Critical Theory of Communication in Organizations

Dominant force

Corporate Colonization

Encroachment of modern corporations into every area of life outside the workplace

Information model

Communication is merely a conduit for the transmission of information about the real world

Communication model

Language is the principal medium through which social reality is created and sustained

Codeterminism

Collaborative decision making; participatory democracy in the workplace

Managerialism

Systematic logic, set of routine practices, and ideology that values control over all other concerns

Consent

Process by which employees actively, through unknowingly, accomplish managerial interests in faulty attempts to fulfill their own interests

Discursive closure

Requires suppression of potential conflict

Involvement

Stakeholder’ free expression of ideas that may, or may not, affect managerial decisions

Participation

Stakeholder democracy; Process by which all stakeholders in an organization negotiate power and openly reach collaborative decision.