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Introduction
More or less everyone-with the possible exception of hermits-lives or works in organizations. This foundation of contemporary life draws people together for all manner of activities, but particularly for work, whether paid work or voluntary work. We simply do not seem able to function in today's world without the organizations that bind and coordinate our efforts. Communication research has not ignored this aspect of our living.
Organizational communication study has long considered strategies for successful work communication, examining everything from the ideal make up of work groups to the patterns of superior-subordinate communication to measures of satisfaction with organizational life. Other studies look to larger issues like organizational identity and organizational culture. All of these approaches tend to see organizations as communication entities that somehow subsumed the individuals working within them.
More recent work has drawn on another strand of communication research-interpersonal communication-to study relationships in the workplace. A number of...