Climate Risks as Organizational Problems
Constructing Agency and Action
©2018
Textbook
XIV,
132 Pages
Summary
Climate Risks as Organizational Problems: Constructing Agency and Action provides an introduction to the "Communication as Constitutive of Organizations" (CCO) approach by addressing key ideas in organizational communication such as sensemaking, decision-making, problem-formulation, and agency. This text is intended to introduce key ideas of the CCO perspective to undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars who may be new to this area. Topical chapters feature case studies related to climate crises, the environment, and weather, making this work also relevant for those with an interest in environmental communication, risk communication, crisis communication, public relations, and public health. Chapters address decision-making during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, how a state in the southeast United States handled a winter snowstorm, heatwaves as creeping crises in Europe, and freshwater policy-making. The case studies provide insight in understanding how governmental agencies "interact" with weather crises and the public.
While natural hazards are worthy of study generally because of their impact, they are also worthy of study from an organizational communication perspective. Organizations such as governmental agencies, international organizations, nonprofit organizations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), among others, play a role in preparing for or helping people to recover from natural hazards. Given that natural hazards are ongoing yet have a degree of unpredictability, examining how organizations respond to natural hazards provides a fitting circumstance for studying constitutive processes.
While natural hazards are worthy of study generally because of their impact, they are also worthy of study from an organizational communication perspective. Organizations such as governmental agencies, international organizations, nonprofit organizations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), among others, play a role in preparing for or helping people to recover from natural hazards. Given that natural hazards are ongoing yet have a degree of unpredictability, examining how organizations respond to natural hazards provides a fitting circumstance for studying constitutive processes.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author(s)/editor(s)
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Preface
- References
- Acknowledgements
- Part 1. Theoretical and Conceptual Background
- Chapter 1. Introduction
- Communication as Constitutive of Organizations
- Conceptual and Theoretical Roots
- Key CCO Concepts
- Communication
- Constitution/Constituting
- Organization/Organizing
- Discourse
- Agency
- Materiality
- Communicative Constitution in the Age of Climate Change
- Outline for Remainder of the Book
- References
- Chapter 2. A Tale of Three Perspectives
- The Montreal School of Organizational Communication
- Precursor Theories
- Texts, Conversations, and Meta-Conversations
- Agency
- Ventriloqual Theory
- Summary and Critiques
- Four Flows Model
- Precursor Theory: Structuration
- The Four Flows
- Summary and Critiques
- Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems
- Summary and Critiques
- Comparing and Contrasting Across Perspectives
- Communication
- Agency
- Materiality
- Summary
- Note
- References
- Part 2. Concepts and Cases
- Chapter 3. Problem Identification and Crisis Pacing
- Crisis Communication
- Communicative Constitution of Problems
- Sensemaking and Implications for Problem Construction
- Crises and Pacing
- Crisis as Slow-Moving: Heat Waves
- Heatwaves in Europe: A Deadly Combination
- Summary
- Note
- References
- Chapter 4. Making Sense of a Winter Storm
- Organizational Sensemaking
- The Process of Sensemaking
- CCO and Sensemaking
- The Relevance of Time in Constitutive Processes
- Responsiveness
- Constituting Winter Storm Leon as Disaster
- Weather Forecasting as Pragmatic Speech Act
- Moving From Storm to Disaster
- Coda
- Summary
- Conclusion
- References
- Chapter 5. Constituting Agency: Taking Action (or Not) During the Hurricane Katrina Disaster
- Theorizing Agency
- Internalist and Externalist Views of Agency
- Agency From a Communication Social Construction Perspective
- Materiality and Agency
- Summary
- Case Study: Hurricane Katrina
- Negotiating Human and Textual Agency
- The Non Equivalency of Agency and Human Actors
- Competing Action Nets
- Summary
- Conclusion
- Note
- References
- Chapter 6. Constituting Solutions: Prospective Sensemaking
- Prospective Sensemaking
- A Model of Prospective Sensemaking
- Discourse and Prospective Sensemaking
- The Great Lakes Compact
- The Great Lakes Compact as Prospective Sensemaking
- Bracketing
- Articulating
- Elaborating
- Influencing
- Summary
- Conclusion
- Note
- References
- Part 3. Conclusion
- Chapter 7. Conclusion and Practical Lessons
- Climate Concerns
- The Communicative Constitution of Crises
- The Communicative Constitution of Organizations
- Criticisms of CCO
- Future Directions
- Practical Lessons
- Attention to Language-Use and Evidence: Language and “Matter” Matter
- Organizations Are Socially Constructed
- Study History
- Anticipating the Future
- Networking
- Improvising
- Summary of Practical Lessons
- Closing Notes
- References
- Index
Details
- Pages
- XIV, 132
- Publication Year
- 2018
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781433150210
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781433150937
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781433150944
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9781433150951
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781433133350
- DOI
- 10.3726/b12609
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2018 (June)
- Published
- New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien, 2018. XIV, 132 pp., 1 table
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
