To better inform public health officials during a flu pandemic, this study analyzes a representative statewide telephone survey among 1,602 adults to examine knowledge and perceptions about a flu pandemic, trust in government, and support for government actions in a flu pandemic. The findings show citizens do not understand what avian/bird flu is and how it evolves into a pandemic. They also seem to have divergent perceptions regarding the susceptibility and severity of a flu pandemic. More than half of the respondents trust the government to handle a flu pandemic and show strong support for many proposed government actions in a pandemic, except for offering non-fully approved drugs. The findings suggest public health and risk communicators should reinforce support for controversial actions through trust building and personalization of risks rather than mere education or publicity. Public education and engagement should also begin pre-pandemic and continue throughout all phases of the event.

Dialogical Wisdom 375Organizational dialogue has traditionally been associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology learning organization project rooted in the work of David Bohm. As a result, dialogue is viewed as an "abnormal" form of discourse-removed from everyday managerial practice-that occurs when organizations encounter crisis and need to engage in second-order learning. We offer an alternative approach to dialogue grounded in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. A Bakhtinian perspective toward dialogue views everyday communicative practice as inherently dialogic. We explore Bakhtin's notion of dialogue and offer a set of conversational sensibilities that may inform communicative practice in organizational life.

A discursive approach to socialization focuses our attention on the way discourse organizes the individual-organizational relationship. The present study employs the concept of memorable messages as a way for exploring the discourse associated with organizational entry. Three results emerged from the data: (1) the discourse associated with the socialization of newcomers emphasizes simultaneously fitting into existing organizational patterns while developing individual abilities; (2) informal face-to-face communication is important when constructing individual-organizational relationships; and (3) there is a positive bias in the socialization discourse associated with organizational entry. Implications for future research in organizational entry from a discursive approach are highlighted.

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This article offers a practical theory of leadership grounded in systemic thinking and social constructionism. A systemic constructionist approach conceptualizes leadership as a co-created, performative, attributional, and contextual process where the ideas articulated in talk or action are recognized by others as progressing tasks that are important to them. Using a systemic constructionist framework, we argue that leadership theory and research needs to give attention to three important discursive practices: (1) sensemaking, (2) positioning, and (3) play. The implications for theory, research, and practice from a systemic constructionist perspective are highlighted.