Speaking With One Voice Multivocality and Univocality in Organizing Routledge Studies in Communication, Organization, and Organizing Series

This book explores the dynamics and challenges that underlie the ability of organizations to speak with one voice. Contributions by experienced and emerging scholars shed light on the nature and regulation of the communication processes whereby the many and diverse voices of a collective can unite, act, and speak as a distinct entity, thus contributing to its organizing.

By focusing on communicational events, whether in the context of for-profit and non-profit organizations, political protests or social movements, chapters guide the reader through the diverse manifestations and concrete ways of dealing with the imperative for organizations of all kinds to speak with one voice. In doing so, the book creates bridges between different perspectives with regard to the notion of voice and its significance for the study of organizing; between fields of study; and between theory and empirical research aimed at investigating organizing beyond the boundaries of the formal organization.

Offering a thorough and comprehensive investigation of the dynamics between multivocality and univocality in the organizing of various collectives, this book will be an important resource for scholars and students of organizational communication, management studies, media studies and rhetorical studies.

1. Voice: A Metaphor and Its Significance for Organizational Communication; 2. Authority-in-Action: How Voices Are Negotiated through Idiomatic Formulations during Organizational Downsizing; 3. "I’m just saying": Multivocal Organizing in a Community Health Initiative; 4. Finding the Voice of a Protest: Negotiating Authority Among the Multiplicity of Voices in a Pro-Refugee Demonstration; 5. Amplifying Voices: Hip Hop as a Mode of Engagement for Community Organizing in the Context of the Black Lives Matter Movement; 6. Taking a Relational Approach to Rhetoric and Discourse: (Re)Considering the Voices of Recycling and Sustainability; 7. Tensional Dynamics in Discussions of Social Responsibility: Voice Mobilization, Concern Negotiation, and Organizational Boundaries Co-Creation; 8. "Centering [Voices from] the Margins": Negotiating Intersectionality as a Consultative Framework; Conclusion: Speaking with One Voice Is a Specific Form of Multivocality

Chantal Benoit-Barné is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal, Canada.

Thomas Martine is Associate Professor in the Communication & Culture Department at Audencia Business School, France.