The course outlines the implications of a constitutive perspective of communication for management and shows what can be gained when overcoming the often embraced functionalist perspective of communication.

The course will first revisit some of the most classic management concerns from a communication vantage point, such as control or legitimacy. Regarding control, students will discuss how employee control has taken on the shape of identity regulation requiring complex communication processes. Regarding legitimacy, students will examine how companies are asked to go beyond simple calls for transparency and engage in continuous legitimation processes with companies being scrutinized by multiple stakeholders and orders of worth.

The course will then address some of the most pressing managerial challenges in today’s business environment. In particular, it will present communication-centered approaches to the management of continuous yet radical change, to the management of knowledge and to the management of diversity. For each management concern, students will engage in a dialogue between orthodox managerial frameworks and communication-centered approaches. For example, diversity management has often focused on how to overcome (e.g. through quotas) the underrepresentation of certain groups in specific job categories or echelons of hierarchy such as women, people of color, or people with disabilities. Yet, diversity depends importantly also on the norms that are applied in organizations, such as what defines a good leader. Students will learn how such norms have often invisible, yet discriminating standards worked into them and they will learn how discourse and communication plays into the constitution, rejection, and development of such norms. Through these application contexts, students will therefore learn what a communication-sensitive, i.e. relational and cultural reading of organizations can add to management practice.

To attend the course / exercise, registration via e-learning platform OLAT is required. Registration is possible from 6 February to 3 March 2023. The students themselves are responsible for checking the creditability of the course to their course of study.

Direct link to OLAT course:
https://lms.uzh.ch/url/RepositoryEntry/17335386567

Academic Readings:
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (2002). Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies, 39, 619-644.
Christensen, L. T., Morsing, M., & Cheney, G. (2008). Corporate communications: Convention, complexity and critique. Sage. pp. 14-19
Faraj, S., von Krogh, G., Monteiro, E., and Lakhani, K.R. (2016) Online community as space for knowledge flows. Information Systems Research 7047, 1–17
Hall, S. (1996). New ethnicities. In: Hall, S. Critical dialogues in cultural studies, Routledge, 441-449.
Heide, C. J. M. (2008),"Speaking of change: three communication approaches in studies of organizational change", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 13 Iss 3 pp. 288 – 305
Kuhn, T., Ashcraft, K.L., & Cooren, F. (2017) The Work of Communication. Relational Perspectives on Working and Organizing in Contemporary Capitalism, Routledge, Chapter 1: Encountering working and organizing under contemporary capitalism, p1-27
Patriotta, G., Gond, J. P., & Schultz, F. (2011). Maintaining legitimacy: Controversies, orders of worth, and public justifications. Journal of Management Studies, 48(8), 1804-1836.

Case studies: 
Groysberg, B. & Slind, M. (2011) Hindustan Petroleum Corporation LTD: Driving Change through Internal Communication, Harvard Business Publishing
Mead, R. (2014) Cold Comfort: Tech Jobs and Egg Freezing, New Yorker, October 17
Molteni, M. & Rogers, A. (2017) The actual science of James Damore’s Google memo, Wired + Diversity Management at Google. The Debate around James Damore’s Memo (2017) + various links
Petani, F. & Mengis, J. (2014) In chase of a runaway building: Coordination through organizational communication
Regani, S. & Dutta, S. (2004) Knowledge Management @ Xerox Corp. ICMR Center for Management Research
Qumer, S.M. & Purkayastha, D. (2011) Facebook: Balancing Growth and Preserving Corporate Culture, IBS Center for Management Research