Moving From Practical Application to Expert Craft Practice in Organizational Communication

Abstract

This essay reviews practical application activities performed in the field of organizational communication and poses an alternative approach for creating organizations and employees that flourish and can meet the demands of tomorrow. Much of the discipline's practical application efforts have been focused on analyzing problems and focusing on epistemological and conceptual issues—activities that have been appropriate for creating communication competence, but have fallen short in motivating higher levels of proficiency and expertise. This essay creates a case for how the field might valuably move toward other ways of creating transformed practice not through application of organizational communication knowledge, but via an approach that incorporates practical wisdom, critical self-reflexivity, appreciative inquiry, improvisation, sensemaking/breaking/giving and craft practice.