Blackwell Reference Online

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Because investigations of organizational communication involve the intersection of two complex concepts – organization and communication – the discipline of organizational communication involves a number of diverse topical interests. Most scholars would agree that “organizations” are social collectives, embedded in a larger environment, in which activities are coordinated to achieve individual and collective goals. The study of organizational communication, then, is the consideration of “how the context of the organization influences communication processes and how the symbolic nature of communication differentiates it from other forms of organizational behavior” ( Miller 2006 , 1). As with many disciplines in communication, the study of organizational communication has been traced back many decades – even to antiquity (→  Communication: Definitions and Concepts ; Communication: History of the Idea ). For example, Clair (1999 , 284) argues that the discipline “lean[s] on the shoulders of Smith and Ricardo or Marx and Engels … rel[ies] on the tomes of White and Russell or Levi-Strauss and Douglas … resurrect[s] Aristotle, Plato, or Heraclitus.” However, most historians of the field place the beginning of the modern discipline of organizational communication in the middle of the twentieth century (→  Speech Communication, History of ). The genesis of organizational communication ... log in or subscribe to read full text