Dialogue

Conceptual Overview

As Gergen and colleagues noted in 2004, dialogue is a central component of organizing and, as such, it is critical to the success and failure of organizations. Various commentators have highlighted the existence of different definitions of dialogue. For some, it is primarily about the exchange of ideas and viewpoints with an emphasis upon mutual understanding of the different [Page 382]positions as the desired outcome. For others, it is more than a process of sharing views insofar as the objective is to go beyond the appreciation of differing perspectives to achieve resolution or convergence. Beyond this, and as noted by David Bohm in 1996, dialogue can be conceived of as a constructive endeavor in which new meaning and insight are creatively coproduced.

Although there are contrasting interpretations of the aims and desired outcomes of dialogue, there is nevertheless a consensus around several core components of the process. In particular, it is generally recognized that there needs to be a degree of openness and receptiveness exhibited by the involved parties, a meaningful process of joint engagement where alternatives are explored rather than imposed, and a collective commitment to reaching a mutually acceptable outcome(s).

Interest in dialogue has increased within the field of organization studies during recent years. As Oswick and colleagues noted in 2000, this can largely be attributed to a growing awareness of the limitations of treating organizations as uncontested, univocal phenomena and recognition of the benefits of borrowing and embracing the concept of “dialogism” from the field of literary criticism. As Mikhail Bakhtin wrote in 1981, dialogism is a way of thinking about a text (or equally an organization) as incorporating a rich variety and multiplicity of voices that demand plurivocal interpretations. The notion of dialogism has influenced and inspired several dialogue-based approaches to the analysis of organizations (i.e., appreciative inquiry, dialogic communication, transformative dialogue, and dialogical scripting).

Appreciative inquiry is an approach to organizational change that relies heavily on dialogue. It departs from the more traditional problem-centred techniques by seeking to amplify and extend what is good and what is already working well in the organization. Following the initial stages of “valuing” and “envisioning” (i.e., “what is” and “what might be”), “dialoguing” is seen as the crucial stage of identifying “what should be,” prior to a process of innovating “what will be.” Dialogic communication, as Deetz wrote in 1995, is an alternative to an information transmission view of communication and is based on an assumption that meaning is always partial and incomplete. Hence, this form of dialogue is perceived of as a means of trying to better understand one's own position as much as it is about understanding others and a basis for arriving at new, coconstructed meanings.

Transformative dialogue is concerned with constructive and generative forms of exchange and interaction. In addition, as Gergen and colleagues noted in 2004, it is a dialogic practice that attempts to reconfigure existing realities and, through a sustained relational process, open up potential and create new spaces within organization settings.

...