Communication, Meaning, and Organized Action

Abstract

Gerald Salancik discussed this theory in a colloquium at the College of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Illinois, Champaign, in 1979. Two current perspectives on the relationship between meaning and action differ with respect to the amount of shared meaning necessary for organization. We argue that these two perspectives can be integrated if we understand how communication links meaning and action. We provide empirical evidence to show that through communication, organized action can occur despite differences of interpretation among organizational members. Communication enables members to create equifinal meaning, from which organized action can follow. Our data revealed four communication mechanisms that generate and sustain equifinal meaning: metaphor, logical argument, affect modulation, and linguistic indirection.e