Organizational Semiotics

Louise Ravelli is Professor of Communication in the School of Arts and Media at UNSW Sydney. Her research explores how multimodality works in specific communication contexts, such as museums. She has published widely with monographs, edited volumes and articles, and is joint Chief Editor of the journal Visual Communication.Theo van Leeuwen is Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Southern Denmark. He has published widely in the areas of visual communication, multimodality, and critical discourse analysis. His latest books are the third revised edition of Reading Images – The Grammar of Visual Design (with Gunther Kress) and Multimodality and Identity.Markus A. Höllerer is Professor of Organization and Management at UNSW Sydney. His scholarly work currently focuses on social change, novel forms of organization and governance, and institutions as multimodal accomplishments. He has been widely published in leading academic outlets and is currently Editor-in-Chief of Organization Theory.Dennis Jancsary is Assistant Professor at the Institute for Organization Studies at WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business). He is particularly interested in the role of language and multimodal communication at the interface of organizations and institutions. His work further includes methodological contributions to visual and multimodal analysis.

• CONTENTSChapter 1 ‘Organizational semiotics’: Towards an integrated research agendaLouise Ravelli, Theo van Leeuwen, Markus A. Höllerer, Dennis JancsaryChapter 2. Social semiotics and organization studies: Building an effective bridgeDennis Jancsary, Markus A. Höllerer, Louise Ravelli, Theo van LeeuwenChapter 3. The resemiotization of health information in a family planning organizationTheo van Leeuwen, Nikolina ZonjicChapter 4. Organizational identity design: The evolution of a university web homepageNataliia LabaChapter 5. The emotional civil servant: On the multimodal construction of affect in ‘platform of values’ texts of Swedish public authoritiesAnders BjörkvallChapter 6. Communicating in space: Relating the physical and the social in open-plan officesKen Tann, Oluremi B. AyokoChapter 7. Redesigning organizational relations through the built environment: Changes at a university campusLouise RavelliChapter 8. How multimodal structures constitute organization: The meaning of structure in offline and online shopping environmentsMorten BoeriisChapter 9 "It’s not just getting a biopsy": Transposing ‘take-home’ messages from the operating theatre to a proformaArpan Tahim, Jeff BezemerChapter 10. Texture and texturization in organizational identity design and legitimacy workGiorgia AielloAfterwordTheo van Leeuwen, Renate E. Meyer

"This new volume is a unique resource for anyone keen to apply their social semiotic expertise to life in organizations and institutions, as it is for those wanting to broaden their analysis and theorization of formal organization to cover the symbolic and interactive dimensions of its practices and communication. The book’s hybrid approach is expertly exemplified in each of its individual chapters offering well-researched and supremely evidenced insights."(Professor Rick Iedema, Director of the Centre for Team-Based Practice & Learning in Health Care, King's College London)"Recently, we have seen a growing interest in organizational communication and processes beyond words. But how, exactly, should we go about studying such multimodal dynamics? This book offers a deep conceptualization of and rich empirical inquiries into organizational semiotics – the multimodal, social, and contextual meaning-making practices that constitute organizing and organizations. By bringing together social semiotics and organization studies, the book offers ways to capture, interpret, and theorize semiotic artifacts and practices in and around organizations." (Professor Tammar B. Zilber, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Business School; Editor-in-Chief, Organization Studies)