Pub Date : 2023-01-17DOI: 10.1177/08933189231152454
S. Blithe
The complex process of work-life management combined with social and economic demands have created difficulties for many working mothers. Although ideologies about “good mothers” suggest that mothers should be constantly available for care work responsibilities, most mothers must also engage in paid work for family sustainability. Using what I call work-friendly child spaces, some privileged mothers have found locations that cater to both parenting and work, which enable them to sustain their careers while also engaging in the early years of parenting. Based on participant observation and interviews, I argue that although work-friendly child spaces accommodate work arrangements that are flexible and mobile, they ultimately reify deep structural inequalities and leave care work as primarily the responsibility of women.
{"title":"Work-Life Balance and Flexible Organizational Space: Employed Mothers’ Use of Work-Friendly Child Spaces","authors":"S. Blithe","doi":"10.1177/08933189231152454","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189231152454","url":null,"abstract":"The complex process of work-life management combined with social and economic demands have created difficulties for many working mothers. Although ideologies about “good mothers” suggest that mothers should be constantly available for care work responsibilities, most mothers must also engage in paid work for family sustainability. Using what I call work-friendly child spaces, some privileged mothers have found locations that cater to both parenting and work, which enable them to sustain their careers while also engaging in the early years of parenting. Based on participant observation and interviews, I argue that although work-friendly child spaces accommodate work arrangements that are flexible and mobile, they ultimately reify deep structural inequalities and leave care work as primarily the responsibility of women.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"821 - 845"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46377239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-09DOI: 10.1177/08933189221151177
W. Coombs, Elina R. Tachkova
This study uses moral outrage to create a triadic appraisal of crises for situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). The addition of moral outrage improves the theory with an eye toward enhancing its application to the practice of crisis communication. The authors argue that adding moral outrage resulted in a needed reconceptualization of the preventable crisis cluster in SCCT identified by earlier researchers. Moral outrage becomes a third factor stakeholders utilize to assess crisis threats along with (1) determining if the situation is negative and (2) evaluations of crisis responsibility. The results of the study indicate that the preventable crisis cluster should be treated as three distinct sub-clusters. We argue that this triadic appraisal of crisis threat improves SCCT theoretically and has implications for the practice of crisis communication.
{"title":"Integrating Moral Outrage in Situational Crisis Communication Theory: A Triadic Appraisal Model for Crises","authors":"W. Coombs, Elina R. Tachkova","doi":"10.1177/08933189221151177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221151177","url":null,"abstract":"This study uses moral outrage to create a triadic appraisal of crises for situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). The addition of moral outrage improves the theory with an eye toward enhancing its application to the practice of crisis communication. The authors argue that adding moral outrage resulted in a needed reconceptualization of the preventable crisis cluster in SCCT identified by earlier researchers. Moral outrage becomes a third factor stakeholders utilize to assess crisis threats along with (1) determining if the situation is negative and (2) evaluations of crisis responsibility. The results of the study indicate that the preventable crisis cluster should be treated as three distinct sub-clusters. We argue that this triadic appraisal of crisis threat improves SCCT theoretically and has implications for the practice of crisis communication.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"798 - 820"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43698240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-25DOI: 10.1177/08933189221144993
Ashley Jones-Bodie
This article explores the discourse of nonprofit wrongdoing through a thematic analysis of over 450 texts, including media coverage and organizational responses, surrounding four cases of nonprofit wrongdoing. These cases include theft, mismanagement of funds, lying about 9/11, and administering unintentional yet lethal doses of medication. The findings extend prior work on organizational rhetoric and propose the notion of granted utility – an assumed foundational view of the usefulness and underlying benefit of nonprofit organizations – as key for understanding nonprofit rhetoric. The findings suggest that recognizing granted utility allows organizations to focus on answering responsibility-focused questions of organizational legitimacy while maintaining utility-focused messages that reinforce granted utility when wrongdoing occurs.
