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Management Communication Quarterly
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Organizationsas Hybrid forms of Life

The Implications of the Selection of Agency in Problem Formulation

Theresa Castor

University of Wisconsin–Parkside

François Cooren

Université de Montréal

In line with recent theorizing on the communicative constitution of organizations, this project seeks to expand the notion of agency within organizations to include human and nonhuman agents. The formulation of problems and solutions is examined as an ideal discursive site in which organizational participants negotiate the role of various agencies in organizational action. The authors’ thesis is illustrated through a discourse analytic examination of a university faculty senate's discussion of a problematic decision made during a budget crisis. This analysis illustrates how problem formulation can be conceptualized as an interplay between various agents including human, textual, and other nonhuman agents. Implications are discussed more generally regarding the role of human and nonhuman agents in the construction of organizational realities.

Key Words: hybridity • agency • problem formulation • communication • organization

Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 4, 570-600 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0893318905284764
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