The importance of communication for organizations has been an ongoing concern since management was first theorized. Yet language has tended to be viewed as simply a medium of communication - without language per se being theoretically problematized. This book enables a more critical exploration of the major theoretical positions on language and organization, explaining why language warrants a more central and considered place in organization studies.

Language and Organization explains how various perspectives on the relationship between language and organization can be represented and explored. Concerned with issues such as power, knowledge and organizational discourse, this book will provide essential new links for a proper conceptualisation and understanding of organizations.

Language/Organization - Robert Westwood and Stephen Linstead
Introduction
PART ONE: LANGUAGE, ORGANIZATION AND ACTION
Talking Sense - David S Richards
Ethnomethodology, Postmodern and Practical Action
Language That Organizes - Ian Lennie
Plans and Lists
The Language of Strategy - Simon Lilley
PART TWO: METAPHORS OF ORGANIZATION
The Scripted Organization - Dan K[um]arreman
Dramaturgy from Burke to Baudrillard
Mining for Meaning - Tojo Joseph Thatchenkery
Reading Organizations using Hermeneutic Philosophy
Reclaiming Story in Organization - David M Boje, Rossana C Alvarez and Bruce Schooling
Narratologies and Action Sciences
PART THREE: LANGUAGE, KNOWLEDGE AND POWER
The Prison-House of Language - Graham Sewell
The Penitential Discourse of Organizational Power
After Knowledge - Rolland Munro
The Language of Information
Rhetoric and Organizational Control - Stephen Linstead
A Framework for Analysis
PART FOUR: ORGANIZING SILENCE
Appropriating the Other in the Discourses of Comparative Management - Robert Westwood
Telling It Like It Is? - Joanna Brewis
Gender, Language and Organizational Theory
PART FIVE: WRITING, THEORY AND BEYOND
The Language of Organization Theory - Robert Chia and Ian King
Meaning beyond Language - Stephen Linstead and Robert Westwood
Monstrous Openings