Communicating and Organizing in Context

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APPLYING GIDDENS INCOMMUNICATING ANDORGANIZING

Clearly, the critics who suggested that structuration theory is too abstract to generate useful empirical studies were incorrect. (See Phipps, 2001, for an overview of empirical studies using structuration research.) Organizational scholars have applied Giddens’ theory in a number of different areas (see Poole & McPhee, 2005, for a good overview of structuration applications in the communication discipline). Within the communication discipline, applications have focused on organizational culture, small group communication and argumentation, organizational processes, and adaptive structuration theory.

Poole and McPhee (2005) argued that structuration “encompassed both social structure and human ...