On the Various Ways of Studying Agency in Organizational Communication: A Roundtable Discussion

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Drawing on different intellectual traditions including structuration theory (McPhee & Zaug, 2000; McPhee & Iverson, 2009), actor-network theory (Cooren & Taylor, 1997) and ventriloqual theory (Cooren, 2010), or feminist theory (Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004), a number of organizational communication scholars have demonstrated how important the concept of “agency” is for understanding processes of organizing (see also Ashcraft, Kuhn, & Cooren, 2009; Brummans, 2006; Conrad & Haynes, 2001; Robichaud, 2006). With the multiplication of perspectives on agency, partly due to recent developments in research on the communicative constitution of organizations (see Brummans, Cooren, Robichaud, & Taylor, in press), it is becoming increasingly difficult, however, to see the forest for the trees in terms of (1) how to define this key construct conceptually; (2) how to study it empirically by using specific data collection and analytic methods; and (3) what the implications are of adopting a particular intellectual perspective. To advance our understanding of the main issues and debates regarding the study of agency, this roundtable brings together several expert scholars (Steffen Blaschke, Universität Hamburg, Germany; Kirsten J. Broadfoot, University of Colorado Denver, USA; François Cooren, Université de Montréal, Canada; Shiv Ganesh, Massey University, New Zealand; Robert D. McPhee, Arizona State University, USA; Debashish Munshi, University of Waikato, New Zealand; and Anne M. Nicotera, George Mason University, USA) whose work engages with this subject. Each panelist will write a 2000 to 2,500 word essay that addresses the three aforementioned questions and present her, his, or their text in the form of a ten-minute presentation—the essays will be made available to ICA Organizational Communication Division members via a Dropbox link after the conference. Subsequently, the floor will be opened up for discussion with the audience. The presentations and discussion will offer valuable insights into the theoretical and methodological complexities of investigating the concept of agency, which will interest scholars in the fields of organizational communication, language and social interaction, and philosophy of communication.

Sub Unit

• Organizational Communication

Chair

• Boris H. J. M. Brummans, U de Montreal

Individual Presentations

• It’s All in the Network: On the Distribution of Agency in Organizational Communication - Steffen Blaschke, Copenhagen Business School

• Translating Agency: Re-Writing the Narratives of Organizational Communication - Kirsten Broadfoot, U of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Debashish Munshi, U of Waikato

• Acting and Passing in Organizational Communication: Agency as Making a Difference - Francois Cooren, U de Montreal

• Agency as Communal, Participative, Promiscuous, and Protean: Implications for Social Movement Organizing - Shiv Ganesh, Massey University

• Structurational Agency in Four Flows of Organizational Communication - Robert D. McPhee, Arizona State U

• Damned If I Do and Damned If I Don’t: How Structurational Divergence Strips Actors of Agency and What to Do About It - Anne M Nicotera, George Mason University