Case Studies for Organizational Communication: Understanding Communication Processes

A previous reviewer wrote "the cases are so below style and quality typical to Harvard Business as to be embarrassing..they read like teenage locker room novellas." I would agree that the case studies in this book are not on the same level typical to Harvard Business, but than I do not think that was the author's intention. I have used Harvard Business cases frequently and find they are more effectively and appropriately used when teaching graduate students. The authors have written a pretty solid textbook which is well adapted to the typical undergraduate reader in communication. The authors have organized the cases in sections: organizational culture, virtual communication in organizations, teamwork and group processes, decision-making and problem-solving, the individual and the organization, and diversity in organizational communication. In some sections the case studies are scattered on a number of divergent fronts, and the text might be strenghted by greater conceptual unity and coherence across the case studies contained in each section. The briefing paper which precedes each section could be expannded to furnish greater conceptual integration. I suspect this conceptual integration is more apparent if one uses Shockley-Zalabak's basic organizational communication textbook in conjunction with the cases studies text. But overall I think the typical undergraduate will find this textbook readable and acessible The IRM available from the publisher in digital form is particularly outstanding.

This is a terrific book! It's impossible to sum up succinctly, but I'll try. It contains 33 cases written by professors of organizational communication at schools ranging from Princeton University to the University of Southern California and just about every major center of communication studies in between. Each case takes the reader into mind and heart and daily life of a person at work. Unlike the Harvard cases, which usually concern dilemmas faced by high-level business leaders, these protagonists range from new hires to retirees, and include women and men working in every kind of department, from manufacturing to IT to sales, engaged in turningpoint talk in face-to-face dyads and world-wide computer networks, in firms across the planet, some for-profit, some not-for-profit, in an astounding variety of industries. The cases are well-written; the reader hovers over the action, hearing the dialogue, examining the documents, experiencing the dilemmas, considering the options, knowing the tactics, and discovering the outcome of the situations described. Issues of organizational climate, teamwork, conflict, diversity, decision-making, training, leadership, change, and culture (among others), are included, and well-indexed. A comprehensive teacher's guide is available on line for faculty unused to using case studies to teach ideas.Reading this book is a thought-provoking pleasure for the lay reader and would delight college students who know (or are told) the theory, but want to know how those ideas apply to day-to-day life in a wide range of organizational contexts. I highly recommend it!