Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In recent years, there has been an increase in special education complaints filed against school corporations for noncompliance with the terms of the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) established in a Case Conference Committee meeting. Case Conference Committees include parents/guardians, Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) students, and educators. Parents/guardians are equal partners to the school corporation when developing the IEP. Disagreements within Case Conference Committee (CCC) meetings can lead to strained relationships. During Case Conference Committee Meetings, parents/guardians may disagree with educators related to managing the student’s IEP (Indiana Department of Education, 2021). Consequently, a parent/guardian of a SLD student may file a complaint or due process hearing resulting from poor communication between parties during or after a Case Conference Meeting (McQuerrey, 2019). The Critical Organizational Communication Theory was applied in exploring if parents/guardians experienced the Indiana IEP Resource Center’s common issues in CCC meetings including: the lack of (1) Communication, (2) Preparation, (3) Clarity, (4) Respect, and (5) Transparency. A narrative approach was used to tell the stories of parents/guardians and SLD students’ experience in CCC meetings.

The general purpose with this study was to investigate what happens when several different participants engage in the process of communicating a mutual message throughout a common paper. With “Skellefteå-tidningen” an official paper from the the municipality of Skellefteå, as an example, both the sender (i.e. the editorial staff) and the receiver (i.e. the reader) perspective is studied and analyzed. The result of these two perspectives are compared to see if the intended sent message is the message that the reader of the paper interpret.   The aim of this study was to investigate how the concerned parties within the municipality of Skellefteå cooperate to make a common product with a mutual message and purpose. The study also aimed to investigate how the citizens of Skellefteå, the receivers of the paper, experience the sent message. The material this study is based on was collected through qualitative interviews with the senders of the paper and focus group interviews with representatives from the receivers. In this study we have used both organizational communication theories and theories on uses and gratifications.   The result of the study indicates that concerned parties within the municipality of Skellefteå have different views on how they want to convey the general message in the paper. Some want the message to focus on Skellefteå as a place while the others want to focus on how and what the municipality of Skellefteå do as a government agency. The senders of the paper, despite their different view on how to send the message, agrees that the general message within the paper should be that Skellefteå is a great place where you can be proud to live. The results also shows that this is in fact the message that the readers interpret after reading the paper. The study show that the paper Skellefteå-tidnignen is a product that fills its purpose. It offer the reader a wide range of material to read and therefore the reader can, with the paper, fullfil many different needs. One other conclusion of this study is however that the senders have difficulties in making the citizens of Skellefteå open and read the paper.

Company mergers and acquisitions often create tremendous conflict for employees because they force them into a spiral of organizational change. In this environment, employees are challenged with redefining themselves within a new organization. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover and explain the particular conflict experiences of professional employees who experienced the merger and acquisition of their company. A phenomenological research study was conducted to discover and describe the shared conflict experiences of professional employees during the merger and acquisition of their consulting firm. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 17 self-identified professional employees. It was found through an extensive phenomenological data analysis that: (a) the merger and acquisition experience is believed to have strengthened and improved the participants' skills for their professional advancement. With M&A, (b) the major conflict experienced by participants was the feeling of indifference and apprehension by the employees being merged with or acquired by another company as trust and credibility needed to be regained. Lastly, (c) the participants' sense of identity (confidence and professional identity) is still present as they are willing to accept the new factors and aspects of changes and developments that come with the merger and acquisition. The study contributes to the field of conflict analysis and resolution by providing new understandings and perspectives on how mergers and acquisitions are experienced and how they impact employees' conflict experiences and sense of identity.

