Purdue CGSA Keynote - Feb, 2017

Keynote Talk at Purdue Communication Graduate Students Association (CGSA), presented February 24, 2017

Transcript

1. Organizing/Communicating Sustainably: Intersections of Theory, Practice, and Policy Rahul Mitra, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Communication
2. Outline of the Talk • Sustainable organizing as communicative • Research exemplars of 3 intersecting areas o Personal o Institutional o Systemic • Current work at the R.I.S.E. Lab • Suggesting potential areas for future study
3. Communication as (Practically) Constitutive • Communication “constitutes” the organization of social reality o Everyday communication acts enable individuals and social groups to make sense of their world (Cooren, 2015; Cooren et al., 2006; Kuhn, 2008; Putnam & Nicotera, 2009; Schoeneborn, 2011; Taylor & van Avery, 2000; Tracy, 2004) o Via social networks, interpersonal relationships, interactional sequences, codified texts, and broader social discourses o Ongoing intersections between materiality and meaning-making • Communication as a “practical” discipline, well-suited to examining how policy and practice (in)form each other (Craig, 1999, 2006; Craig & Tracy, 2014)
4. Sustainability “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Council for Economic Development, 1987) Environmental Economic Social
5. A Communicative Definition of Sustainability “Sustainability as organizing practices, grounded in communicative action, that go beyond the preservation of the status quo to consider the contingencies and novel re-combinations possible, as social entities negotiate a complex risk-laden world” (Mitra & Buzzanell, 2015) • Meaning -making Personal • Local tensions Institutional • Policy action Systemic Mitra, R., & Buzzanell, P.M. (2015). Introduction: Organizing/Communicating sustainably. Management Communication Quarterly, 29, 130-134. doi:10.1177/0893318914563573
6. 1. The Personal RQ: How do sustainability practitioners find their work meaningful? • Meaningfulness of work as contested and dynamic negotiation, with deep political implications (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009; Dempsey & Sanders, 2010; Lair et al., 2008; Wright & Nyberg, 2012) • Method: Conducted 45 in-depth interviews; analyzed practitioners’ narratives of everyday work using constructivist grounded theory Mitra, R., & Buzzanell, P.M. (2016). Communicative tensions of meaningful work: The case of sustainability practitioners. Human Relations. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177/0018726716663288
7. Brief Account of Findings Mitra, R., & Buzzanell, P.M. (2016). Communicative tensions of meaningful work: The case of sustainability practitioners. Human Relations. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177/0018726716663288 Work Processes • Enlightening business • Stakeholder interaction • Political culture Impact • Deliverable outcomes • Solutions to problems Careers • Valuation per internal/external standards • Commitment • Autonomy RQ: How do sustainability practitioners find their work meaningful?
8. 2. The Institutional RQ: How do purpose-driven consultancies manage OD tensions, to remain viable? • Role of consultancies in facilitating organizational development (OD) (Barge & Little, 2008, Bushe & Marshak, 2009; Johansson, 2004; Lewis, 2014) • Organizational purpose as contested, layered, and tensional (Hollensbe et al., 2014; Karns, 2011; Kempster et al., 2011; Mackey & Sisodia, 2013; Vaill, 1983) • Method: Compared 2 case studies (ethical leadership + sustainability), using participant observations, interviews, & textual analysis Mitra, R., & Fyke, J. (forthcoming, 2017). Purpose-Driven consultancies’ negotiation of organizational tensions. Journal of Applied Communication Research. doi: 10.1080/00909882.2017.1288290
9. Brief Account of Findings Mitra, R., & Fyke, J. (forthcoming, 2017). Purpose-Driven consultancies’ negotiation of organizational tensions. Journal of Applied Communication Research. doi: 10.1080/00909882.2017.1288290 RQ: How do purpose-driven consultancies manage OD tensions? Purpose tensions Social/Business - complement Purpose/Practicality - complement, but possibly contradict & double bind Impact tensions Lifetime/Project - contradict Leader/Culture - complement, possibly double bind Systemization/ Customization - complement
10. 3. The Systemic RQ: How does clean energy economy (CEE) rhetoric constitute “America”? • Analysis of Pew Charitable Trust’s landmark 2009 report on the burgeoning CEE • Blend constitutive rhetoric (Bacon, 2007; Charland, 1987, 2001; Stein, 2002) with the ventriloqual perspective to communication (Cooren, 2010, 2012; Cooren & Sandler, 2014) • Focus on how CEE policy texts interpellate “America” as an agentic subject Mitra, R. (2016). Re-Constituting “America”: The clean energy economy ventriloquized. Environmental Communication, 10, 269-288. doi: 10.1080/17524032.2015.1047885
11. Brief Account of Findings Mitra, R. (2016). Re-Constituting “America”: The clean energy economy ventriloquized. Environmental Communication, 10, 269-288. doi: 10.1080/17524032.2015.1047885 RQ: How does clean energy economy (CEE) rhetoric constitute “America”? Subject • Collective hybridized “America” subject • Comprised of multiple agents, both human & nonhuman, manifest & spectral in the text • Constitutive paradox intact, owing to power tensions Temporality • Future as both transition from and break with the past Agency • Contingent agency for “America,” so that audiences may occupy multiple positions depending on context
12. Resilient Institutions & Sustainable Environments (R.I.S.E.) Lab 1. How do organizations involved in Natural Resource Management (NRM) in the U.S. Arctic accomplish their work, in a fragmented and contested policyscape? 2. How and to what extent do social entrepreneurship development hubs accomplish their goal of “urban sustainability” in legacy cities (like Detroit)?
13. Summarizing Potential Areas of Study 1. Beyond traditional stakeholder management models to recognizing intersecting structures and processes (e.g., PARC, sustainable citizenship) (Deetz, 2010; Kurian et al., 2014) 2. Possibility of “aspirational talk” (Christensen et al., 2013; Christensen et al., 2017) to unleash creative tensions between policy/practice 3. Sociohistorical structuration of sustainability policy, recognizing new ways of forming structures as different actors interact (Mitra et al., ???) 4. Intersubjective negotiation of resilience and risk, necessitating new ways of approaching organizing and organization (Buzzanell, 2010; Long et al., 2015)
14. Thank you! Email: rahul.mitra@wayne.edu Follow me on Twitter @rahulmitra www.rahulmitraphd.com