The organizational spokesman has come to fill a vital need in a culture that values a sense of connection between those who provide services and those who seek them. It is the skilled organizational spokesman who maintains this connection, most often in a highly visible way. Organizational Spokesmanship draws on research and insights from professionals to discuss the functions of the organizational spokesman from a range of perspectives. Each of the chapters focuses on a specific aspect of the role to help readers understand and appreciate the skills and challenges. Case studies give readers the opportunity to see how the target skills and functions are manifested in the real world. Topics covered in the text include the need for an organizational spokesman, agenda-building and persuasion, crisis communications, the natures of the audience and the media, commercial and political speech, and defamation and libel. Each chapter features an interview with a professional, which serves to demonstrate the range of the field in both the private and public sectors.Organizational Spokesmanship is an ideal text for communication courses and media courses. Daniel Walsch earned his Ph.D. in communication at George Mason University. Currently he teaches for the university's communication department. During his time at George Mason, he has also served in the Office of University Relations as the director of media relations, the executive director of university relations, and the press secretary. Dr. Walsch has been recognized as Outstanding Supervisor and the Adjunct Instructor of the Year. In addition to his academic responsibilities, he maintains a blog on the importance of communication.

ÔThe author provides a thoughtfully explored, wide-ranging description of the literature, and concludes that followership deserves more attention than it has in the past. In focusing on followers as the chief producers of the phenomenon, the book is one of the few attempys to deviate from the common model of explaining leadership with reference to the leaderÕs characteristics and action. This creative and challenging book will be important to social psychologists, sociologists, managers, and political scientists.Õ Ð D. Sydiaha, Choice ÔFirmly grounded in psychological knowledge, based on detailed historical case studies, highly readable, and offering a multitude of examples from many leadership spheres, PopperÕs book offers a fresh and important perspective from which to understand the phenomenon of leadership. It is one of the very few attempts to deviate from the extant paradigm of explaining leadership with reference to the leaderÕs characteristics and actions and focus instead on the followers as the chief producers of the phenomenon. This perspective challenges some of the basic assumptions on which current practices of leader selection and training are based.Õ Ð Boas Shamir, Hebrew University, Israel Why are we attracted to leaders? Does this attraction have universal origins or is it culture-bound? Why and how are certain concepts and myths regarding leaders generated? Analysing the psychology of followers, this unique book explores these important questions. Micha Popper expertly offers new and surprising insights regarding the leadership phenomenon whilst providing relevant examples. This inspiring book posits that followers are the key to understanding the leadership phenomenon. It analyses leaderÐfollower dynamics in social and organizational settings and in politics which will strongly appeal to students of social psychology, sociology, management and political sciences. The book provides examples and in-depth analyses of Ôthe psychology of followership in everyday lifeÕ and will therefore prove invaluable for managers. A special emphasis is given to leaderÐfollower dynamics at various levels of organizational life.

This volume explores the concept of communication as it applies to organizational theory. Bringing together multiple voices, it focuses on communication’s role in the constitution of organization. Editors Linda L. Putnam and Anne Maydan Nicotera have assembled an all-star cast of contributors, each providing a distinctive voice and perspective. The contents of this volume compare and contrast approaches to the notion that communication constitutes organization. Chapters also examine the ways that those processes produce patterns that endure over time and that constitute the organization as a whole. This collection bridges different disciplines and serves a vital role in developing dimensions, characteristics, and relationships among concepts that address how communication constitutes organization. It will appeal to scholars and researchers working in organizational communication, organizational studies, management, sociology, social collectives, and organizational psychology and behavior.

Communication in organizations has changed drastically since the release of the first edition of this bestselling textbook. This fully revised and updated edition delves into state-of-the-art studies, providing fresh insights into the challenges that organizations face today. Yet this foundational resource remains a cornerstone in the examination of classic research and theory in organization communication. Beginning with an extended analysis – from an organizational communication vantage point – of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, this groundbreaking edition weaves recent and memorable case materials with up-to-date research and theory, creating a meaningful and comprehensive view of organizational communication. The authors take the unique path of describing and evaluating communication in organizations by focusing on three major perspectives for understanding organizations: traditional, interpretive, and critical. Because these perspectives differ in the ways that they study communication and in the assumptions that they make about the nature of organizations, the authors are able to offer diverse insights into communication in organizations. These three perspectives are used to examine communication functions and structure, organizational culture, information technology; cultural control, diversity, and change; new forms of organizing such as lattices and heterarchies, group relations, leader-member relations, power, conflict, and strategic communication; and new millennium thinking about organizations. Packed with current case studies and commentary, Organizational Communication features an impressive range of contemporary global institutions such as General Motors, Triyo Industries of Japan, Enron, Wal-Mart, Ben & Jerry′s, The Carter Center′s Peace Programs, Canada′s public health programs, social change programs in rural India, and more. Important new topics in this edition include New Communication Structures Cultural Diversity and Empowerment Implications of Information Technology Affirmative Action and Supreme Court Cases Transformational Leadership New Millennium Trends Instructor′s Resource CD Available An easy-to-follow instructor′s manual on CD is available for qualified textbook adopters. This valuable instrument includes PowerPoint presentations, keyword definitions, discussion and exam questions, suggested activities, sample syllabi, recommended assignments, hyperlinks to complementary Internet video, and more.

This major textbook meets the clear need for a substantial but accessible introduction to the practice of human resource management (HRM) within the context of relevant theory and current debates. In a discussion that ranges from the strategic and policy aspects of HRM to the day-to-day processes of employee management, the author identifies and explores key concepts and skills. Distinctive features of the book include: a focus on issues of direct relevance to all line managers, not just to human resource specialists; a combination of a knowledge-based approach with a practical introduction to the most important skills; numerous examples, encapsulating concepts and techniques in clear tables, and a teaching appendix of discuss

Discourse Perspectives in Organizational Communication brings together researchers from the social sciences and humanities to look at discourse and how it shapes organizations and their social actors. Unlike others in the field, this book assumes that language creates and constitutes reality, rather than simply mirroring or describing it. This collection illustrates the variety of organizational phenomena that might be studied and the range of epistemological and methodological approaches that might be used in discourse analysis techniques.