No abstract

The paper proposes an ethnomethodological approach to the study of naturalistic decision making. We present an analysis of design practices in an Internet company, showing that, besides 'professional design' of technological systems, designers are continually involved in an activity of maintenance and replanning of these same systems ('design-in-use'). Through an interaction-based analysis, we describe a serious emergency design-in-use situation. Results show that (1) decision-making activities are not clearly identifiable in ongoing problem-solving action but are embedded in complex work practices; (2) work practices and organizational features shape when, how and which decisions are made, underlying the situated character of the decision-making process; (3) considering the group of designers as unit of analysis allows the complex and distributed nature of decision making in organizations to be described. Organizational Rationality as Rhetorical PracticeAccording to the perspective adopted in this study, organizations and groups do not exist independently of their social actors and, on the contrary, exist only through the actions and discourses of the latter. The daily interactions between members of work groups are, therefore, a constituting characteristic of the organizational context and the way through which organizations exist and work. This means considering the organizational order as created interactively through the actions -mostly discursive -of the organizational actors. In this perspective, the organizational structure is an emergent property of the discursive interactions among its members. Indeed, it is through discourse that organizations act, decide and plan. These actions are social, widespread and incremental processes, carried out interactively and often under time pressure or economic limits by the organizational actors who move through a 'fluid whole consisting of identifying problems, negotiating objectives, searching for solutions and decision-making processes that rarely show the rational and logical characteristics taught in business schools' (Boden 1994: 22). This also means considering organizational rationality as an interactively produced phenomenon (and not a characteristic of individual Organization Studies 27(7): 943-966

In cancer communication, most of the literature is in the realm of delivering bad news while much less attention has been given to the communication of uncertain news around the diagnosis and the possible outcomes of the illness. Drawing on video-recorded cancer consultations collected in two Italian hospitals, this article analyzes three communication practices used by oncologists to interactionally manage the uncertainty during the visit: alternating between uncertain bad news and certain good news, anticipating scenarios, and guessing test results. Both diagnostic and personal uncertainties are not hidden to the patient, yet they are reduced through these practices. Such communication practices are present in 32 % of the visits in the data set, indicating that the interactional management of uncertainty is a relevant phenomenon in oncological encounters. Further studies are needed to improve both its understanding and its teaching.

No abstract

This study describes the rhetorical manipulation of social identities arising in the discourses of a professional soccer team. The author audio recorded and completely transcribed according to G. Jefferson's (1989) method 3 discursive interactions between team members (after a victory, after a defeat, and in a pregame situation). Methodology comprises both a conversational analysis and a quantitative one. Results show that (a) team members use rhetorically a complex repertoire of their own and others' social identities; (b) intragroup differentiation is more marked than intergroup differentiation; and (c) two main variables influence the use of markings of social identities: the role of the speakers (in particular the power role of the coach) and the result of the match around which the interactive discourse revolves.