Informal information practices are central to organizational life, yet some remain hidden, stigmatized, and ethically contested. This study examines eavesdropping—when individuals gather information from others’ interactions without being the intended recipient—as an organizational information practice shaped by competition and risk-benefit evaluations. Drawing on Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory, we theorize eavesdropping as occurring when informational accessibility and privacy expectations diverge, extending CPM from information owners’ disclosure decisions to recipients’ decisions to attend to accessible information. Two online experiments with representative U.S. samples manipulated workplace competition, in-person versus remote settings, and information value. Competition was associated with greater eavesdropping intentions, and perceived information value mediated this relation. Social risk exerted a direct but non-mediating effect, indicating that employees weigh both potential utility and anticipated consequences. Eavesdropping intentions did not differ between in-person and remote contexts. These findings position eavesdropping as a consequential yet ethically ambivalent organizational information practice.
In this paper we focus on how matters of concern emerge in the first place and how those may develop into official strategy in polyphonic strategy-making. Empirically, we use visual fiction to study strategy emergence in the TV series Borgen. Conceptually, we draw from Bakhtin’s work to track the emergence, recognition, and development of strategy utterances in Borgen to examine how some strategy utterances become part of official strategy, while others get rejected. Our findings present chains of strategy utterances regarding two strategic issues in Borgen and reveal material-discursive dynamics that were associated with those strategy utterances that eventually became part of official strategy. We contribute to prior research by showing how some strategy utterances became recognized, and eventually developed as part of official strategy, while others do not. Last, in these ways our study addresses the question of strategy emergence.
Background: When understanding strategy as communicatively constituted, it matters who or what is authorized to strategize. Purpose: This article foregrounds vocabulary as an authorizing actor. Research Design: Drawing on a case study of strategic change, it examines how strategic vocabulary—words representing an aspirational strategic direction—becomes authoritative in the sense of allowing communicative acts to participate in strategizing. Analysis: In the organization serving as a case study, a strategy team aiming to flatten hierarchies introduced less hierarchically connoted words. Taking one word as an example, I identify aspirational coupling , normative grounding, and substantial linkage as phases through which strategic vocabulary acquires authority. Results: This three-phase model illustrates how vocabulary transforms into an authorizing actor and how the vocabulary’s authority interacts with other aspects of communication such as voice and genre. Conclusions: The study provides a vocabulary perspective on authorization in strategizing and highlights how efforts to flatten hierarchies by switching vocabulary can intensify contradictions between various authorities.
This article uses sensemaking theory and conservation of resources theory to explore how caregiving professionals recover from burnout in meaningful work. Analysis of interviews ( N = 22) with professionals in healthcare, education, clergy, and social work revealed a sequence of sensemaking which enabled recovery. Initially, participants found their work highly meaningful. However, burnout functioned as a negative triggering event which threatened this meaningfulness and prompted intentions to quit. Important sensegivers intervened with framing and support which enabled resource gain. In turn, participants engaged in three primary sensemaking processes which enabled recovery: (a) sensebreaking of identity in work and adoption of what I label personhood identity , (b) what I call senseloosening around meaningfulness of work, and, subsequently, (c) sensedeepening of meaningfulness of work. These communication processes enabled recovery in ways that prevented turnover and enabled sustained careers in meaningful work. Implications for positive organizational communication theory and practice conclude the article.
This case study explores Disney’s response to HB 1557, Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill through the lens of ethically reliable organization theory. CEO Bob Chapek issued a series of statements in response to the bill that received a negative employee response. The dilemma facing Chapek, and employees, revolved around how Disney could maintain ethical reliability when facing internal and external pressure. Organizations that establish an ethically reliable process can benefit by connecting with employees who value ethical standards. But to what extent is an organization then obligated to defend those values and uphold ethical standards in the face of potential retaliation?
