Communicative Property (Routledge Studies in Communication, Organization, and Organizing)

Communicative Property explores the concept of property from a communicative, rather than economic and legal, perspective.

As a point of departure, the book engages with both organizational studies and social theory to point out that economic and legal views of property have dominated conversations over the notion since Marx. The author argues that the role of property in shaping organizations and configuring work relationships is poorly understood, as property, being traditionally defined exclusively through an economic and legal lens, fails to account for the diversity of ways in which it is expressed every day within and around organizations. Revealing property’s organizing power, the author suggests, requires adopting a communicative lens to property, situating it in the daily interactions through which organizations are created, changed, and undone.

Firmly positioning capitalism as a communication phenomenon, this book will be of relevance to scholars looking for an observable and actionable entry point to formulate a critique of capitalism, by offering them a communicative approach to one of its main mechanisms: property.

Nicolas Bencherki is a professor of organizational communication at Université TÉLUQ, Canada. He is also an affiliate faculty member at Université du Québec à Montréal and at Audencia Business School, France. He studies the interactional performance of organizational phenomena such as authority, strategy, and ownership, with a particular focus on nonprofit and community organizations. He holds a joint PhD in communication from Université de Montréal and in sociology of action from Sciences Po Paris.