Constructing Social Reality in Organizational Decision Making

Abstract

Communication during organizational decision making has often been treated as information exchange, and when social constructionist orientations have been assumed, these have focused on communication related to decision making rather than on talk during decision-making interactions. Shotter’s rhetorical-responsive social constructionist approach is applied to analyzing a faculty senate’s discussion on whether or not to implement a culture and ethnic diversity requirement. This study examines decision-making talk and how, during decision making, participants socially construct a diversity requirement. The vocabularies of diversity and requirement function to define the resolution and allow faculty to demonstrate accountability in different ways. The meanings of these vocabularies are discursively negotiated during decision making; this process reveals competing vocabularies and ambiguity. The conflict over the diversity requirement was resolved through a substitute resolution that reaffirmed the nature of the university as an institutional organization through the vocabulary of good faith. This study shows how decision-making talk constitutes organizations.