Achieving Objectivity through Genred Activity: A Case Study

Abstract

Finding itself at the center of highly publicized legal and political deliberations over fairness in testing, personnel credibility, and legal liability, the training department at a North American transit authority adopted a genre system that enabled the production of objective evidence of job competence, which was then used to make objective decisions about who passed and failed various training programs. The ongoing genre-structured activity of the department involved not only the regularization of organizational texts but also the regularization of social interaction mediated by those texts, which, while producing the types of interpretively stable documents required for successful public deliberation, led to a shift in authority and social relations within the department that instigated considerable resentment and loss of morale among many veteran instructors.

An Organizational Structure of Indie Rock Musicians as Displayed by Facebook Usage

“…This research style is not new. Scholars in rhetorical genre studies have routinely studied communication to understand aspects of organizations (Freedman & Smart, 2009; Little, 2007; Orwig, 2014; Schryer, 2000; Spinuzzi, 2003; Yates & Orlikowski, 2002). Understanding the constitutive and maintaining roles that communication plays in an organization allows for exploration of how those genres impact the creation and development of extra-institutional organizational structures.…”

Unpoetic Justice

“…As a result, studies of workplace writing have gone beyond analyzing the ''patterned, typical, and therefore intelligible textual forms'' (Bazerman, 2004, p. 311) that are genres to examine what genres are doing. Little's (2007) 18-month study of a transit authority, for example, was conducted following a jury's finding that poor job training had been responsible for a horrific accident. The training department of the pseudonymous Metropolitan Transit Corporation instituted a genre system to ensure objective evidence of job competence.…”

“…Little’s (2007) 18-month study of a transit authority, for example, was conducted following a jury’s finding that poor job training had been responsible for a horrific accident. The training department of the pseudonymous Metropolitan Transit Corporation instituted a genre system to ensure objective evidence of job competence.…”