Kenneth burke and the inherent characteristics of formal organizations: A field study

Organizational rhetoric and the practice of criticism

“…These key elements of organization can easily be translated in terms of communication networks, shared "vision," and individual motivation, respectively. Moreover, all organizations involve some degree of hierarchy, order, mystery and "transcendence" of the individuals who associate with them; these are some of the key terms of Burke's (e.g., 1950Burke's (e.g., /1969 rhetoric of identification (see, e.g., Cheney, 1983;Tompkins, Fisher, Infante & Tompkins, 1975).…”

Socialization turning points: An examination of change in organizational identification

“…As Tompkins et al (1975) originally noted, identification is one of several key terms in Kenneth Burke's grand theory of the social order. Burke uses the tenns hierarchy, order, mystery, and identification to describe the workings of the social order.…”

“…p ECENT RESEARCH HAS EXAMINED a wide variety of topics in the study Xv of organizational socialization (Cheney, 1987a;Falcione & Wilson, 1988;Feldman, 1988;Jablin, 1987;Kreps, 1983;Reichers, 1987;Stohl, 1986). Yet in elaborating the development of relationships between individuals and organizations, one fundamental dimension along which the process takes place, identification (Burke, 1950;Tompkins, Fisher, Infante & Tompkins, 1975;Tompkins & Cheney, 1985), has typically been ignored. In this report, we explain the need to study identification during orgsmizational socialization, offer turning point analysis as a method for examining change during the process, and report results from an initial study.…”

Paradigms for organizational communication research: An overview and synthesis

“…Examples include Tompkins, Fisher, Infante, and Tompkins' treatment of mystery and identification as symbolic sources of alienation and conflict between upper and lower echelons and Bormann, Pratt, and Putnam's analysis of the fantasy themes and rhetorical visions that emerge in a female-dominated organization. 44 The strength of the rhetorical methodologies, in critical interpretive and social scientific research, resides in their coherent conceptual and methodological treatments of multiple layers of symbol systems. For example, fantasy-theme analysis integrates the micro use of language, stories, and sagas into a systematic broad-based vision of an organization's social reality.…”