“You have to feel it in your heart - a case study of the employees perception about Umeå university, the internal communication and how the communication contributes to this perception”. This study is based on that deficiency is common in internal communication in a authority that consists of several different units and different occupational levels. In an authority there is variety of units, employees with different occupational levels, a hierarchical structure and laws and regulations that must be followed. Because of these characteristics, a clear internal profile might be of extra importance. The internal profile will reflect the external perception, the authority’s image. This study examines how the internal communication of an authority like Umeå University works. The aim was to find out the employees perception of Umeå University and what their perceptions of the internal communication are. The method to examine this has mainly been based on group interviews conducted with focus groups representing different occupational levels. In summary the interviews indicate that there is a common perception of the university's identity among the different occupational levels. For example, words like: young, wide, open and norrländskt. These words were not based on any official core values of the university but were brought up by the participants. Umeå university have a vision which all participants had seen before and recognized, "The University of Umeå face the future with boundless knowledge". But they found it hard to grasp the vision with related goals, they felt overall and difficult to apply in their daily work. The results showed that the focus groups believe that there are many different subcultures at Umeå University. One reason for the formation of subcultures may simply be that Umeå University is an authority and there are certain factors that affect the University's properties. Keywords: Internal communication, organizational communication, organizational identity, organizational culture, communication process, vision, subculture.

Analysis and perceived severity of risk influences organizational decisions to anticipated threats. As economic development and technology improve our standards of living, they also create new challenges to conceptualizing concrete and abstract threats. Organizations that face new threats, along with agencies that oversee these organizations, produce tightly coupled systems that increase risks for direct, indirect, and future stakeholders (Perrow, 1999). Natural disasters, political misbehavior, organizational corruption, financial collapse, food and water contaminations, chemical or nuclear accidents, international tension, to name a few, all present risks and challenges. Unfortunately, many of these situations endanger the lives and well-being of persons. The ability of individuals to conceptualize, prioritize, and respond to myriad threats ultimately determines their risk perception and intention to act accordingly. Individuals often exaggerate some risks, while failing to acknowledge the severity of others (Sandman, 1989; Lachlan & Spence, 2007). This study will contribute to the understanding of subjectively constructed threats by examining three specific perceptual crises: A hoax, near miss, and risk misconstrual event. Each of these cases relies on robust newspaper descriptions, content analysis of media, and confirmatory organizational interviews. They are documented through a level of legislative action to determine real and structural changes incurred from perceptual crises. From these investigations this dissertation articulates how perceptual crises challenge organizations and governments, ascertains the viability of actional legitimacy theory, and observes variance in communication challenges between differing crisis contexts. These expectations encompass both applied and theoretical contributions.

本研究以問卷調查法，研究台灣報社地方記者的組織溝通滿意、專業性、工作滿意之關聯性，希望由此三大面向切入，來瞭解現今台灣之報社地方記者對於新聞工作的整體看法。 本研究發現，台灣報社地方記者的典型為已婚男性、年紀約為40歲、大學畢業並主修新聞傳播、主跑鄉鎮區域的新聞、從事新聞工作大約15年、派駐在該縣市約為12年、每月平均收入在5萬元以上。 在組織溝通滿意方面，報社地方記者對於「平行溝通」、「與直接主管的溝通」感到最為滿意，其次為「溝通氣候」、「與高階主管的溝通」、「非正式溝通」，而對「組織運作訊息」則感到最不滿意。 在專業性方面，報社地方記者最重視「專業責任」與「專業知識」，其次為「專業自主」，而最不重視「專業承諾」。 在工作滿意方面，報社地方記者最滿意的面向為「同事」、「工作本質」與「上司」，其次為「獎勵」、「薪資」與「福利」，而對「升遷」與「操作條件」感到最不滿意。 本研究亦發現，報社地方記者的人口變項在組織溝通滿意上並無顯著差異，然而部分人口變項對於專業性與工作滿意方面，卻有顯著差異。此外，組織溝通滿意與工作滿意各面向之間具有關聯性，專業性與工作滿意各面向之間亦具有關聯性。 最後以迴歸分析發現，新聞年資、專業承諾、內在自主、溝通氣候與高階主管的溝通、平行溝通、與直接主管的溝通、組織運作訊息等七個變項，共可預測整體工作滿意度73.7%的變異量。