{"title":"Granted Utility, a Proposal for the Rhetoric of Nonprofit Wrongdoing","authors":"Ashley Jones-Bodie","doi":"10.1177/08933189221144993","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221144993","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the discourse of nonprofit wrongdoing through a thematic analysis of over 450 texts, including media coverage and organizational responses, surrounding four cases of nonprofit wrongdoing. These cases include theft, mismanagement of funds, lying about 9/11, and administering unintentional yet lethal doses of medication. The findings extend prior work on organizational rhetoric and propose the notion of granted utility – an assumed foundational view of the usefulness and underlying benefit of nonprofit organizations – as key for understanding nonprofit rhetoric. The findings suggest that recognizing granted utility allows organizations to focus on answering responsibility-focused questions of organizational legitimacy while maintaining utility-focused messages that reinforce granted utility when wrongdoing occurs.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"765 - 797"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45324477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-22DOI: 10.1177/08933189221145001
Elaine Schnabel
Religious communities have long affirmed the agency of their sacred texts and their God/gods, providing a unique site of study for research on ventriloquizing authority, textual agency, and the power of incorporeal figures like values or principles. This paper uses PraiseMoves, an Evangelical organization selling a “Christian alternative to yoga,” as a case study to develop the concept of deific agency. Deific agency is the agential power of incorporeal projections of moral authority. These projections mediate text-human relationships both in and beyond particular organizational contexts by imbuing visibly-privileged human bodies with moral authority. Deific figures can thus overwhelm textual agency by bonding with visibly-privileged bodies and thereafter organizing perceptions of moral authority in and beyond organizations in ways that disproportionately benefit physically-privileged human beings. This paper concludes by articulating the value of believing bodies for research and suggesting future avenues of inquiry.
{"title":"Deific Figures and Human Bodies: Creating Hierarchies of Difference through the Incarnation of Moral Authority","authors":"Elaine Schnabel","doi":"10.1177/08933189221145001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221145001","url":null,"abstract":"Religious communities have long affirmed the agency of their sacred texts and their God/gods, providing a unique site of study for research on ventriloquizing authority, textual agency, and the power of incorporeal figures like values or principles. This paper uses PraiseMoves, an Evangelical organization selling a “Christian alternative to yoga,” as a case study to develop the concept of deific agency. Deific agency is the agential power of incorporeal projections of moral authority. These projections mediate text-human relationships both in and beyond particular organizational contexts by imbuing visibly-privileged human bodies with moral authority. Deific figures can thus overwhelm textual agency by bonding with visibly-privileged bodies and thereafter organizing perceptions of moral authority in and beyond organizations in ways that disproportionately benefit physically-privileged human beings. This paper concludes by articulating the value of believing bodies for research and suggesting future avenues of inquiry.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"79 4","pages":"739 - 764"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41291383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.1177/08933189221146186
Alaina C. Zanin, Ryan S. Bisel
This study investigated dissent strategy selection as a product of structurational divergence (SD) and individuals’ lay theories of leader and follower roles. A survey of working adults (N = 338) revealed that employees who reported experiencing structurational divergence in their workplace were more likely to engage in circumvention, threatening resignation, and defensive silence. Analysis also indicated that employees with an active followership mindset were more likely to report engaging in prosocial and repetition dissent strategies. Meanwhile, they were less likely to report engaging in circumvention, threatening resignation, and defensive silence. Importantly, perceptions of SD were negatively associated with members’ implicit belief that a good follower is an active follower. Implications for structurational divergence theory, implicit theories of followership, and organizational dissent conclude the paper.
{"title":"Structurational Divergence, Implicit Orientations to Active Followership, and Employees’ Selection of Upward Dissent Strategies and Silence","authors":"Alaina C. Zanin, Ryan S. Bisel","doi":"10.1177/08933189221146186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221146186","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigated dissent strategy selection as a product of structurational divergence (SD) and individuals’ lay theories of leader and follower roles. A survey of working adults (N = 338) revealed that employees who reported experiencing structurational divergence in their workplace were more likely to engage in circumvention, threatening resignation, and defensive silence. Analysis also indicated that employees with an active followership mindset were more likely to report engaging in prosocial and repetition dissent strategies. Meanwhile, they were less likely to report engaging in circumvention, threatening resignation, and defensive silence. Importantly, perceptions of SD were negatively associated with members’ implicit belief that a good follower is an active follower. Implications for structurational divergence theory, implicit theories of followership, and organizational dissent conclude the paper.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"711 - 738"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41443610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-09DOI: 10.1177/08933189221144991
O. B. Albu
This study explores how visibilities are produced and managed, and how they transform the work of activists operating in repressive contexts. To advance emerging research, this study blends theoretical perspectives from visibility and activism research and builds on ethnographic methods and fieldwork in a non-profit organization. The contribution of the article to research at the intersection of visibility and activism is twofold: firstly, the article identifies the social and material agencies involved in the production of different dimensions of visibilities (mildly shaded and mostly shadowed). Secondly, the article shows how the three identified relational imbrications of agencies (encryption, obfuscation, and concealment) at times empower and undermine the efforts of both activists and oppressors. The findings provide novel insights concerning the (dis)empowering role of visibilities applicable to many collectives, corporations and institutions that rely on visibility management, as datafication is making it increasingly easy for behaviors to be seen.
