Handbook of Business Communication

Gerlinde Mautner

25Organizational discourse

1.Introduction

2.Why study organizational discourse?

3.The broader picture: A review of key themes

4.Close-up on language

5.Challenges

6.Conclusion

1Introduction

The study of organizational discourse is a broad church. Under its roof, researchers have gathered with varying disciplinary backgrounds and a correspondingly wide spectrum of theories, methods, and views on both research designs and practical applications (Grant et al. 2004; Fairhurst and Putnam 2014). They are united by their interest in the way in which discourse – that is, text and talk in context – contributes to creating, sustaining and changing organizations. There are linguists among them, though perhaps not as many, proportionally, ...