediated by perceived cooperative communication. These findings validated the proposed model and, in particular, empirically confirmed the central role of communication in LMX processes in workgroups. Practical implications are discussed.