Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Organization Studies
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (2)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Iedema, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

On the Multi-modality, Materially and Contingency of Organization Discourse

Rick Iedema

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, PO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia, r.iedema{at}uts.edu.au

This essay considers the ways that organizational discourse studies have deployed the concept `discourse'. A review of the literature reveals conceptual ambiguities in the definition of `discourse', as well as pre-analytical distinctions that are imposed between discourse, action and text, and between discourse, beliefs and material practices. The paper suggests that such a priori analytical categories risk tying the researcher to an inflexible research agenda, ruling out engaging with organizational specifics and emergent aspects of practice. The essay argues for an alternative view of discourse that centres on the following three arguments: discourse is not limited to language but also includes image, design, technology and other modes of meaning making; discourse and materiality co-emerge; and discourse manifests a specific, historically situated form of life.

Key Words: organizational discourse • materiality • multi-modality • contingency • intra-action

Organization Studies, Vol. 28, No. 6, 931-946 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840607075264
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Management LearningHome page
J. A. Raelin
Emancipatory Discourse and Liberation
Management Learning, November 1, 2008; 39(5): 519 - 540.
[Abstract] [PDF]