With the growing influence of discursive and narrative perspectives on organizing, organizational scholars are focusing increasing attention on the constitutive role that language and communication play in organizational processes. This view conceptualizes language and communication as bringing organization into being in every instant and is therefore inherently sympathetic to a process perspective. However, our understanding of the role of language in unfolding organizational processes and as a part of organizational action is still limited. This volume brings together empirical and/or conceptual contributions from leading scholars in organization and communication to develop understanding of language and communication as constitutive of work, and also analyze how language and communication actually work to achieve influence in the context of organizations.

It aims to elucidate the role language, communication, and narrativity play as part of strategic and institutional work in and around organizational phenomena. In keeping with the preceding volumes in the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies series, this collection demonstrates why we need to start thinking processually and offers a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to studying these "works in process" that we call organizations, companies, businesses, institutions, communities, associations, or NGOs

François Cooren's profile page

Eero Vaara's profile page

Ann Langley's profile page

Haridimos Tsoukas' profile page

François Cooren is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Université de Montréal, Canada. Eero Vaara is Professor of Management and Organization at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland. Ann Langley is Professor of Management at HEC Montréal. Haridimos Tsoukas is Professor of Strategic Management, University of Cyprus and Professor of Organization Studies at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick.

"The recent decades witnessed conspicuous changes in organization theory: a slow but inexorable shift from the focus on structures to the focus on processes. The whirlwinds of the global economy made it clear that everything flows, even if change itself can become stable. While the interest in processes of organizing is not new, it is now acquiring a distinct presence, as more and more voices join in. A forum is therefore needed where such voices can speak to one another, and to the interested readers. The series Perspectives on Process Organization Studies will provide an excellent forum of that kind, both for those for whom a processual perspective is a matter of ontology, and those who see it as an epistemological choice."

--Barbara Czarniawska, Professor of Management Studies, School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden

"Perspectives on Process Organization Studies will be the definitive annual volume of theories and research that advance our understanding of process questions dealing with how things emerge, grow, develop, and terminate over time. I applaud Professors Ann Langley and Haridimos Tsoukas for launching this important book series, and encourage colleagues to submit their process research and subscribe to PROS."

--Andrew H. Van de Ven, Vernon H. Heath Professor of Organizational Innovation and Change, University of Minnesota, USA