The Communicative Constitution of Organizations: The Four Flows Model

Discusses interrelations or confluences among communication flows as the Four Flows Model of organizational communication

The Four Flows Model illustrates how communication makes an organization what it is, presenting in-depth information on the Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO). Written by a team of renowned experts in the field, this comprehensive resource is designed for all those involved in the study of organizations, particularly advanced students and researchers in Business, Sociology, Communication Studies, and the subdiscipline of Organizational Communication.

Organized into eleven substantial chapters, the text clearly and thoroughly explains all key aspects of Four Flows Theory (4F) and provides a theoretical grounding in its parent, Structuration Theory (ST). The book draws upon original research and evidence to demonstrate that organizations are not constituted in merely one way, but rather by four analytically different yet interconnected characteristic flows: Membership Negotiation, Self-Structuring, Activity Coordination, and Institutional Positioning. Throughout the book, the authors describe their theoretical developments through discussion of other key schools of CCO thinking, as well as important issues such as critical perspectives on organizing.

Articulating the significance of the Four Flows Theory for CCO scholarship, this innovative volume:

• Discusses interrelations or confluences among flows and explores relations of the Four Flows Model with alternate perspectives
• Emphasizes the need to ask broader questions in CCO theorizing regarding the ways socio-material things are constituted
• Lays out the context of 4F theory and identifies the key issues CCO theories should address
• Describes how conlocutions allow sensitive exploration of relations
• Introduces the concept of transtruction to Structuration Theory, explaining how communication produces and reproduces organizations

Highlighting the importance of studying organizations as novel social entities that rule the world, The Four Flows Model: The Communicative Constitution of Organizations is an excellent textbook for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses on Organizational Communication, Structuration Theory, Organizational Communication, Management, Organizational Studies, and Public Administration, as well as an invaluable reference work for researchers and practitioners in the field.

Robert D. McPhee, Professor Emeritus, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University. His scholarship has primarily focused on organizational and group communication, communication theory, and quantitative research analysis methods. His work has appeared in various communication and organizational studies journals.

Karen K. Myers, Professor of Organizational Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research examines workplace interactions including membership negotiation, vocational anticipatory socialization, communicative constitution of organizations, emotions in the workplace; communication between the generations in the workplace, workgroup communication in high-reliability organizations, and workplace flexibility.

Joel O. Iverson, Professor of Communication Studies, University of Montana. His research focuses on the communicative processes of organizing at group, organizational, and community levels, with an emphasis on risk and crisis communication. His theoretical developments include the Four Flows Model of Communication and Communities of Practice Theory.