{"title":"Managing Visibilities: The Shades and Shadows of NGO Work in Repressive Contexts","authors":"O. B. Albu","doi":"10.1177/08933189221144991","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221144991","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores how visibilities are produced and managed, and how they transform the work of activists operating in repressive contexts. To advance emerging research, this study blends theoretical perspectives from visibility and activism research and builds on ethnographic methods and fieldwork in a non-profit organization. The contribution of the article to research at the intersection of visibility and activism is twofold: firstly, the article identifies the social and material agencies involved in the production of different dimensions of visibilities (mildly shaded and mostly shadowed). Secondly, the article shows how the three identified relational imbrications of agencies (encryption, obfuscation, and concealment) at times empower and undermine the efforts of both activists and oppressors. The findings provide novel insights concerning the (dis)empowering role of visibilities applicable to many collectives, corporations and institutions that rely on visibility management, as datafication is making it increasingly easy for behaviors to be seen.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"659 - 685"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44472571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-08DOI: 10.1177/08933189221144996
Inyoung Shin, Sarah E. Riforgiate, M. C. Coker, Emily A. Godager
Drawing on a national survey of 447 U.S. workers who transitioned to remote work during COVID-19, this study examined how different types of communication technologies (CTs) used for work and private life were associated with work/life conflicts and perceptions of social support across different relationship types (coworker, family, and friends). Findings indicated that work/life conflicts became aggravated when the use of CTs violated relational norms (e.g., mobile texting with coworkers and emailing with family and friends). On the other hand, uses of CTs that were perceived to offer access to social support (e.g., instant messaging with coworkers and friends) were related to lower work/life conflict. Social media (e.g., Facebook) had a direct relationship to higher work/life conflict, but an indirect relationship to lower work/life conflict through social support. Overall, findings suggest that individuals attempt to create work/life boundaries by selecting specific CTs when physical work/life boundaries are collapsed.
{"title":"Communication Technology and Social Support to Navigate Work/Life Conflict During Covid-19 and Beyond","authors":"Inyoung Shin, Sarah E. Riforgiate, M. C. Coker, Emily A. Godager","doi":"10.1177/08933189221144996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221144996","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on a national survey of 447 U.S. workers who transitioned to remote work during COVID-19, this study examined how different types of communication technologies (CTs) used for work and private life were associated with work/life conflicts and perceptions of social support across different relationship types (coworker, family, and friends). Findings indicated that work/life conflicts became aggravated when the use of CTs violated relational norms (e.g., mobile texting with coworkers and emailing with family and friends). On the other hand, uses of CTs that were perceived to offer access to social support (e.g., instant messaging with coworkers and friends) were related to lower work/life conflict. Social media (e.g., Facebook) had a direct relationship to higher work/life conflict, but an indirect relationship to lower work/life conflict through social support. Overall, findings suggest that individuals attempt to create work/life boundaries by selecting specific CTs when physical work/life boundaries are collapsed.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"686 - 707"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43541946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-08DOI: 10.1177/08933189221144995
Yuan Li, R. Suddaby
How do institutions think about change? Building on Mary Douglas’s famous contention that institutions think by means of analogy, we suggest that institutions think about change by means of irony. Irony is pronounced during times of profound change when the rhetoric and the reality of change can be inconsistent. We show that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has enacted what we term loosely coupled change—change in which symbolic meanings and material practices are only weakly connected and retain their independence. The CCP employed the rhetorical form of irony, known as casuistry, to legitimize a change to market systems as being incremental while in practice radically adopting market systems and dismantling socialist practices. We contribute to research on institutional messaging by examining the hermeneutic depth of casuistry. We also contribute to research on organizational change by explicating how casuistry reconciles contradictory ideologies and facilitates loosely coupled change.
