5. The dialogic organization

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Research in Public Policy Analysis and Management

ISSN: 0732-1317
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Subject Area: Sociology and Public Policy

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Document Information:
Title:	5. The dialogic organization
Author(s):	Mary Jo Hatch, Sanford Ehrlich
Volume:	12 Editor(s): Nancy C. Roberts ISBN: 978-0-76230-904-7 eISBN: 978-1-84950-165-1
Citation:	Mary Jo Hatch, Sanford Ehrlich (2002), 5. The dialogic organization, in Nancy C. Roberts (ed.) The Transformative Power of Dialogue (Research in Public Policy Analysis and Management, Volume 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.107-131
DOI:	10.1016/S0732-1317(02)12007-0 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Full length article
Abstract:	This paper presents three dialogic concepts developed by Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin: answerability, polyphony and heteroglossia. These concepts are interpreted in relation to organizing and management and applied to data from a case study of a large American computer manufacturer. The study permits us to use Bakhtin's ideas to formulate the links between organizational change and language. We will show, using a Bakhtinian analysis of our case, how dialogue reconstructed a group of managers' understandings of their organizational reality and their identity as an organization. The analysis presents a view of organizational change as communicative, symbolic, dynamic and layered.