Organizations are primary sites of meaning-making, identity formation, knowledge production, security, health and wellness, strategic communication and democracy in contemporary society. Because organizations are increasingly complex, our organizational communication area adopts a multi-perspective, dynamic approach to the study of organizational life.

The Hugh Downs School of Human Communication organizational communication area offers a combination of strengths focused on the interface between the narrative study of discourse and the analytic study of talk. Our faculty's outstanding and varied expertise in ethnography, our development of specialized research settings for the ubiquitous study of communication, and our continuing innovations in technology for qualitative and quantitative research offer our students an unparalleled learning experience.

Recent research at ASU has studied how communication in organizations

  • disrupts deviant organizational systems or practices (e.g., terrorist organizations, workplace bullying, and organizational cultures of denial, such as those that turn a blind eye to normalizing sports concussions)
  • cultivates approaches to compassion, practical wisdom, leadership, diversity, media use, networking, and resilience that will support sustainable and flourishing organizations
  • creates structures and processes that enhance or disrupt effectiveness in operations and influence

Distinction

  • Rated by the National Communication Association to be among the top four organizational communication programs in the discipline.
  • Award-winning professors and graduate students.

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