{"title":"How Institutions Communicate Change: Casuistry and Loosely Coupled Change in China’s Market Transformation","authors":"Yuan Li, R. Suddaby","doi":"10.1177/08933189221144995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221144995","url":null,"abstract":"How do institutions think about change? Building on Mary Douglas’s famous contention that institutions think by means of analogy, we suggest that institutions think about change by means of irony. Irony is pronounced during times of profound change when the rhetoric and the reality of change can be inconsistent. We show that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has enacted what we term loosely coupled change—change in which symbolic meanings and material practices are only weakly connected and retain their independence. The CCP employed the rhetorical form of irony, known as casuistry, to legitimize a change to market systems as being incremental while in practice radically adopting market systems and dismantling socialist practices. We contribute to research on institutional messaging by examining the hermeneutic depth of casuistry. We also contribute to research on organizational change by explicating how casuistry reconciles contradictory ideologies and facilitates loosely coupled change.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"629 - 658"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42232467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-10DOI: 10.1177/08933189221137579
Brian Manata
This paper uses a diverse organizational sample to test portions of Heider’s (1946, 1958) balance framework. First, a review of balance theory is provided, and then theoretical relationships between relational balance and organizational outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, unproductivity, and depressive symptoms) are explicated. Following this, the role of organizational commitment is also considered as a moderator of the aforementioned associations. In the main, the results of this investigation indicate that balance has a substantial, positive effect on job satisfaction. The results also indicate that balance combines non-additively with organizational commitment to impact results, such that the negative effects of balance on unproductivity and depressive symptoms are stronger when members are committed to their jobs. These findings point to the importance of considering the impact of relational patterns within organizations, as opposed to considering the impact of any one relationship in particular.
{"title":"Relational Balance in the Workplace: Exploring the Moderating Role of Organizational Commitment","authors":"Brian Manata","doi":"10.1177/08933189221137579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221137579","url":null,"abstract":"This paper uses a diverse organizational sample to test portions of Heider’s (1946, 1958) balance framework. First, a review of balance theory is provided, and then theoretical relationships between relational balance and organizational outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, unproductivity, and depressive symptoms) are explicated. Following this, the role of organizational commitment is also considered as a moderator of the aforementioned associations. In the main, the results of this investigation indicate that balance has a substantial, positive effect on job satisfaction. The results also indicate that balance combines non-additively with organizational commitment to impact results, such that the negative effects of balance on unproductivity and depressive symptoms are stronger when members are committed to their jobs. These findings point to the importance of considering the impact of relational patterns within organizations, as opposed to considering the impact of any one relationship in particular.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"572 - 598"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41320212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-25DOI: 10.1177/08933189221134116
E. P. James, Alaina C. Zanin, Zack J. Damon
This study examines employees at a metal fabrication plant and their experiences with a workplace wellness initiative, which included on-site CrossFit classes. Interviews with 16 workers and participant observation revealed d/Discourses that rationalized worker compliance and resistance to the wellness initiative. Through a discourse tracing analysis, the authors propose the novel concept of parallel ideal worker identities to describe how organizational d/Discourses (de)valued (a) blue-collar worker and (b) “healthy worker” identities. These d/Discourses created resistance to the wellness initiative because they made salient how the organization privileged the “healthy worker” identity over the traditionally constructed blue-collar worker identity through unobtrusive control.
{"title":"Blue-Collar and Healthy Worker Identities: How Parallel Ideal Worker Identities Sustain Unobtrusive Control on the Shop-Floor","authors":"E. P. James, Alaina C. Zanin, Zack J. Damon","doi":"10.1177/08933189221134116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189221134116","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines employees at a metal fabrication plant and their experiences with a workplace wellness initiative, which included on-site CrossFit classes. Interviews with 16 workers and participant observation revealed d/Discourses that rationalized worker compliance and resistance to the wellness initiative. Through a discourse tracing analysis, the authors propose the novel concept of parallel ideal worker identities to describe how organizational d/Discourses (de)valued (a) blue-collar worker and (b) “healthy worker” identities. These d/Discourses created resistance to the wellness initiative because they made salient how the organization privileged the “healthy worker” identity over the traditionally constructed blue-collar worker identity through unobtrusive control.","PeriodicalId":47743,"journal":{"name":"Management Communication Quarterly","volume":"37 1","pages":"542 - 571"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49531504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}