How to read interpretive accounts of organizational life: Narrative bases of textual authority

Strine, Mary S.; Pacanowsky, Michael

doi:10.1080/10417948509372636

Cited by 13 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…This brief review suggests that communication scholars have primarily focused on televisual and cinematic depictions of organization, but they have not completely neglected fiction.s In organizational comrnunication, this treatment has generally emphasized the aesthetic of fiction over particular genres and has debated the validity, ethics, and politics of writing as a medium for representation of organizational realities (Strine & Pacanowsky, 1985). Here, the focus has been on strategies used by narrators to establish authority for their accounts through depicting various levels of involvement in their relationships with organizational subjects and readers.…”

Section: Culture and Cultural Subjectivitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organizational Communication and Cultural Studies: A Review Essay

Carlone¹,

Taylor²

1998

Commun Theory

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Recently, we have been struggling to interpret a series of minor yet absurd spectacles that span the industrial and popular-cultural realms. These events have compelled our scholarly interest, but lack a ready-made frame for diagnosing their significance. Consider these examples: In the summer of 1996, vivacious TV talk-show cohost Kathie Lee Gifford was criticized by activists who linked her line of Wal-Mart clothing to human-rights abuses and wage violations among factory workers in Honduras and New York City. Tearful and contrite, Gifford quickly adopted a policy of independent monitoring and assigned her husband, celebrity sports-announcer Frank Gifford, to deliver envelopes of compensation for the affected workers. Relatedly, in the fall of 1997, Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams-famed for his satire of corporate foibles-disguised himself as a management consultant. With the help of a company official, he conducted an executive retreat in a computer firm that produced a tortured "revision" of its mission statement. Additional examples appear in the flickerings of our TV screens: the lithe, androgynous figures of Intel's technicians, clad in hooded, colorful "clean room" suits, energetically installing computer chips to a soundtrack of 1970s funk; and quasi-documentary images of rolling golf carts, filled with visitors to the Saturn car plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, watching assembly workers at their tasks-and being watched in return.Collectively, these examples indicate a type of social drama in which the organization of work is aestheticized and commodified for consumption. We do not argue that this discourse is novel. Each of these events may be classified among the familiar genres of modern commerce: publicity, promotion, advertising, marketing and public relations. Nor do we argue that these genres are neglected by communication scholars: Sustained interest in organizational rhetoric and media criticism suggests the opposite. We do believe, however, that analysis of such events might benefit from the tentative integration of two communication fields traditionally regarded as distinct: those of organizational commtlnica-

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Section: Culture and Cultural Subjectivitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%