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to bring a better understanding for how employees of PR- agencies describe a meaningful relation on social media. The thesis furthermore aim to bring further understanding about how employees of PR-agencies describe their strategies for meaningful relations on their agencies’ channels on social media. Theoretical framework: The chapter includes framework of PR and Relations, relations on social media and finally strategy to target audience. Method: A qualitative research method with a semi-structured approach has been implemented. Empirical framework: The empirical material is based on five semi structured interviews with employees of PR-agencies. The respondents obtain significant expertise of the topic, that makes their answers relevant to the purpose of the study. Conclusion: Our conclusion is that agencies pick their social media channels based on user base above all. Another factor is whether their target group uses the platform or not, but since the platforms chosen by the agencies were often market leading the answer is yes. An interesting finding was that informants spoke of channel adjustment rather than audience targeting. To build a meaningful relation with the audience the social media content were often based on personal and expertise aspects. The target groups were often described based on their job role, and not other social or personal factors. The informants’ descriptions of what a meaningful relation included varied a lot. Common patterns were that it included two way communication, that both parts would get something out of it and that the followers would feel comfortable commenting and sharing posts. Last but not least there was a goal that a meaningful relation would lead to some sort of business. Social media activity could lead to business if the relation was meaningful in the long run.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

La thèse aborde le « trou noir de la genèse » dans l’étude des organisations, c’est-àdire comment une organisation en vient à exister pour la première fois. Elle montre comment la genèse s’accomplit à travers l’agencement de multiples composantes (humaines, symboliques, matérielles), articulées à travers les interactions. S’appuyant sur une analyse détaillée des interactions performées durant le congrès fondateur d’un parti politique au Québec tenu durant l’année 2006, elle identifie et discute les diverses stratégies et tactiques employés par les artisanes et artisans de cette fondation pour mettre en acte l’existence de ce nouvel agent collectif. Autrement dit, la thèse mène à une recension des manières de « communiquer la genèse ». Cela inclut l’usage de narratifs unificateurs, la gestion des identités, la mise en place de principes à travers des documents fondateurs, et la création d’une voix collective, à la fois partagée et négociée par les divers agents impliqués dans ce processus. Ces accomplissements mettent en lumière la dimension résolument rhétorique de l’organisation, conçus en tant que « stratégies pour rendre compte d’une situation », pour nommer sa structure et ses composantes primordiales à travers « l’usage du langage comme moyen symbolique d’induire la coopération ». La configuration rhétorique de discours, d’objets, de corps, de dispositifs spatiaux et physiques, et d’impératifs économiques, politiques et institutionnels à l’oeuvre dans les organisations procure un nouvel éclairage sur les modes d’existence de l’organisation. Par le fait de recenser les composantes « essentielles » ou « fondatrices » du parti politique investigué, et par l’analyse de celle-ci à l’aide des concepts de la théorie rhétorique du dramatisme, la thèse développe une perspective novatrice pour l’étude de la constitution communicative des organisations. / The dissertation addresses the “black hole of genesis” in organizational studies: how an organization gets constructed in the first place, and for the first time. It shows that an organization is founded through the interplay of various agencies (human, symbolic, material) articulated by communicative interactions. Based on the in-depth analysis of interactions performed during the founding convention of a political party in the Canadian province of Québec in 2006, it identifies and discusses the various strategies and tactics employed by members to enact the existence of a new collective agent, i.e., their ways of “communicating genesis.” Those include unification narratives, management of identities, institution of principles through founding documents, and the establishment of a collective voice, simultaneously shared and disputed by various agents. Such accomplishments are inherently rhetorical to the extent that they are “strategies for encompassing a situation,” for naming its structure and outstanding ingredients through “the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation.” This rhetorical configuration of discourses, objects, bodies, physical and spatial designs, economical, political, and institutional imperatives, that represents the heterogeneous agencies at work in organizations, bears new lights on what organizations come into being. By identifying the “foundational” or “essential” components of this political party, and by inscribing them in the concepts of the dramatist rhetorical theory, the dissertation develops an innovative perspective for the study of the communicative constitution of organizations.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.