Many of today's organizations "live in public"; they devote extensive resources to branding, catching the public eye, and capitalizing on the age of transparency. But, at the same time, a growing number of companies and other collectives are flying under the radar, concealing their identities and activities. This book offers a framework for thinking about how organizations and their members communicate identity to relevant audiences. Considering the degree to which organizations reveal themselves, the extent to which members express their identification with the organization, and whether the audience is public or local, author Craig R. Scott describes collectives as residing in "regions" that range from transparent to shaded, from shadowed to dark. Taking a closer look at groups like EarthFirst!, the Church of Scientology, Alcoholics Anonymous, the KKK, Skull and Bones, U.S. special mission units, men's bathhouses, and various terrorist organizations, this book draws attention to shaded, shadowed, and dark collectives as important organizations in the contemporary landscape.

An intimate and original look at the lives of Nevada’s legal sex workers through the voices of current and former employees, brothel owners, madams, and local law enforcement The state of Nevada is the only jurisdiction in the United States where prostitution is legal. Wrapped in moral judgments about sexual conduct and shrouded in titillating intrigue, stories about Nevada’s legal brothels regularly steal headlines. The stigma and secrecy pervading sex work contribute to experiences of oppression and unfair labor practices for many legal prostitutes in Nevada. Sex and Stigma engages with stories of women living and working in these “hidden” organizations to interrogate issues related to labor rights, secrecy, privacy, and discrimination in the current legal brothel system. Including interviews with current and former legal sex workers, brothel owners, madams, local police, and others, Sex and Stigma examines how widespread beliefs about the immorality of selling sexual services have influenced the history and laws of legal brothel prostitution. With unique access to a difficult-to-reach population, the authors privilege the voices of brothel workers throughout the book as they reflect on their struggles to engage in their communities, conduct business, maintain personal relationships, and transition out of the industry. Further, the authors examine how these brothels operate like other kinds of legal entities, and how individuals contend with balancing work and non-work commitments, navigate work place cultures, and handle managerial relationships. Sex and Stigma serves as a resource on the policies guiding legal prostitution in Nevada and provides an intimate look at the lived experiences of women performing sex work.

Winner of the 2018 Outstanding Edited Book Award from the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association The Agency of Organizing explains why the notion of agency is central to understanding what organizations are, how they come into existence, continue to exist, or fade away, and how they function. Written by leading organizational communication scholars, the chapters in this edited volume present seven different theoretical perspectives on agency in the dynamics of organizing. Authors discuss how they conceptualize agency from their own perspective and how they propose to investigate agency empirically in processes of organizing by using specific methods. Through insightful case studies, they demonstrate the value of these perspectives for organizational research and practice.

The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication offers a comprehensive collection of entries contributed by international experts on the origin, evolution, and current state of knowledge of all facets of contemporary organizational communication. Represents the definitive international reference resource on a topic of increasing relevance, in a new series of sub-disciplinary international encyclopedias Examines organization communication across a range of contexts, including NGOs, global corporations, community cooperatives, profit and non-profit organizations, formal and informal collectives, virtual work, and more Features topics ranging from leader-follower communication, negotiation and bargaining and organizational culture to the appropriation of communication technologies, emergence of inter-organizational networks, and hidden forms of work and organization Offers an unprecedented level of authority and diverse perspectives, with contributions from leading international experts in their associated fields Part of The Wiley Blackwell-ICA International Encyclopedias of Communication series, published in conjunction with the International Communication Association. Online version available at Wiley Online Library Awarded 2017 Best Edited Book award by the Organizational Communication Division, National Communication Association

The Handbook of Organizational Communication Theory and Research offers concise, but thorough reviews of important research on traditional and emerging areas in organizational communication. Section One, Theory and Methods, provides an overview of the field’s history, prominent theories, and methodologies. Section Two, Processes, focuses on primal processes, such as leadership, organizational entry, conflict, power, and inclusion. Section Three, Contexts, focuses on the settings where organizational communication occurs, including teams and workgroups, networks, and organizational structure. Section Four, Technology, considers the development and introduction of new media and intelligent technologies into organizations. The final section, Emerging Areas, addresses communication issues associated with changing environmental, social, and political upheavals, including wellness, corporate social responsibility, and crisis response. The Handbook of Organizational Communication Theory and Research covers topics of pressing interest to current scholars and practitioners, many of which have not been addressed in previous handbooks.

With the latest insights from the world of communication studies into the nature of corporate reputation, this new addition to Wiley-Blackwell’s series of handbooks on communication and media reflects the growing visibility of large businesses’ ethical profiles, and tracks the benefits that positive public attitudes can bring. Serves as the definitive research collection for a fast-growing field featuring contributions by key international scholars Brings together state-of-the-art communication studies insights on corporate reputation Identifies and addresses the lacunae in the research literature Applies new theoretical frameworks to corporate reputation

Communication creates organizations, and the ways individuals communicate determines the functions and processes of organizations. Understanding communication challenges is necessary in order to understand organizational successes and organizational change. Transformative Practice and Research in Organizational Communication is an essential reference publication featuring the latest scholarly research on the practice of organizational communication. The chapters cover a range of topics such as business expertise, social media, and capitalism. This book is ideally designed for academicians, students, professionals, and managers seeking current research on organizational communication practices.

How do mafias work? How do they recruit people, control members, conduct legal and illegal business, and use violence? Why do they establish such a complex mix of rituals, rules, and codes of conduct? And how do they differ? Why do some mafias commit many more murders than others? This book makes sense of mafias as organizations, via a collative analysis of historical accounts, official data, investigative sources, and interviews. Catino presents a comparative study of seven mafias around the world, from three Italian mafias to the American Cosa Nostra, Japanese Yakuza, Chinese Triads, and Russian mafia. He identifies the organizational architecture that characterizes these criminal groups, and relates different organizational models to the use of violence. Furthermore, he advances a theory on the specific functionality of mafia rules and discusses the major organizational dilemmas that mafias face. This book shows that understanding the organizational logic of mafias is an indispensable step in confronting them.

Informal economic activity, defined as exchanges made by individuals and organizations in extra-legal or non-bureaucratic contexts, represents a significant and growing share of global economic activity. The informal economy brings to mind images of street vendors in markets and bazaars throughout the developing world; indeed, informal economic activity ranges from 25-75% of economic activity, depending on the country under study. Informal activity also includes "under the table," or "off the books" business in the developed world, such as informal labor arrangements in child care, construction, or home cleaning in the United States or Western Europe. What many fail to realize, however, is the increasing presence of informal economic activity in the developed world’s largest corporations and most innovative entrepreneurial ventures, such as technology development work in Silicon Valley, open source software agreements, or employment arrangements between "technology stars" and firms. Management, Society, and the Informal Economy brings to light the role of the informal economy in the 21st century. The book does more than illuminate, however – it also calls for increased focus on the informal economy by management scholars. Each chapter contains a call to action, as well as practical and methodological advice for scholarship on the topic. Management, Society, and the Informal Economy contains a multi-faceted set of arguments, descriptions, and illustrations designed to convince management scholars that they should attend to the informal economy and view it as a serious and rigorous context for theorizing, empirical research, and even practical advocacy.