 History is incredibly important. In order to fully understand the current state of anything in the contemporary world, it is critical to know the foundation on which that thing was built. In a previous video we shared some of the classical theories that laid the groundwork for the discipline of organizational communication. In this video we'll take a look at some of the more modern theories of organizational communication that guide and shape contemporary discussion of this topic. As a quick review from our previous video, or in case you haven't yet watched that video, allow me to refresh your memory on the general definition and principles of a theory. A theory is a group of related propositions designed to explain why events take place in a certain way. It's important that we remember that by definition, a theory is not a fact. It's what someone believes will happen, or feels strongly is true but has not yet been verified as objectively true and established as fact. We should also keep in mind that theory is metaphorical, for our purposes that means using language to compare and describe the communication and function of an organization with other objects, organisms, or phenomena that exist in the world. Finally, we must recognize that theory is historical and should be viewed in the context of the period in which it was created and popularized. Our video on classical theories of organizational communication provides a more detailed discussion of the nature of theory. The pivot point from classical to modern theories in organizational communication actually came from the field of biology with the proposal of general systems theory. In 1956, Ludwig von Bertalanfi, a Canadian biologist, suggested that the traits of a biological system – input, transformation, and output – could in fact be applied to any system. In 1966, general systems theory was expanded to the study of organizations by Daniel Katz and Robert Kahn, who called this approach systems theory. Up to that point in time, organizations were seen as a machine. Katz and Kahn suggested that this view did not accurately capture the dynamics of an organization. They felt that organizations, much like living organisms, are open systems that interact with their environment in order to acquire the resources needed to grow and survive. They took the basic principles from the model of general systems theory and adapted them to a model that more specifically reflects the systems within an organization. Some of the fundamental principles of systems theory in organizations include that organizations have hierarchical ordering, meaning the parts of that organization are ordered in a specific way. Next, these ordered pieces rely on interdependence. This suggests that they depend on one another to fulfill their specific function so that the other pieces can do their job as well. Organizations also benefit from wholism, or the whole of the system being greater than the sum of the parts. Organizations depend on feedback to a significant degree. The interdependence of the individual pieces requires effective communication between those pieces in order to achieve a degree of wholism. Organizations also require communication with the external environment. This critical function is known as exchange. The boundaries of organizations with an open system are permeable, allowing input and exchange from the surrounding environment. In fact, organizations depend on the variety that comes from internal feedback and external exchange to avoid negative entropy. A system can only grow when resources are allowed to pass freely into the system. Finally, organizations must possess equifinality. This represents the ability of an organization to achieve a goal in more than one way and not be totally dependent on only one option. One of the most significant branches of theory to extend from systems theory was WIKES sense-making in organizations. Proposed by Carl WIKE in 1969, sense-making in organizations observes that information is as or perhaps even more valuable than material resources in many organizations. According to WIKE, organizations and more specifically the people within those organizations struggle to reduce what he called equivocality, which essentially boils down to uncertainty. WIKE suggested that many communication situations cannot be handled by routines and rules. He went on to say that the organization and its members both shape and are shaped by the information environment in which they operate. Increasingly, the complex information environment in organizations forces members into a constant struggle against equivocality. Over time, members of an organization are hopefully able to identify effective strategies, reduce equivocality, and make sense of their workplace. If we were to lay out a basic model for WIKES sense-making in organizations, it would of course start with information, which he identifies as the lifeblood of an organization. Based on institutional knowledge and organizational culture, members of an organization will engage in enactment of their own internal information culture. Drawing on Darwin's theory of evolution, WIKE suggested that members of an organization will then engage in selection, where the best of the various interpretations are identified and potentially codified, whether formally or informally. The team members will then work to retain these interpretations and processes in order to guide future enactments and selections. This process then impacts the systems for gathering and processing information brought into the organization, and of course each part of the organization is affected by the process as the system evolves over time. Another key contemporary theory in organizational communication is structuration theory, which holds that organizational systems are created by the production and reproduction of social systems by people's use of rules and resources in interaction. Structuration theory stems from the principle of interdependence identified in systems theory. It suggests that structure and agency are not separate concepts in an organization, but rather a duality. In other words, people's actions produce structure, but by acting within a structure, they also perpetuate or reproduce it, in effect, further creating and contributing to that structure. Significantly, structuration theory recognizes the role of agency, or the impact of people working and acting within that structure. This recognition is significant in understanding the formation of an organization's culture, its collective attitude continually produced and reproduced by members' interactions. This also led to the identification of centers of structuration, which include conception, which is dominated by top management, implementation, which is overseen by middle management, and reception, determined by how employees receive and enact those decisions. In truth, we see structuration at work, not only in organizations, but also in societal institutions more broadly. Finally, we want to discuss a category of communication theories known as critical or postmodern theories. There are a variety of communication theories that fall under this heading. What they all have in common is that they typically blend perspectives from different approaches and apply them to a specific area or focus of study. With that in mind, the final theory that we will examine here is feminist theory, a well-known representative theory of the critical postmodern approach. The specific proposition of feminist theory is that organizations are inherently gendered and act as sites for configuring gender roles. In other words, organizations are not the gender-neutral utopia that we sometimes imagine. Rather, they deeply reflect the gender issues of our broader society and are in fact a primary source in configuring gender roles. Like many postmodern theories, feminist theory begins with what is known as a binary proposition grounded in either or thinking. In the case of feminist theory, that binary is male or female and suggests that organizations tend to adopt and convey masculine values such as competition over whatever is perceived as feminine values like cooperation. When these masculine values are placed at the center of a culture, it creates a mindset that rewards traditionally masculine behaviors and outcomes such as individual achievement over group achievement. Linear modes of thinking rather than a holistic approach and competition as a primary mode of conflict management over cooperation and collaboration. All of this has the net result of tipping the scales of perceived achievement and idealized performance in the favor of men and those who adopt masculine values. This in turn reinforces those values and becomes the beginning of a cycle of privilege for men and masculine behaviors in organizations. While in no way a comprehensive list or description of the many varied theories related to organizational communication developed in recent years, I hope that this discussion provides you with some insight into the wide array of thinking that exists in this discipline. I strongly encourage you to view this as a starting point for your own exploration of the modern theories available in the exciting field of organizational communication.