Collective action theory, which is widely applied to explain human phenomena in which public goods are at stake, traditionally rests on at least two main tenets: that individuals confront discrete decisions about free riding and that formal organization is central to locating and contacting potential participants in collective action, motivating them, and coordinating their actions. Recent uses of technologies of information and communication for collective action appear in some instances to violate these two tenets. In order to explain these, we reconceptualize collective action as a phenomenon of boundary crossing between private and public domains. We show how a reconceptualized theory of collective action can better account for certain contemporary phenomena, and we situate traditional collective action theory as a special case of our expanded theory.

This paper argues for a postmodern conception of power in which discourse is conceived as the principal medium through which power relations are maintained and reproduced. Specifically, power is identified as a pervasive characteristic of organizational life which constitutes the identity of organization members. Discourse, as a structured social practice, creates meaning formations rooted in a system of presence and absence which systematically privileges and marginalizes different organizational experiences. By way of exemplification, three organizational texts are subject to a deconstructive analysis in order to explicate the processes through which meaning structures are produced and reproduced organizationally.

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Some interpersonal messages are reported to be remembered for a long time and to haoe a profound influence on a person's life.During the course of a single day, hundreds of verbal messages are directed to us in face-to-face encounters for evaluation and response; during one's lifetime the quantity of interpersonal messages processed must be staggering. Most of these messages have a relatively short life; they are processed, responded to, and forgotten. Yet, there seem to be a few verbal messages which may be remembered for extremely long periods of time and which people perceive as a major influence on the course of their lives.One such message for naval officer and eventual President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, was later used as the title for his autobiography, Why Not the Best? (6, preface). During an interview with Admiral Rickover for a position in the nuclear submarine program, Rickover asked Carter if he did his best while at the Naval Academy. After Carter admitted that he did not always do his best, Rickover asked, "Why not?" According to Carter, this was a question he was "never able to forget" and became a rule for him to live by. Another example involves noted therapist Carl Rogers, who recounted a memorable and influential episode which took place while he was a student discussing the learning and use of facts with a professor of agronomy. The professor reportedly said, "Don't be a damned ammunition wagon; be a rifle" (27, chapter 1).

This article brings together previous research efforts by the authors and reviews a wide range of relevant literatures to explain and analyze paradoxes of employee participation and workplace democracy. Although the authors do not take the position that all or even most of these paradoxes are necessarily harmful, they do maintain that there are a variety of practical avenues for dealing with them. The heart of the essay analyzes several main categories of participatory paradoxes: those of structure, agency, identity, and power. Following that, the authors offer practical suggestions for the management of paradoxes (and related tensions and contradictions), linking those recommendations to relevant theoretical and empirical propositions.